thedrifter
02-03-08, 09:24 AM
Perception and the Marines
The shooting death last week of Hilltown resident Darius Hill is loaded with unanswered questions, and it raises a few of my own.
Hill died in a bedroom at his family's house on Callowhill Road shortly after FBI agents and police showed up to serve a federal search warrant. Hill, described as a likeable family man who worked as a contractor, was shot six times. Authorities said one wound was self-inflicted. The search warrant was related to an investigation into the distribution of Internet child pornography, something that those close to Hill deem unbelievable.
News accounts of Hill's death also prominently mentioned that the 39-year-old graduate of Pennridge High School was a former U.S. Marine.
As a former Marine myself, maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it seems that media reports of Marines or former Marines who run afoul of the law almost always mention that fact, if not in the headline, then fairly high up in the story. The impression is that nobody cares much about the military affiliation of the average guy who gets into trouble, but when it involves a Marine, interest apparently is keen.
It causes me to wonder if there is something about Marines that causes them to be more anti-social and likely to get into trouble than non-Marines. My experiences in the Corps and with the friends I made there and still have don't support that.
Or is it merely a matter of perception?
Yet, there have been several high-profile criminal cases involving Marines or Marine veterans.
Right now a manhunt is under way for Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, the prime suspect in the death of pregnant fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in North Carolina.
Much was made of the fact that JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had served in the Marines, as had Charles Whitman, who shot and killed 14 people and wounded 31 others at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966.
Those are just a few.
But it should be mentioned that, as a Marine, Oswald was court-martialled twice for a firearms offense and for starting a fight with a noncommissioned officer. He was demoted to private and later was given an “undesirable” discharge.
Whitman, too, was court-martialled for gambling and a firearms violation. He was sentenced to 30 days of confinement and 90 days of hard labor and was demoted to private. However, he received an honorable discharge.
Oswald and Whitman obviously were not model Marines.
Neither, apparently, was Darius Hill.
Although he saw combat as a sergeant with a tank unit in the liberation of Kuwait during the first Gulf war in 1991, he later would get in serious trouble with the Marine Corps.
Hill was court-martialled in 1997 for stealing a military tractor and was court-martialled a second time in 1998 for theft of military property, including ammunition and machine gun parts. He was demoted to private, sentenced to four years in a military prison and given a dishonorable discharge.
Marines have a reputation as an elite fighting force, and their successes in battle are legendary.
There might be many things that attract certain individuals to the Marine Corps and which set its members apart. One of them might be a higher than average tolerance for risk-taking, and psychologists have linked risk-taking with some forms of criminal behavior.
Yet, any suggestion that Marines as a whole are any more prone to criminal behavior than anyone else just isn't supported by the facts.
If anything, there is significant evidence that Marines, and indeed all military veterans, are less likely to be criminals than non-veterans.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, citing figures from 2004, “veterans were half as likely as non-veterans to be in prison (630 prisoners per 100,000 veterans, compared to 1,390 prisoners per 100,000 non-veterans).
Broken down by branch of service, of 127,000 veterans held in state prisons in 2004, 56 percent had served in the Army, 22 percent in the Navy, 14 percent in the Marines, 9 percent in the Air Force and 2 percent classified as “other,” including the Coast Guard and reservists without active duty service. (The total is more than 100 percent because some veterans served in more than one branch.)
The high percentage of Army veterans might be due simply to the fact that the Army is the largest of the four military services, while the Marine Corps is the smallest.
Still, the evidence strongly suggests that, rather than being more prone to anti-social behavior, Marines are less likely than non-veterans and slightly less likely than fellow veterans to end up behind bars.
Then why do bad Marines seem to be singled out for their misdeeds more than other branches of the military?
It might simply be that Marines are victims of their own vaunted fame. Theirs is a warrior culture that embraces the values of honor, courage and commitment.
When one of their numbers violates those values, we notice and react with a kind of shock, much as we do when a clergyman commits a crime.
So ultimately it's a perception, rather than a fact, that Marines are more prone to criminality than anyone else.
Lou Sessinger is a columnist with The Intelligencer and phillyBurbs.com. He can be contacted at (215) 957-8172 or lsessinger@phillyBurbs.com.
