Sgt. Jermaine Nelson pleads to dereliction

North County Times ^ | September 29 2009 | Mark Walker

[4woodenboats]

A Marine sergeant pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to two counts of dereliction of duty in connection with the shooting death of an unarmed detainee during the opening hours of the November 2004 battle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

[4woodenboats]

Sgt. Jermaine Nelson will not get any jail time and could get honorable discharge, attorney says

[4woodenboats]

PING!!!

[Glenn]

Sgt. Jermaine Nelson will not get any jail time and could get honorable discharge, attorney says

Attornies lie like rugs.

[Michael Barnes]

Fallujah Marines have carpet amnesty as far as I am concerned (But I must admit my bias, I was a 3/1 Marine back in the day; anyone close to or supporting 3/1 is A-okay in my book). Outside that, I rest on my opinion that war is a terrible ordeal; best to kill as many enemy as possible as quickly as possible in order to get through the war and gain peace on OUR terms.

Let em fight, and fight to win or bring them home. Enough of this touchy feely hearts and minds war fighting.

[Rappini]

Thanks for you service Barnes and I agree without a doubt.

[jazusamo]

This is good for Sgt. Nelson, going to trial could have cost him many years. He should have never been charged in the first place but he was. He can reenlist if he so chooses.

[4woodenboats]

Thank You for your service, Michael.

There's quite a few 3/1 supporters here.

[4woodenboats]

jaz, I got to run to Bible study, could you do a complete ping?

[pj7266]

just because that jihad terrorist didn’t have a weapon doesn’t mean he wasn’t posing a threat.

[jazusamo]

I don’t have a list for Nelson, I’ll try to get hold of Red to ping it. There’s another article that’s been posted and your article was linked before you posted it and more people were pinged to it.

[4woodenboats]

PJ, do a search on Fallujah Marines for more threads, and look up defendourmarines.com for the complete story.

The government had ZERO evidence that there ever were the 4 jihadist "victims".

Welcome to Free Republic ;~)

[Michael Barnes]

Ruh-roh...Hope my post did not allude I was a Fallujah Marine. I was not (but have massive, massive respect for those guys). I was in the first gulf war.

Wish the Pol's would have let the U.S Military finish the job back then.

[pj7266]

thanks ;-)

[xzins]

After the hearing concludes, the judge, who is unaware of the terms of the plea deal, will issue his sentence. He will then unseal the plea deal and Nelson will receive whichever sentence is lesser.

Not so sure Nelson did the best thing. For one, this is the conviction the government's been looking for for years now. Second, I'm not so sure it even happened. All of the stories have varied so much, and there is zero evidence that it ever happened. There are no complaining relatives, no blood, no signs whatsoever in the house in which it was supposed to have taken place.

I believe a number of things happened to this squad over the course of that wild Fallujah fight, and that all those hours of contact with a civilian-clad enemy eventually blurred into what is known as "hypothetical memory."

This lawyer could have fought but chose not to because of statements that were taken from a soldier under duress and suffering from ptsd.

A dear relative was at Fallujah in an Army unit supporting the infantry, regularly alongside during battle. Afterwards, a Marine SgtMaj gave their detachment OIC a handful of unit coins afterwards. The army battalion SGM heard of it and confiscated the coins complaining that the rear detachment troops didn't get a "fair" recognition of their contributions to the operation.

Long story short, he took those soldiers' coins and handed them out to the remfs (of rank) who hadn't even been present. Just about the most signature example of horrible leadership I've ever heard of. The good news is those troops, some of whom are now NCOs, vividly remember how not to treat their own troops.