Military Learning Center » Mich.

Senate committee agrees to 1.4% pay raise

Angel — Sat, 29 May 2010 04:24:11 +0000

The Senate Armed Services Committee has sided with the Pentagon by providing a 1.4 percent military raise for 2011, committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., announced Friday.

Senators seek funds for concurrent receipt

Angel — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:20:13 +0000

The Senate Armed Services Committee has given a sliver of hope to some disabled military retirees still waiting for the right to receive their full military retirement pay and veterans disability compensation.The committee is asking the Senate Budget Committee to make adjustments in the 2011 federal budget to accommodate $264 million in additional benefits in 2011 and $5.4 billion over the next 10 years to allow an expansion of “concurrent receipt.”The request comes in the committee’s letter to the Senate Budget Committee making recommendations about the $708 billion defense budget for 2011.A bipartisan letter signed by committee chairman Send. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and ranking Republican John McCain, R-Ariz., warns against cutting the Obama administration’s proposed defense budget.“We note that after almost a decade of combat operations, the readiness of our nondeployed force has declined due to equipment being taken to support deploying units, in addition to a heavy emphasis being placed on training for counterinsurgency operations versus training for full-spectrum operations,” the letter says.“We urge the budget committee to fully support the administration’s national defense budget request so that we can assist the department in restoring and protecting vital readiness accounts.”On concurrent receipt, the Obama administration proposes to add $264 million into the military retirement trust fund in 2011 so it can begin providing concurrent receipt of retired pay and disability pay to people who received medical retirement from the military with fewer than 20 years of service.Over five years, the administration wants to phase in concurrent receipt for people receiving military disability retired pay, ultimately providing full military and veterans benefits to all disabled retirees.The problem with the Obama administration’s proposal is that it does not comply with congressional budget procedures; it does not specifically identify a source of the money that would be spent on new retiree benefits. This same problem prevented Congress from passing a similar proposal last year.Levin and McCain told the budget committee they support providing full concurrent receipt, and hope the budget committee can identify offsets in the budget to cover the costs.The Levin-McCain letter was sent to the budget committee on March 5 but released only late Tuesday.

Senators seek funds for concurrent receipt

Angel — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:20:07 +0000

Female WWII pilots receive medals

Angel — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:15:46 +0000

Jean Springer was 22 when she joined a new corps of female pilots needed to help the country in World War II.

Now 89, the Cincinnati woman is in Washington today with about 180 other former fliers finally to receive the nation's thanks.

Congress is awarding the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor, to members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, a civilian branch of the Army Air Force. Fewer than 300 of the 1,100 survive. Relatives of those who have died or could not attend will also get medals.

When Springer joined, “it was kind of a lark,” she said. She had been taking flying lessons. “It was patriotic. And boring at home. I loved flying.”

The WASP was created to allow more male pilots to go to the war front.

Barred from flying in combat, the female pilots transported military personnel, towed targets for gunnery practice and shuttled planes from factories to bases.

They flew every military plane flown in the war.

“Sometimes the guys who gave us weather predictions in the morning when we left weren't particularly accurate,” Springer said. “In snowstorms, it was scary.”

Yet no military honors were granted to the 38 women who were killed during service to the program.

In December 1944, as the war was ending and male pilots were coming home, the program was disbanded.

“One day I came back from a flight,” said Doris Nathan, 93, of Kalamazoo, Mich. “And the commanding officer said, 'I just got orders to tell you to get off the base by tomorrow morning.' “

Some of the women kept flying as instructors in Florida or bush pilots in Alaska, said Albert “Chig” Lewis, a Washington lawyer and founding member of Wingtip to Wingtip, an association that promotes the fliers' legacy. His mother was a WASP. Others raised families and accepted that most of the nation didn't know what they had done.

The fliers were trying to gain recognition as military veterans in 1976 when the Air Force announced that “for the first time ever” it would teach women to fly military airplanes, said Kate Landdeck, an associate professor of history at Texas Woman's University who is writing a book about WASPs and their lives after the war.

The WASPs “realized their Air Force had forgotten about them,” Landdeck said.

