Eval sought 4 times before Marine killed Iraqi
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Oct 4, 2007 8:22:44 EDT

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Lance Cpl. Jonathan A. Phillips’ fellow Marines all knew one thing: He should not be in combat.

His reaction to the deaths of four friends in the span of two weeks gave Phillips’ commanders enough concern to send him to a mental health expert. Then again. Then two more times.

But whatever the battle-hardened Marine was dealing with inside, his outward demeanor was of a man ready for duty. At least that’s the impression he gave the doctors. And to the chagrin of his fellow Marines — including his platoon commander, who personally contacted a psychiatrist at Camp Fallujah — he was sent back in.

“He didn’t need to be out there,” said Stephen Reagan, former 2nd Platoon squad leader with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. “I knew that. His buddies knew that.”

After Phillips killed an innocent Iraqi man, everyone else knew it.

Now, after pleading guilty to a crime that his friends and family believe could have been prevented, Phillips’ story stands as a cautionary tale for anyone who’s ever lied to get back into the fight, buried his feelings too deep or overlooked the pain of a co-worker in obvious need of help. Phillips pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and solicitation in a small Camp Lejeune, N.C., courtroom Sept. 21. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

After the guilty plea, his friends and fellow Marines took turns at the stand, telling a military judge how the man standing trial that day was not the same jovial leatherneck who deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2006.

“This kid could not sit down to save his life, and just look at him now,” said a teary-eyed Sgt. Patrick Lajuect. “He was just as pure as life could be. He had so much potential.”

Phillips wanted to become a squad leader, intent on learning from other Marines in that position. The goal was something Reagan believed Phillips had the potential to achieve.

All that changed Oct. 6. Second Platoon had suffered its first casualty just days before, when a friend of Phillips’ was killed by a sniper Sept. 24.

Just 12 days later, and shortly after the memorial service of the Marine killed by the sniper, Phillips’ squad was hit by a U-shaped ambush. A vehicle carrying four Marines and an interpreter was blasted by a roadside bomb.

The explosion instantly killed three Marines and the interpreter. A fourth Marine was inside burning alive. Phillips, said to be in a state of panic, and another lance corporal ran to the fiery vehicle to try to rescue the only surviving Marine.

After they pulled the Marine out, Phillips rode in the vehicle with the dead and wounded.

“As far as I’m concerned, he was just as much a casualty as the men in that truck were,” Reagan said.

The once-outgoing Marine became withdrawn. He wouldn’t eat. He talked to his weapon. He talked in his sleep. He wasn’t calling home like he used to. He hung a poncho from the rack above his to obstruct the view from his bed, a room of empty racks where his friends, now dead, once slumbered.

The changes concerned those around him.

Shortly after the Oct. 6 attack, Phillips was sent to Camp Fallujah for a psychiatric evaluation. Reagan said he was surprised when Phillips returned to his platoon, which was set up in a police station in Saqlawiyah.

Phillips was sent for psychiatric evaluations three more times before Jan. 20. He was evaluated in early December, shortly after witnessing another friend, his first squad leader, take a sniper’s bullet to the throat from the rooftop of the Iraqi police station. Each time, he was proclaimed fit for duty and returned to his unit.

Navy Lt. Douglas Pugliese was not one of the psychiatrists who assessed Phillips, but said he saw him in October and again in mid-December.

“He denied any ongoing symptoms of nightmares or other problems,” Pugliese said, adding that Phillips said he wanted to stay with his Marines.

He said that when someone is deemed fit for duty, it is a recommendation to commanders.

First Lt. Cameron Browne, Phillips’ platoon commander, said Phillips disagreed with the officer when he told Phillips he didn’t need to be in Saqlawiyah.

“He wanted to stay with the squad,” Browne said.

Phillips, a machine gunner, responded appropriately to small-arms attacks in the days and weeks after the Oct. 6 attack, providing suppressive fire, Marines testified.

Browne said he spoke to the battalion commanding officer, executive officer and company commander about Phillips. He said he directly contacted one of the psychiatrists Phillips had seen.

“No one expressed any interest, which really upset me,” he said. “We know from Day One, Oct. 6, that this Marine was a great Marine, but he was a casualty. We’re here because he was not taken care of at their level. We’re here because they dropped the ball.”

Then came Jan. 20. Phillips, after hearing small-arms fire, spotted an Iraqi policeman in a marked car and shot him in his chest. After the shooting, he asked a fellow Marine not to report him.

“I lost my cool, sir,” Phillips told the military judge.

The policeman, referred to only by his first name, Monthir, to protect the identity of his family, was married with two children. He was a dedicated policeman, often the only one to grab his weapon and head to a firefight at the station. Monthir, when he wasn’t tending to family needs, spent most of his time at the station with Marines and soldiers stationed there.

“This case is a tragedy,” said Maj. George Caldwalder, prosecuting attorney. “It’s about an innocent human being who was killed, who is dead. Monthir’s story ended on the 20th of January.”

His death rattled the relationship between the U.S. military and Iraqi policemen in Saqlawiyah. The policemen asked 2nd Platoon to leave. They did.

When Phillips was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression disorder after the shooting, it came as no surprise to those who knew and served alongside him.

“It was a bad case of ‘I told you so,’” Reagan said.

Charles Gittins, Phillips’ civilian attorney, said his client’s serious mental disease did not rise to a level of defense. But, Gittins said, doctors failed Phillips.

“We would not be sitting here but for that failure,” Gittins said.

At the end of his daylong court-martial, Phillips was sentenced by a military judge to three years’ confinement, reduction in rank to private, dishonorable discharge and total forfeiture of pay.

Because of a pretrial agreement, he will serve no more than two years in the brig and will not receive a punitive discharge, though what kind of discharge he will receive was not designated. The 38 days of pretrial confinement he served after returning from Iraq earlier this year will count toward any future time he might spend in the brig.

His confinement is deferred until the convening authority, Brig. Gen. David Berger, assistant commander for 2nd Marine Division, acts on the sentence.

Ellie