Raymond W. Begay sentenced for horseplay death
Mick and Reb sent us a link to the news that Private First Class Raymond W. Begay was sentenced to seven years in the brig for the death of his friend Private First Class Ethan Andrew Barclay-Weberpal;
The two Marines, part of Lima Company, were sitting in formation in the School of Infantry bleachers when the incident occurred. In his plea, Begay testified that he was sitting behind Barclay-Weberpal and was joking around while playing with a knife because he was bored.
“I reached around him and the knife sliced through his blouse and penetrated his skin,” Begay said. “(Pfc. Ethan Barclay-Weberpal) died as a result of my terrible actions.”
Begay told the court he and Barclay-Weberpal were “good friends” and met while in Reconnaissance Training Company. Later, both were dropped from the training company and placed at Lima Company awaiting new assignments.
“I applied the knife to his chest and applied pressure which resulted in the knife penetrating him,” Begay said.
Begay said he had purchased the knife just days before and did not realize how sharp it was.
“In the moment, I was simply intending to poke him,” he said. “I was simply trying to annoy him as a friend. I wasn’t trying to cause harm.”
If it happened the way that Begay describes, it was a tragedy.
Category: Marine Corps
WTF kind of knife was it?
“Penetrated the skin”…dont we usually call that a stab wound?
“the knife sliced”
Must have sliced pretty deep.
I joke around with my friends all the time. None of it involves pulling out a knife and stabbing each other.
We need knife control in this country like the Brits want to do. If it saves just one life it is worth it. Besides, everyone knows you don’t hunt with a knife.
I think we need to differentiate between regular knives, as the founding fathers intended, and assault knives, the likes of which they couldn’t even have imagined.
We need to differentiate regular knives from fully semi-automatic assault knives – the kind that pops out of high capacity magazines handles with clips….you know, the black scary looking knives the military uses…
We had a Marine BLT on board and in one of the troop compartments, one of the Marines was in his rack pushing his K-Bar or bayonet in and out of the above mattress with another Marine above him. I don’t think that there were any major injuries at the time.
I’ll admit that I have “mumbly peg” scars on my feet, but none in my chest.
I think the only time I saw the rules for mumbly peg was in “Boys Life” years ago. I asked my youngest uncle once, and he could quite remember—point in the dirt, secondary blade in the dirt, something, something else.
Automatic loss if you get a leaky sneaker.
Couldn’t beat those US KEDS sneakers with the canvas top. I played mumbly peg and it was a bitch when those legs started to spread out on the dirt, so stick to stoop ball and “asses” up chinese handball. nok hockey was ok also. Left out a few more NYC street games but all you over 70 know what I’m talking about if you were from NYC.
Couldn’t beat Keds or PF Flyers!
My dad always told me to play ‘mumbly peg’. For the longest time I thought he was jerking my chain
Sad, really sad.
Very sad.
Curious where the NCOIC was during all of this?
Extra messed up no matter how you look at it.
Sounds a lot like “…the gun just went off.” Hope he doesn’t get too bored in the Brig.
This kid’s story sounds like horseshit from here…
I still have many different knives that are razor sharp simply dragging them across my clothes might cut my clothes and my skin, but not to a depth profound enough to cause a mortal wound.
I’ve been stabbed, and I can assure you the individual doing so had to apply some pressure to get the knife in my arm…because I felt that pressure…the knife was indeed sharp but it didn’t just “slip” deep into my forearm leaving a three inch wound that still shows a scar today…
There’s no way you reach around someone and slice through their clothing and deep enough into their flesh to kill them without knowing you were using some force…even stabbing them requires some force regardless of how sharp the weapon is.
Maybe his friend was surprised and jolted when he suddenly realized the knife at his chest, effectively stabbing himself? Just spit-balling, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how or why it happened. But I don’t believe that he would have killed his buddy out in the open, if that was his true intention.
I guess that’s as good a guess as any….I was thinking the dipshit with the knife was fucking around and hit his buddy way too hard with that knife…I know if I’m gonna poke you that I’m not shoving my body weight behind the weapon…
Maybe it’s all a horrible accident, but it sure smells off to me somehow.
That’s what I would figure too. he flinched forward hard and was stabbed.
Absolutely stupid thing to do, but he’s going to pay for it.
“IF” he was truly his buddy!
100% agree. Most knives I own are sharp enough to shave with, and none could commit a fatal stab or slash without effort. This story smells.
To me, the excuse, “Didn’t know how sharp the knife was” is bull shit.
One never buys a knife without seeing how sharp it is.
Something was going on between the two as the fact that they were both relieved from training at the same time and the incident happened right after they were relieved…
Didn’t know… My ass…
This is why I do not like horseplay grabass with weapons. Some idiot stuck a knife deep enough in my ribs to stay when he let go after realizing what he did. I knew he was playing around, but I still got triggered and commenced to choke the shit out of him. He was turning purple when his Dad and some other folks pulled me off him. Oddly enough, I was considered the asshole in that evolution.
I wonder what the reason for being dropped from recon training was? Immature? Screws around too much? What type of person plays around like that with a knife? How do you stab someone to death while just “attempting to annoy” someone by “poking them” with a knife? Dude sounds like one of those dipshits that are all too common these days.
Tragic? Yes.
Utterly braindead move by Begay? Yes. No thought to the consequences of what he was doing.
How do idiots like that survive to adulthood?
Safety labels on everything.
Darwin misses some every now and then.
I believe it. In my company we had a knife incident as well where dumbass boots were playing with kbars resulting in a marine being seriously injuried and kicked out of the Corps because of it. Boots playing with knives is an issue.
Yep.
It’s fuggin’ stupid shit like this that happens that causes everyone else has to endure endless safety briefs and can’t have nice things.
How soon will the Corps mandate that all privately owned knives must be stored in the armory (or some other such nonsense).
^^^ (Add “?” to the end of that question)
“I applied the knife to his chest and applied pressure which resulted in the knife penetrating him,” Begay said.
Translation in plain English: “I stabbed him.”
Board troops do stupid things. Soldiers in the Infantry unit located with us in Afghanistan were in their tent tossing a M9 bayonet in the air and watching it stick in the ground. That is until it landed in the leg of one Soldier. M9 is a heavy knife. End state was one Soldier on charges and one evacuated to Landstuhl.
He was bored? That’s why you should have your soldiers manual with you. So that you can study during slow times. Now I would imagine they are now in digital format.
Sad, Tragic, Stupid, all of that.
Accident? Not enough information to access that.
This, THIS, was an accident with a sharp object.
(Not funny, but kind of, obviously the guy was probably alright. )
” …sitting in formation in the School of Infantry bleachers … playing with a knife because he was bored.”
The first thing the Army had us do, even before the paperwork, when we arrived at Basic training, still in civilian clothes, was turn in all knives. We were told that possession of private weapons was forbidden. Is the Marine Corps different?
As far as I am concerned, Begay got off lucky.
Once had two Commo buddies who were knife collectors. One was demonstrating to the other the proper technique for disarming a knife aggressor. Unfortunately his buddy was also demonstrating the technique for not losing your knife…sliced across all the tendons in his hand (pins in his hand for several months to heal the tendons so he could close any fingers).