The Twentynine Palms Marine Base in California.Photo: David McNew (Getty Images)
The Marine Corps says it will need to spend $5 billion over the next 30 years to update two recruit depots for both climate resiliency and the integration of women into boot camp, the Marine Corps Times reported. This move comes as the U.S. military is pushing for better preparation for climate change-fueled disasters like extreme flooding.
The two depots are based in San Diego, California and Parris Island, South Carolina. The Parris Island depot is more than 100 years old and is near low-laying land that will eventually flood.
“Tidal flooding affects low-lying locations around MCAS Beaufort and MCRD Parris Island, including extensive wetland areas, 10 times per year on average,” according to a 2016 case study on the future of the depots. “By 2050, the currently flood-prone areas within both bases could experience tidal flooding more than 300 times annually and be underwater nearly 30 percent of the year given the highest scenario.”
A 2021 article in the Marine Corps Times outlined how some military leaders were concerned about the lack of plans for preventing the South Carolina depot from flooding regularly in the future. One idea involves building a seawall around the facility.
There are other bases in trouble, too: The U.S. Navy’s huge station in Norfolk, Virginia is experiencing sea level rise at 4.6 millimeters per year along with land subsidence, and several bases have been damaged by extreme weather in recent years, according to 2019 report from Defense One.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Army (the country’s oldest military branch) unveiled a plan to supposedly make its operations more climate friendly, including rolling out electric military vehicles and installing microgrids on its bases that will be powered by renewable energy such as solar panels. The branch will also train soldiers to withstand and respond to natural disasters like floods and heat waves.
Regardless of how much the Army and the Marine Corps weatherize their bases and prepare for future disasters, the U.S. military is a major polluter that uses a tremendous amount of water and energy to run hundreds of military bases around the world. Moving service members across the globe for ongoing operations and maintenance and training also contributes to the military’s already massive carbon footprint. The only greener military is a much smaller one, with fewer bases and vehicles around the world.
Marines with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) program a satellite communications terminal during Deployable Group Systems Integration Testing (DGSIT) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 27, 2021. US Marine Corps Photo
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The Marine Corps’ reshaping and retooling of its force with smaller units dispersed across islands and the littorals require reliable command and control systems and secured networks that work with both Marine Corps and Navy platforms, officials say.
The success of maritime operations in contested environments against a peer enemy – like China’s growing military – will depend on having integrated command and control, computers, and intelligence systems in both Navy ships and in Marines’ hands.
“We’re going back to our amphibious roots again, trying to make sure that we’re helping support the Navy with sea denial and sea control capabilities,” Marine Capt. Steven Gore told USNI News. “A lot of our focus of efforts is working C4I systems and seeing how the digital fire threats [and] how the Marine Corps is going to support sea denial fire capabilities, and making sure that that gets routed properly through the C4I systems the Marine Corps and the Navy jointly use aboard L-class ships.”
Critical to that, Gore said, is “getting that process down … to shorten the time frame for those kill threats, with kill webs and kill chains.”
So Marine Corps Tactical Systems Activity officials are looking to industry, academia and federated labs to leverage new ideas, concepts and technologies that will ensure naval integration for that future fight with Marines’ Force Design 2030 in mind.
Last year, MCTSSA got the green light to work directly with the tech industry when it was designated as a technical activity. MCTSSA falls under Marine Corps Systems Command and does test and evaluation, engineering and deployed technical support for the Marine Corps and its C4I systems.
That June 2021 decision by the Chief of Naval Research meant “we now have the ability to operate outside of the federal acquisitions regulations, FAR, to a certain degree, and start cooperating with industry directly,” Gore told an audience during WEST 2022, an annual defense conference hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and AFCEA. “There are some limitations with that. We can’t sign any contracts or anything like that. But there are some cooperative engagement efforts that we can do.”
“The idea is we can start doing a little bit more type of work for technologies that are already out there, technologies that are maturing,” he said, “and work with industry and academia to get those types of technologies into the Marine Corps much faster than the actual defense acquisition system would allow it to.”
Seamless naval integration will be even more critical to the Marines’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept in the Indo-Pacific region.
“As we’re assessing the enemy’s capabilities for disruption and detection, now we have to see how our C4 systems will operate in a degraded environment,” Gore said. “What kind of [electromagnetic] signature do our systems put out? What happens when it starts getting disrupted? How will that affect our C2 systems? We’re doing those assessments, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.” Among the first technology partnerships is with University of California San Diego’s Artificial Intelligence Group. MCTSSA’s Advanced Concepts Cell is working closely with the university to realize any AI technology “that can be immediately leveraged to help with C2 systems, some of the technologies that we use for handhelds,” he said, noting “anything that can leverage a training tool or maintenance, that we can work with Training Command, we’d be very interested in utilizing that.”
