• The Guadalcanal campaign during World War II was one of the more savage battles in the Pacific theater.
• Between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943, tens of thousands of US Marines and soldiers gave their lives in a brutal fight against elite Japanese troops
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Guadalcanal campaign began August 7, 1942 and lasted until February of 1943. During those seven months, 60,000 US Marines and soldiers killed about 20,000 of the 31,000 Japanese troops on the island.

The main objective of the fighting was a tiny airstrip that the Japanese were building at the western end of Guadalcanal, a speck of land in the Solomon Islands. The airstrip, later named Henderson Field, would become an important launching point for Allied air attacks during the Pacific island hopping campaign.

Now check out these 7 interesting facts you didn't know about the battle.

SEE ALSO: Here's how the US pulled off a daring mission to take out the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor

1. Every branch of the US military fought in the battle

The Air Force didn't yet exist, but the Army, Coast Guard, Navy, and Marines all fought in the battle.

The Army provided infantry to assist the Marines in the landings and sent planes and pilots to operate out of Henderson Field. The Navy provided most logistics, shore bombardments, and aviation support. The Marines did much of the heavy lifting on the island itself, capturing and holding the ground while their aviators provided additional support.

2. The only Coast Guard Medal of Honor ever bestowed was for service at Guadalcanal

Signalman First Class Douglas Munro was one of the Coast Guardsmen operating landing craft for the Marines. After the initial invasion, the US controlled the westernmost part of the island and the Japanese controlled the rest. A river ran between the two camps and neither force could get a foothold on the other side.

Then-Lt. Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller ordered a force to move through the ocean and land east of the river. The Marines encountered little resistance at first but were then ambushed by the Japanese. Munro led a group of unarmored landing craft to pick up the Marines while under heavy fire from Japanese machine guns. Just as they were escaping the kill zone, Munro was shot through the head.

3. Guadalcanal was a "who's who" of Marine legends in World War II

In addition to Chesty Puller, many Marine legends were at the island. Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone earned his Medal of Honor there. Master Gunnery Sgt. Leland Diamond drove off a Japanese cruiser with a mortar. Brig. Gen. Joe Foss earned a Medal of Honor and became a fighter Ace after downing 26 enemy aircraft around the island.

4. Guadalcanal was viciously fought at sea, in the air, and on land

Most battles are at least primarily fought in one domain. A ground battle is backed up by air power, or an air engagement has some defense from ships — but Guadalcanal was total war.

Ships clashed in the straits around the island and provided shore bombardments. Planes engaged in dogfights and strafed enemy troops and ships. US Marines fought for every inch, but also used mortars and artillery to engage the Japanese Navy.

There were three major land battles in the campaign, seven naval battles, and constant aerial dogfighting.

5. The first landings were helped by the weather

Japanese reconnaissance flew near the US fleet as it approached the islands, but the Americans got a lucky break as storms limited visibility, and the US Navy wasn't spotted until it was bombarding the beaches. Planes and naval artillery provided support as the Marines assaulted the surprised defenders.

6. Two of the carriers lost in the Pacific were lost during the Guadalcanal campaign

The Imperial Japanese Navy sunk 10 aircraft carriers and escort carriers over the course of the war.

One, the USS Wasp, was sunk near Guadalcanal on September 15, 1942 by a Japanese sub. The sinking of the Wasp was captured on film.

The USS Hornet was sunk near the Santa Cruz islands, to the southeast of Guadalcanal. Hornet was lost during a major battle with a Japanese carrier fleet that was pulling back from Guadalcanal. The Japanese aircraft got the jump on the Americans as the engagement started, and the Hornet was irreparably damaged by two torpedoes, two crashed Japanese planes, and three bombs.

7. The battle was a major turning point

While Midway and Iwo Jima get most of the glory as turning points where America got an upper hand on the Japanese, it was at Guadalcanal that Marine, Navy, and Army aviators took out elite Japanese air crews, allowing America to achieve air superiority more easily in future battles.

The island itself became a launching point for the American military to move north, crawling their way up to the Japanese homeland.

• Marines engage in many operations on land and at sea, from warfare to humanitarian assistance. In the event of a natural disaster, Marines can assist in disaster relief. 
• In the event of a hurricane's landfall, Marines may support local response efforts by evacuating residents. 
• Two journalists embedded themselves on a Marine search and rescue mission to see how this military branch responds during natural disasters. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Retired US Navy SEAL Jocko Willink: The military is trained to solve problems. And those problems could be, some kind of a humanitarian assistance that's needed, or they can be some kind of disaster relief, or really anything else that you could imagine. The military trains its personnel so they can be used in those situations, no matter how dynamic they are, they're ready.

Business Insider sent two journalists to cover Hurricane Florence in September 2018.

Daniel Brown: The storm hit Friday morning at 8:00 a.m.

Kevin Reilly: The winds were blowing enough where I had to brace myself. It was windy, but I've never seen that much rain. We drove towards Wilmington. There was a lot of trees down, power lines were down and the street lights were out. There was no power anywhere.

Brown: We had heard that they were doing rescues in Jacksonville as well. I put a call into some of the authorities and looked like we could get some sort of embed. There were a bunch of Marines just standing out there, so we jumped in the back of those seven-ton trucks. 

Reilly: Even though we were in these giant trucks, there were a few times where we came to crossings that the Marines themselves stopped to check it out or would send just one of the trucks across to see if it was gonna be okay.

Brown: Those Marines, they're based in Camp Lejeune. Camp Lejeune is a Marine base in North Carolina. Before the storm, the camp did not put out mandatory evacuations and they got a lot of flack from journalists and so forth. They said that they were gonna stay and fight actually, is the quote. The main mission seemed to be to grab 30 residents of Richlands, North Carolina. They had to be evacuated from their homes and they were stranded in this fire station in this little town, so the Marines had to come and get 'em.

