Posted on 04/27/2003 7:37:18 AM PDT by harpu
Military officials are investigating a Marine who says he shot an Iraqi soldier twice in the back of the head following a grenade attack on his comrades.
The Marine Forces Reserve announced the preliminary inquiry of Gunnery Sgt. Gus Covarrubias on Friday, the day the Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a story in which he described the killing.
Covarrubias, 38, of Las Vegas, said that during an intense battle in Baghdad on April 8, he pursued a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard who had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his unit. Covarrubias said he received a concussion in the attack and several other Marines also were injured.
Covarrubias, a 20-year Marine veteran, said he found the soldier inside a nearby house with the grenade launcher by his side. Covarrubias said he ordered the man to stop and forced him to turn around.
"I went behind him and shot him in the back of the head. Twice," Covarrubias told the Review-Journal.
He said he also shot the man's partner, who tried to escape. He showed what he said were the men's ID cards.
"I'm not vindictive, and I might get in trouble for telling you this, but I take it very personally when you do that to my family," Covarrubias said. "The Marines are my family."
The Marine Forces Reserve said the preliminary inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service will determine whether Covarrubias "met the established rules of engagement and complied with the law of war," and whether a formal investigation is warranted.
Calls to Covarrubias' home and knocks at the door went unanswered.
Marine reservist Sgt. Michael Dunn, who fought alongside Covarrubias and was injured in the battle, said he stands by him "100 percent."
"If he wouldn't have done it, those guys probably would've come back and killed or severely injured other Marines," Dunn said. "He did the right thing."
If he summarily executed a prisoner, as his story suggests, he was no longer a Marine, he became a murderer and besmirched the uniform he wears.
US Army
Soc Trang 69-70
SCOUTS OUT!
He took stock of the location of the grenade strike and its trajectory, figuring it must have been fired from a nearby house. He sneaked inside. Upstairs, he said, he found the Special Republican Guard member with the grenade launcher next to him.
He said he ordered the man to stop, forced him to turn around, and removed his black beret. He shot him twice in the back of the head.
He took the man's military ID as a souvenir.
Outside, the man's partner was escaping. Covarrubias said he chased him down and killed him as well. He took the man's ID and his AK-47 assault rifle.
"This," he said in the interview, holding up the two ID cards, "is justice."
Nope. But if we say this is illegal under the laws of war, we have to be willing to enforce those laws against our own soldiers who violate them. Otherwise the laws are meaningless.
Nope. But if we say this is illegal under the laws of war, we have to be willing to enforce those laws against our own soldiers who violate them. Otherwise the laws are meaningless......Restorer
Not to mention that, if it became U.S. military policy to brag about pumping two rounds into the heads of EPOW's we capture, Jessica Lynch and the other seven American POW's who lived through this war would now be dead with two rounds through their skulls.
As I have noted before, both the Soviets and the Nazis threw away the "Rules of War" in the World War II Eastern Front. The result was hundreds of thousands of dead Soviet POW's and hundreds of thousands of dead German POW's.
On the World War II Western Front, the "Rules of war" were respected, with some exception, by both sides. The result was that the vast majority of both German and Western Allied POW's returned home alive.
Acting like the World War II Waffen SS on the Eastern Front does not merely kill "the other guy". It also kills your own POW's.
As it is, the Iraqis treated Jessica Lynch and the seven other POW's that survived this war better than that Marine treated that Republican Guard soldier. It is extremely fortunate that this Marine bragged to the press about executing an Iraqi POW after and not before our own POW's were recovered.
We went in right before dark, but yes, they would try to come down on us, or avoid us. We could cover a lot of river, though, with three two-boat patrols, spaced well.
Why did you not move at night
They could easily hear us coming at night, and get a squad-sized unit down on the riverbank with a few RPGs and RPDs. Not that big a problem on the big rivers, but the ones I worked were, in some places, only about three times as wide as the boats (or less), and -- while we were usually shooting back within a second and a half -- it was hard for them to miss at those ranges. If we moved, we got zapped.
We usually got all the CAS we needed, day or night. Sometimes it took half an hour or more to get there, and some kinds were much more effective than others. If we were in trouble, though -- a boat dead in the water and taking fire, for instance -- someone would always "pull out all the stops" and come to our rescue, sometimes taking unbelievable chances.
Our guys are like that...
We'll see if your interpretation pans out.
My bet is on the acquittal.
Yes, it was. If you didn't get it, read it again...
We'll see if your interpretation pans out.
Subject to the facts we don't know yet, it will.
My bet is on the acquittal.
Fine. You've missed a few in the last few months, though, haven't you? I think I'll bet with Polybius the next roll or two...
I can't see Tommy Franks hanging this guy.
Not even making an example out of him.
The most severe (other than the Muslim turncoat yet untried) case of ass-chewing I've seen to date has been the firing of the USMC Colonel for not progressing into Baghdad at the rate of speed demanded by Franks.
Even in that case, the Colonel's punishment (to date) has been reassignment.
Speaking of that, has anyone heard updates on either of those two (the Muslim traitor or the slow Colonel)?
The first thing that Marine needs right now is a good lawyer to tell him to STFU and he needs to do it. With the politics I have seen played at OJAG, I would advise a civilian lawyer specializing in military law rather than a JAG officer.
An acquittal will depend on the facts that can be proved and that is where that Marine has an advantage if he starts thinking about what he said to the reporter and reads up on the LOAC lectures he obviously slept through or totally forgot.
Any physical evidence in the case is probably long gone and there were no witnesses. His best bet is to claim that he was bragging to the reporter, or claim that the Iraqi put up a fight or claim that the Iraqi tried to escape or claim that he made the whole thing up....anything, anything at all except that he had an EPW under control and that he decided to wilfully execute that EPW with two rounds to the back of his skull.
If he repeats that story he told the reporter to the investigators or at court-martial, he is toast.
What the U.S. Marine Corps thinks about the wilfull execution of an EPW can be found in Chapter III of Marine Corps Reference Publication 4-11.8B: War Crimes Investigation.
Among the UCMJ Articles that Marine Corps Reference Publication 4-11.8B lists as applicable Articles for such an act is UCMJ Article 118 (Murder).
There's more terror,rage,and pain per square inch than almost any other place on the planet.
I make no judgement as to what this brave Marine did to the enemy. I only wish he had remained silent when the reporter came snooping around. Twenty years in the Corps.
He should have known better.
Wow, you know General Franks well enough to call him "Tommy"? I'm impressed!
Not even making an example out of him.
It's not his style. Moreover, it's not the style of Secretary Rumsfeld or President Bush, either.
Did you see the guy in Kuwait brought before a local GCM, taken out back, and shot? General Franks could have made that happen, with a fair and legal appeal, over a weekend. It's not going to happen this time, either.
The adults are in charge now, boys and girls. Get used to it.
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