Last year, MCTSSA also joined the Federated Lab Consortium, enabling it to partner with all Defense Department labs, as well as commercial labs, to potentially get technologies incorporated into the Marine Corps much faster.
While MCTSSA doesn’t fully do research and development, Gore said, tech transfer enables the lab to work cooperatively and do more R&D with industry partners. “They can come in and utilize our labs … to help mature those technologies that we cooperatively work on those and it should theoretically help both partners involved,” he said.
Naval Integration Challenges
Robert Davies (left), project officer for Fabrication Equipment, from Marine Corps Systems Command, and Brian Long, Lead Developmental Tester for the Logistics Combat Engineer Systems (LCES) portfolio, inspect the 3D printed all-purpose wrench during the testing and demonstration of the portable expeditionary fabrication lab, otherwise known as XFAB, on Camp Pendleton, Calif., April 5-9, 2021. US Marine Corps Photo
The Marine Corps’ refocus on maritime and amphibious operations, after two decades largely tied up in land-based operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, has spotlighted gaps in naval integration. Little happened to tackle those gaps over the two decades of land-based warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, noted Gore, so challenges remain to ensure seamless integration. MCTSSA officials are eager to find existing technologies, products and ideas from industry partnerships and academia that can go after solutions.
A lack of integration training is a key obstacle to ensuring that C4I systems work as expected, and seamlessly when Marine Corps units are aboard Navy ships to train and operate overseas. “We see a lot of a lack of trained personnel,” Gore said.
It’s important for Marines to work on Navy gear, including shipboard communications, and sailors to work on Marine Corps gear so they get familiar with operating and maintaining the other service’s gear and equipment well before they have to use it for real while at sea or operating ashore, he said. That includes working through the tactics, training and procedures “on how they are going to conduct missions … and make sure all of that works.”
But not many Marines, including those with Marine Expeditionary Units, get familiar with those systems they’ll use or sort out connectivity issues until they’re underway on a large amphibious ship for unit-level training.
Units can visit MCTSSA’s lab facilities at its small, oceanside campus at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton to practice on the same gear they’ll use on a ship, Gore noted. Facilities include the realistic “LFOC ashore” trainer that replicates the Marines’ landing force operations center aboard amphibious ships, down to consoles and switches, but it’s the only one like it in the service. “More and more people want to see how their units are going to do amphibious operations, so they want to utilize the LFOC” lab, he added.
Seeking Integration Solutions
Marine Cpl. Benton Holloway, left, an air defense systems technician with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 165 (Reinforced), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and Richard Lozeau, a Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System subject matter expert, program a tablet on a forward area air defense command and control system during Deployable Group Systems Integration Testing (DGSIT) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Jan. 27, 2021. US Marine Corps Photo
Gore noted other challenges to naval integration that officials say industry might be able to help them resolve, including:
A “lack of a persistent C4 environment.” Maintenance requirements of Navy amphibious ships, with hulls tied up at the pier or at a shipyard for overhaul and modernization after an overseas deployment, means a year or two or longer that Marines can’t access the ship and its onboard systems. “By the time that ship gets back, the C4I infrastructure, the networks, everything has been torn down,” he said, “and it’s basically like starting from scratch over again.”
A maintenance availability often provides the latest equipment, such as new versions of CANES, the Consolidated Afloat Network and Enterprise Services, that “is allowing some persistence there. But any tools that can help expedite the rebuilds of that automation of network builds are some technologies that we’re looking to leverage,” he said. “If there’s something that we can do to sort of map out the networks before … the MEUs get on ship, [like] a tool that that sort of scans the complexity of the CANES shipboard network, that would be a great assistance for our team.”
Lag in installing new shipboard systems. The Navy modernization process “takes a very long time to field installs, new programs of records,” he said. “As soon as a ship comes out of the docks, it’s not ready to have a lot of the C4 systems installed aboard, and it won’t get those completely fielded for another four or five years out.”
“We’re running into a lot of issues of immediate availability of ships coming out of the yard,” he said. As C4I systems get upgraded, the technologies they want “are outpacing the Navy’s modernization process. Thus, we’re looking for ways around it,” he said. That includes helping MEUs and ship’s force with “workarounds” so they can do non-pertinent installations.
Certifying new systems. “As new systems come onboard, they have to get fully accredited” by the Navy certification program, a process MCTSSA teams support, but that’s also time- and labor-intensive. “So anything we can do to automate and speed that up would be greatly beneficial,” Gore said.
Ensuring interoperability. The Marine Corps is lacking in its afloat interoperability requirements, particularly with previous programs-of-records that “don’t have a requirement to test in an afloat environment,” he said. So it falls to MCTSSA “to do that afloat integration. There’s no actual guidance from SYSCOM or from the program offices, the Marine Corps program offices, to say that we need to do this testing. That’s all on our own schedule, and on our own dime.”