Reilly: A lot of these people were given only a moment's notice to grab what they could and were just taken out of their homes. They had their pets and you could see, everybody just had this look of exhaustion, uncertainty, confusion and, I would say they looked scared, but at the same time just seeing the Marines and the volunteer firemen and all the other rescuers there, very professional in everything that they did. So they loaded them up with all of their remaining possessions and pets, and they were taken to a high school shelter that was somewhere close to the Jacksonville area.

Brown: In general, whenever there's like a natural disaster in a state, the National Guard is the one that's supposed to like really help with relief. Marines generally don't do that, the only reason they did is just 'cause Camp Lejeune is in their backyard.  I had authorities tell me that the only reason they were really doing this is just 'cause it's their community as well.

Retired US Navy SEAL Leif Babin: For disaster relief scenarios, military units are a perfect response for that, because you've got an organized group that can deploy; you've got a logistics base, and it's actually a great exercise for deploying to combat that actually helps our military stay ready and can also help civilians in need during a natural disaster.

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Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie defended President Donald Trump's reported comments about American soliders, claiming that Trump's remarks about prisoners of war were "politics" and made in the "heat of the campaign."

Wilkie was responding to a bombshell article by The Atlantic, which claimed that Trump canceled a 2018 visit to a French cemetery housing fallen American soldiers from World War I to mark the end of the war because he did not believe it was important to go.

The White House blamed bad weather conditions at the time.

Trump claimed that the cemetery was "filled with losers" and separately said on the same trip that the US Marines who lost their lives in the war were "suckers," The Atlantic reported.

According to the report, Trump also called Sen. John McCain — a Republican and a Navy veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner in Vietnam — a "loser" after his 2018 death, saying: "We're not going to support that loser's funeral."

Trump has forcefully denied making the comments, despite other outlets corroborating some details of The Atlantic's report.

Wilkie also defended Trump to CNN, saying he had "absolutely not" heard Trump make disparaging comments about US service members, and that he did not believe Trump made the reported comments about Marines.

"I would be offended too if I thought it was true," he told CNN's Dana Bash.

He said that he supported Trump based on what he has done for veterans: "What I'm looking at is the Donald Trump I know. The Donald Trump who has turned around Veteran Affairs." 

He also dismissed Trump's comments about McCain as just "politics." 

You can watch the interview here:

Despite Trump and Wilkie's denials, other outlets have confirmed details from the Atlantic report.

Fox News' national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin said on Friday that parts of the report were verified to her by two people who previously worked for the Trump administration. 

In response, Trump tweeted a Breitbart News story that said Griffin had been able to confirm much of the story, but not that Trump called the dead soldiers "losers" and "suckers." The president has also called for Griffin to be fired over her claims.

A former senior administration official confirmed to CNN that Trump referred to fallen US soldiers while using "crude and derogatory terms" during the trip.

Many have also pointed to Trump's public comments as evidence that the reporting is likely accurate.

In his denial of The Atlantic's reporting, Trump said that he "was never a big fan" of McCain, but that he had "never called John a loser."

But Trump described McCain as a loser in 2015 when talking about McCain's capture at an Iowa summit. 

"I like people who weren't captured," he said then. "I don't like losers."

At the time, he also tweeted a link to a political blog that quoted him calling McCain a loser at the event.

Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and the author of the report, told CNN on Sunday: "I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks."

He said: "We have a responsibility and we're going to do it regardless of what he says."

He also defended his use of anonymous sources in the reporting, saying: "We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate."

"These are not people who are anonymous to me."

Join the conversation about this story »

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President Donald Trump has escalated his tensions with the US military, accusing the Pentagon of seeking war to appease defense contractors.

Trump made the comments during a White House press conference on Monday, where he repeated his denial of claims first reported in The Atlantic that he'd privately disparaged Americans who died in World War I.

"I'm not saying the military's in love with me," he said. "The soldiers are."

He continued: "The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy."

After describing the US military campaign against the Islamic State, he added: "Some people don't like to come home — some people like to continue to spend money. One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, and that's what it was."

Thursday's explosive report in The Atlantic quoted unnamed officials who said Trump canceled a 2018 visit to a Paris cemetery because he did not believe it was important to go and pay respects to the Americans there who died in World War I. The White House publicly blamed bad weather at the time.

The Atlantic reported that Trump privately said the cemetery was "filled with losers" and said on the same trip that the US Marines who lost their lives in the war were "suckers."

The outlet also said he called Sen. John McCain — a Republican Navy veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam — a "f---ing loser" after McCain's death in 2018.

Trump and the White House have repeatedly denied the story even as details from it have been corroborated by other news outlets.

Trump also denied ever calling McCain a "loser," though he has done so publicly and tweeted about it in 2015.

On Monday, NBC News cited multiple senior administration officials as saying Trump was unhappy with Defense Secretary Mark Esper and had talked to Robert Wilkie, the secretary of veterans affairs, about taking over Esper's role.

The White House declined to comment to NBC News on the record, while the Veterans Affairs Department and the Pentagon declined to comment to NBC News.

Trump and Esper have publicly clashed in the past, with Trump said to have considered firing Esper in June after Esper publicly disagreed with Trump's desire to deploy troops to end protests against police brutality.

After the Atlantic article was published, Trump on Friday reversed the administration's plans to cut funding to Stars and Stripes, the US military's editorially independent newspaper that was first published during the Civil War.

Wilkie has defended Trump against the allegations made in The Atlantic, telling CNN that he did not believe the report and that Trump calling McCain a loser was just "politics."

Join the conversation about this story »

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The Marine Corps expects to see fewer Marines shoot expert next year when the service fully transitions to a more realistic, combat-focused rifle qualification course.

The new Annual Rifle Qualification (ARQ) will replace Annual Rifle Training (ART) with a challenging new course of fire that forces Marines to apply basic marksmanship skills in a more dynamic environment, which will include moving targets and night shooting scenarios.

The Marine Corps marksmanship community, recognizing the need to focus on lethality instead of standard marksmanship, drafted the new ARQ course of fire in October 2018 at the annual Combat Marksmanship Symposium.

"It's more combat-style and combat-situation shooting," Chief Warrant Officer 4 Eric Brown, Weapons Training Battalion gunner at Marine Corps Installations East-Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, said in a news release.

