Marine Drill Instructor Gets 10 Years for Tormenting Recruits
November 11, 2017 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
Abusive drill instructors have long been stock characters in books and movies like “Full Metal Jacket.” But that 1987 film was set during the Vietnam War, and the Felix trial shows that since then the Marines have drawn clearer lines between what instructors can and cannot do, said Michael Hanzel, a former Navy lawyer who attended the proceedings at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
“This generation now, there’s things that I think that we’re much more focused on. In particular, in this trial, it’s calling people names based on their religion and targeting people based on their religion,” said Mr. Hanzel, now a lawyer in private practice specializing in military law. “I don’t think anyone would say that was acceptable ever, but it probably was not prosecuted in the past the way it would be now.”
The charges against Sergeant Felix included commanding recruits to choke one another; ordering them to drink chocolate milk and then training them until they vomited; and punching recruits in the face or kicking them to the ground.
Credit
Stephen Morton for The New York Times
“He wasn’t making Marines. He was breaking Marines,” Lt. Col. John Norman, a prosecutor, told the jury on Wednesday. He called Sergeant Felix a bully who heaped special abuse on three Muslim recruits because of their faith.
One of them, Raheel Siddiqui, 20, a Pakistani-American from Taylor, Mich., hurled himself to his death after what the jury decided was mistreatment by Sergeant Felix that included slapping Mr. Siddiqui and calling him a terrorist. Mr. Siddiqui’s family sued the Marine Corps last month for $100 million.
The government did not charge Sergeant Felix with any crime directly related to Mr. Siddiqui’s death. The judge, Lt. Col. Michael Libretto, did not allow testimony about whether Sergeant Felix’s actions were responsible for the recruit’s suicide.
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Sergeant Felix also was convicted of ordering Lance Cpl. Ameer Bourmeche into a dryer, which then was turned on as Felix demanded, “Are you still Muslim?” Lance Corporal Bourmeche testified that he twice affirmed his faith and that Sergeant Felix and another drill instructor twice sent him for a bruising, scorching tumble inside the machine.
After a third spin, Lance Corporal Bourmeche said, he feared for his life and renounced his religion. The drill instructors then let him out, he said.
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Sergeant Felix was found guilty as well of ordering Lance Corporal Bourmeche to simulate chopping off the head of a fellow Marine while reciting “God is great” in Arabic.
The jury decided Sergeant Felix also ordered Rekan Hawez, a native of Iraqi Kurdistan, to climb into the dryer. The machine was never turned on.
Sergeant Felix was convicted, too, of rousing nearly two dozen recruits from their sleep, ordering them to lie on the floor, and then walking on them along with two other drill instructors.
In a closing statement on Wednesday, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Bridges, a defense lawyer, said the government unfairly fashioned contradictory witness accounts into a case against the brawny drill instructor who called all recruits “terrorist.”
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