Marine out on the town for a night of appendage flattening
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washingington Post which tells the tale of Marine Korey Nathan Pritchett who is assigned to the security detail at the US embassy in Montenegro, but detailed to The Hague during the president’s visit there last week. I guess being out of Montenegro kind of excited the young Marine;
According to witnesses interviewed by The Post, Pritchett and two colleagues began drinking at Club 19 in Noordwijk just after 12 a.m. on March 22, less than 48 hours before Obama was scheduled to arrive in the area. The trio said they were partying before reporting for duty for the summit and became progressively more intoxicated, patrons and a bartender said.
The bartender confirmed that the man in a photo taken that night was one of the Americans who had been at the club early March 22. He had talked about being a “bullet catcher” who was supposed to protect the president and described his team’s work as counter-assault.
“He said something happens, a bullet comes, he has to jump in between,” said Vasco Miguel Dos Santos, a local who had smartphone pictures from that night and said he drank with Pritchett.
He said the Marine was intoxicated but likable and entertaining with his stories. He lifted his shirt in the bar to show everyone tattoos that commemorated his tour in Afghanistan, Dos Santos said.
“I watch American movies, I know how they are,” he said. “American people are always showing off.”
Of course, this incident comes on the heels of the Secret Service agents who were sent back from the Netherlands for their intoxication and bad behavior. I guess the Marines are most upset that he was showing his CAC card to everyone and it was getting passed around the bar.
I’m old enough to remember a young airman who was killed for his ID card in the mid-80s which enabled actual terrorists to drive a car bomb into the parking lot at the Rhein Main Air Force Base PX in Germany. They detonated the bomb, but no one was injured, well except the young airman. I guess they don’t teach those lessons anymore.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
After TDY last year, I know for a fact, the Embassy Marines watch AFN. I can think of at least three different AFN commercials currently running that this kid obviously ignored.
I guess they don’t teach those lessons anymore.
Don’t forget the case of Petty Officer Stethem, singled out, beaten, murdered, and his body dumped on a runway in Beirut.
Or how many places we were “advised” not to go out in distinctive (read: identifying as military) clothing, owing to the folks who would love nothing better than to target US service members.
Everyone, altogether now:
PLAY STUPID GAMES, WIN STUPID PRIZES.
This is where it starts.
Just saying.
I can’t get there from here. Were it not for the Secret Service’s ongoing issue with drunken agents and prostitutes, this story isn’t a story at all. “Passing around” his ID means what. It could mean that he pulled it out and gave it to one or two people to see. Hell, young Marines look exactly like what? Young Marines. Put them out of the states and they look like what? Young American Marines. If someone wanted to snatch his ID there are a million and one ways it could be done once he’s made as a Marine. Whether being out druking and having pretty girls sit on your lap is not something any Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman ever should do! [Insert BRIDGE FOR SALE sign here.]
But alcohol and cute women will loosen more tongues than pliers and a blowtorch.
It amazed me on my first Westpac, the time we pulled into the PI for a perstrans (personnel transfer), and the stevedores knew EVERY port we were hitting the rest of Westpac. Including the EXACT dates of arrival and departure, and damned if they weren’t right.
This is on a command where ship’s movements are supposed to have been classified SECRET (or above.)
If this kid starts bragging, that’s one thing, but it’s a very fine line between impressing local females and giving the bad guys means and methods.
Bingo.
LOL! Yep Sparky, it was funny at the time but when we got to P.I., they had a banner in front of the Buzzard by the Bay “Welcome USS Tautog Sailors!”
2/17 Air Cav I agree with you. Young Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen will be just that…young and dumb. I just have to add four words though…common sense and decorum. They can save your life overseas. I say that only remembering lives lost for the price of an ID card.
I’m with the kid until he starts passing his ID around. Sounds like a normal evening for a young Marine. This is the type of thing that an NCO would normally handle–with prejudice–but since the media is involved it will destroy his career.
OPSEC!
It was drilled and drilled and drilled into us repeatedly while I was in. In fact, myself and two other platoon-mates were called to the carpet (both 1Sgt and CO) for discussing our upcoming platoon field-training week while we were eating lunch at the bowling alley at Kelley Barracks. Reason? Because we were in a “public” area and German Nationals that worked on Kelley also ate there from time to time.
You just never know who is listening to your conversation.
Follow up: We weren’t even discussing when, where, how, who … we were discussing what option gear (toys) we would be bringing. Like would the platoon sergeant let us do some time rappelling? Would we need our gloves, ropes, and caribiners, etc, etc.
optional*
Young troops and alcohol are usually a bad combination when discipline and good order are needed. That a mistake was made is obvious. I hope his night on the town was worth it, because he just lost his job and probably his career because of it.
