No one should be above following the 4 rules

Status
Not open for further replies.

missed again

Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2008
Messages
18
Location
SW Florida
What on earth were they thinking? This is truly sad.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Lance Cpl. Patrick Malone was relaxing on his bunk at an Iraqi combat base when a direct superior interrupted his late-night movie.

It was time for a game Marines sometimes play to build confidence in colleagues: Point a gun at a comrade and ask, "Do you trust me?"

Cpl. Mathew Nelson raised his weapon — and the 9 mm pistol went off, striking Malone in the head. The higher-ranking Marine rushed to the wounded man's side and tried to perform CPR, but Malone was mortally wounded.



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549421,00.html
 
Last edited:
Marines Take Risks With Deadly Trust-Building Game
Friday, September 11, 2009


Print ShareThis
AP


Undated photo of Lance Cpl. Patrick Malone.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Lance Cpl. Patrick Malone was relaxing on his bunk at an Iraqi combat base when a direct superior interrupted his late-night movie.

It was time for a game Marines sometimes play to build confidence in colleagues: Point a gun at a comrade and ask, "Do you trust me?"

Cpl. Mathew Nelson raised his weapon — and the 9 mm pistol went off, striking Malone in the head. The higher-ranking Marine rushed to the wounded man's side and tried to perform CPR, but Malone was mortally wounded.

The game, which has cropped up in barracks across Iraq and Afghanistan, is supposed to make a serviceman feel comfortable enough with a comrade that he would stare into the other Marine's gun barrel. But it violates the military's basic weapon-safety rules.

"I can't believe the Marines, these professional soldiers, are playing these games," said Damian Malone, father of the slain 21-year-old.

The younger Malone "was willing to put his life on the line every day, and when he came back to his unit he wasn't supposed to have to worry about his safety."

On Thursday, Nelson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and seven counts of reckless endangerment for the shooting at Combat Outpost Viking in Anbar province just before midnight on March 9.

Nelson, 25, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., was sentenced Thursday to eight years in Camp Lejeune's brig, demoted to the lowest rank in the Marines and given a bad-conduct discharge.

"From the beginning, my client has been eaten up with remorse," said Vaughan Taylor, a civilian lawyer who represented Nelson.

Taylor said the two Marines had finished the trust game, and Nelson turned away. His subordinate, from Ocala, Fla., called out to tell him he was going to attend to the unit's vehicles outside.

The corporal turned back, pulling the trigger on the weapon he didn't know was loaded, Taylor said.

The game typically begins when one service member partially inserts a bullet magazine into the handle of a pistol and pretends to pull back the gun's slide to make it appear that the weapon is ready to fire.

He then points the weapon at a fellow service member before either pulling the trigger or lowering the gun. Typically, even if he pulls the trigger the weapon will not discharge because a bullet is not in the chamber.

"When you give high-powered weapons to young men, once in a while bad things are going to happen," said Gary Solis, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and attorney who teaches on the law of armed conflict at West Point and Georgetown.

"You have young men, bored, killing time with a gun. That's not a good mix," Solis said. "I don't think the Marines have any corner on this. I think it happens in the civilian community as well."

The Marine Corps Times reported this week that the game had similar deadly end in 2007, when a Kentucky Army National Guardsman shot and killed a fellow soldier.

The guardsman who fired the fatal shot later said he learned to play from other members of his unit while deployed to Iraq in 2006.

Damian Malone believes his son's unit hid the game from their superiors and claimed they were building trust within the team. But the practice amounts to a form of hazing that should be wiped out of the military, he said.

Patrick Malone joined the Marines in 2007 after a year at the University of South Florida and another year at a community college closer to home. He went to Iraq in October 2008 as an anti-tank missileman.

"I guess there's a little closure on this because you meet who this guy was and you see what happened," Damian Malone said after attending the court-martial with his wife and other family members. "Now we want to expose this game, wherever it is."

See Next Story in U.S.
 
Kids with guns [I don't care about your branch of service] need more training,and to follow the basic safety rule:'' never point a gun at anything you do not wish to destroy''. Just because you're a US service man/woman does not exempt you from the basic rules of safety.It didn't when I was in , it doesn't now.Be carefull out there guys and gals,we want you home,when y'all are done kickin' butt!
 
What a shame.
You'd think that soldiers, of all people, would know better.

Well, to give them credit, situations like this probably don't happen very often.
 
The game, which has cropped up in barracks across Iraq and Afghanistan, is supposed to make a serviceman feel comfortable enough with a comrade that he would stare into the other Marine's gun barrel.
Somehow, that would not give me much trust in my fellow serviceman. It would make me want to punch him square in the face and stay far away from him from that point on. :(

What stupidity. Where are their senior NCOs and what are they teaching these kids?
 
IBTL.........[shaking head].

There has to be a better way to build trust.
 
This article is basically the story from the criminal. I wonder what really happened.

article said:
"You have young men, bored, killing time with a gun. That's not a good mix," Solis said. "I don't think the Marines have any corner on this. I think it happens in the civilian community as well."

If this shooting had happened in the civilian community, I would be even less likely to believe this version of the facts. He doesn't want to go there.
 
Last edited:
A terrible tragedy, but accidents do happen, stupid or idotic as it seems they do happen. Far from home in the armpit of the world, death and depression right outside the door everyday. Your old life is long gone and just a distant memory, you never know when your REALLY going home of if you will go home at all. You're young, head strong, bored to death, told every story, every joke, and every fact you've ever known. Not much left to keep moral up except something to get the heart racing and adrenaline up for a natural rush.

Is it stupid? Yes. Have I done it or seen it done? No. Is it a tragedy and a stupid mistake? Yes. Will that marine regret if for the rest of his life? Yes. Do I have the right to judge him? Absolutely not, I don't know his life or his situation, or what he has been through personally and how that affects him. Have you ever drove home drunk? Most have yes, just as dangerous, a car can kill as easily as a bullet. This man has done what few have the guts to do, enlisted and to fight for our country, we leave these boys for YEARS overseas far away from their families in danger and in foreign lands. They are trained fighters, there to fight the enemy and do their duty and lay down their lives. But we as country have left them there for political and so many stupid reason to satisfy some armchair executive who wants to look good by saying he is helping a foreign country. Our troops are suppose to go in do the job and get out. In my eyes we have abandoned these men, when's the last time you really thought about our deployed troops? These young men fresh out of high school, in their prime are stuck overseas getting shot, afraid to fight back because some media reporter wants to plaster his face in the paper as a baby killer.

Sorry for the rant, but don't judge this boy like that, accidents happen. Even stupid ones. I feel for the victim's family but to harrass a boy who's life hasn't even begun, is now probably ruin and who is already filled with shame and guilt.
 
One CF troopie was killed by another CF troopie playing with issue weapons. Not enough supervision by the NCO's. Not enough for the troopies to do when they're not working.
"...pulling the trigger on the weapon he didn't know was loaded..." BS.
 
We didn't do this trash when I was active duty in the Corps. Point a weapon at someone and you got smacked most riki-tik.




Kris
 
Not to defend this tragic idiocy but Marines in training routinely violate the four rules as part of their training. Using service rifles that are either empty or loaded with blanks they point them and shoot them at each other all the time in training.

Desensitization may play a role here.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top