Ellie
The shooting death last week of Hilltown resident Darius Hill is loaded with unanswered questions, and it raises a few of my own.
Hill died in a bedroom at his family's house on Callowhill Road shortly after FBI agents and police showed up to serve a federal search warrant. Hill, described as a likeable family man who worked as a contractor, was shot six times. Authorities said one wound was self-inflicted. The search warrant was related to an investigation into the distribution of Internet child pornography, something that those close to Hill deem unbelievable.
News accounts of Hill's death also prominently mentioned that the 39-year-old graduate of Pennridge High School was a former U.S. Marine.
As a former Marine myself, maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it seems that media reports of Marines or former Marines who run afoul of the law almost always mention that fact, if not in the headline, then fairly high up in the story. The impression is that nobody cares much about the military affiliation of the average guy who gets into trouble, but when it involves a Marine, interest apparently is keen.
It causes me to wonder if there is something about Marines that causes them to be more anti-social and likely to get into trouble than non-Marines. My experiences in the Corps and with the friends I made there and still have don't support that.
Or is it merely a matter of perception?
Yet, there have been several high-profile criminal cases involving Marines or Marine veterans.
Right now a manhunt is under way for Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, the prime suspect in the death of pregnant fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in North Carolina.
Much was made of the fact that JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had served in the Marines, as had Charles Whitman, who shot and killed 14 people and wounded 31 others at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966.
Those are just a few.
But it should be mentioned that, as a Marine, Oswald was court-martialled twice for a firearms offense and for starting a fight with a noncommissioned officer. He was demoted to private and later was given an “undesirable” discharge.
Whitman, too, was court-martialled for gambling and a firearms violation. He was sentenced to 30 days of confinement and 90 days of hard labor and was demoted to private. However, he received an honorable discharge.
Oswald and Whitman obviously were not model Marines.
Neither, apparently, was Darius Hill.
Although he saw combat as a sergeant with a tank unit in the liberation of Kuwait during the first Gulf war in 1991, he later would get in serious trouble with the Marine Corps.
Hill was court-martialled in 1997 for stealing a military tractor and was court-martialled a second time in 1998 for theft of military property, including ammunition and machine gun parts. He was demoted to private, sentenced to four years in a military prison and given a dishonorable discharge.
Marines have a reputation as an elite fighting force, and their successes in battle are legendary.
There might be many things that attract certain individuals to the Marine Corps and which set its members apart. One of them might be a higher than average tolerance for risk-taking, and psychologists have linked risk-taking with some forms of criminal behavior.
Yet, any suggestion that Marines as a whole are any more prone to criminal behavior than anyone else just isn't supported by the facts.
If anything, there is significant evidence that Marines, and indeed all military veterans, are less likely to be criminals than non-veterans.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, citing figures from 2004, “veterans were half as likely as non-veterans to be in prison (630 prisoners per 100,000 veterans, compared to 1,390 prisoners per 100,000 non-veterans).
Broken down by branch of service, of 127,000 veterans held in state prisons in 2004, 56 percent had served in the Army, 22 percent in the Navy, 14 percent in the Marines, 9 percent in the Air Force and 2 percent classified as “other,” including the Coast Guard and reservists without active duty service. (The total is more than 100 percent because some veterans served in more than one branch.)
The high percentage of Army veterans might be due simply to the fact that the Army is the largest of the four military services, while the Marine Corps is the smallest.
Still, the evidence strongly suggests that, rather than being more prone to anti-social behavior, Marines are less likely than non-veterans and slightly less likely than fellow veterans to end up behind bars.
Then why do bad Marines seem to be singled out for their misdeeds more than other branches of the military?
It might simply be that Marines are victims of their own vaunted fame. Theirs is a warrior culture that embraces the values of honor, courage and commitment.
When one of their numbers violates those values, we notice and react with a kind of shock, much as we do when a clergyman commits a crime.
So ultimately it's a perception, rather than a fact, that Marines are more prone to criminality than anyone else.
Lou Sessinger is a columnist with The Intelligencer and phillyBurbs.com. He can be contacted at (215) 957-8172 or lsessinger@phillyBurbs.com.
Ellie