Gaps in common operating picture. While the Navy and Marine Corps use the same COP, software and hardware, “they have very different needs,” he said. The Navy’s COP “filters out land tracks. The don’t need to worry about the land most of the time. They only worry about where the ships are, where the aircraft are,” he said. “So when the MEUs come aboard and try to fall in on the Navy COP systems, they don’t see where their own forces are. The Marine Corps now has to set up their own COP picture, their own COP feed, and that just eats up bandwidth, system resources.”
“We’ve gotten no traction as far as changing the policies for big Navy,” Gore said, “so we’re looking to see if there’s any tools out there that can integrate or possibly pipe around a feed as far as land tracks and the COP feed that the Marine Corps needs.”
More than 7,500 U.S. Marines across III Marine Expeditionary Force teamed up with the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group during Jungle Warfare Exercise 22 in the vicinity of Okinawa, Feb. 13th to 18th.
The exercise provided an opportunity to rehearse rapid deployments and joint warfighting concepts in response to a crisis threatening the security of islands and waterways. When the call came, the Marine Corps and its joint and allied partners were ready
Two infantry battalions – 2d Battalion, 7th Marines and 1st Battalion, 3d Marines – immediately loaded onto numerous MV-22B Ospreys and CH-53E Super Stallions and departed for their objectives from separate locations. One unit’s mission was to rapidly deploy to defend the island, and the other’s mission involved a 700-mile long-range insertion into the hilly double-canopy jungle to take the island back from the opposing force of Marines.
“JWX is designed to practice distributed operations in demanding jungle and maritime environments, resembling much of the terrain in the region we could be called to defend,” said Lt. Col. Philip Peacock, operations officer for 4th Marine Regiment. “We must be comfortable operating in these challenging environments.”
“This exercise showcases the teamwork and integration between the Navy and Marine Corps in the Indo-Pacific. It allows our multi-domain forces to rehearse combat missions to bolster our collective capability and readiness.” Rear Adm. J. T. Anderson, Carrier Strike Group 3 commander
Simultaneously, U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18s, F-35Bs, and F-35Cs joined U.S. Air Force F-15s, U.S. Navy F/A-18s and EA-18Gs, and Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15s working together to protect the movement in the air, provide close-air support for Marines on the ground, and bolster maritime strike capabilities.
“Each mission focused on the refinement of new tactics, techniques, procedures, and technologies such as rapid dispersion and utilization of a digitally interoperable kill chain,” said Col. Cristopher Murray, commanding officer of Marine Aircraft Group 36.
Upon entering the jungles of northern Okinawa, the Marines of 2/7 and 1/3 began the force-on-force portion of the exercise while their higher headquarters facilitated integration with friendly assets at sea and in the air. By tying together sensors and information sharing, ground-based Marines increased battlefield awareness for joint and allied forces and extended the range of what they can detect and target.
“This exercise showcases the teamwork and integration between the Navy and Marine Corps in the Indo-Pacific. It allows our multi-domain forces to rehearse combat missions to bolster our collective capability and readiness,” said Rear Adm. J. T. Anderson, commander, Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 3. “Our continued participation in these joint and combined exercises demonstrates our commitment to our allies and partners in the region to protect our collective interests, enhance our security, and safeguard our shared values.”
Loading Up Photo by Cpl. Jackson Dukes
JWX 22 also featured multiple functioning forward arming and refueling points sustaining aviation operations across austere locations. Members of 1st Marine Aircraft Wing deployed a squadron of attack helicopters to a nearby island, Ie Shima in this case, to rehearse missions supporting maritime surveillance, strikes, and coastal defense.
Expeditionary logistics was also a key component of JWX 22 with operations taking place in six separate training areas. Marines with 3d Marine Logistics Group conducted resupply across islands, from sea-to-shore, and through the air. These Marines leveraged surface connectors, small boats, and helicopters to implement innovative tactics and techniques in support of EABO. Elements of logistical support included purified drinking water, forward positioned sustainment caches, and positioning key enablers with the initial insertions of infantry units.
“One of the new ways we are experimenting is utilizing the Navy’s small boat squadrons to retrieve re-supply bundles intentionally delivered by both Air Force and Marine Corps aircraft into pre-determined water drop zones,” said Lt. Col. Brett Bohne, commanding officer of Combat Logistics Battalion 4. “This exercise showcased the ability of joint forces to rapidly mobilize, integrate, and provide flexible logistics solutions to sustain combat momentum.”
JWX 22 is large-scale field training exercise focused on leveraging the integrated capabilities of joint and allied partners to strengthen all-domain awareness, maneuver, and fires across a distributed maritime environment. The exercise serves as a rehearsal to rapidly project combat power in defense of allies and partners in the region.
