Marine Corps recruit abuse courts-martial

The Beaufort Gazette reports here on the impending Camp Lejeune trial of a Marine Corps drill instructor. Reporter Wade Livingston does a deep dive, all the way back to the notorious "Ribbon Creek incident" in 1956. Excerpt:

In the upcoming week, in perhaps the highest-profile court-martial spotlighting Marine Corps recruit training since [Sgt. Matthew] McKeon’s, Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix will stand trial at Camp Lejeune, N.C., for allegedly abusing two Muslim recruits, one of whom — Raheel Siddiqui — leaped to his death on March 18, 2016, after a reported altercation with Felix, his DI.

Felix’s court-martial — and that of his former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Joshua Kissoon, scheduled for March 2018 — is no doubt a significant moment for the Corps, one that will again raise questions about how Parris Island makes Marines. Some see parallels between McKeon’s actions and Felix’s alleged behavior — a continuation of a culture of cruelty made possible by a permissive command climate. Others see the incidents as anomalies and distinctly separate events. Still others say that now, just as in 1956, the Corps is in crisis.

And while the death of Siddiqui — the 20-year-old Pakistani-American and former high-school valedictorian from Taylor, Mich. — has spawned other hazing and recruit-abuse investigations and prompted more changes to recruit training, it’s unclear what place the tragedy will hold in the Corps’, and Parris Island’s, history.