Another trial starts in boot camp case
By Steve Liewer
STAFF WRITER
December 11, 2007
SAN DIEGO – A former drill instructor convicted of maltreating recruits testified yeterday that he modeled his behavior on the conduct of his counterparts at the Marine Corps' boot camp in San Diego.
Last month, a military jury sentenced Sgt. Jerrod Glass to six months in the brig and demoted him to the lowest enlisted rank. Two drill instructors who worked with him to oversee Platoon 2167, Sgts. Brian Wendel and Robert Hankins, have been charged in the same case.
Wendel's trial began yesterday at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. He is charged with 17 counts of misconduct involving seven charges, including assault, maltreatment, violation of orders and destruction of property.
Before the jury panel was seated, Glass testified he saw Wendel and other drill instructors “tap” recruits in the face with flashlights and push them through doors. He said such actions, which allegedly took place between October 2006 and February 2007, violated standard operating procedures that restrict drill instructors' rights to touch recruits.
“I know the letter of the law from the SOPs,” Glass testified. “But I know from my experience . . . that it's not always the way things are done.”
Glass also said Wendel and other drill instructors skirted rules limiting “incentive training” – a Marine term for punishing recruits with push-ups and other exercises – to eight minutes. They did so, Glass said, by stringing together punishments or conducting longer sessions indoors, where supervising officers would be unlikely to see them.
Glass testified he saw Wendel and Hankins force each platoon member to drink three canteens of water until some of them threw up. He said Hankins was angry because some of the recruits defied his orders by eating pastries during lunch.
“He told the platoon he was going to get the pastries back,” he said.
The jury in Wendel's case, though, won't hear most of Glass' allegations. The military judge, Maj. Brian Kasprzyk, granted the defense's request to bar the testimony because none of the charges against Wendel deal with the accusations Glass made. Kasprzyk said hearing the testimony might prejudice jurors.
Seating a jury panel proved difficult yesterday because nearly all of the prospective jurors already knew much about the abuse cases.
Of the five officers and three senior enlisted Marines, seven said they had read media accounts, and at least three had read portions of an official investigation. All of them knew some of the 58 named witnesses. One had talked about the case with the battalion commander who brought the charges.
Two prospective jurors said drill instructors struck them when they were recruits. One, a master sergeant with 19 years in the Marine Corps, said he was punched in the belly twice – once for laughing and once for looking at something he had been told not to.
“It is my belief, sir, that I deserved it,” he said when Kasprzyk questioned him. “I come from an upbringing of tough love.”
The master sergeant acknowledged it would be difficult to set aside his personal views that the Corps has gone too easy on recruits and young Marines.
“I think a lot of things are going on in the Marine Corps now that have been going on for a long time,” he said. “It's just now not being accepted.”
Kasprzyk dismissed five of the prospective jurors, including all three enlisted Marines. Because at least one-third of the panel must be enlisted, selection will continue today.
Steve Liewer: (619) 498-6632; steve.liewer@uniontrib.com
The scumbag lawyers are intent on helping their Democrat party destroy the country. If only we had a Commander-in-Chief with a clue and the stones to address some of this over-lawyered military crap.