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Camp Pendleton, Calif. – The long, lonely journey of Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich ended today when military judge LtCol David Jones sentenced the father of three to 90 days confinement and reduction in grade to Private (E-1), the lowest rank in the Marine Corps. However, the convening authority Lieutenant General Thomas D. Waldhauser had stipulated that Wuterich will not be confined so the incarceration order was immediately vacated. Wuterich will be reduced in rank in 14 days unless Waldhauser – the convening authority – overrules the judge’s sentence and restores Wuterich to his current rank or some other...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – The General Court Martial of US Marine Corps SSgt Frank D. Wuterich ended Monday morning after a plea deal was reached over the weekend. In return for a guilty plea to one count of Negligent Dereliction of Duty, the six-year ordeal of the 31-year old father of three is finally over. Negligent dereliction is a lesser included offense detailed in Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Dereliction of Duty. Before the agreement, SSgt Wuterich was charged with “Willful Dereliction of Duty,” a much more severe offense. In return for his plea, 13 charges,...

Motel 6, Oceanside, Calif. -- The second week of testimony ended Friday afternoon at the court-martial of SSgt Frank D. Wuterich. So far the government has not proved he unlawfully killed anyone, much less how, where, or when. What has been firmly established is that Wuterich is a great Marine infantryman greatly admired both by his squad and his superiors. The former squad leader is charged with killing an unspecified number of civilians in Iraq in 2005, assaulting others, and being derelict in his duties. Defend Our Marines didn’t report the story Friday night because the whole day of testimony...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. -- The decision is in. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich is back on trial this morning to face charges of voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty for his role in the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians who died at Haditha, Iraq in late 2005. If convicted he could face the rest of his life in prison. The 31-year-old father of three young girls was on the verge of submitting a request for administrative separation from the Marine Corps when he suddenly changed his mind. Compelled by the certainty of his own innocence and...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. -- Defend Our Marines has learned there is a deal on the table inside a Camp Pendleton courtroom where SSgt Frank D Wuterich now balances choices that will determine the rest of life. The 31-year-old father of three can bite the proverbial bullet and ask for administrative separation, or he can dig in his heels and fight for the principles he has already proved he is willing to die for. Another option, considered less likely but more compelling, is a “Directed Verdict,” in which the judge tells the government it hasn’t made its case in all or...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – Defend Our MarinesA source close to the trial said a lack of money on the defense side, a lack of evidence on the prosecution side, and the likelihood that the eight-member panel will find SSgt Frank Wuterich not guilty of voluntary manslaughter and related charges have all combined to bring the case to a possible conclusion. Wuterich was charged in December 2006 with murder stemming from the multi-million dollar, worldwide investigation triggered by a specious Time magazine story in March 2006. Wuterich is also charged with Dereliction of Duty and Assault with a Deadly Weapon after...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – Retired U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Major Edward T. Sax landed several heavy blows on the government’s battered and bruised case against Haditha defendant SSgt Frank D. Wuterich Tuesday afternoon. “Wuterich was a great Marine,” he told the eight member panel of officers and senior non-commissioned officers intently watching the exchange between Sax and defense attorney Haytham Faraj. Sax, considered by both the officers and man of the Thundering Third to be a Marine’s Marine, told the panel of officers and senior non-commissioned officers that Wuterich’s decimated squad did it right when they blasted through two civilian...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – The General Court Martial of U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich became a certainty on November 20, 2005, one day after his squad lost one Marine and killed 24 Iraqis before passing the score of their bloody encounter up the chain of command. At first glance the events at an obscure place called Haditha, Iraq seemed routine enough. If noticed at all, the blossoming debacle was just another soul-numbing calamity among the hundreds of random tragedies unfolding across the shattering region every week during the second year of the war. The day after the...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – A former lieutenant, the first Marine officer to testify at the General Court Martial of Staff Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich, took the witness Friday morning and used it to forcefully dispute the Marine Corps’ contention that his former squad leader had committed war crimes.Wuterich is accused of leading a counter-attack by four Marines that led to the accidental deaths of Iraqi civilians at Haditha, Iraq more than six years ago. Kallop was his platoon commander and the officer who ordered Wuterich to “clear South” before the Marines stormed two houses which they believed were the source...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – Former Marine sergeant Hector Salinas didn’t mince words when he told a prosecutor Thursday he should have called in airstrikes on a pair of houses in Haditha, Iraq where fourteen men, women and children were cowering in their homes after a huge bomb exploded outside their front doors. “Rounds were impacting on the fourth vehicle. I went back to render aid to my Marines that were wounded. There was destruction everywhere. There was a fog, a haze. When the smoke was clearing out I could see an object. It was LCpl Crossan. He was missing a...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – The events in Haditha, Iraq on November 19, 2005 will be the subject of a great deal of testimony during the upcoming weeks in the General Court Martial of SSgt Frank D. Wuterich. Defend Our Marines decided it would be useful to provide a chronology of those events that are now the basis for the trial. The Ambush on Route ChestnutThe White Car Incident – Facts in evidenceNov.19, 2005 - 0830/Haditha, Iraq – Twelve Marines from 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines riding in four poorly armored Humvees were returning from resupplying a combat...