In 1977, after a “huge effort in Congress” and with the help of Sen. Barry Goldwater, who had flown with WASPs during the war, the women were recognized as military personnel and given partial veterans benefits.

“They get to go to VA hospitals, and they get that flag on the coffin,” Landdeck said. “That's the most important thing to them.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, co-sponsored the bill to honor the women with the medal.

“These women have yet to receive the recognition they deserve,” Hutchison said.

Air Force names top recruiters for 2009

Angel — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:20:07 +0000

The Air Force’s top 14 recruiters were recognized recently by their commander and treated to a five-day stay in San Antonio.Brig. Gen. A.J. Stewart, commander of Air Force Recruiting Service, met with the fiscal 2009 honorees during a ceremony Feb. 23 at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.Known as Operation Blue Suit, the program rewards the best of the nearly 1,200 Air Force recruiters worldwide.Recruiting groups select nominees based on their performance in meeting assigned recruiting goals, leadership qualities and other professional traits.In addition to the ceremony at Randolph, where each winner received a medallion, the recruiters and their spouses also attended luncheons, briefings and dinners at several well-known restaurants and establishments in San Antonio. They also went on a basic military training tour and attended a graduation ceremony at nearby Lackland Air Force Base.The winners of Operation Blue Suit for fiscal 2009 are:* Master Sgt. William Malcolm, 367th Recruiting Squadron, Colorado Springs, Colo.* Master Sgt. William Rawls, 372nd Recruiting Group, Aurora, Colo.* Master Sgt. Charlie Cauthen, 333rd Recruiting Squadron, Melbourne, Fla.* Tech. Sgt. Cori Branstetter, 339th Recruiting Squadron, Grand Rapids, Mich.* Tech. Sgt. Aaron Cooper, 343rd Recruiting Squadron, Sioux Falls, N.D.* Tech. Sgt. Anthony Fleming, 332nd Recruiting Squadron, Nashville, Tenn.* Tech. Sgt. Jerimiah Foote, 372nd Recruiting Group, Aurora, Colo.* Tech. Sgt. Lexi Holmes, 311th Recruiting Squadron, York, Penn.* Tech Sgt. Tracey Rumer, 360th Recruiting Group, Raleigh, N.C.* Tech Sgt. Kathryn Thomas, 341st Recruiting Squadron, San Antonio.* Staff Sgt. Donald Buske, 368th Recruiting Squadron, Las Vegas.* Staff Sgt. Brent Cormier, 347th Recruiting Squadron, Dixon, Ill.* Staff Sgt. Peter Shenot, 314th Recruiting Squadron, Philadelphia.* Staff Sgt. Nicholas Tucker, 345th Recruiting Squadron, Jacksonville, Ark.

Soldier sues, says Hurt Locker based on him

Angel — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:20:45 +0000

With the 82nd Academy Awards days away, a 38-year-old Army bomb expert said Tuesday that he’s hurt that Hollywood producers cut him out of a front-running best picture nominee — “The Hurt Locker” — that allegedly was based on his exploits in Iraq.

“They never offered anything,” said Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver, of Clarksville, Tenn., at a 45-minute news conference at the law office of Geoffrey Fieger in Southfield, Mich.

Fieger filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on Sarver’s behalf late Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey. Fieger said he waited until then to file the suit so it wouldn’t hurt the movie’s chances for winning an Academy Award.

The Iraq war drama about a bomb-defusing squad is nominated for nine Oscars.

Fieger said he and attorney Todd Weglarz had been negotiating for several months to no avail.

“Hollywood has made billions exploiting veterans,” Fieger said, adding that it’s going to end now.

A news release announcing Wednesday’s news conference indicates Sarver was the subject of an article for Playboy written by “Hurt Locker” screenwriter Mark Boal. Boal’s story on bomb-defusing squads in Iraq ran in the September 2005 issue.

The release says the suit would allege that “the film’s makers falsely claim the characters portrayed in the film are fictional when in fact the film’s main character, Will James, is Master Sgt. Sarver.”