"There was an assessment done, and we realized that the current method of rifle training and rifle qualification was not adequate to meet what the needs were on the battlefield for lethality from the Marine," he added.

The current ART qualification course, which was created in 1907, has Marines engage targets at ranges of 200, 300 and 500 yards from the sitting, kneeling, standing and prone positions. There is also a portion that focuses on short-range engagements within 25 yards.

Marines at Lejeune recently got the chance to test the ARQ course of fire, which is expected to be in use across the Corps by 2021.

During the new course of fire, shooters will wear combat gear, including ballistic helmet and body armor, while shooting their assigned weapon, whether it be an M4 carbine, M16 rifle or the M27 infantry automatic rifle. Starting at the 500-yard line, Marines work their way forward to the 15-yard line, shooting at the same target the entire course of fire.

Marines will now shoot an exposed enemy target marked with lethal zones for the head and chest, instead of the standard "able" or "dog" targets.

"There have been quite a few significant … changes. The sitting position is no longer used in the rifle qualification course of fire," Brown said in the release. "The prohibition of artificial supported positions has been removed, and the shooter can use artificial support throughout. They can use barricades, bipods, magazines or even a backpack."

During firing, Marines will no longer mark the target after each shot; instead, the shooter will fire all rounds in the time allotted. The longest firing period is 45 seconds at the 500-yard line for five shots; the shortest is three seconds to perform a headshot from the 25-yard line.

Qualification badges will remain the same, but Marine Corps officials are still determining the new scoring system, according to the release.

Under the current qualification standards, Marines fire 50 rounds, worth five points each, depending on shot placement on targets. They must earn at least 190 points for the marksman badge; at least 210 for sharpshooter; and a minimum of 220 to earn expert.

For the new ARC system, each shot will be scored as "destroy,""neutralize,""suppress" or "miss," with "destroy" being the only shot counting for points, the release states.

Brown expects that the changes under ARQ will result in a significant decrease in the number of Marines who qualify as expert, compared to 2019, when 65% of Marines scored expert under the ART system.

"I think they have made the range harder," Brown said. "We have seen the effect that the environment, with the heat and the length of time they are exposed in the elements, has had on the Marines."

— Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

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The US public is not used to the heavy casualties that are likely in a future conflict between similarly powerful forces, the Marine Corps' top general said this week.

The Corps, like other military branches, is reorienting to face a rival with comparable capabilities — namely Russia or China — in an era of renewed great-power competition.

Such a fight would mean heavy combat losses, which has its own deterrent effect, Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, said at a Defense One event Thursday.

"We're not resigned to high casualties, but we should not think that in a great power competition it's going to be clean," Berger said in response to a question comparing a future conflict in Asia to World War II.

In a scenario where both adversaries are "pretty strong," neither would look for "head-on-head" conflict but rather seek out the other's weaknesses, Berger said.

History suggests a direct clash between nuclear powers is unlikely. The US, Russia, and China have fought numerous proxy conflicts, but the only nuclear-armed states to go to war with each other are India and Pakistan, who share a disputed border and antipathy dating to their traumatic founding.

But there is still a risk, Berger said. "Great power competition, as does counterinsurgency, comes with casualties if it comes to a scrap."

Berger is just the most recent senior officer to make such a warning.

In his first major strategic document, published this month, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said the US has had "a historically-anomalous period of dominance" in the air since the first Gulf War.

Brown cautioned that future airmen "must be prepared" for "combat attrition rates ... more akin to the World War II era."

Air losses in World War II were heavy. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 26,000 members of the Eighth Air Force were killed over Europe. About 7,000 US troops have been killed in the post-September 11 wars in the Middle East. (Direct deaths of combatants and civilians in those wars are close to 800,000.)

"We haven't had that kind of high number of casualties in a long while," Berger said Thursday. "The public is not sensitized to that today, on either side. Hence ... neither side wants that kind of a conventional force-on-force fight ... that doesn't work to your advantage."

Soft spots

Berger has pursued a force redesign to make the Marines lighter, more mobile, and better suited to operate in small units on islands across the Pacific.

That has meant a number of dramatic changes, like getting rid of "big, heavy things" like tanks and artillery, cutting aviation units, and reducing overall force size.

"We have to distribute the forces, first of all, to give the adversary a lot of looks from a lot of different directions in every single domain," Berger said Thursday. By presenting "a lot of different looks," he added, "you make it very difficult for them to focus their strengths."

That distribution can mitigate casualties, but Berger emphasized the overarching operational goal: deterrence.

"It's a distributed way of fighting and maneuvering so that you can put the enemy in a dilemma, and he says 'OK, it's not worth it today.'"

Berger has noted the logistical challenges of a dispersed conflict, which the service hasn't faced decades. Similarly, medical care will be a greater challenge over those distances, he said Thursday.

The Corps has the "mechanics" needed to deal with combat casualties, but Marines also have to "sensitize ourselves," Berger said, citing the impracticality of the "golden hour," the period between wounding and reaching appropriate medical care that became the norm in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"That's not reasonable when you're fighting a distributed fight, so that means we have to have a medical capability more forward than we did before," Berger said.

Wounded troops were often able to reach level-three trauma care in that "golden hour," but a distributed fight means that could take "four hours or four days," Berger added. "We have to deliver medical capabilities [and] logistics far forward in a different way than we needed to in Afghanistan or Iraq."

Unmanned vessels and other methods are being developed or have been proposed to resolve new logistical and medical challenges — for the latter, researchers have even looked at changing how the body works.

A peer adversary will target that "logistical backside" or any other "soft spot," Berger said. "They will try to put pressure on us in any weak spot that they see. We're going to do the same."

SEE ALSO: The US Air Force's special operators are learning new tricks to fight in the tough Arctic environment

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NOW WATCH: Watch the US Marines place a temporary bridge across the Colorado River

• The horrific Oct. 23, 1983 attack on the multinational peacekeepers, an attack purportedly perpetrated by the Iranian-funded terrorist organization Hezbollah, was especially devastating for the US Marine Corps, which lost 220 service members.
• American troops were buried in the rubble. "Bodies were lying around all over," one rescuer reportedly said at the time.
• "There are no words to properly express our outrage and I think the outrage of all Americans at the despicable act," President Ronald Reagan said.
• Visit INSIDER for more stories.