The Marine Corps will need nearly $5 billion throughout the next 30 years to upgrade buildings at both Marine Corps recruit depots in the wake of increased gender integration and climate change, according to documents the Marine Corps shared with Congress.
The Corps estimates that it will need $198 million over the next five years for immediate upgrades to make possible boot camp gender integration at both San Diego and Parris Island, South Carolina, according to the documents.
Beyond gender integration, the Marine Corps said it needs more long-term money, “to address resiliency concerns, modernization of facilities, and sustainment of overall recruit training.”
Between five and 30 years from now the Corps believes those costs with come out to about $4.72 billion.
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With the passing of the of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, gender segregated training at Marine Corps boot camp was banned.
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, had five years to comply with the law while Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego had eight years.
Initially members of Congress believed the law would require boot camp to be integrated at the platoon level, where most of boot camp training takes place.
But the Marine Corps seems to be on the path of arguing that the law only requires it to gender integrate companies.
Either form of gender integration would require large overhauls to the barracks at both Marine Corps recruit depots, the document said.
The Corps has trained at least 19 coed companies at Parris Island, South Carolina, and one coed company at San Diego, despite neither location having barracks capable of handling a coed living situation.
“The Marine Corps was able to temporarily overcome this shortfall by using unoccupied aging barracks to expand capacity,” a document shared with members of Congress said. “Long term support is still needed for a permanent solution.”
With a rising sea level and the precarious position of Parris Island, South Carolina, in the middle of swamp on the edge of the Atlanta Ocean, the very existence of the Corps’ historic boot camp site may be at stake.
By 2050, parts of the base would be underwater nearly a third of the year, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists predicted.
The costs of keeping the two recruit depots safe from a changing climate and upgrading facilities to allow gender integration caused Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger to consider closing the two bases and consolidating Marine Corps boot camp at a third location.
“We have to get to a place where on both coasts or at a third location, or whatever we end up with that every recruit male, female, there’s all there’s male and female around,” Berger said at Defense One’s 2020 state of the Marine Corps event.
But that idea found little support on Capitol Hill.
“It ain’t gonna happen!” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, tweeted out in response to the idea of moving the base.
“Anyone in the Navy or Marine Corps thinking about closing Parris Island has limited growth potential,” he wrote.
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David H. Berger, and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. Troy E. Black, visited the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) during a scheduled port visit in Pearl Harbor, HI, Feb. 19.
While aboard Essex, Gen. Berger met with 11th MEU commanding officer, Col. James W. Lively and spoke at an all-hands call on the flight deck to speak to the Marines.
“It’s a great feeling to know that when I’m sitting in a meeting with the Joint Chiefs and we’re considering options on how to respond to a bad situation, I can tell them that the 11th MEU is not just available, but that you are ready,” Gen. Berger said in front of the formation of over 1,000 Marines. “When other units might not be there for three days, I can say that the 11th MEU can be there in 24 hours.”
The Essex Amphibious Ready Group and 11th MEU deployed in August 2021 and conducted operations in the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command areas of responsibility. Throughout the deployment, the ARG/MEU spent the majority of its time operating in two or more separate areas simultaneously, leveraging the flexibility that comes with three amphibious ships to provide a forward presence in one location, while conducting bilateral training with key partners and allies in another.
“It’s a great opportunity for the Marines to have the chance hear their Commandant recognize their actions during deployment and emphasize our purpose as an ARG/MEU team,” said Col. Lively after the event. “Embarking Marines on amphibious vessels and maximizing the flexibility and lethality that both organizations bring to the fight is the epitome of Navy-Marine Corps integration to support maritime deterrence, campaigning, and crisis response.”
The 11th MEU consists of the Command Element; the Aviation Combat Element comprised of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 165 (Reinforced) and Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 214; the Ground Combat Element comprised of Battalion Landing Team 1/1; and the Logistics Combat Element comprised of Combat Logistics Battalion 11.
The 11th MEU is currently embarked on the Essex ARG, comprised of amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2), amphibious transport dock USS Portland (LPD 27), and amphibious dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52).
“The 11th MEU is the most ready unit in the Marine Corps today. You’re deployed, you’re ready, and you’re capable of answering America’s call, if needed. Thank you and semper fidelis, Marines,” Sgt. Maj. Black said in his closing comments.
The 11th MEU and Essex ARG remain forward deployed as a flexible, integrated Navy and Marine Corps team capable of conducting amphibious operations, crisis response, and limited contingency operations to maintain a forward presence while upholding U.S. commitment to partners and allies in support of the theater requirements of geographic combatant commanders.
Marine Corps Maj. Robert Hugo Dunlap was one of about 70,000 Marines who landed on the shores of Iwo Jima in late February 1945. At the time, neither he nor his compatriots knew how fierce the fight to overtake the strategic island would be, but he knew he had a job to do. Like many others in the battle, Dunlap did his job with uncommon valor, and that earned him the Medal of Honor.
