Marines guilty of endemic violence? Ghosts of my father & grandfather!

11 NOV 2017 (04:39 UTC-07 Tango 06) 20 Aban 1396/21 Safar 1439/23 Xin-Hai 4715

Couple of U.S. Marines found guilty of crimes; a Drill Instructor, and a General!

Gunnery Sergeant Joseph Felix

On 10 NOV 2017, a military jury found a Iraq occupation vet, and Drill Instructor (DI), guilty of punching, kicking and choking U.S. Muslim recruits in his charge, one of those U.S. Muslims killed  himself.  The DI was reduced down in rank to private, lost his pay and will spend ten years in a military prison: “Felix was accused in more than three dozen criminal counts of being a central figure in an abusive group of drill instructors at Parris Island that came to light after the March 2016 suicide of one of the three Muslim-American recruits Felix targeted.”-Associated Press

Does anybody remember the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan pissing contest, back in 2011?

General James Amos.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Clayton Filipowicz, 17OCT2014.

Now-retired USMC General James Amos found guilty of ‘Unlawful Command Influence’ (UCI) regarding the 2011 incident, and as a result the conviction of a Marine sniper involved in the Afghan urinating case has been thrown out.  The court ruled that General Amos used his authority to illegally influence events surrounding the case, and to focus the investigation unfairly on one particular sniper.  Investigations into the UCI by General Amos also included his chief legal adviser, and a Major who resigned from the USMC.

The UCI case against James Amos is considered unprecedented in USMC history.  But USMC violence is not unprecedented, its endemic.

My paternal grandfather is a prime example of a hardcore Marine whose only response to difficult situations, real or imagined, is to fight your way through.

O.G. Hutchins Junior spent 30+ years in the USMC, serving in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam.  He also served as a DI and recruiter.  He was so hardcore that after finally being forced to retire he furnished his bedroom in his Jackson, Mississippi, home with wall lockers and foot lockers, a hammock for the bed, and a huge Marine Corps flag covering one wall.

O.G. Hutchins, 30+ years hardcore Marine

O.G. Hutchins Jr, 30+ years hardcore Marine.

I remember one night in a drunken rage he broke a bowl made from walnut shells and began crying about it, saying it was made by one of his buddies in Vietnam.  The next morning he accused me of breaking it, and my father had to intervene to stop him from beating me.

This wasn’t the first time my father stood up to his father.  In the late 1950s, while my grandfather was stationed at Yermo Annex, in California, my father tried to protect his mother from being beaten and got beat himself.  My grandmother could take being beaten by my grandfather, but seeing her son get beat was too much for her. She not only got a divorce but got a California arrest warrant issued for my grandfather.  The Marine Corp protected him from arrest by shipping him outside The Golden State (which was typical back then).

But my father is guilty of being an abuser as well, yes he was a Marine.  My father was a USMC BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) gunner for two years, before transferring to the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s (you could do that then).  Strangely, after the mid-1970s incident where my grandfather wanted to beat me for his breaking of his Vietnam buddies’ bowl, my father started abusing me whenever he got drunk. This lasted until the early 1980s when he tried to do it in front of some of my high-school friends.  He grabbed me by the neck, made a fist with his free hand, and ordered me to call him ‘sir’.  I looked him in the eyes, then looked at my friends, then back at my father and said “No.” and added “Go ahead.”  Realizing there were witnesses he angrily backed off.

For a few years my mother didn’t believe me about my father’s abuse, until one day he did it in front of her.  I believe that’s what finally lead her to divorce him, she began to fear him and claimed during the divorce trial that he threatened to kill her.  She told me afterwards that she stayed in the marriage for as long as she did because she thought he loved his children, until he tried beating me in front of her.  I have a sister and brother, but for some reason I was the only one he was abusing (as far as I know, I don’t communicate with my siblings), apparently I was what used to be called a Whipping Boy.

It was after my parents’ divorce that my paternal grandmother revealed the abuse at the hands of my grandfather.   While my father and grandfather were both Marines there’s a major difference between them; my grandfather was honest about who he was, my father was a coward.  My grandfather openly told people how he felt about them, how he hated ‘blacks’, how he hated Asians more than blacks, how he hated anybody who wasn’t a Marine (when I told him I joined the Army he cursed me, but later on after I got married and joined the Air Force he forgave me because he was happy at the chance of becoming a great grandfather).

O.G. Hutchins and fellow Marines somewhere in the Pacific

O.G. Hutchins and fellow Marines somewhere in the Pacific

My grandfather honestly told me how, during World War Two, they would murder Japanese PoWs (Prisoners of War) and get away with it by claiming the PoWs were trying to escape (its legal to kill PoWs if they’re attempting to escape).  They would unlock the PoW cage at night, and when the first prisoner opened the cage the Marines would open fire, on everybody in the cage.

