3 Marines face charges of adultery, marrying for financial gain

[ChuckH]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/02/california.marines.fraud/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 <br />
<br />
(CNN) -- Three California Marines have been charged with marrying for financial gain, accused of manipulating the...

[Marine84]

WOW! That kinda ruffles my tail feathers.

[gkmoz]

Coming problems with DADT being abolished !
And this incident isn't even under DADT.
But if I recall correctly the libs on this site saying "things will go on just like before" FAIL !!!

[hbharrison]

And so it starts, what will be next??

[chulaivet1966]

Coming problems with DADT being abolished !
!!!

GOOOOOOD morning all....more mud is brewing here.

Given your comment above this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as I'm concerned.
Although there is nothing I'm more proud of being a part of and there is no camaraderie like that which we have as Marines I would not want to be in the Corps these days.

They even justify the behavior in the last two sentences.
I get ****ed off thinking about it all.

That's my take on it.....carry on....

[chulaivet1966]

And so it starts, what will be next??

Good question HBH, I feel sure I'll be agitated by it whatever it is.:)

Carry on...

[Old Marine]

GOOOOOOD morning all....more mud is brewing here.

Given your comment above this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as I'm concerned.
Although there is nothing I'm more proud of being a part of and there is no camaraderie like that which we have as Marines I would not want to be in the Corps these days.

They even justify the behavior in the last two sentences.
I get ****ed off thinking about it all.

That's my take on it.....carry on....

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Could not have expressed my feelings any better.

[chulaivet1966]

:thumbup:

Could not have expressed my feelings any better.

Brother OM....
After reading about this event I may have to upgrade from coffee to *coffee royals* this morning.
Belly up....I'm buying!:)

[Ed Palmer]

WOW! That kinda ruffles my tail feathers.

yeh like your feathers ain't ruffeled

[HST]

Can everyone see where this cluster **** is going? One of them is talking to CNN I can see the ACLU and every fag lover in fruit and nut land jumping in, followed by the gay federal judge that recently ruled against the same sex marriage ban which will be closely followed by the, gay/lez lovers in the administration and congress and right behind them, the Corps will quickly bail out.

[yanacek]

This is just going to be a case where the queers and queer lovers can claim they are being denied their rights to marry whatever they want. I'm sure the defense will be something like: "If the Marine Corps had allowed them to marry, they wouldn't have had to conspire to get the housing entitlements that traditionally married Marines are granted."

I'm sure the poser-in-chief will be one of the first to offer this as a defense.

[EGTSpec]

A sad commentary on the Marine Corps, and military in general. Next the Corps will have to allow fags to wear WM uniforms if they choose, and/or pay for sex change operations. I'm afraid the proud warrior personna of the Marine Corps Grunt is quickly fading. This touchy feelie, PC bullsh!t DADT repeal will turn the proudest branch of the armed forces into another Navy/Army/Air Farce "Village People" leaning sissified bunch of mambie pambie girlie boys.

[FaDeD]

They could have lived with me, i wouldn't have said anything... just saying

[micarr57]

so if i'd have married that wm so we could get baq and comrats that would have been ok?or would we got in trouble...good thing we both passed out

[SirRoundSound]

To be honest, I really don't even care about those Marines being homosexual. I'm more upset that they only went after them for being homosexual, and not for just defrauding the government out of BAH. Gay or not, nothing ****es me off more than when Marines marry for the sole purpose of collecting BAH, BAS, and just to get out of the barracks. It happens all the time, and I feel like it's one of the biggest, most unfair, most ignored problems in the Marine Corps today. What these Marines did was very wrong, yes, but I think it's high time the Marine Corps went after all the straight Marines who are getting married just to collect that extra money.

As a Lance Corporal living in the barracks, I take home just over $690 a paycheck, (I'll pause now for you salty old dogs to jump down to the quick reply so you can grumble about how back when you were a Lance in 1775, you only made $50 a month, uphill, both ways, in the snow, living in a squad bay made of plywood stuck together with chewed up MRE gum... moving on) which is about $1380 a month, give or take a few dollars. That's a lot more money than I would be making in any other job at my age with no skilled experience, but consider this:

If I were simply married, I would be given $1110 a month, tax free, to live off-base, and then another $330 a month, also tax-free. Add that to my $1380 to get $2820. Divide that total in half for two monthly paychecks, and it's $1410 a paycheck. $1410 a paycheck!!! A married Lance Corporal makes literally more in one paycheck than I do in an entire month of doing the same exact work under the same exact conditions. And I haven't even mentioned the intangible perks to being married, like not having to live with two other guys in a room the size of my kitchen back home, not having to field day, not being told I'm not allowed to have a hot plate, not having to field day, not having to deal with crappy food and service at the chow hall, not having to field day, being allowed to have as much beer and liquor as I want, not having to field day, having my own washer and dryer that actually work, and last but DEFINITELY not least, not having to field day.