In the movie, James is played by best actor nominee Jeremy Renner.

The release says the suit accuses Boal and the film’s makers of cheating Sarver “out of financial participation in the film, and any acknowledgement of his heroic actions in Iraq.”

Summit Entertainment, which acted as the U.S. distributor of “The Hurt Locker,” released this statement in response to Fieger’s release:

“Ever since Summit acquired the distribution rights to the finished feature film ‘The Hurt Locker’ during the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, we have been proud to showcase the film to audiences in the U.S. The film is a story about heroes depicting a fictional account of what brave men and women do on the battlefield. We have no doubt that Master Sgt. Sarver served his country with honor and commitment risking his life for a greater good, but we distributed the film based on a fictional screenplay written by Mark Boal. We hope for a quick resolution to the claims made by Master Sgt. Sarver.”

Sarver’s wife, Alisa, said her husband has been in the military 18 years and is currently stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., as a bomb technician. After leaving metro Detroit today, she said, her husband plans to attend training in Louisiana.

Gates, Mullen support overturning gay ban

Angel — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:23:54 +0000

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress on Tuesday that he “fully supports” President Obama’s desire to repeal the law banning open military service by gays.Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen agreed, adding that he personally believes gays should be able to serve openly in the military.“We received our orders from the commander in chief, and we are moving out accordingly,” Gates said.During a packed hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said he has ordered a 45-day review of Pentagon policy that will produce recommendations to “enforce this law in a fairer manner” while Congress decides whether to enact Obama’s call to repeal the controversial law and policy, which has banned military service by openly gay people beginning in 1994.More than 13,500 gay service members have been discharged since then, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington, D.C., group dedicated to repeal.Gates told committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., that the review will examine internal conclusions that the Pentagon should, on its own, be able to raise the level of the officer who can initiate and conduct a “don’t ask, don’t tell” inquiry; “raise the bar on what constitutes credible information, what constitutes credible information”; and reduce the number of instances in which a gay service member is “outed” by a third party.Gates, who acknowledged concerns about making such changes in the midst of two ongoing wars, also announced the formation of a longer-range review of current policy that will look at all aspects of repeal’s potential impact on the force “by the end of this calendar year.”Gates said this review group, to be headed by Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Army Europe, and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson, will examine all policies they believe could be affected, including service member benefits, base housing, fraternization and other issues.It will also “examine potential impacts of a change in the law on military effectiveness” such as recruiting and retention, and “will develop ways to mitigate and manage any potential impacts.”Mullen said he is “in complete support” of Gates’ recommended approach. He followed that comment with his first expression of his personal view on open service by gays.“Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal and professional belief that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” Mullen said.Mullen said the department had spent the past two months reviewing the “fundamental premises” behind the law and policy, “as well as its practice over the past [17] years.”Pentagon leaders “understand perfectly” Obama’s desire for repeal of the law, he said, adding: “We owe him our best military advice about the impact of such a repeal and the manner in which we would implement a change in policy.”Mullen said he and the other Joint Chiefs “have not yet developed that advice and would like to have the time to do so in the same thoughtful, deliberate fashion with which the president has made it clear he wants to proceed.”Further signaling a desire to proceed slowly, Mullen said that implementation “must be carefully derived, sufficiently thorough and thoughtfully executed.”But in a personal sense, Mullen told the committee that he feels “don’t ask, don’t tell” is fundamentally unfair.“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said. “For me, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”Mullen said he believes the military would “accommodate” the change but added: “I do not know this for a fact, nor do I know for a fact how we would best make such a major policy change in a time of two wars.”Mullen said he and the other Joint Chiefs “recognize the stress our troops and their families are under, and … should the law change … we need to move forward in a manner that does not add to that stress.”Mullen acknowledged that such a change will have a significant impact. “That there will be some disruption in the force I cannot deny,” he said. “That there will be legal, social and perhaps even infrastructure changes to be made certainly seems plausible.”The review Gates has ordered will examine such issues, Mullen said. But it is understood that any change ultimately must come from Congress, he added.“The American people have spoken on this subject through you, their elected officials,” Mullen said. “And the result is the law and the policy we have.”In the absence of any change, Mullen said, “we will continue to obey that law, and we will obey whatever legislative and executive decisions come out of this debate.”Levin said he favors ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” and believes a change “would improve our military’s capability and reflect our commitment to equal opportunity.”But a visibly upset Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee’s senior Republican, said he believes the policy, which he called “imperfect, but effective,” should not be overturned during a time of war.Mullen said it will be important to fully explore the diverse views on the subject of open service by gays and that while “there are those on both sides of this debate who speak as if there is no debate … I hope we can be more thoughtful than that. I expect that we will be more thoughtful than that.”Mullen said that he is “100 percent committed” to ensuring that Pentagon leaders listen to the concerns of the force and the general public.“What the citizens we defend want to know — what they deserve to know — is that their uniformed leadership will act in a way that absolutely does not place in peril the readiness and effectiveness of their military,” Mullen said.Related reading• Gates, Mullen to discuss ‘don’t ask’ policy• Gates to announce review of ban on gays