O.G. Hutchins, tank commander M4 Sherman

O.G. Hutchins, tank commander M4 Sherman.

He also told me how they would kill women and children, and then blame the Japanese.  There are plenty of reports of the U.S. military trying to help civilians on the islands they were capturing, one way was to drop leaflets telling civilians to surrender themselves to the U.S. forces.  My grandfather said many times, at night, civilians would approach their front lines and try to cross the barbed wire only to be shot down in a hail of bullets as everybody in the unit would ‘open up’ with everything they had.   He said in the morning all you’d see were the bodies of old people, women and children hanging the wire.  But he was unphased because he was tired of pulling the bodies of his dead buddies from burned out tanks (he was a tank commander).  The reason why the civilians approached at night was because the Japanese army had orders to shoot any civilian that tried to surrender, so they tried to surrender at night because the Japanese army was terrible at night operations. The Marine Corps reported that the civilians were being used as human shields by the Japanese army to probe U.S. defenses.

My grandfather had similar stories about Korea and Vietnam.  He was brutally honest.  My father was the opposite, a bold faced liar.  He was still a ‘racist’, hated a lot of religions (he was raised Lutheran), would complain about government corruption yet as a civil servant joyously took part in ripping off taxpayers (he would actually brag to me about the latest gadget he acquired from the Air Force, without the Air Force knowing about it, or put in for every taxpayer funded education convention when he was a member of the Hesperia school board).  My ‘black’ hating father could convince ‘blacks’ in church that he was ‘on their side’.  At home my father would yell about corporate executives and politicians ruining the country, but then in public, when confronting them he suddenly became the biggest ass-kisser I ever saw!  I think one reason my father started abusing me was because even as a child I was calling him out on his dishonesty (especially on government corruption and his civil service ‘crimes’, and his lies to black church members).  My grandfather would never do that, instead he would risk getting arrested for assaulting people for being ‘in violation’ of his personal beliefs, he admitted to me that the reason he became a Marine was to get away from what he saw as a ‘corrupt’ civilian world.

While my father and grandfather were polar opposites regarding living an honest life, they were both Marines and both dealt with stressful situations with violence, because that’s how a Marine is made. Or is it?  Is it possible that the United States Marine Corps attracts people who are already violent?  It should be noted that even before O.G. Hutchins joined the Marines in the late 1930s he had a history of violence, even being occasionally shunned by the larger Hutchins clan of Mississippi because of it (that’s according to what my father said).  One reason my grandfather joined the Marines was that he could never find decent paying work, but then it was the Great Depression.  His brothers, Lloyd and Billy,  joined the Army Air Force and served in Europe, apparently they didn’t have an anger management problem.   My father was always a high achiever; an Eagle Scout, high scoring high-school graduate and a ‘letterman’, even getting an Associates Degree from Victor Valley College while working at Edwards AFB in the 1970s.

A couple of years before my grandfather’s death he had been barred from every VFW (Veterans Foreign Wars) post in the Jackson area, for causing fights (again, according to my father). He openly hated anybody who “wasn’t a Marine” or wasn’t ‘white’, at least I can respect him for living his brutal life openly and honestly.

Unit Citations, O.G. Hutchins Junior:  “The officers and enlisted men of the First Marine Division, Reinforced…..1942…..forced landing assaults….on Tulagi, Gavutu, Tanambogo, Florida and Guadalcanal, British Solomon Islands….”

“…extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces at Peleliu and Ngesebus…September 15 to 29, 1944.”

“…extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces…Okinawa Shima, Ryukyu Islands…..1945.”

“…for outstanding and heroic performance….  ….September 1950, the First Marine Division…..recaptured Inchon City.”  

“For extraordinary heroism in action against enemy aggressor forces in Korea….October 1950.” 

“For extraordinary heroism….against enemy aggressor forces in the Chosin reservoir and Koto-ri area…..December 1950.”

“For extraordinary heroism….in Korea….April…May…June…September 1951.”

“For extraordinary heroism….against the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces in the Republic of Vietnam from 8 March 1965 to 15 September 1967……   Third Marine Division (Reinforced)…”

2015: INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT SAYS U.S. GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES!

FEDERAL COURT OKS WAR-CRIMES LAWSUITS AGAINST BUSH ADMINISTRATION!

2013: BUSH, OBAMA & DOJ LIED ABOUT NO TORTURE!

2012:  Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, U.S. generals and even Obama facing investigation and War Crimes trials by International Criminal Courts 

DICK CHENEY AFRAID OF CANADIANS

2011: THE HUNT FOR WAR CRIMINALS BUSH JR & BLAIR, AFRICAN COUNTRIES REFUSE TO ARREST, FEARFUL OF LOSING U.S. TAXPAYER FUNDING

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CANADA BEING URGED TO ARREST GEORGE BUSH JR