Dunlap was born on Oct. 19, 1920, to William and Leona Dunlap. He had a younger brother named Harold, and they grew up in Abingdon, Illinois.
Dunlap was an active teen who played football and basketball and did track during high school. After graduation in 1938, he went to Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, where he majored in economics and business administration. Dunlap continued to do track and play football while there. In fact, according to Jeff Ranklin, a historian at Monmouth College, he had been offered a contract by the Philadelphia Eagles, but World War II got in the way.
On March 5, 1942, Dunlap joined the Marine Corps Reserve, but he wasn’t called to active duty until he graduated from Monmouth in May 1942. After attending candidate’s class, he received his commission on July 18, 1942, then went to parachute training school in San Diego. He was assigned to the 3rd Parachute Battalion in December 1942.
The unit was eventually sent to the Pacific. By December 1943, Dunlap was the leader of a platoon that was pinned down by heavy Japanese fire on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Despite Dunlap’s shy and quiet nature, his commanding officers said he exposed himself to the heavy fire and rallied his men to regain lost ground. For his leadership and courage, he was awarded a letter of commendation from famed Navy Adm. William Halsey.
Dunlap returned to the U.S. in March 1944 to join the newly formed 5th Marine Division, only to be deployed to the Pacific again that summer. On Oct. 2, 1944, Dunlap was promoted to captain and took charge of Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines.
By February 1945, U.S. forces had slowly maneuvered their way closer to a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland. Before they could do that, though, they needed to capture the tiny island of Iwo Jima, which could put U.S. bombers in striking distance of Japan. Marines and some naval forces began landing on the island on Feb. 19, 1945. Dunlap’s unit was in one of the first waves.
On Feb. 20, Dunlap led his troops from low ground toward the island’s steep cliffs. The Japanese, who were entrenched in underground tunnels and caves, pounded them with artillery, mortars, rifles and machine guns.
Company C steadily inched forward until the onslaught was too great to continue, but Dunlap refused to have his progress halted. He pushed ahead of his men, crawling about 200 yards until he made it to the base of a cliff about 50 yards from the Japanese lines. From there he was able to locate the enemy’s gun positions. He then crawled back to his unit and passed that vital information on to supporting artillery and naval gunfire units.
Dunlap spent the next two days and nights working without sleep to direct supporting fire upon the enemy, often putting himself in harm’s way to do so. According to his Medal of Honor citation, he “skillfully directed a smashing bombardment against the almost impregnable Japanese positions despite numerous obstacles and heavy Marine casualties.”
Dunlap’s leadership inspired his men during a critical phase of the battle. His efforts slowed the Japanese defense enough for Marines to eventually move forward and take Mount Suribachi, where the iconic photo of Marines raising the U.S. flag was taken on Feb. 23, 1945.
On Feb. 26, as fighting continued, Dunlap was wounded in the left hip. He was evacuated to Guam and then the U.S., where he spent several months in and out of hospitals. For much of that recovery, Dunlap was in a full body cast.
Meanwhile, after five intense weeks of fighting, U.S. troops finally declared Iwo Jima secured on March 26. But the win came at a huge price. The Marines suffered more than 25,000 casualties, including nearly 7,000 dead. Of the nearly 300 men Dunlap led onto Iwo Jima, fewer than half survived the first four days of fighting, Rankin said.
On Dec. 18, 1945, Dunlap and five other service members attended a White House ceremony to receive the Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman. In total, Dunlap and 26 other men earned the medal for their actions at Iwo Jima — more than any other battle in U.S. history.
Just a few days before receiving his medal, Dunlap married his college sweetheart, Mary Louise Frantz. They went on to have two children.
Dunlap’s daughter, Donna Butler, told the Galesburg Register-Mail newspaper in 2014 that after the war, her dad spent about 18 years as a farmer back in Abingdon before becoming a schoolteacher. He continued his work as an educator until he retired in 1982.
Dunlap died on March 24, 2000, in Monmouth, Illinois, at age 79. He was buried in the town’s Warren County Memorial Park.
Dunlap was a member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution along with his cousin, Navy Vice Adm. James Bond Stockdale. Stockdale, who grew up in Abingdon alongside Dunlap, also earned a Medal of Honor for his actions in 1969 during the Vietnam War. In 2014, a veterans memorial in Abingdon was dedicated to the two men.
This article is part of a weekly series called “Medal of Honor Monday,” in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have earned the U.S. military’s highest medal for valor.
The Navy must review thousands of general and other-than-honorable discharges awarded to sailors and Marines over the past decade for behavioral problems that may have stemmed from a military-related mental health condition or sexual assault.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Haight approved a settlement Monday in a class-action suit known as Manker v. Del Toro, which alleged that the Navy and Marine Corps wrongly discharged members for behavior that may have been related to trauma or an injury they endured while serving.
