Green Beret veteran learns about his false arrest record related to an Army investigation
The investigation related to the killing of Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar brought Sergeant First Class Jamie Morris’s name up. Others in the incident claimed that Morris approved of the hazing, but Morris said he provided no such approval. These claims of “hazing approval” were advanced in an effort to get leniency. Although Morris was not charged or tried for the death, the fact that the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) interviewed him finally caught up to him.
From Fox News:
The investigation was kept quiet for months. Finally, in November 2018, Matthews, DeDolph, Madera-Rodriguez and Maxwell were charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, hazing, obstruction of justice and more.
Morris was not implicated in the case until May 2019 when Matthews pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit assault, unlawful entry, obstruction of justice and violating a general order by committing hazing.
Matthews testified that he told DeDolph to get approval for the hazing. He said DeDolph woke Morris up and that Morris gave permission before going back to sleep, The Washington Post reported. Morris said that never happened, and the Post noted that the allegation against Morris had not appeared in hundreds of pages of court filings before that point.
“Anybody with half a brain” could see that Matthews was making a last-ditch attempt to save his own skin, Addicott said. “Not all liars are murderers, but all murderers are liars,” the retired Army lieutenant colonel and judge advocate added.
During his own plea deal, DeDolph denied asking Morris for permission for the hazing and said Morris had no involvement in the incident, Addicott said. DeDolph’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, declined to comment on Morris’ situation directly since his own client is awaiting resentencing after a military appeals court found prosecutors failed to disclose that Matthews, who testified against DeDolph, asked for clemency in exchange for his testimony.
“Logan Melgar’s death was an unfortunate tragedy, but the efforts by prosecutors to inflate that tragedy and add additional fabricated ‘facts’ do not bring justice, they only compound the tragedy,” Parlatore told Fox News in an email.
Later, Marine Staff Sgt. Kevin Maxwell repeated the allegation that the men asked Morris for permission and received it. But his story differed from Matthews’ in that he said the men planned to record Melgar being sexually assaulted too.
Maxwell pleaded guilty to numerous charges including negligent homicide, conspiracy to commit assault and hazing. But he was never charged with anything related to sexual assault.
The plea deal allegations finally signaled to Morris that he had something to worry about, but he had no idea how serious it was. Two years after Melgar’s death, the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) finally asked Morris to come in for questioning.
Agents fingerprinted him, took a DNA swab from his cheek and took his photo.
“Is this a mug shot?” Morris recalled asking, mostly joking.
“No, this is not a mug shot. This is just part of the process,” he said the agent responded.
That was the last he heard about it for the next two years.
Fox News provides additional details here.
Category: Army, Army News, Marines, Military issues, Navy
Aahhh hazing. Done publicly in our company day room as a SGT. Encouraged as a LT. Done with a time and place as a CPT:(“NCOs and former NCOs (that’s me) standby” (to pin new stripes)). Ignored as a MAJ until my former unit caused internal injuries through stupidity when promoting a kid. No longer tolerated as an LTC: (“your only involvement with hazing better be on the right side of it, that is preventing it, or I’ve got something for you.”). No longer around troops as a COL (but laugh and tell stories about hazing in the 80s, when it was acceptable…)
Not so much as hazing than more likely “we don’t like the new guy and will never accept him” mentality. Hack has been in plenty of units where there was a Marine who did not want to socialize with the majority. Never thought of assaulting them to include sodomizing them. And the incredible fact is that these were all in the SNCO pay grade, not some idiot E-2 who didn’t think the new guy was “Marine” (substitute Army or Navy as applicable) enough to meet his “standards.
Hack I want the truth. Did you order the Code Red?
No, but Hack did order the Johnny Walker Red.
“You can’t handle the truth”!
I feel like I’m entitled, I eat my breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 South Americans who are trying to take over my country.
Did you order the Code Red?
Haha, great retort! It seem that we could rewrite the movie line.
Has anybody crossed the line? Proud Shellback!!!
We drove Humvees thru the surf zone, equator in Somalia?
I have!
Shellbacks assemble!
I spent the summer of ‘93 below the equator in Kismayyu
Good times! 41st ENGRs
209th Signal. Had a TACSAT rig on the pier.
The pier with a city’s worth of poooooo under it?
That’s the one!
Sick call for a year to clean up the mystery crude on me. Serice connected,
I don’t know for sure if any of my service connected maladies are related to Somalia. I did develop a love for Belgian beer.
Near Singapore in 1987.
Shellback, Blue nose and Golden Dragon. Nothing for the dragon… hosed down with Arctic seawater and forced to crawl through trash for the Blue Nose, among other things… same for the shellback but they also forced me to eat out of a dog dish on my hands and knees all day in the officers mess while getting hosed down by Tabasco, mustard, ketchup and soy sauce before being ordered to drink a cocktail made from those condiments plus some more nasty shit.
Wouldn’t trade the memories for anything.