And none of this is a secret. It boggles my mind to try and think of all of the Marines I personally know that went home on boot leave, snatched up the most willing gal they could find and plopped her in front of a judge to get a certificate of marriage printed off and that extra money rolling in.

Combine these tentative marriage conditions with unplanned pregnancies (do you really think someone dumb enough to get married on boot leave would be smart enough to wrap it up?), deployments, lack of life experience, and the overall nature of the beast we have come to call the Marine Corps, and you end up outright ****ed off that anyone is wondering why the divorce rate in the military is so high, or why the government spends so much on the defense budget.

What really bites about the whole thing is that of all these Marines who are getting married for the seemingly endless benefits the military readily hands over to them, I happen to be in a perfectly justified position to get married. I've been with the same girl for a little more than two years now, longer than a lot of married Marines have even known their wives, and we have a very happy relationship. We've never had any problems. We've both dated a lot of people, and we both feel like we share something very special and significant. We've even talked about what being married would be like a couple of times. Why don't I marry her? I feel like I'm too young. I'm only 20 and she's only 19, and I feel like I'm not old enough to make such a mature and important decision. That's the only reason. And everyone I talk to, especially my superiors, agree that by waiting to get married, I'm making a wise, mature, and responsible decision.

So how is my wisdom, maturity, and responsibility rewarded?

With field day, more barracks duty, longer work days, less pay, fewer benefits, blahblahblahblah. I even remember one time we were getting ready to PT after shift one day, and our Platoon Sergeant said straight-up, "If you're married and don't live in the barracks, you can go home." As if being married automatically means you have more important, grown-up things to do, and living in the barracks means that all you do all day is play Xbox and sip 40's; not go to college online or go to the gym to work out or anything like that. I could start a whole other thread listing all the ways married Marines are treated better.

And no one does anything to fix the problem. Hell, they don't even act like there is a problem. I mean, yeah, weeding out the Marines who are only married for the money and making it harder for Marines to stroll into IPAC with a marriage certificate and claim dependency benefits will take a whole heck of a lot more legislation and paper-pushing in Washington than this Marine wants to wrap his head around, but for a CO or First Sergeant to keep his Marines from going out in town and marrying the closest available meth-addict could be as easy as standing in front of the company on Thursday and saying "Hey, I know it's not really fair that LCpl Brownbagger got to go home to his filthy house to get sh*tfaced and smack his wife around, so I'm going to cut you guys a bit more slack. Also, I'll make sure the AC and the washers and dryers get fixed, and I'll see that all of the work requests for broken microwaves, fridges, and lights are seen to."

No, of course no one is going to do extra work just so the stupid barracks Marines don't make the decision that marrying a complete and total stranger is preferable to staying single and living in the damned barracks.

So the single Marine has two choices: Take a huge risk to their financial and emotional lives by getting married, or head over to the exchange, purche a straw, and suck it the hell up.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Good rant. Seriously. But this issue has been an issue (queer or not) since the 'marriage trend' of Marines began in the mid-1970's. Heck, your post could have come direct from the pages of "Leatherneck" mag in 1979....or Navy Times (no MC Times back then) circa 1988....or MC Times circa 1999. It's the time honored bivtch and one that, believe it or not, most SNCO's and Field grade officers happen to AGREE with.

But, officially, prohibiting marriage by LCpl's and below was actually contemplated in the early 1990's, and the hue/cry/rage/howls effectively shut it down and darned near ended a General's career who decided to speak frankly about it.

The thing is, all these policies about BAH/Comrats/whatever, are not set by HQMC....they are set down by DoD and sometimes, higher than that. Thus the USMC has little choice in how they are actually administered. You walk into Admin with a marriage cert, bingo/bango, it's a done deal and hardly any questions are asked. Been that way since at LEAST the 80's. Although, back then it wasn't uncommon for CO's to DENY marriage requests to LCpl's. It didn't mean much as they would then request mast and get approved but it did happen.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): The single Marine in the barracks will ALWAYS get hosed in some form or another. Just the way it is. The way to escape some of that is to make rank. The other way is to...get married. Stupid but true.

