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email LtCol Chessani’s Board of Inquiry Begins ─ Battle-Hardened Marine Veterans View Proceedings With Dismay December 04, 2009 ANN ARBOR, MI – On Wednesday, December 2nd, in a military courtroom at Camp Pendleton, California, the government began its case against an American warrior. They know this is their last chance to disgrace and destroy the 22 - year career of Marine LtCol Jeffrey Chessani, and it’s evident they are pulling out all the stops. Many of the spectators in the small courtroom were battle-hardened Marine veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Some were veterans of the Korean Chosin...

The Marine Corps has decided not to seek to reinstate criminal charges against a former battalion commander at Camp Pendleton for a 2005 incident in which his troops killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. Chessani Instead, the Marine Corps will convene a Board of Inquiry to hear testimony and recommend whether Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani should be demoted to major for purposes of retirement. Even if such a recommendation is made and then accepted by the Secretary of the Navy, Chessani's retirement pay would still be based on being a lieutenant colonel. The Marine Corps had sought to try Chessani...

Kimber said he heard nothing about a civilian massacre during city council meetings and talks with local leaders. "It would have been huge, there would have been no question it would have filtered down to us," he said. "We reported no significant atmospheric change as a result of that day."

A Marine captain who was relieved of command after members of his battalion allegedly shot and killed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, said he became a "political casualty" as senior commanders at Camp Pendleton scrambled to defuse an explosive situation. "It makes my blood boil to see my name lumped in with this massacre, when I was in a different city not playing any role in this incident," Capt. James Kimber told The Associated Press. Kimber, 33, of Fountain Hills, Ariz., was one of three officers relieved of command last month and reassigned to new duties for what the Marines said...

PC Annapolis Lt. Bryan Black, the Naval Academy instructor who faces a court-martial for using salty language in the presence of a female midshipman, faces a politically correct atmosphere at the Annapolis campus that jeopardizes his right to fair adjudication. That assessment does not come from his friends or attorney, but from the Marine Corps officer who investigated him and testified at a pretrial hearing.