The classic 1993 USMC blood wing investigation.
nQx-f7HbhXw
When I was lower enlisted, I watched the current Sergeant Major of the Army come to my unit and blood pin a new E-7 in my unit. It wasn’t a significant damage kind of thing, it was done with one smack each side and over.
Then you have stupid fucks like this guy: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2012/09/01/mi-soldier-collapses-after-army-hazing.wwmt
With ten years of service, four in Special Forces units, I never saw anything this stupid and potentially deadly. The training NCO’s back in the 60’s and 70’s at Ranger School would have been reluctant to do anything like this. Even that “blood wings” nonsense was only inflicted with a low velocity punch or slap. Of course, stuff happens in the barracks that I wasn’t privy to since I was an officer. But even some treatment of us “shitbirds” as Ranger students, if you could call it hazing, never sent anyone to the hospital.
Jeez! You mean on top of the lack of sleep, food, rest, and the bitter cold of Dahlonega and the pleasures of the Florida swamps somebody thought some hazing would be a good idea?
“pleasures of the Florida swamps”
Now that brought a smile to my face.
I lovingly remember trying to get an hour of sleep in a prone shelter dug in the damp sandy soil, in January. Or, finding ice in the cleats of my jungle boots on one night movement. And let’s not forget the night river crossings with a one rope bridge, dragging your rucksack along with your sling rope, in that 45-degree river water.
Last actual such stuff I even heard about was a dude getting an emblem stuck in his collarbone because of alcohol and/or lack of skill in the execution. (Germany in the late ’90s.) After that, nada.
Yeah, this is reminiscent of why hazing is now a crime. Turn the stupid dial to 11 and let the idiots go wild!
I am not a fan of hazing, but I understand why most of it originated. I was in a fraternity, and in charge of the pledges at one point… about the time the laws came in to effect. I joined the Army later and saw it all again, but someone at least was teaching Risk Analysis to those executing it.
For most, the point of hazing is to create a ritual to acknowledge a unique situation. It becomes hazing when that knowledge is lost and the point of ritual is now to humiliate or cause injury. Usually because it was done to them, so they are going to make sure its worse!
The idiot, who was a 1SG, probably inherited the mallet but failed to listen about not actually hitting someone with it. A Doctor would inform you that this could potentially induce a Heart Arrhythmia (aka heart attack) and kill the individual, at the least break ribs. On the Risk Analysis this would require a GO signature to execute!
C(an’t)I(vestigate)D(oodly). Teh stoopid got a highly trained Service Member killed and lies got a highly trained Service Member screwed. Disgusting.
Maybe stupid, but in my day, some of the hazing was a right of passage and meant that you were finally accepted as part of the group/team/etc.
I remember having my SGT stripes “pounded-in” till I couldn’t lift my arms the next day.
I look back fondly as being a part of the tradition.
There are a few schools of thought on what’s now called hazing. There’s the macho Alpha Male, “gotta get blood pinned, hit me harder!” sort, the lighter “let me feel it a little” or just plain careless type, and the “oh hell no” Troop. I was always in between the latter two. Having joined as a father of two nearing my mid-20s, I never had a reason to “prove myself” to those in my unit. It helped that, besides my age and relative maturity I: a) earned the CIB as my first badge and b) never went to any super cool schools.
For obvious reasons, our CIB pinning ceremony in Iraq was fairly tame. A Battalion Commander and CSM pinning badges on a bunch of bedraggled Infantrymen probably thought it wise not to risk creating open sores or unnecessarily inflicting pain on a bunch of guys who were using slit trenches and showered with water cans. My next badge was Air Assault, which my Team and Squad Leaders ground in a bit but didn’t go overboard. When I earned my EIB later that year, CSM Wimbrough (TOG RSM) pinned it gently on my BDU pocket flap below my CIB, just like I was Cadre myself. Naturally, the TRADOC schools had no place for any blood pinning ritual. For some odd reason, new Recruits aren’t smacked with their DD 4/1 contract at MEPS, nor are Drill Sergeants permitted to pound in those coveted crossed rifles.
If someone really feels that going through the process of hazing or blood pinning makes you a more complete Soldier, Marine, or other Service Member, good on them. I met the criteria, passed the necessary phases and tests required to earn my few badges, and wore them every bit as proudly as those I knew who spent days or weeks recovering from bruises and puncture wounds.
I’t was no more, no less. Hazing was term pinned on it 20-years later.
At the time I went through it- it was a fun ritual, that everyone wanted to be a part of.
You guys all missed the most important part of the story.
Jamie Morris returned to civilian life and applied for a concealed carry permit.
This military investigation “titled “ his file.
This titling appears in your background check as an arrest.
Jamie Morris, who was never arrested, is now unable to get a concealed carry permit because of this military investigation where he was never arrested or even charged with a crime.
Does anybody here know if it is possible to appeal or remove this title?
See story on how long it took those guys who were just recruiting people into the Army to get their lives back! Link in the story.
Short answer NO. Until somone in congress gets titled, it probably won’t happen. Maybe someone needs to implicate Lindsay Graham on misrepresenting his flying hours while on Reserve duty and see how quickly it gets fixed!