U.S. Marines Disciplined

Yesterday, Wednesday, 12th June, 2008, Marine Corps Base, Honolulu announced that they had completed their investigation into an incident in Iraq in which a black and white puppy was intentionally thrown off a cliff to its death.

The results of the investigation? Two (2) Marines received "nonjudicial punishment" and one of the two is "being processed for separation from the Marine Corps." Nonjudicial punishment means that the Marines involved were not court-marshaled; the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) has no provision for court-marshaling a member of the Armed Forces for animal abuse. Non-judicial punishment (NJP) means that these two Marines got a letter in their service records that basically said "You've been a bad boy, don't do it again." These letters are removed from the service records after a certain amount of time (5 years, I think) has passed without another incident of the same nature. While the letters are in the service records, they are considered at promotion time. Once removed, they are not.

The Marine being "processed for separation" is the Marine who actually threw the puppy to its death. I expect that he is being expelled/separated from the Corps under Article 134 of the UCMJ for "Actions which bring discredit upon the U.S. Armed Forces," in this case, the U.S. Marine Corps.

Any one who does not know about this incident should go to www.mahalo.com/David_motari to see the articles and the actual video. The last URL has the video in all its disgusting and sickening glory.

I'm not writing this article to further punish these Marines, even though I personally feel they should be castrated with a piece of rusty barbed wire. I'm writing it because there needs to be a change in the UCMJ making animal abuse of any sort and where ever perpetrated a court-martial offense.

For this reason, I have personally spoken with my Congressman (John Yarmuth, 3rd District, Kentucky) as well as members of his staff here in Louisville. The Congressman has said that he would be pleased to sponsor such a bill.

What I am asking of you, the readers of this article, is that you contact your elected representatives and ask them to back Congressman Yarmuth's efforts. Keep in mind that this puppy is dead. There is nothing we can do for it. What we can do, by working together and pressuring our elected representatives for this change, is prevent and punish any further/future acts of animal cruelty by members of the Armed Services.

You can find your elected representatives in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate at www.thomas.gov.

Thanks to all you for reading and any help you may give to my request.