Thirty-seven years ago, two suicide bombers killed 241 American and 58 French military personnel, as well as six civilians, in Beirut, Lebanon.

The horrific Oct. 23, 1983 attack on the multinational peacekeepers, an attack purportedly perpetrated by the Iranian-funded terrorist organization Hezbollah, was especially devastating for the US Marine Corps, which lost 220 service members. The Corps had not suffered such a loss since in one day since Iwo Jima. Eighteen US Navy sailors and three Army soldiers were also killed in the Beirut barracks bombing, and dozens of others were injured.

The deadly blast, characterized by the FBI as the largest non-nuclear explosion they'd ever seen, came just a few months after the April 18, 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon, where an extremist killed 63 people, including 17 Americans.

In 1982, the US decided, at the request of the Lebanese government, to send US troops to Lebanon to serve as peacekeepers in the bloody Lebanese Civil War between warring Muslim and Christian factions. The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina was deployed to Beirut in the spring of 1983.

Source: US Marine Corps

US forces, along with their French and Italian counterparts, achieved some initial success in Lebanon, but the Muslim factions in the country began to turn their aggression toward the foreign troops.

At 6:22 a.m. on Oct. 23, 1983, a truck laden with thousands of pounds of explosives slammed into the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine headquarters at the airport in Beirut.

The driver, said to be a Iranian national, detonated the explosives, collapsing the four-story barracks.

American troops were buried in the rubble. "Bodies were lying around all over," one rescuer reportedly said at the time, "Other people were trapped under the concrete. I could hear them screaming: ‘Get us out. Don't leave us.’ I just started digging, picking men out."

Source: Politico

The attack claimed the lives of 220 Marines, making it the worst single-day loss for the service in nearly four decades.

Minutes after the first attack, another suicide bomber hit the French barracks a couple of miles away. French troops managed to kill the driver, but the bomb exploded a few moments later, bringing down the nine-story building.

"There are no words to properly express our outrage and I think the outrage of all Americans at the despicable act," President Ronald Reagan said in response.

Source: The New York Times

The US withdrew its troops from Lebanon in February 1984.

Source: ABC News

A memorial was built at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and dedicated on Oct. 23, 1986. The names of the fallen, as well as the inscription, "They came in peace," are written on the memorial.

Memorial services are held annually to remember those who were lost, as well as the cost of freedom.

"I think we all kind of grew up that day because we knew the world had changed," then-Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said in 2018. "It changed the way we saw the world. It changed the way we looked at threats. It changed the way we trained. It changed the way we operated – and those lessons learned carried through the rest of our time as Marines. And that impact of Beirut still shapes us today."

Source: Task & Purpose

US special-operations snipers will soon be receiving the new sniper rifle that everyone in the military wants to get their hands on.

Barrett Firearms Manufacturing has received an initial production order for the new Mk 22 Multi-Role Adaptive Design (MRAD) sniper rifle from US Special Operations Command, the company announced Friday, as Task & Purpose first reported.

Barrett reports that its rifle has met the requirements of the Department of Defense and has completed production qualification testing and operational testing.

"We are pleased to have reached this milestone with the project and look forward to providing our warfighters with this highly capable platform," Joel Miller, Barrett's director of global military sales, said in a statement.

SOCOM first started looking for a new modular, multi-caliber sniper rifle in 2016, and in March 2019, the command awarded Barrett a $49.9 million contract for the MRAD rifle under its Advanced Sniper Rifle (ASR) program. Fielding is expected to start in January 2021.

What makes the MRAD different from other rifles is that it can be chambered in 7.62 x 51 mm NATO, .300 Norma Magnum, and .338 Norma Magnum ammunition, each of which has a different purpose on the battlefield.

"It gives more flexibility to the sniper as to what configuration to put it in and what targets they are going after," US Army Lt. Col. Chris Kennedy, chief of lethality in the soldier requirements division of the Maneuver Center of Excellence, previously told Insider.

Both the Army and the Marines also want the Mk 22 MRAD rifle for their snipers.

In their respective Fiscal Year 2021 budget requests, the Army asked for 536 MRAD sniper rifles for a little over $10 million under its Precision Sniper Rifle (PSR) program to replace the M2010 and M107 rifles, and the Marines asked for 250 rifles for $4 million under SOCOM's ASR program.

The Marines expect the new rifle to "replace all current bolt-action sniper rifles in the Marine Corps," according to the latest budget request.

In the budget documents, the Marines wrote that the new rifles offer "extended range, greater lethality, and a wider variety of special purpose ammunition." The Army argued that the weapon "increases stand-off distances ensuring overmatch against enemy counter sniper engagements and increases sniper capability."

The new sniper rifle, which is also lighter than some legacy systems, "will become the primary anti-personnel Sniper Weapon System (SWS) in all Army Sniper Teams," the Army added.

"It's an awesome gun," 1st Sgt. Kevin Sipes, a seasoned Army sniper, told Insider earlier this year.

"I can tell you I never saw anything on that gun that I didn't like," he said. "It shoots phenomenally well. What it does, as far as barrel changes and things like that go, is pretty exceptional."

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This past year has been unusual to say the least. The pandemic upended people's lives around the world, and the same was true for members of the US military. Still, US troops continued to serve, doing incredible things both at home and abroad.

The following 27 photos by military photographers are awesome and offer a glimpse into some of what the military has been up to in 2020, from firing artillery to battling blazing infernos.

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A year after a Marine drill instructor was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for hazing Muslim recruits, throwing one in an industrial dryer and figuring in another's death, data shows that nearly nine out of 10 hazing reports in the military still came from within the Corps.

