USMC: Before Recruit Died, Platoon Mates Ordered to Beat One Another

[rangerrebew]

 
USMC: Before Recruit Died, Platoon Mates Ordered to Beat One Another
 
The Island Packet Online | Oct 04, 2016 | by Wade Livingston

The day before Marine Corps recruit Raheel Siddiqui's death, members of his platoon were learning how to throw punches -- and being ordered to abuse one another.

Platoon 3042 of 3rd Recruit Training Battalion received Marine Corps Martial Arts Program instruction on March 17 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, according to a heavily redacted copy of the investigation into Siddiqui's death obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette through open records requests.

That day two individuals -- recruits, it appears, one of whom was almost 40 pounds heavier -- were paired together for a punching drill.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/10/04/usmc-recruit-died-platoon-mates-ordered-beat-one-another.html

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I'll just say that as part of my training as a Lt., we weren't matched up by weight.  You get a big guy, that's the luck of the draw.  You take your lumps, and give as good as you can for as long as you can.

Life isn't fair, and sometimes, weak links need to be weeded out.

[dfwgator]

I'll just say that as part of my training as a Lt., we weren't matched up by weight.  You get a big guy, that's the luck of the draw.  You take your lumps, and give as good as you can for as long as you can.

Life isn't fair, and sometimes, weak links need to be weeded out.

Will they make "A Few Good Men - Part II"?

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Will they make "A Few Good Men - Part II"?

Ugh -- saw that play before it hit Broadway, and hated it.

I'm not saying that the DI's acted appropriately in all respects.  But what tends to happen in these things is that the tough but responsible training gets lumped in with the over the line stuff.   It's a very difficult line to walk.  DI's need some freedom to use their judgement to weed our guys that just aren't suitable, but at the same time, you can't openly give them carte-blanche.  The system generally works to produce excellent young Marines, but there's also times when there are screw-ups.  I just hope the reaction won't be such an overreaction that it'll do more harm than good.

My nephew went through boot camp three years ago.  Small guy, kind of quiet and socially inept, and I honestly didn't think he was going to make it.  He'd gotten thrown out of his house when he tried to stop his father from smacking around his mother, and got the crap beaten out of him as well.  He was having a very rough time at boot camp, got recycled two weeks at some point (this was in the heat of May-August), and was really down.  The letters were heart-rending.

When it came time for pugil sticks, the D.I.'s matched him up with a larger, tougher guy to get rid of him.  Got knocked down twice.  Got back up.  Third time, he got hammered again, but got up, screamed, and started wailing on the guy.  Eventually knocked him down, broke his nose, stood over him and said "stay down."

Whole platoon cheered him -- literally a turning point in his life.  The DI's stopped riding him after that.  He wrote all this in letters so I knew how down he was, and I talked to the DI at graduation.  DI actually had tears in his eyes when I told him about how rough my nephew's life had been to that point -- kid literally did not have an actual bed to sleep in until he got to boot camp.  DI said that he just would not give up, at anything, and that the pugil stick fight was actually a great moment for the whole platoon.

I'm sure some guys have the opposite experience -- they crack, and it's a bad point in their lives.  But i'm not sure it's possible to avoid that if your goal is to keep standards where they need to be.

[geronl]

That's not training, that's assault.

[geronl]

A Few Bad Men.

[rangerrebew]

That's not training, that's assault.

Like it or not, that is what Marines are trained to do.  They don't train to be social justice warriors, they train to assault enemies.  I feel like this would have been considered bad and unfortunate before the PC era, but people would have seen it differently.

[huldah1776]

Ugh -- saw that play before it hit Broadway, and hated it.

When it came time for pugil sticks, the D.I.'s matched him up with a larger, tougher guy to get rid of him.  Got knocked down twice.  Got back up.  Third time, he got hammered again, but got up, screamed, and started wailing on the guy.  Eventually knocked him down, broke his nose, stood over him and said "stay down."

Give your Marine a hug from this blurry monitored former Marine mom. The epitome - never, ever give up. He is one strong-willed man.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Give your Marine a hug from this blurry monitored former Marine mom. The epitome - never, ever give up. He is one strong-willed man.

My eyes were kind of blurry as well when I went to his graduation.  Neither his mom nor dad went, nor anyone else from his family.  Just my wife (her nephew, mine by marriage), and I.  So damn proud of him.  He got stationed at Pendleton, made corporal, met a girl, and actually has a life now. 

The Marines are not right for everyone, just as not everyone is not right for the Marines.  The fit has to be there on both ends.

[HoustonSam]

Neither his mom nor dad went, nor anyone else from his family.  Just my wife (her nephew, mine by marriage), and I.  So damn proud of him.

@Maj. Bill Martin you are a good man.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

That's not training, that's assault.

You train how you fight.  You have to find out if guys have that inner core of the barbarian in them.  The blind stubbornness, the refusal to admit they are beaten.  For guys whose aptitude may be borderline, it is that core of stubbornness that makes then an asset.  And it is being confident that the guys next to you have it that keeps units together when things get bad.  You stand and finish the mission because that's what Marines are supposed to do, and many times, that belief is what enables itself to be fulfilled.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

@Maj. Bill Martin you are a good man.

Oh hell, the whole damn thing was my fault in the first place.

