Jason's Story

The phone rang after a recruitment party my sorority held had ended, and we were settling down for a couple hours' worth of discussing the girls we met that night. My boyfriend was on the line informing me that my mom had been calling him, hysterical, searching for me, and that I should call her right away. I knew something was extremely wrong, and before I could start to cry, I left the room full of my questioning "sisters."

When I reached my dorm room, and got my mother on the phone, she kept repeating, "You need to come home right NOW." After asking why and asking her to calm down, I finally got it out of her. "Jason died!" she sobbed. In disbelief, I asked why, how, when, WHY?! Through her tears, I thought she said, "He died in the pit today." My brother was in boot camp for the Marines in South Carolina and I imagined him being sent off on a 48 hour-survive-on-you-own-in-a-foxhole type training which most recruits went through prior to graduating. The thought that my brother had died in a hole, without food or water, or maybe froze to death rushed through my head. My boyfriend drove me home and for the 45 mile trip, I was unable to focus on anything but the blurred lights on the highway.

I opened the front door into a house I didn't know. My dad was in his recliner drinking a beer with cans littering the floor around him, chain-smoking, and rocking furiously while tears streamed down his face. My mom was in the fetal position on the couch, crying. My 8 year old sister was under the covers in my parents' bed and my 15 year old brother was holding her...both laying in the dark, sniffling.

I tried to console my mom first, and wanted more details. It didn't seem real. Surely this was a cruel joke, a mistake. Jason was unconscious in a hospital somewhere from his injuries, but he couldn't be dead. Could he?!

My mom started over, and it became apparent that I had misheard her on the phone in my dorm. She had said that Jason died in the pool. He was trying to master a certain floatation exercise and had drowned. But how? There had to be several lifeguards around! How had this happened?!

The next two weeks went by in a haze. My family waited 48 hours for my brother's body to return to W.V. We received enough food to feed an army from friends, relatives and neighbors. And we tried to be strong for each other through the viewing and then the funeral. Before we buried my brother, my father, mother, and I swore that justice would be taken against whoever was responsible for Jason's "accidental drowning."

Investigations started. I went back to college, put my frustrations into my school work, and by the end of the semester was hopeful that justice would prevail. Surely his swim instructor and drill instructor, whom we had seen physically and verbally assault him the day before he died on footage from a news team in South Carolina, would pay for what they had caused. My parents were interviewed on the Today Show, CNN, and local news channels all in the name of justice for their son. I smiled when I thought my shy brother's reaction to home photos and grungy fishing trip pictures of him plastered on TVs all over the glove. "Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, Jase," I said aloud at his tombstone which I visited every day.

Over the summer, we received the results of one of the investigations into Jason's death, and a month later, the Marine attorneys at Parris Island, S.C. in charge of the case told us that the first judicial action would be against Jason's swim instructor. An Article 32 hearing would take place to determine her responsibility in my brother's death. She was an arm's length away from Jason in the pool when he died; we agreed she was most responsible. During the course of the investigation, it was also learned that several recruits in swim training before and after Jason reported what they felt was assault when in the pool with the swim instructor. These 9 assault charges (8 from other recruits and 1 for Jason) were reduced to a dereliction of duty charge during the hearing.

The testimonies presented during the Article 32 hearing were enough for a court-martial of the swim instructor. One was planned for early December, then postponed to the 23^rd of January and has now been moved to the end of February, by pleadings of the swim instructor's attorney.

Recently, my father received a call from the Marine attorneys in S.C. informing him that the judge presiding over the court-martial had dropped the dereliction of duty charge against the swim instructor and that all she would be charged for was negligent homicide (maximum jail time of 3 years).

Charges against Jason's drill sergeant, the head swim instructor at the pool the day he died, and other Marine officers involved seems doubtful, and 3 years of jail time for his swim instructor is all my family can hope for...

Blonde-haired, green-eyed growing up, Jason and I were mistaken for twins. Eighteen months being all that separated us, we did everything together. We spent our time playing in the woods behind our house; complaining about school and occasionally our parents; and talking about what we wanted to do when our lives separated. Jason loved to draw and he would probably become an artist, and if he was ever "starving", I would help him out. After reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 7^th Grade, I told him that I would be a lawyer.

On December 25, 2004, my family enjoyed what they thought might be their last holiday with Jason for a few years. He had signed up for the Marines through a recruiter at his job at Wendy's and was being sent to Parris Island a few days after New Year's.

A million what-ifs run through my head daily. What if we had convinced him not to go? What if my parents were wealthy and Jason didn't have to worry about burdening them to go to art school? What if he had never met the Marine recruiters at his job at Wendy's?

The vow my parents and I made before burying Jason to seek justice still stands. They are doing what they can by clinging to his swim instructor's criminal proceedings. My only vengeance is to become a lawyer and make sure that cases like his in the future receive the justice they deserve.