Can deadly ‘Trust’ game be stopped?

Angel — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:05:41 +0000

It wasn’t so different from other nights. Outside it was cold and wet. Inside, quarters were close, but they were comfortable enough. The half dozen or so Marines sharing the small wooden hooch at Combat Outpost Viking in Saqlaweiyah, Iraq, were killing time, watching movies and cracking jokes shortly before midnight March 9.That’s when Cpl. Mathew Nelson came in from the cold, discarding his balaclava and goggles on his rack, and taking up his M9 sidearm.Looking back, it’s hard for him to remember exactly what happened next. He would later tell investigators he switched the pistol to safety, dropped the magazine out, and pulled back the slide. The weapon was clear, he thought.After “messing around” with another Marine, he swung toward Lance Cpl. Patrick Malone, 21, quietly sitting on his rack and watching a movie.“Do you trust me?”Whether those were Nelson’s exact words isn’t clear. But if they were different, the meaning was the same. He was playing a game, one familiar to all the Marines in the room, a test of wills and faith.They called it “Trust.”“Do you trust me?”It’s not clear, either, if he answered. Malone smiled at Nelson, other Marines in the room told investigators.The next moment, a gunshot sounded; and then a Marine was yelling “ND! ND! ND!” — negligent discharge — and Nelson would recall seeing smoke rising from the gun and then all eyes turned to Malone, suddenly slumped in his rack with a bullet hole in his forehead, according to a copy of the investigation report obtained by Marine Corps Times.They tried to save him, they told investigators. They applied pressure and administered CPR before Malone was rushed to an aid station. But 20 minutes later, he was dead.Nelson, 25, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, 10 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of negligent discharge of a firearm. He faces 22 years in prison. A general court-martial is scheduled for Sept. 10 at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He is expected to plead guilty, Marine officials said.What is ‘Trust’?Trust is not new. In 1997, a lance corporal died in Okinawa after other Marines accidentally dropped him from the third story of his barracks. In that version of the Trust game, the Marines took turns dangling each other out a window, holding only their ankles. Five Marines were charged in the incident — one was sentenced to 10 years in the brig.The game was played to similar deadly consequences in an Army incident in 2007, when a Kentucky National Guardsman shot and killed his best friend, a fellow soldier. The guardsman who fired the fatal shot later said he learned to play Trust from other members of his Guard unit while deployed to Iraq in October 2006.And less than four months after Malone’s death in Iraq, another Marine was charged with second-degree murder after he allegedly shot and killed his civilian roommate while playing Trust in an off-base home near Lejeune.The game flouts the most basic rules for weapons safety, but the two incidents in the Corps “are not indicative of a trend,” Marine officials insist.After Malone’s death, the commander of Marine forces in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Richard Tryon, issued a memo to his subordinates in theater ordering them to be on the lookout for Marines playing Trust. Apart from a condemnation from Marine Corps headquarters, though, there are no plans to address it.“This ‘game’ is dangerously immature at best and deadly at worst,” said 1st Lt. Joshua Diddams, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon. “Every Marine learns the importance of weapons safety, and there is no room for horseplay or carelessness with firearms.”Yet, somehow, it persists.In Nelson’s and Malone’s unit, 2nd section, Scout Platoon, 2nd TankBattalion, out of Camp Lejeune, the unofficial rules went something like this: A Marine, usually a noncommissioned officer, would partially insert a magazine into his M9 and pretend to rack the slide so it would appear a round was in the chamber. He’d then point the weapon at a junior Marine and ask, “Do you trust me?” before either pulling the trigger or lowering the gun and clearing it.They played the game as a way to build camaraderie and “maintain an edge,” according to the investigation. Second section included 14 NCOs and 13 lance corporals and below, and they were driven by competition, determined to prove they were