U.S. Marine spared from jail time in Iraq killings

If you read about any war, civilians died. It is an ugly part of what happens that "polite" civilians never want to think about. Most of the time it is because of the type of warfare being waged where enemy forces are part of the population, dressed like everyone else and attacking from the crowds of innocent people. That is what happened in Iraq as well as Afghanistan, just as it happened in Vietnam.

The men and women we send to fight these wars never know who is a simple bystander and who wants to kill them until it is too late for second guesses.

Did these Marines snap or was it more a case of everything else that happened in Iraq? None of of us really know because we weren't there. These memories will be with them for the rest of their lives.

U.S. Marine spared from jail time in Iraq killings


By Mary Slosson
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif
Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:13am EST
(Reuters) - A U.S. Marine accused of leading a 2005 massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha was spared jail time when he was sentenced on Tuesday for his role in killings that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops.

The harshest penalty Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 31, now faces for his guilty plea on Monday to a single count of dereliction of duty is a demotion to the rank of private, the lowest rank in the service, as recommended by a military judge.

As part of his guilty plea, Wuterich accepted responsibility for giving negligent verbal instructions to the Marines under his command when he told them to "shoot first and ask questions later," orders that resulted in the deaths of civilians.

In his court statement on Tuesday, Wuterich added that when he gave that order, "the intent wasn't that they should shoot civilians. It was that they would not hesitate in the face of the enemy."

He said that he and his fellow Marines behaved honorably under extreme circumstances, and that he "never fired my weapon at any women or children that day."
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