Under the settlement, the Navy will be required to review and reconsider all discharge upgrade requests made from March 2, 2012, to Feb. 15, 2022, that were partially or fully denied.
Read Next: VA to Overhaul Disability Evaluations for Mental Health, Other Conditions
The review of these cases will be automatic; service members will not need to request one.
But the settlement also gives those who were discharged and denied an upgrade from Oct. 7, 2001, through March 1, 2012, the opportunity to reapply for a change in their status with the Naval Discharge Review Board.
The suit stemmed from the case of former Marine Cpl. Tyson Manker, who was dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge after he was caught using marijuana. Manker told The New York Times that he turned to the drug after being exposed to a series of traumatic experiences in Iraq in 2003.
Manker applied for an upgrade in 2016 but was denied, as have roughly 85% of requests filed to the Naval Discharge Review Board by sailors and Marines.
A general discharge under honorable conditions precludes a veteran from accessing their GI Bill benefits. An other-than-honorable discharge, also known as a “bad paper discharge,” prevents veterans from receiving medical care, disability compensation and education benefits through the GI Bill at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
These discharges also can affect a veteran’s long-term earning power, since many employers will not hire anyone with less than a good conduct discharge.
Monday’s ruling, in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, follows Haight’s ruling in April 2021 that required the Army to review its other-than-honorable discharges dating back to April 17, 2011.
The Army already had initiated the review of an estimated 3,500 discharges, but the settlement in that case, Kennedy v. McCarthy, also required the service to notify soldiers given bad paper discharges from Oct. 7, 2001, to April 16, 2011, that they could apply for an upgrade or appeal a previous decision.
More than 51,400 discharges under other-than-honorable conditions were issued for active-duty personnel from fiscal 2010 through 2020, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center.
Under the Manker settlement, the Navy will allow veterans to appear before the Naval Discharge Review Board by video teleconference — a change from the requirement that they travel to Washington, D.C., for their hearings. The service also will be required to increase training for board members.
Navy and Marine Corps veterans, including members of the reserve component, who were discharged under general or other-than-honorable conditions and who also have a diagnosis of — or symptoms of — post traumatic stress disorder, a traumatic brain injury, mental health conditions or were victims of military sexual trauma may be eligible for the review.
Status upgrades will be decided on a case-by-case basis and are not guaranteed, noted Manker’s legal team, which included the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School and Jenner & Block LLP in a press release.
In granting approval of the settlement, Haight called it “an impressive example of the manner in which a class action can be made the vehicle for doing substantial justice.”
Brandon Baum, with the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, could not provide an exact number of veterans who may be affected by the ruling but said in an email that it could be in the “tens of thousands.”
Garry Monk, executive director of the clinic, said the settlement “helps bring accountability and justice for thousands of veterans suffering every day from the invisible wounds of war.”
“It is a recognition of their service, their value, and their dignity, and we look forward to the impact it will have on the lives of so many service members,” Monk said in a press release.
More information is available at the Manker Settlement website.
— Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.
Related: Bill Would Give Vets With ‘Bad Paper’ Discharges Better Appeal Options
ARLINGTON, Virginia — In 2021 Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 joined the British aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth on a historic deployment years in the making ― one that showcased the F-35B.
During the ship’s nearly eight months at sea, Marines and British pilots with the Joint Squadron 617 flew sorties over Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, and trained with more than 40 nations in around the Mediterranean Sea, Middle East and Pacific.
But while training in the Mediterranean Sea with the vertical lift F-35B, the well-publicized deployment drew some unwanted Russian visitors, a British defense official told reporters.
“We were not surprised,” the British official said.
“Our friends wanted to come and exercise with us, we shouldn’t be surprised that others want to come and have a look as well,” the official said.
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Fighter jets from NATO nations running to intercept Russian aircraft encroaching on allied airspace or operations is nothing new.
In 2021 NATO announced that it conducted 290 such missions over Europe.
But for Marine Brig. Gen. Simon Doran, the U.S. senior national representative to Carrier Strike Group 21, the number of intercept operations was on a scale he had not seen in his six prior deployments on aircraft carriers.
Doran said the pilots on the Queen Elizabeth had to run more intercept and escort missions against Russian jets operating near the carrier strike group than he had seen in his entire career.
“It was really interesting to see if we could demonstrate the unmatched capability of the F-35 against some of the Russian aircraft,” Doran told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. “And we’re quite fortunate in that we got the interception escort, I think more Russian aircraft and many other deployments.”
The Russian observers gave the entire carrier strike group the opportunity to operate around a force that was using submarines, surface ships and aircraft — adding a dimension of realism to the exercise, the British defense official added.