An annual report on hazing within the military, obtained via a public-records request, shows that the Marine Corps, the smallest Defense Department service by population with the exception of Space Force, owns the lion's share of hazing complaints and substantiated hazing incidents. The data, from fiscal year 2018, shows that 256 of 291 total hazing complaints that year, more than 88%, were made in the Corps, and 91 of 102 substantiated hazing incidents took place among Marines.

The Navy was a distant second, with 17 complaints and 10 substantiated incidents; then the Army, with 13 complaints, none substantiated; and finally the Air Force, with five complaints, one substantiated. At the time of the reporting, 71 total complaints had been found unsubstantiated, 110 were pending a decision and eight were inconclusive or unknown.

The data, released to Military.com this month, provides what could be a troubling snapshot taken shortly after the Marines faced national scrutiny over hazing episodes at boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina.

Recruit Raheel Siddiqui reportedly jumped to his own death in 2016 from the third floor of a Parris Island building after abuse at the hands of a drill instructor, who received 10 years for maltreatment and other crimes at a Parris Island court-martial. Other Marines who trained recruits were found to have inflicted chemical burns requiring skin grafts— the result of forced physical training on a bleach-covered floor — and ordered naked trainees to run back and forth, then jam together against the walls of a shower.

In all, eight drill instructors faced some level of punishment over the Parris Island hazing scandal amid national attention, and investigations resulted in a slew of recommendations for change. And that same year, a crackdown on hazing within 1st Marine Division in California resulted in at least 18 Marines getting kicked out of the Corps, and 30 spending time in the brig.

Amid all that, the 2018 data seems jarring.

But some say the information paints a more complicated picture: one of a service that is aggressively tracking abusive behavior while others overlook the problem.

New accountability measures

The 2018 report is the first-ever Pentagon-wide survey of hazing. It was mandated by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis earlier the same year as part of a sweeping new policy implemented to deter harassment and abusive behavior in every form within the ranks. Mattis' order, building on a previous 2015 memo from then-Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, set a December 31, 2018, deadline for services to turn over the first 18 months of hazing data they'd collected, and required annual reports to follow.

The order also set a definition for hazing: a "form of harassment that ... physically or psychologically injures, or creates a risk of physical or psychological injury ... for the purpose of: initiation into, admission into, affiliation with, change in status or position within, or a condition for continued membership in any military or DoD civilian organization."

The newly obtained report does not contain details on specific hazing incidents or complaints, but does break substantiated episodes into categories: physical, psychological, written, verbal and nonverbal.

In the Marine Corps, 60% of hazing incidents were physical and 32% verbal, with the remainder nonverbal. The other services had a similar breakdown; only the Navy had substantiated episodes of psychological hazing, with six incidents.

While the report doesn't indicate the origin of hazing complaints or the dates they were made, it does contain some information on when hazing happens and who it happens to.

Unsurprisingly, almost all substantiated hazing happened on duty in 2018. Nearly 100% of military hazing victims were junior enlisted service members, in the ranks of E-4 and below and, with few exceptions, under the age of 25. While most of the perpetrators were also junior enlisted, some 20% were E-5s and E-6s, and eight offenders were senior enlisted troops or junior officers.

Within the entire Defense Department, only eight of the troops who reported being hazed were female.

Data shortfalls

While the majority of hazing offenders and complainants were white, the data does fall somewhat short. There's no indication of the racial breakdown of victims and offenders in specific incidents, or what conditions lead to certain kinds of hazing. There's no information, either, to indicate the severity of hazing incidents or their short- and long-term impact on victims.

What does seem evident, though, is that the 2018 data regarding the ratio of hazing reports by service is not an anomaly. A data sketch from fiscal 2017 also obtained by Military.com shows 233 out of 299 hazing reports that year came from the Marine Corps, and 109 out of 136 substantiated incidents occurred in that service.

While DoD did not release fiscal 2019 data, and a fiscal 2020 report has not yet been provided to the services, Marine Corps officials did provide data showing that reports of hazing decreased markedly within the service in 2019. That year, there were 188 total complaints in the Corps, and 47 substantiated hazing cases, officials said.

"Hazing has no place in a disciplined and professional military force and is not tolerated in any form in the Marine Corps. Hazing degrades our warfighting capabilities by destroying our Marines' confidence and the trust they place in their fellow Marines and in their leadership. All complaints of hazing are taken seriously," Yvonne Carlock, a spokeswoman for Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs, told Military.com.

Carlock added that all hazing complaints are tracked "from the initial complaint/allegation through adjudication" and that the service stresses bystander intervention and urges Marines and sailors to report all hazing they observe.

A 2015 study by the Rand Corporation did find that the Marine Corps was the most consistent of any service apart from the Coast Guard at providing specific anti-hazing training and offering additional training at various career intervals, with annual refreshers. Gaps were still present at that point, however; the report found anti-hazing instruction in the Corps was lecture-only and lacked group discussion and structured assessment.

But the grim wake-up calls from the recent high-profile hazing incidents may mean the Marines track the issue better and more consistently than other services. That's the contention of Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat who has made it a priority to end military hazing and increase accountability.

Chu's nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, took his own life during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2011 following hazing by his peers. Three Marines faced criminal charges in the wake of his death; two were acquitted and one was sentenced to 30 days in a plea agreement.

"The real truth is that hazing in the military is still obscured by bad and incomplete data," Chu told Military.com in a February 5 statement. She cited a Government Accountability Office report she had required showing that, as of early 2016, the Corps alone consistently tracked both substantiated and unsubstantiated hazing reports.

"This doesn't mean that the Marines are more likely to have a hazing problem, but that the other branches fail to report theirs," she said in the statement. "Still, what this troubling data reveals is that hazing and disunity are still pervasive problems in our military, which is bad for our national security and the health and safety of the men and women in uniform who risk everything for us."

Cultural Influences

It's likely, however, that culture also plays a role in the picture the data shows. The Marine Corps has the youngest average age of any service, the most male and the most junior in rank. The service prides itself on being the most physically demanding, as well, and many recruits arrive at boot camp with a perception of the Corps informed by films like "Full Metal Jacket" and "A Few Good Men"— movies in which brutal Marine Corps hazing incidents are main plot points.

