4 marines killed in Pendleton accident
Veritas Omnia Vincit and Pinto Nag send us links to the news that 4 Marines were killed in an accident involving unexploded ordinance at Camp Pendleton yesterday;
Lt. Ryan Finnegan, a base spokesman, said the accident came during regularly scheduled maintenance of the Zulu impact area, where artillery, mortar and aerial bombs strike during training exercises. Area Zulu is near the center of the sprawling, 125,000-acre base.
Camp spokesman Cpl. Michael Iams, says there were no additional wounded. NBC News reported that the accident involved the detonation of unexploded ordnance.
The names of the killed and the units they were assigned to were not immediately announced pending notification of family.
A reminder that “regularly scheduled maintenance” in the military is just as deadly as combat sometimes.
Category: Marine Corps, Military issues
RIP Marines.
All unexploded ordinance is lethal, even if it’s left over from WWII.
UXO scares me more than the stuff before it’s been fired/used/tossed. NO predictability in it.
This tragedy barely rates a mention on BIG MEDIA’s websites. One site features the story a Philly shooting, another of a cruise liner passenger who took an unscheduled swim, and so on. I guess now that Veterans Day is past, it’s back to business as usual. The Fox website is the exception. You don’t have to hunt for mention of the Marines’ deaths there. And some people wonder why Veterans tend to band together.
One of the reasons I’m not overly thrilled with my son’s desire to go into Explosive Ordnance Disposal when he joins the service in a year or so. :/
RIP Marines.
RIP Leathernecks.
I’m glad that places lie this will pick up the slack left by media outlets. Requesiat en Pace, Marines.
These stories are tough, we all understand training is dangerous for military operations. I do not believe that people outside the military understand that all, they don’t understand that people are seriously injured during basic training, during infantry training, during truck driver training, etc…every day and some of those injuries are fatal.
Everyone who takes on military service faces a level of risk, some jobs are deadly dangerous every day even during “peace” time…but as some have pointed out the media doesn’t understand or doesn’t much care and that’s obscene. The death of a gangbanger who never spent one day caring about anyone but himself makes the news but four Marines serving their nation and their countrymen don’t. Shame on those journalists who think that’s not important.
RIP, Marines! I caught this yesterday from FOX and minor blurbs in lame stream.
Rest in peace, brothers in arms.
Pendleton has UXO all over the place. I’m sure someone within the leadership will be disciplined over this.
And by the way…the media isn’t reporting on this because there’s no furlough to blame it on.
M72 rounds have an infamous rep at CAMPEN…legend is that they’ll go off if you give it a dirty look.
Here’s the rest of the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/marines-killed-calif-were-doing-dangerous-job-035402015.html
The last sentence says it all: “With unexploded ordnance, you can do everything right and stuff can still go sideways only because it’s all so unpredictable,” he said.
Sad. RIP, Marines.
One of my friends/”Brothers” indicates that they were EOD techs. I know our community is in mourning. “Regular Maintenance” of an impact area is not regular. We would always hope that the units supporting us in a range cleanup would be a field unit. Had a “Band” unit help once and that went to shit on the first day! They didn’t understand what explosive were and wanted to play grab ass while on line. I physically removed one of them and halted the sweep by mid morning, requested and received a field unit to replace them (Combat Engineer unit).
Jacobite- I spent 20+ years in the Army, half as EOD. If I had it to do over, all 20 would have been EOD! We are the best trained in our field as a soldier can be, just shy of one full year.
What happened is still unclear, but I can say from experience, ordnance that has been fired, crashed and burned into the earth, does not act in any normal fashion and will “come from together” whenever they damn well please.
Poobah – I don’t even think dirty about M72’s 66mm warhead, don’t particularly enjoy those little 40mm grenades either!
RIP Brothers!!
They announced the names today.
Staff Sgt. Mathew R. Marsh, 28, of Long Beach;
Sgt. Miguel Ortiz, 27, of Vista;
Gunnery Sgt. J. Mullins, 31, of Bayou L’Ourse, La.;
Staff Sgt. Eric W. Summers, 32, of Poplar Bluff, Mo.
http://www.myfoxla.com/story/23961933/marines-killed-at-camp-pendleton-were-doing-dangerous-job