By The fall out from the February brawl at Itaewon’s King Club continues:
Despite an investigating officer’s recommendation that assault charges should be dropped, a Yongsan soldier is to be court-martialed this fall for his alleged role in a February street brawl marked by a stabbing and participants shouting gang slogans.
Sgt. Markease Joyner, of the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade, is charged with two specifications of assault and one specification of making false official statements in the Feb. 1 melee outside the King Club in Itaewon.
Charging documents allege that Joyner hit two soldiers — Spc. Michael Charles and Pvt. Matthew Bonham — with a bottle and his fist and also kicked Bonham, then lied to investigators about his role.
“I found most witnesses to be unreliable and I believe they will continue to be so if the command moves forward with a General Court-Martial,” investigating officer Maj. Matthew Reiter wrote in a report after the July 9 Article 32 hearing, similar to a pretrial hearing in civilian court. Reiter’s role as investigating officer was to examine facts in the case and make a neutral recommendation whether it should go to court-martial.
Reiter also recommended that Joyner be tried at a “much lower level” than a court-martial for allegedly making false official statements to an Army CID agent, including telling the agent he wasn’t involved in the fight and saw no one else get hit with a bottle.
In hearing testimony, Joyner said he was afraid to tell investigators what had happened because he thought he or his family might be targeted by gang members. A younger brother had been shot in the head outside the family’s Brooklyn home just days earlier in retaliation for agreeing to testify in a gang-related case in New York, according to testimony and Joyner’s civilian attorney, Michael Waddington. [Stars & Stripes]
Other soldiers have been convicted in the case while another was found not guilty of attempted murder. This King Club brawl is what led to USFK Command General Walter Sharp to implement the mandatory weekend training to address indiscipline issues within the ranks on the peninsula. This is looking more like a gang issue then an indiscipline issue to me.
10:32 am on September 6th, 2009 1
If you believe anything on the History Channel, you've got a serious gang problem in your military.
2:34 am on September 7th, 2009 2
We don't have to watch T.V. to know we have a gang problem in the ranks. That's what you get when you hire worthless, vermin of the earth, pond scum youth from the inner cities of what use to be the United States of America.
9:46 am on September 7th, 2009 3
Lemmy,
There isn't anything wrong with hiring "worthless, vermin of the earth, pond scum youth from the inner cities"…
…it's that the worthlessness, verminity and scumminess is allowed, and even encouraged, via "tolerance" and "diversity".
The military is one of the few institutions in a position to effectively socialize the counter-social… and it is to our country's benefit for the military to bring in a percentage of vermin with the hopes that education, training and a culture of personal discipline will integrate them to mainstream American culture… the effects of which can make their way back to the inner cities.
Of course this isn't being done.
10:34 am on September 7th, 2009 4
I believe the military is getting exactly what they are looking for in the recruitment adds and where they are placing their recruitment dollars.
10:37 am on September 7th, 2009 5
Wow- Are you me- or am I, you?
Exactly what I have been saying for years. Too bad no one is listening/applying it. We wouldn't want any of those poor dears to be OFFENDED and file an EO complaint!
3:58 pm on September 7th, 2009 6
Name me one war that was fought by middle-aged privileged men only. Fact is, kids, especially poor ones, have been the the backbone of every military force since the beginning of history.
I don't know how widespread it is, but the real problem is that, apparently, some gang members are joining specifically so they can learn certain things that can be useful to them as criminals. It's not a coincidence that some of the most successful gangs follow a military-like hierarchy. Clearly, people need to be better screened.
Just look at the problems we had in the Canadian military in the 90's. A few Canadians soldiers were arrested for torturing prisoners to death in Somalia…Someone up the ranks didn't seem to mind that they were associated to a neo-Nazi before sending them to Somalia.
5:23 pm on September 7th, 2009 7
In the Second Punic War the legions of the republic were mainly manned by the middle class on up (land owners, etc). Of course after the battle of Cannae, they began to loosen standards a bit.
/ok, you asked for one. Admittedly, you made your point.
6:21 pm on September 7th, 2009 8
Since you mentioned neo-Nazi, Stars and Stripes also ran a series of articles a couple months ago about neo-Nazi and extremist hate group elements in the military.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?article=63650
However, no serious reports yet of their association with crimes or violence in the military.
7:52 pm on September 7th, 2009 9
Funny- but the combat units I served in had a pretty fair mix of well to do, and not so well to do junior enlisted men. If you take a look at the demographics of the combat service support units (REMFs) versus the combat units- they don't match up, though.
When soldiers act like like sh1theads, it's usually because their leadership tolerates it. I don't blame the gang bang mo-fos for being turds- I blame their leadership for being spineless cowards who refuse to take a stand.
As for the dreaded neo-Nazis- , I have not been able to find where they hang out, congregate, and do their thing on base. Chances are, wherever they are, they are underground- not saying they aren't there, but they don't dare show their true colors, rebel flags, etc… The other gangs wear their colors publicly and live the gangsta dream on the government's time and dime.