In a 2020 law review article in the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, authors Gregory S. Parks and Jasmine Burgess explore the psychological, cultural and organizational causes of military hazing.

In one notional example underscoring their research, they profile "Darrius Ima," a Marine Corps drill instructor who himself was hazed as a recruit and believes he's justified in passing down the tradition.

"Darrius believes, not only that there is a low probability of him being caught and reprimanded for the hazing but also that, and erroneously so, that the majority of the Marines community values hazing," the authors write. " ... In sum, Darrius is morally disengaged around the issue of hazing. He tries to justify his conduct by offering a purely positive rationale for hazing — e.g., that it builds bonds."

Parks, a professor of law at Wake Forest University and expert on all kinds of hazing who spoke to Military.com February 5, said changing a cultural perspective on an issue such as hazing can be a lengthy process.

"Organizational culture is crucial," he said. "What are the dynamics at play within an organization over the course of maybe decades or generations, and why is it hard to disentangle that. It makes it very difficult to swim upstream and buck the system when you receive a lot of critical feedback from peers."

He added that the military, and particularly the Marine Corps, which demands and prizes high levels of physical prowess and mental toughness, may be more prone to training and rituals that cross the line into hazing.

"There are these physical components, but there's also the psychological aspect of putting people through the paces," he said. "It's probably easier to amplify that."

The newly obtained data does indicate that being found to have hazed a peer or subordinate will affect a service member's career, even if it doesn't end it. For fiscal 2018, 100% of substantiated hazing offenders received some sort of discipline.

In the Marine Corps, 174 perpetrators received a total of 365 corrective or disciplinary actions. One-third of all disciplinary actions for Marines were at the administrative level, and a little more than half consisted of non-judicial punishment. Unit-level punishments are shielded from public release, and therefore difficult to track.

Some 44 Marines faced hazing-related charges at various levels of court-martial; the Corps was the only service to send anyone to court-martial over hazing.

"We continue to train and educate all Marines and instill in them that these behaviors are inconsistent with our core values and we will hold perpetrators accountable," Carlock, the Marine Corps spokeswoman, told Military.com. "A failure to act and respond is not only inconsistent with who we are but it also degrades our traditions, threatens our cohesion and morale, and detracts from mission accomplishment."

— Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

SEE ALSO: The military needs to get comfortable with 'throwaway' equipment, top Marine general says

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NOW WATCH: Step aboard the USS Kearsarge, the US Navy workhorse that takes Marines to war

"Six Days in Fallujah" is a video game wrapped in a nesting doll of controversies, and it hasn't even been released yet.

The game, which looks similar to the "Call of Duty" franchise, is a "first-person tactical military shooter" set during a six-day period in the weeks-long second Battle of Fallujah — a siege on the Iraqi city that led to the greatest loss of life during the Iraq War.

Peter Tamte's upcoming project — which has been in some form of development since the mid-2000s — attempts to convey the experience of the invading forces, from the perspective of the invading forces. 

"What we really want people to take away from this experience is an understanding of the actual complexity and human costs of urban combat," Victura CEO Peter Tamte told Insider in an interview this week.

But critics say the history of the Iraq War is once again being written from the American perspective. 

Estimates from the Iraq Body Count project put the number of Iraqi civilian casualties around 200,000 as of last February, and the US Department of Defense reported over 4,400 American deaths as of February 2021, but historians say there may never be an accurate way to count the true number of lives lost due to the invasion.

"The massacre carried out by American and British forces in Fallujah in 2004 is amongst the worst of the war crimes carried out in an illegal and immoral war," Stop The War Coalition spokesperson Tansy Hoskins told TechRadar in 2009, when "Six Days in Fallujah" was originally announced. "To make a game out of a war crime and to capitalize on the death and injury of thousands is sick."

But that isn't the intent of the upcoming game, Tamte said.

"There is an assumption that we are going to whitewash decisions that were made by the United States and Great Britain and Iraqi leaders at that time," he told Insider. "But in truth, I don't think it's possible for us to put players into the second Battle of Fallujah without understanding the events that led up to the second Battle of Fallujah. And those events are based on choices by policy makers that in hindsight have proven to be some poor decisions."

One such poor decision, according to the US military leader who commanded troops and created operational plans for both battles in Fallujah, was starting the Iraq War in the first place.

"We will probably look back on the invasion of Iraq as a mistake," 1st Marine Division Commanding Gen. James Mattis said in 2015. "I think people were pretty much aware that the US military didn't think it was a very wise idea."

It's this conflict at the heart of the battle that Tamte hopes "Six Days in Fallujah" can accurately represent, 12 years since it was first announced and 17 years since the battle that inspired it.

"When those four contractors were hung from the bridge outside of Fallujah, and people around the world, especially the United States, were hollering for the United States to go in there and take care of business — I don't think people understood what the military leaders were saying at the time, which was, 'Please don't make me do this,'" Tamte told Insider.

How does a video game convey the disputed history of a real life battle?

Following a series of conflicts — including an incident where US forces fired on unarmed Iraqi protesters which killed at least 17 Iraqis, and an incident where four American private military contractors were murdered and hung from a bridge — US forces laid siege to the city in two major battles.

The first, in April 2004, lasted several weeks before US-led troops withdrew. The second, in November 2004, also lasted several weeks. It's the second battle that "Six Days in Fallujah" focuses on, with players tasked with going from building to building as a member of the coalition armed forces clearing the city. That gameplay is interspersed with dialog and video from actual people who fought in the battle. During parts of the game, players control an Iraqi family attempting to flee the city as battle rages around them.

But critics of the game's concept persist in 2021.

When "Six Days in Fallujah" was re-revealed in February 2021, Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad said the game's developer is, "basing its game on excusing US war crimes." 

In a subsequent Twitter thread, Ahmad said, "The game is very much from an American point of view, as shown in the description." He said what he's seen of the game thus far, "strikes me as just another war game filled with US propaganda about the actual events that took place."

