Shaffer
03-17-03, 10:59 AM
CAMP RIPPER, KUWAIT—Pfc. James R. Dillon, Jr., of Grove City, Pa., gave his Marine buddies his usual warm smile as he excused himself to enter one of the portable toilets that dot this dusty desert encampment some 30 miles from Iraq’s southern border. He then locked the door, put the muzzle of his M-16 rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Dillon ended his young life on March 13, four days after laughingly celebrating his 19th birthday with his buddies in B Company’s headquarters platoon within the 3rd Battalion of the Light Armor Reconnaissance outfit here. Officers here say he is the first suicide among the 20,000 or so Marines who started spreading themselves out on the Kuwaiti desert in January, but records here are too minimal to be certain of that.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/031603gw1.htm
Dillon ended his young life on March 13, four days after laughingly celebrating his 19th birthday with his buddies in B Company’s headquarters platoon within the 3rd Battalion of the Light Armor Reconnaissance outfit here. Officers here say he is the first suicide among the 20,000 or so Marines who started spreading themselves out on the Kuwaiti desert in January, but records here are too minimal to be certain of that.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/031603gw1.htm