I only knew of him, and had only met him once before he enlisted.  At the time, he was considering joining the Navy but lacked the confidence to take the test.  So when my wife and I went down south to visit his mom, she wanted me to meet with him for a bit to give him a pep talk.  (I went to the Naval Academy but went Marine Option at graduation, so I new a bit about the Navy).  I thought the Navy would be really good for him because he was a quiet kid, and needed to get away from where he was and into the world.  So I gave him this little pep talk about how I thought the Navy would be so great for him, to take the test, etc..

Apparently, I made a bit of an impression on him (didn't really have much of a father figure), and after we met, he changed his mind about the Navy and decided to go Marines instead.  Oh crap!  I thought he'd get chewed up and spit out, and instead of embarking on a Navy career, he'd be a guy who failed out of boot camp.  I truly didn't think he'd make it.   Then we started getting letters about how hard it was, and how nobody liked him, and how he didn't think he could make it.  I wrote him a couple to try to keep his spirits up, but it didn't look good at all.  Then, I got the letter about the pugil sticks, and you could just feel the entire turnaround in his attitude.  I shed a few tears reading that one, then wrote him back, etc..  So when he graduated...you couldn't have kept us away from Parris Island.

I do feel badly for some of those guys who don't make it.  It really is a "fit" kind of thing, and some great people simply are not cut out to be Marines.  And some of the people who are cut out to be Marines really aren't great people.   But for my nephew, and the overwhelming majority of those wo complete boot camp, it remains one of the proudest days of their entire life, and is nothing but a positive towards making them good men.

[Smokin Joe]

Oh hell, the whole damn thing was my fault in the first place.

I only knew of him, and had only met him once before he enlisted.  At the time, he was considering joining the Navy but lacked the confidence to take the test.  So when my wife and I went down south to visit his mom, she wanted me to meet with him for a bit to give him a pep talk.  (I went to the Naval Academy but went Marine Option at graduation, so I new a bit about the Navy).  I thought the Navy would be really good for him because he was a quiet kid, and needed to get away from where he was and into the world.  So I gave him this little pep talk about how I thought the Navy would be so great for him, to take the test, etc..

Apparently, I made a bit of an impression on him (didn't really have much of a father figure), and after we met, he changed his mind about the Navy and decided to go Marines instead.  Oh crap!  I thought he'd get chewed up and spit out, and instead of embarking on a Navy career, he'd be a guy who failed out of boot camp.  I truly didn't think he'd make it.   Then we started getting letters about how hard it was, and how nobody liked him, and how he didn't think he could make it.  I wrote him a couple to try to keep his spirits up, but it didn't look good at all.  Then, I got the letter about the pugil sticks, and you could just feel the entire turnaround in his attitude.  I shed a few tears reading that one, then wrote him back, etc..  So when he graduated...you couldn't have kept us away from Parris Island.

I do feel badly for some of those guys who don't make it.  It really is a "fit" kind of thing, and some great people simply are not cut out to be Marines.  And some of the people who are cut out to be Marines really aren't great people.   But for my nephew, and the overwhelming majority of those wo complete boot camp, it remains one of the proudest days of their entire life, and is nothing but a positive towards making them good men.

Every kid needs a Mentor at some point. Sometimes just a nudge. Ya done good. 

[Frank Cannon]

I guess we can all be glad that the modern military still does training to make them better warriors. I would have thought the Regime would have eliminated this training in favor of gay sex training and then reading poems in a sweat lodge.

[mountaineer]

20 Marines Face Discipline After Muslim Recruit’s Death Is Ruled a Suicide
By CHRISTINE HAUSERSEPT. 9, 2016

The Marine Corps has concluded an investigation into the death of a Muslim recruit, Raheel Siddiqui, saying that he committed suicide at a training camp where hazing and abuse took place.

A statement said that the investigation had identified 20 trainers at the Parris Island, S.C., camp for possible legal or administrative action — a reflection of the wider investigation that was prompted by Mr. Siddiqui’s death on March 18. Some commanders, senior advisers and drill instructors have already been let go, the statement said.

“Siddiqui’s death was the result of suicide,” a statement said. “Additionally, the investigations revealed departures from the policies and procedures established for Marine Corps recruit training.”

The investigation focused on allegations of abuse and maltreatment at the recruiting depot on Parris Island and found that there was recurrent physical and verbal abuse of recruits by drill instructors, and insufficient oversight.  ...

The family of Mr. Siddiqui, who was 20, said in an interview in June that they did not believe the official explanation they were given about his death: that he had fainted, sought medical attention, and then jumped 40 feet to his death off a stairwell or balcony.  ...

Mr. Siddiqui had arrived at the camp 11 days before he died. He had yearned to be a jet mechanic in the Marines, and eventually an F.B.I. agent, saving money and helping his close-knit family to a better life. He had been recruited while studying robotics and engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. ...

Full story at New York Times
Interesting that the USMC is actively recruiting Muslims. 

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Quite sure that some of the stuff that went on down there was not good.  Just hope the overreaction isn't too strong.

After I left Okinawa, I was given the option of going to PI as a Series Assistant Commander/Commander.  Which basically meant I would have been a largely useless administrative guy expected to let the DI"s do their job, and then take the fall with them if one of them screws-up.  Not a great career opportunity, so I went elsewhere instead.

It's a really crappy job for an officer.