By some accounts, thousands of civilians were killed in the second Battle of Fallujah by a military coalition primarily made up of American and British soldiers. It was the bloodiest battle in a bloody, controversial war, and has become symbolic of the US policies that led to the Iraq War in the first place.

The US government admitted to using white phosphorus in the battle — a substance commonly used for smoke screens that can also be used as a weapon of chemical warfare. Its use as a weapon is a violation of the Geneva Conventions that govern international conflict, and may have contributed to a years-long spike in birth defects.

Though "Six Days in Fallujah" intends to tell the harrowing story of the Marines charged with taking a city, it's unclear how it will convey the complexity of the use of chemical weapons.

"I don't have a good answer to that, to be honest with you," Tamte said when asked how the game would deal with its use. "I don't have a good answer for it because I do understand part of the argument of: If you're going to talk about this battle, you need to at least have some reference to white phosphorus."

The concern, Tamte said, is how to handle player interactivity when it comes to international war crimes.

"I don't want to give players white phosphorous as a weapon," he said. "We don't want to ask players to commit war crimes, or even things that are in the gray area of being a war crime. We don't want to do that. That would actually be kind of the opposite of what we're hoping players will take away from us."

His intent, he said, is "to share these remarkable stories of people and let people experience these stories." And doing that, he said, doesn't stop the game from "discussing some of the tougher aspects of the battle — we can do both." 

After three years in development, and 15 years of total germination time, "Six Days in Fallujah" is scheduled to launch in late 2021 for the PC and undisclosed consoles.

Got a tip? Contact Business Insider senior correspondent Ben Gilbert via email (bgilbert@businessinsider.com), or Twitter DM (@realbengilbert). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by email only, please.

SEE ALSO: This is what ISIS' longest-held Iraqi city looked like after years of occupation

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The Marine behind a viral TikTok video criticizing the Corps through tears for its reaction to sexual misconduct says the service member who wronged her was a victim advocate tasked with supporting sexual assault survivors.

"In October 2019 while deployed, I reported my coworker for sexual misconduct, who was also a Uniformed Victim Advocate,"the Marine said in a written statement first reported by CBS News, referring to US military personnel trained to assist victims of sexual assault.

"I had proof and witnesses," she continued. "That same night my Command confronted this Marine and he admitted to what he had done."

The Marine Corps has characterized the misconduct as the "wrongful appropriation and distribution of personal information," with one official telling Insider that the offending actions were of a sexual nature. It apparently involved the nonconsensual distribution of photos or video, Insider learned.

"That next morning that same Marine was still the Platoon Sergeant holding formation while I hid in my room, ashamed of what had happened,"the woman wrote in her statement.

She said that the Marine was eventually removed from the installation where she was stationed but that the Corps left her in the dark on what actions were being taken.

She recalled telling her commanding officer: "I think we need a better vetting system for Uniformed Victim Advocates. I do not want to be in the same unit as this Marine when we get back to the United States."

The woman said she learned just before she returned to the US that she would be assigned to the same office with the Marine who admitted to sexual misconduct. She was, however, able to be assigned to another unit.

In December, she testified against the Marine before a separation board, where she says she heard people defend the man, saying things like: "He made a mistake and fell into temptation, but he could be a great leader."

The woman said the board decided to force the Marine out of the service but with an honorable discharge, an outcome she already considered unjust and unfair.

But then last Thursday, she said, she was notified that a commanding general at her installation had decided to retain the Marine "despite his crimes." The Corps has said the separation process for the Marine is still ongoing.

'Deeply disturbing'

Her understanding that the man is not being kicked out over the misconduct is what led her to make the TikTok video that went viral, a video in which she tearfully said: "This is exactly why f---ing females in the military f---ing kill themselves. This is exactly why nobody f---ing takes it seriously."

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin responded to the video in a press briefing on Friday, calling it "deeply disturbing" and telling reporters he had asked his staff to look into what had happened.

II Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement Tuesday that the accusations the woman made against her fellow service member were investigated and substantiated.

"The Marine was found guilty, receiving a non-judicial punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was reduced in rank, received forfeiture of pay, and was processed for administrative separation from the service,"II Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement Tuesday. "Final actions in the administrative separation process are ongoing."

A II MEF representative confirmed that the man in question was, as the woman in the video said, a "trained Uniformed Victim Advocate."

For the Marines, a Uniformed Victim Advocate is someone who has been trained "to provide information, guidance (referrals), and support to Marines and sailors who have been sexually assaulted,"according to the service. Support is available 24/7 to service members.

The woman, whom Insider confirmed to be a Marine sergeant, did not respond to requests for comment from Insider.

In her statement, she also said she had been sexually assaulted while in the Marines. "I have experienced Military Sexual Trauma throughout my entire time in the service," she told CBS News.

Highlighting the severity of the sexual abuse problem in the military, she said that she has "connected with thousands of men and women who have dealt with Military Sexual Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome stemming from sexual assault and harassment while serving."

"I am not a one in a million story," she wrote.

CBS News reports that in 2019, there were 7,825 reports of sexual assault in the US armed forces, but only 363 of those cases, or 4.6%, ever went to court martial. Statistics for 2020 are not available, but the new defense secretary has said that addressing sexual assault and harassment is a top priority.

SEE ALSO: Pentagon chief says he's looking into 'deeply disturbing' video of a female Marine tearfully calling out the Corps for its reaction to sexual misconduct

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NOW WATCH: The racist origins of marijuana prohibition

When a Marine Corps assault amphibious vehicle sank off the coast of California last summer, nine people drowned.

Among the many problems the Corps is trying to rectify in the wake of this accident, troops inside did not have breathing devices.

The embarked service members were not carrying the devices because the Corps made the decision to get rid of them several years ago after assessing that program's $15.9 million cost outweighed concerns about a possible catastrophe, two Corps officials told Insider.

Embarked Marines used to carry Waterborne Egress Capability (WEC) breathing systems as a component of their LPU-41 life preservers, Insider learned. It's unclear if these were widely and properly distributed.

In the event that an AAV sank, the bottled breathing devices would provide up to five minutes of air.