The deployment was meant as a proof of concept, showing that Marines with F-35Bs were able to operate off of any U.S. or allied ship that had enough space on its deck to hold them.
“The U.S. forces started this journey with planning teams over a decade ago,” Doran said.
British Rear Adm. Steve Moorehouse, the former commander of Carrier Strike Group 21, which the Marines deployed with, said, “As a commander I was blind to the tailfin of that aircraft it really didn’t matter if it was a Marine Corps or U.K. jet, it was just an F-35 as far as I was concerned.”
The increased flexibility and unpredictably will be an asset in future near-peer fights.
But with the greater opportunities came greater risk of a small tactical misunderstanding leading to an international incident.
“For us it was all about a willingness not to respond, but we would not be bullied or pushed out of there,” the British defense official said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When relatives of American oil executives jailed in Venezuela met virtually with a senior Justice Department official this month, it didn’t take long for their frustrations to surface.
They pressed the official on the prospects of a prisoner exchange that could get their loved ones home but were told that was ultimately a White House decision and not something the U.S. government was generally inclined to do anyway. And they vented about the extradition to the U.S. of an associate of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an action that inflamed tensions with Caracas and resulted in the American captives being returned to jail from house arrest that day.
The meeting, not previously reported and described by a person who participated in it, ended without firm commitments. But it underscored the simmering frustrations directed by some hostage and detainee families toward the Justice Department, an agency they see as unwilling to think creatively about ways to bring their relatives home from abroad and stubbornly resistant to the possibility of exchanging prisoners.
“The question remains of how to get the Department of Justice to fully engage in the process of recovering hostages and wrongful detainees,” said Everett Rutherford, whose nephew, Matthew Heath, is being held in Venezuela on what the Tennessee man’s family says are bogus weapons charges. “And there hasn’t yet been an answer given to that yet — except for the fact that we’ve been told that the president himself can direct them to do so.”
There are roughly 60 Americans known to be held hostage or wrongfully detained, a definition that covers Americans believed innocent or jailed for the purpose of exacting concessions from the U.S.
Families of at least some see fresh opportunities to cut deals.
The Taliban, whose Haqqani network is believed to be holding hostage Navy veteran Mark Frerichs of Illinois, has told the U.S. it seeks the release of imprisoned drug lord Bashir Noorzai. Russia has locked up Marine veteran Trevor Reed, sentenced to nine years on charges he assaulted police officers in Moscow, and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, imprisoned on espionage charges. Officials there have floated at various times the names of citizens it would like home, including international arms dealer Viktor Bout and drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko, both imprisoned in the U.S.
This undated image provided by the Reed family, shows the IK-12 Prison Camp where Marine veteran Trevor Reed is being held. (Reed Family via AP)
The U.S. considers Whelan and Reed to be wrongfully detained.
The Justice Department isn’t typically thought of as a lead agency in hostage matters. The State Department, after all, has diplomatic tools at its disposal and is home to the government’s chief hostage negotiator, while the Pentagon has authority to launch military raids to free hostages from captivity. The three agencies’ interests aren’t always necessarily in sync on hostage issues, which can be overshadowed by broader national security or diplomatic concerns — or, in the case of the Justice Department, what the government thinks is best for holding criminals accountable.
The Justice Department said in a statement that it “recognizes that families are put in an extraordinarily difficult circumstance, with unimaginable pain” when Americans are wrongfully detained and that it works with other federal agencies to bring them home in a manner consistent with the government’s “no-concessions” policy in hostage matters.
From the U.S. government’s perspective, a prisoner swap risks creating a false equivalency between a wrongfully detained American and a justly convicted felon, and could also encourage additional captures by foreign countries.
Mickey Bergman, who as vice president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement has worked on hostage cases, said he’s heard that argument but thinks “the framing is wrong.”
“Because it’s not about the guilty people that get released, it’s about the innocent Americans that come back home,” Bergman said. “And so I reverse the question and say: Is leaving … innocent Americans to rot in prisons around the world worth the insistence of us having criminals, foreign criminals, serve their full time in the American system?”
The issue is newly relevant as several countries or groups holding Americans, including Russia and the Taliban, have floated the names of prisoners in the U.S. they want released.
This 2018 image provided by the Reed family shows Trevor Reed at Red Square in Moscow, Russia. (Reed Family via AP)
The families’ frustration is less with current political leadership of the Justice Department than with the nature of the institution itself, an agency that across administrations has prioritized its independence and its prerogative to make prosecutorial decisions and sentencing recommendations free from political considerations. The instinct is crucial for democracy, but it can also result in actions that hostage families see as dismissive of their interests.