better than the platoon’s 1st section.Some Marines took chance after chance playing the game. One close call, in which a Marine realized a round was chambered in his pistol after he’d pointed it at one of his buddies, prompted him to stop playing the game — for a while, more than one Marine told investigators. In fact, the entire platoon had an all-hands safety briefing on negligent discharges after one occurred in January in 1st section, an incident that was not tied to Trust.Some Marines in 2nd section, conscious of the game’s inherent danger, avoided it like the plague, they told investigators. But no one reported what went on inside the hooch, where it was played most frequently.Those who knew about the game kept quiet for a variety of reasons, the Marines told investigators, adding that most didn’t want to be known as the “tattletale.” Some said they didn’t want their buddies to get in trouble, or they felt it wasn’t their place to report it. Some had such faith in their NCOs, they told investigators, that they trusted that every precaution was made to ensure the weapon being pointed at them was empty.“I have had Trust done to me four or five times,” one Marine told investigators. “I trusted [name redacted] because he was safe with a weapon. … He would … ask if I trusted him. I would always say yes.”One platoon sergeant, whose name also is redacted in the report, told investigators that his Marines never told him about the game they were playing — not because they lacked the courage, but because they were desensitized to it.“They had seen it so many times, and the bond between NCOs and junior Marines prevented them from ratting each other out,” he told investigators.For some, this deployment was their first encounter with the game. But at least six Marines told investigators they’d heard about it or seen it played before. One said he’d heard of Trust during boot camp. Another first saw it played in Fallujah, Iraq, while deployed with 2nd Tanks in 2007. One said he learned of the game in 2006.A life cut shortMalone, of Ocala, Fla., was a martial arts fanatic. He aspired to become a school teacher and enrolled in college after high school, but watching his older sister graduate from boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., years earlier left a big impression on him, said his father, Damian Malone.Shortly after starting college, Malone broached the subject of enlisting with his parents. They asked him to finish school instead, fearing he would be sent to war. But Malone joined anyway in September 2007.A year later, he was in Iraq. Violence there had dropped considerably, though, and many Marines thought they were more likely to die of boredom than from enemy action.On March 9, Malone, still wearing his cammies, was sitting on his rack late that night, his back against a wall as he watched a movie. The hooch was well-lit when Nelson walked in.“I had my pistol in my hand, and the slide was back,” Nelson said. “And I don’t know if I put the magazine in first and then sent the slide home, or if I sent the slide home and then the magazine, I don’t remember. And I thought to myself ‘I know the weapon’s on safe,’ and I don’t know if I squeezed the trigger or what I did. I don’t remember. I had the weapon in my hand, though, and then next thing I know, I heard the shot go off, and I just ran over to him and I looked at him and he was shot. He got shot in the head.”Nelson, from Wayne, Mich., told investigators that he and Malone were not arguing at the time of the shooting, a statement corroborated by other Marines in the hut that night. He is confined in the Camp Lejeune brig, awaiting his court-martial.Three others — Sgt. Michael C. Singles, 27, from Lehigh, Pa.; Cpl. John L. McLellan, 22, from Lee, Fla.; and Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Spencer H. Hamer, 23, from Sandown, N.H. — were charged with reckless endangerment after the incident, but their alleged roles are unclear. The investigation report is heavily redacted, and Marine officials have declined to offer many details.In July, a military judge convicted McLellan on the reckless endangerment charge and sentenced him to two months in the brig and a reduction to lance corporal. Singles, who along with Hamer also faces dereliction of duty charges, is awaiting an Article 32 hearing. Hamer’s case will be heard at a special court-martial scheduled for the first week in September.Officials with II Marine Expeditionary Force could not provide more details about these