Gold Star Family Feels Betrayed by Marines After Green on Blue Attack

Marine Corps responds to Gold Star family's allegations of 'misleading, offensive' information
Marine Corps Times
By Hope Hodge Seck
Staff Writer
July 31, 2014

Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley Jr.'s father Greg, left, his mother Marina, third from left, and his two brother watch as his casket is carried into St. Agnes Cathedral for his funeral Mass on Aug. 18, 2012, in Rockville Centre, N.Y.
(Mary Altaffer / AP)

The Marine Corps responded in part to a 10-page letter from a Gold Star family that accused the Corps of misleading the public about events in the aftermath of their son’s death.

The family of Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley Jr. learned last week that the Afghan youth who killed their son and two other Marines in an insider attack in Afghanistan was sentenced by an Afghan court to seven years, six months in prison. The family’s attorney, Michael Bowe, fired off the strongly worded letter to Marine Corps commandant Gen. Jim Amos on Tuesday, demanding that the Marine Corps retract a statement on the sentencing of the killer, Ainuddin Khudairaham, and a timeline of communications allegedly made with families of the fallen.

Bowe called the release of the information a “publicity stunt,” saying the media received confirmation of Ainuddin’s sentencing before the families did. He also said the timeline failed to show how little information the families received about the case as it developed.

Marine officials are standing by the information, saying it was released to press outlets following inquiries about the Buckley case.
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