Cameras and douchebaggery–a BAD combination. And it will likely haunt him after he leaves the service as well.
“Hey, weren’t you the guy who…? Yes, well, have a nice day, we’ll be in touch. Or not.”
My question is were they briefed before departing TDY? If they were, then it is on them. If they were not, then let’s look at their chain of command. There are certain protocols associated with the type of TDY they were on and already being assigned to embassy duty they should have known them. Having said that, I met several English speaking local babes in Belarus who hung out and partied the embassy marines. Boys will be boys and all of our key information will be known by the other side.
You remembered the Rhine Main incident incorrectly. Two were killed in the explosion, an airman and a dependent. More were injured. As well as the one murdered for his ID. He was picked up in a bar I used to frequent in Weisbaden. But I was there a couple years later.
I don’t think whether he was briefed before going TDY has much bearing on the matter, Club Manager. This is something covered during his annual OPSEC, USMC equivalent of SAEDA, and AT/FP briefings/training. Looks to me like someone was NOT paying attention during those – or forgot what he’d learned after about 3 drinks.
Hammer, manhood, whack. Self inflicted, repeatedly and with high impact.
From the article:
Pritchett’s two colleagues left Club 19 for their hotel before 3 a.m., saying they could drink no more, said the bartender, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the customers. The Marine then went to an after-party that a Dutch woman he met in the bar invited him to, the bartender and the club’s owner said.
1. You idiots left him ALONE in a BAR in a FOREIGN COUNTRY? Stand by to be eaten by the Sergeant Major at the very least.
2. This pinhead went to an after party with a foreign national? Son, at any point in your career did you receive a briefing about why we don’t do that?
So much stupid in so little time.
No shit….. When traveling TDY throught eastern Europe, my unit was ALWAYS on the two-man-minimum rule, and we didn’t advertise our military affiliation. (But apparently the Canadian National Badminton Team really gets around….)
And no-one ever, EVER, got left alone. E. V. E. R. Even if you had to sleep on a couch (or floor) while your wingman got his game on. Paybacks got sorted after-the-fact.
And we were just aircraft wrench-monkeys.
Life was soooo much easier in the olden days when we just kept our mouths shut, didn’t drink off post/base, had limited to no contact with foreign nationals and simply never discussed anything with folks without a need to know. Well, at least those were the rules for anyone with almost any sort of clearance, and certainly everyone who was had much operational knowledge of, well, just about anything.
Yeah, I’m VERY old school on such matters. If you had knowledge of sensitive stuff you just didn’t put yourself in a position of being slipped something which would loosen your tongue much less do it voluntarily.
Ummmm…. I’d hazard that was honored more in the breach than not.
Or we were in very different militaries….
Don’t forget the Marine who sent his clothes home to his family before Operation Eagle Claw saying he wouldn’t be needing them anymore. He was later killed in the desert crash. A BIG OPSEC violation.
There is a reason why CERTAIN unit(s) are known as the “Quiet Professionals.”
Jonn, I recall that incident in Germany well. Different times… not really, but wonder why Soldiers/Marines/Sailors/Airmen act like it is.
Young and stupid. I am seeing a tour of security at Adake Alaska or Johnson Atoll in his future. Showing off and trying to get laid can and does get ya killed.
Actually, Johnston Atoll wasn’t an entirely bad place to be before we shut it down….
I happen to be a close friend of this marine… what he did was a stupid drunken mistake and is heartbreaking especially since his name and face are now plastered all over the news as the one marine who got caught doing something so many have done… and not a news story telling of the people he has protected and the training he went through and his time in Japan or of his son who is an amazing little boy. The tabloids should all be ashamed for taking one mistake by an American hero and making it worse on him now than it already was. Jesus said let he who is without sin cast the first stone…. yet this is the 4th article blasting Korey…. I am disgusted and literally heartbroken
Rachel Levine · Pre-k Teacher’s Aide at St Andrews CDC
I happen to be a close friend of this marine… what he did was a stupid drunken mistake and is heartbreaking especially since his name and face are now plastered all over the news as the one marine who got caught doing something so many have done… and not a news story telling of the people he has protected and the training he went through and his time in Japan or of his son who is an amazing little boy. The tabloids should all be ashamed for taking one mistake by an American hero and making it worse on him now than it already was. Jesus said let he who is without sin cast the first stone…. yet this is the 4th article blasting Korey…. I am disgusted and literally heartbroken