[SirRoundSound]

Well, it at least takes a little of the sting away to know that Marines marrying for the benefits isn't as recent a phenomenon as I had thought.

And I guess deep down I know that there's no way Marines will stop getting married on a whim. It doesn't take much time in service to recognize that Marines making stupid life choices is like a constant law of physics, and without it, the whole space-time continuum would be thrown out of balance. Or at least Jacksonville landlords would have a tougher time finding young Marines from whom to extort BAH.

I guess I'm at least satisfied that, in this case, justice was done to three Marines who knew that what they were doing was wrong.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

And many times....that's all you get out of it....watching someone else get the green weenie for trying to out green weenie the Corps. You'll eventually lose THAT game every time!

[Old Marine]

SirRoundSound:

Been that way since I became a Marine. There was a period when I was active that married non NCO's did have to participate in the weekly field day's. It's the nature of the beast.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Gunny, I remember that as well, having to come back to the barracks an supervise field day LOL. I didn't really have that much of an issue with that particular item, though, since it sort of falls under 'taking care of your troops', (so that some divkhead deck NCO or Police Sgt doesn't hose 'em).

[MOS4429]

Quite the rant, SRS. You make some valid points, and not to make light of it, some of what you said made me laugh.


It happens all the time, and I feel like it's one of the biggest, most unfair, most ignored problems in the Marine Corps today. (I'll pause now for you salty old dogs to jump down to the quick reply so you can grumble about how back when you were a Lance in 1775, you only made $50 a month, uphill, both ways, in the snow, living in a squad bay made of plywood stuck together with chewed up MRE gum... moving on)

...but last but not least not having to field day.

We've even talked about what being married would be like a couple of times. Why don't I marry her? I feel like I'm too young. I'm only 20 and she's only 19, and I feel like I'm not old enough to make such a mature and important decision.

And no one does anything to fix the problem.

So the single Marine has two choices:

In '85 I had a Sgt WM come to me to "confess" her dastardly deed. She married for convenience a Cpl in order to get the benefits (back then called BAQ, VHA, Comrats). There was nothing that could be done about it. It was a moral fraud because there was no love that existed and they did it to get money, and that was it. Quite frankly, in the case at hand, legally there is but one crime, and that is the two lesbians, one a Marine, living together. It will be interesting to see if the prosecutor can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a crime committed by the male Marines who married the lesbians. Not living together as a man and wife isn't a crime. I knew a number of married Marines in that situation. Adultry in the Marine Corps is a crime, yet rarely prosecuted - for obvious reasons.

But I hear your frustration. I was p****d at the WM and Cpl who made a mockery of marriage, but wasn't a thing I could do about it.

BTW, we did stick plywood together from chewed up MRE gum. We did it with gum and that crud they called fruit cake from sea rats! Didn't have MRE's till later around early 80s. :)

And on the field day, I know what you mean. Thursday night field days sucked, but I got news for you, when you do get married, I don't know that your sweet wife is gonna want to do all of your field days for ya!! :)

Too young at 20 and 19? Maybe. I got married at 20, and she was 19, but I was also an E-5, so yeah, I would say you are presently showing wisdom by waiting at least until you are an NCO. But barring that, once an NCO, can you apply for BAQ or whatever you call it and move off base? We could in the 70's and 80s, but things change and have no idea what the policy on that is today.

And you are right, nobody does anything to fix the problem, and that's probably cause nobody has come up with a solution yet that is doable. As you are learning the problem has been around for 30+ years.

Yeah, your choices are limited. Grin and bear it, move out, get rank and move out or get rank, married and move out. But just a word to the wise, getting married to move out means you will only inherit new challenges, and it will not resolve the problems you face. Crap, I was married in 81 and in 84 went to Oki unaccompanied and had to live in the barracks again and field day! :D

[Old Marine]

I believe that if you have living space in the barracks, then you should participate in the field day festivities on Thursday evenings.

Lance Cpl. Joe Sheet The Rag Man who is married doesn't tell you how he runs things around his quarters. I'm betting he runs the vac, swabs the floor, dusts off the pictures, laundry, dishes and maybe even does a little stew burning. You have to remember not a whole lot of these girls cook these days.