The October extradition to Miami of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, presented by U.S. officials as a close Maduro associate, agitated relatives of six Citgo executives who’ve been jailed for years in Venezuela over a never-executed plan to refinance billions in the oil company’s bonds. It was a tension point in this month’s Justice Department call and in a December meeting between hostage families and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, though the situation may be complicated by the revelation this week that Saab was signed up by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a source in 2018.
The reticence to swaps predates the Biden administration, and some of the deals the families seek didn’t gain traction under former President Donald Trump, either. Even so, there is a precedent for arrangements that serve a diplomatic purpose.
The Trump administration, seen as more willing to flout convention in hostage affairs, brought home Navy veteran Michael White in 2020 in an agreement that spared an American-Iranian doctor prosecuted by the Justice Department any more time behind bars and that permitted him to return to Iran. Even before then, the Obama administration pardoned or dropped charges against seven Iranians in a prisoner exchange tied to the nuclear deal with Tehran. Three jailed Cubans were sent home in 2014 as Havana released American Alan Gross after five years’ imprisonment.
This 2015 image provided by the Reed family shows Trevor Reed, second from right, with his family from left, mother Paula Reed, sister Taylor Reed and father Joey Reed. (Reed Family via AP)
Nine Americans, including Heath and the so-called Citgo 6, are detained in Venezuela at a time when the U.S. is holding two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady on drug charges.
Some hostage and detainee families say they’re heartened by the access they’ve had to senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sullivan. But the resistance to a trade has remained constant.
Charlene Cakora, Frerichs’ sister, met with White House and Justice Department officials last August and says she was told that Noorzai, a convicted Afghan drug lord, was a “bad guy.” She said in an interview that if the government won’t “trade for my brother, then I want to know what other ideas are out there.”
Paula Reed and Joey Reed, Trevor’s parents, say U.S. officials have told them that they’d seek the same outcome if they were their shoes. But though the Granbury, Texas, couple has urged Justice Department officials during meetings to seek a deal now, the officials have said only that they’re “considering everything,” said Paula Reed.
“They didn’t say: ‘Oh, we agree with you, that’s a great deal. That’s a good point.’ They didn’t say anything like that. They just said: ‘We hear you. Thank you very much,”’ she said. “They didn’t give us indication one way or the other.”
Elizabeth Whelan, Paul’s sister, said she’s been grateful for the U.S. government’s attention. She said she’s not entirely sure what Russia wants for her brother and said demands by it and other countries seem “stupid” and “over the top.”
“But,” she added, “I feel my brother is worth whatever Russia is asking for.”
Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — A Marine Corps reservist who was charged in last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol also schemed with a nurse to steal, forge and sell hundreds of fake coronavirus vaccination cards and destroy vaccine doses to fake inoculations, federal authorities said Thursday.
Cpl. Jia Liu, 26, and nurse Steven Rodriguez, 27, were awaiting a court appearance Thursday on charges of conspiring to commit forgery and to defraud the federal government.
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“By deliberately distributing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards to the unvaccinated, the defendants put military and other communities at risk of contracting a virus that has already claimed nearly 1 million lives in this country,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
Liu’s lawyer, Benjamin Yaster, declined to comment. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Rodriguez had an attorney who could speak to the allegations. The charges in the vaccination card case carry the potential for up to 10 years in prison for Liu, of Queens, and Rodriguez, of suburban Long Beach.
According to an indictment, Rodriguez, who worked at a clinic on Long Island, pilfered blank COVID-19 vaccination cards.
The two men allegedly offered customers the choice of buying cards blank or fraudulently filled out, with a premium-priced option: a fake vaccination record in the New York state and city databases that are used to issue vaccine passes.
A buyer who sprung for the add-on would go to the clinic, where Rodriguez would dispose of a dose of vaccine, forge a card and make a phony entry into the databases, the indictment said.
Covering their tracks by referring to “gift cards,” “Cardi Bs,” “Christmas cards” and “Pokemon cards,” Liu and Rodriguez conducted the scam through encrypted messaging apps and social media and instructed buyers to mask online payments as “consultancy” or “Korean BBQ,” the indictment said.
“I need to make an appointment for you with my buddy who will destroy a vial, scan your ID and give you a Band-Aid,” Liu told one contact in a message last May, the indictment said.
The scheme ultimately involved over 300 ill-gotten vaccination cards and over 70 fake database entries, according to prosecutors.
It said some of the fake cards went to Liu’s fellow Marine reservists, following a Pentagon order in August that all members of the military be vaccinated.
The Marine Corps “is aware of the situation, and we are fully cooperating with federal authorities,” Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Thomas said in a statement.
He said the Marines had already taken steps toward administratively separating Liu before Thursday’s arrest. Administrative separation is a military term that’s akin to firing in the civilian world.
Liu was charged this past fall with climbing through a broken window into the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that delayed Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Security cameras recorded Liu entering the building, according to a criminal complaint.
In that case, he has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges including entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct.