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – LtCol. Jeffrey Chessani, battalion commanding officer of the Thundering Third at time of the so-called “Haditha Massacre", will not be testifying at the court-martial of SSgt Frank Wuterich, the military judge said Thursday. Chessani was the highest ranking Marine charged with a crime in connection with the deaths of 24 Iraqi citizens following a roadside ambush in the dusty Iraqi city during November 2005. “Chessani will not be a witness,” announced military judge LtCol. David Jones. “We lost that battle,” said chief defense attorney Neal Puckett, himself a former Marine military judge. Chessani was one of...

“So is this justice? Not really. Having promised a full and open inquiry, the Corps held many hearings in secret session, held the findings secret, and released its decision on the disposition of the case on the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day, the perfect time to bury such news in a long holiday weekend. The Corps wanted this to just go away because of the embarrassment it caused and the doubts it cast on the fledgling Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Now, there are also lingering doubts over whether justice was indeed done, and worse, open questions about the credibility,...

Professionals that cannot change themselves from within, cannot respond to the needs of their constituencies while also inspiring the admiration and loyalty of their own members are in trouble.--"Tarnished Brass: Is the US Military Profession in Decline?" by Richard H. Kohn, World Affairs, Spring 2009 When General Conway took over as the Marine Corps Commandant, he went on the speech circuit talking about the “long war”. One speech was made at the Marines’ Memorial Association and World Affairs Council, in San Francisco, California on July 10, 2007. In that speech, General Conway stated, “we have a couple of incidents in...

A group of retired Marines is rallying behind Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, the last of three Marines to face trial in the killing of unarmed prisoners during a battle in Fallouja, Iraq, in November 2004. Two other defendants have been found innocent: former Sgt. Jose Nazario in federal court in August, and Sgt. Ryan Weemer in a court-martial at Camp Pendleton in April. Nelson's case is set for a pretrial hearing Monday at Camp Pendleton. He stands accused of unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty. Calls for the charges to be dropped have come from retired Col. G.I. Wilson; William McNulty...

The Marine Corps may be closer to giving up its troubled prosecution of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani... ~ snip ~...a final decision on whether the case gets dropped rests with Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway. And if that happens, Chessani would become the seventh of eight Camp Pendleton Marines charged with crimes at Haditha to be fully exonerated. ~ snip ~[SSgt Frank] Wuterich's attorneys plan to seek a dismissal of the charges against their client for the same unlawful command influence found in the Chessani case. They haven't been able to file that motion, however, because his case is...

PITTSBURGH - U.S. Rep. John Murtha shouldn't be immune from a defamation lawsuit for saying Marines killed Iraqi women and children "in cold blood," because the lawmaker's comments came outside the scope of his official duties, a former Marine's attorney said. The attorney, Noah Geary, on Wednesday filed an amended federal defamation lawsuit on behalf of Justin Sharratt, 24, a former lance corporal from Canonsburg. The new complaint, which adds 13 paragraphs to a lawsuit originally filed in September, was prompted by the dismissal of a similar suit against Murtha by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich.

The attorney for the third and final Marine charged with killing an unarmed insurgent in Iraq says prosecutors should heed the acquittals of two co-defendants and drop the case against his client. Attorney Joseph Low said Friday that it makes no sense for the Marine Corps to pursue the case against Sgt. Jermaine Nelson. "I am submitting that request to the Marine Corps," Low said. "The Marine Corps should have gotten the message loud and clear now that these cases should never have been brought." ~ snip ~Besides preparing a formal request for the Marine Corps to drop the case...

I missed two award ceremonies this past week and these two ceremonies make interesting contrasts regarding Marines. I must admit that I was not invited to the first ceremony nor is there any earthly reason why I should have been. I read about it in a Bing West article, "Distinguished Disservice: In honoring Murtha, the Navy insults its own". Mr. West, a Marine veteran, is the noted author of several books. His latest is an excellent work about the Iraq War entitled, The Strongest Tribe. The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Donald C. Winter, awarded the Distinguished Public Service Award...

CAMP PENDLETON ---- The Monday start of a trial for the second of three men accused of killing four unarmed captives during a 2004 battle in Iraq has been delayed. Sgt. Jermaine Nelson was scheduled to go on trial in a base courtroom on a charge of unpremeditated murder for allegedly shooting one of the captives. No bodies were ever found in a case built almost exclusively on an admission from one of the defendants. Nelson also is charged with three counts of dereliction of duty for failing to follow the rules of engagement, the laws of war and the...