cases.Closer to homeMalone’s unit had been back in North Carolina for only a few weeks when news spread that another Lejeune Marine allegedly shot and killed someone while playing Trust.Pvt. Michael Everett Smith, his wife, Courtney, and their roommate Bryan Thorkelson, were entertaining several friends at their two-story home on a quiet cul-de-sac about four miles from the base’s main gate on the evening of July 1. Smith, 21, who’d been busted to private from lance corporal five months earlier, allegedly grabbed a semiautomatic handgun being passed around among the guests gathered in his kitchen and pointed it at Thorkelson, police said. The weapon discharged, firing a round into Thorkelson’s head. He died a few hours later at Onslow County Memorial Hospital.Smith’s attorney, Phillip Harward, said police have accused his client of pulling the trigger after asking Thorkelson, “Do you trust me?” A retired Marine major and staff judge advocate, Harward said he was familiar with Trust from his time in the Corps but, like local investigators, declined to discuss the case further.“Does it happen?” Harward asked. “I believe that it probably happens more than we would like it to happen.”Smith, who remains in Onslow County Jail, was indicted Aug. 11 on second-degree murder charges. He faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted.An automotive mechanic with Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, at the time of the shooting, Smith served a tour in Iraq in 2008. The Corps has since separated him, but II MEF officials would not elaborate.His wife, reached by telephone, said he is “a good guy,” that she and her husband were close friends with Thorkelson, and that she could not discuss the case further.“My husband wouldn’t have wanted any of this to happen to any of his friends,” she said.‘Knock it off’Then why tempt fate? Marines familiar with Trust deride it as idiotic but argue the Corps is powerless to prevent it.A corporal, who asked that his name and unit not be identified, said he learned about the game last year when a Marine buddy showed him pictures of several Marines playing it in Iraq. Members of various units, the Marines in the pictures were tasked with conducting checkpoints somewhere along the Syrian border, he said.He described the images as showing four or five Marines playing with a 9mm inside a hooch similar to the one in which Malone was shot earlier this year. The corporal, who has deployed to Iraq, told his boasting friend that the game is stupid.But “you can’t control something on that level,” he added. “When you’ve got those small berthing areas, the staff NCOs don’t see what’s going on. There needs to be NCOs or a common-sense junior Marine around to say, ‘Knock it off.’ ”When asked about Trust, Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent, the Corps’ top enlisted adviser, emphasized the Corps’ no-nonsense weapons safety rules — stopping short, however, of acknowledging the game exists.“Marines,” he said, “are always trained that you treat any weapon as if it’s loaded, no matter what weapon you have, and that’s from Day One, when you step on the yellow footprints as a recruit.”Tragically, that lesson sometimes fails to sink in.After Malone’s death, when Tryon told his officers in Iraq to be mindful of Marines playing Trust, the general also instructed them to “redouble their efforts to instill a culture of weapons safety into all personnel.”“Although there is no evidence of similar behavior elsewhere in [theater], this tragedy underscores the need for constant vigilance against complacency and reckless behavior,” he wrote in his memo.Tryon also published a policy letter ordering that all negligent discharges be reported, and he directed the safety officer for Multinational Force-West to develop an all-hands comprehensive weapons handling and safety training presentation, according to the investigation. It’s unclear if that has taken place yet. Efforts to reach Tryon and obtain a copy of his policy letter were unsuccessful.Several weeks passed before Malone’s parents learned the circumstances of their son’s death. To their horror, the investigation revealed that Trust had been played on him at least once before within a month of the shooting. Malone’s father said Marines need to wake up and realize that guns aren’t for playing games.“My wife and I … we really want to … make sure this practice is stopped,” he said. “My son died because of this. You don’t ever point a gun at anybody unless you plan to use it.”