It is not a lot of time, but it is more than enough time to remove your gear, get your bearings, and take action, a Marine official, a former division commander, said.

Troops trying to escape a submerged vehicle can easily find themselves disoriented and struggling with their heavy gear as they desperately fight to reach the surface. A few extra minutes of air beyond what is in their lungs might be the difference between staying alive and dying.

The WEC bottled breathing device program was canceled in 2015, just four years after it began, as the Corps grappled with budget concerns.

"So 2011 to 2015, we have this program," another Marine official, a former Marine Expeditionary Unit commander, said. "2015, if you recall where we were fiscally in 2015, we're in sequestration."

During the Obama administration, a deep budget cut known as sequestration impacted all federal spending, including that of the Department of Defense.

"I'm a big believer in the bottles," the former division commander said. "But, in 2015, we were scrambling for money, looking under the cushions of the sofas, trying to make ends meet. This was a convenient thing."

The former MEU commander explained to Insider that the Marine Corps measures risk by likelihood of occurrence and severity of outcome.

In this case, a decision was made that an accident requiring supplemental air was unlikely given the limited number and nature of fatal AAV accidents. The decision to discontinue the WEC bottled breathing device program was reassessed after tragedy struck last summer.

A tragic mishap

Last July, an AAV assigned to Bravo Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, part of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, sank off the coast of California as it returned to the amphibious transport dock USS Somerset from San Clemente Island during a training exercise.

Failure after failure ended in disaster. Eight embarked Marines and a Navy sailor drowned, making this incident the deadliest AAV training accident in the vehicle's decades of service.

The commander of US Marine Corps Pacific blamed the sinking and the resulting deaths on "a confluence of human and mechanical failures" in a statement attached to the investigation. He added that "this tragic mishap was preventable."

One of the biggest problems was that the troubled vehicle, which was initially carrying 16 service members, was not evacuated until it was too late. The vehicle sank with 11 people still on board. All but one service member made it out, but only three made it to the surface.

The three service members who made it to the surface each suffered drowning injuries. One did not survive.

As for the troops who died without reaching the surface, all of them were wearing body armor. Some had tried to drop their gear but were unsuccessful. In addition to the problem of excess weight, the life preservers they had on were not as effective as they would normally be given the depth at which they were operated.

The Marine officials Insider talked to about the accident did not say whether or not WEC breathing devices would have made a difference and saved lives in this situation. Though the investigation was silent on this point, the Corps has, as a result of this terrible accident, changed its mind on the program, the officials said.

"It has been reinstated," the former MEU commander revealed. "This year, we will field WEC bottles for all our MEU units."

A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed the previous use, cancellation, and return of the WEC program.

AAV crews are temporarily using Helicopter Aircrew Breathing Devices (HABD) borrowed from the Marine Expeditionary Force air wings, the former MEU commander said, but the WEC devices will eventually be brought back for AAV passengers and crews.

"We have on contract now — and we'll bring back as a program of record — the full WEC system, which includes the bottles [and] the charging station for the bottles," he said, adding that "it will be a requirement to be trained and equipped with a Waterborne Egress Capability device to be in the back of an AAV or ACV."

The ACV, or Amphibious Combat Vehicle, is the replacement for the ageing fleet of AAVs, some of which have been around since the mid-1970s. The Corps began rolling them out ahead of schedule last October.

Since the deadly accident last summer that claimed the lives of nine service members, the Marine Corps has not conducted any waterborne operations with its amphibious vehicles. These are not expected to resume until the service has finished making changes to the way these vehicles are maintained and operated.

Marine officials have stressed repeatedly that they are committed to preventing something like what happened last July from happening again.

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The US Army is buying thousands of a new rifle that Marine and special-operations snipers also want — the Mk 22 Multi-Role Adaptive Design (MRAD) rifle.

The service awarded Barrett Firearms Manufacturing in Tennessee a five-year $49.9 million contract for 2,800 MRAD sniper rifles under the Precision Sniper Rifle program, which also includes the Leupold & Stevens Mark 5 HD scope and sniper-accessory kit, the Army said Wednesday.

The main difference between the MRAD and other sniper rifles is that it can be chambered in 7.62 by 51 mm NATO, .300 Norma Magnum, and .338 Norma Magnum ammunition, giving the shooter greater flexibility without changing weapons.

"Army snipers will be able to conduct a barrel change and select calibers based on their mission operating environment," the Army said in a statement Wednesday.

The new rifle is "an extreme range weapon system that is lighter than current sniper rifles and includes features that will mask the sniper signature for improved survivability," the Army said.

The Mk 22 will replace the Army's bolt-action M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle from Remington Arms and the M107 Long Range Sniper Rifle from Barrett.

"It's an awesome gun,"an experienced Army sniper told Insider last year. "I can tell you I never saw anything on that gun that I didn't like. It shoots phenomenally well. What it does, as far as barrel changes and things like that go, is pretty exceptional."

The Mk 22 is a "good gun coming at a good time that is going to increase efficiency and capabilities," he said. "We're excited about it."

Special Operations Command was the first to express interest in the new modular, multicaliber sniper rifle. In March 2019, SOCOM awarded Barrett a $49.9 million contract for the MRAD rifle through its Advanced Sniper Rifle program.

The command sent an initial production order for the new rifles to Barrett in November after the company completed production qualification and operational testing, which met the requirements of the Department of Defense.

"We are pleased to have reached this milestone with the project and look forward to providing our warfighters with this highly capable platform," Joel Miller, Barrett's director of global military sales, said in a statement at the time.

The Marines have also shown interest in the weapon.

The Marines expect the new rifle to "replace all current bolt-action sniper rifles in the Marine Corps," last year's budget request said.

In the budget documents, the Marines wrote that the new rifles offered "extended range, greater lethality, and a wider variety of special purpose ammunition."

The Army said in its budget request that the weapon "increases stand-off distances ensuring overmatch against enemy counter sniper engagements and increases sniper capability."

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Marines at a Southern California military base are being investigated for possible ties to missing explosives and ammunition.

A sergeant at Camp Pendleton is in custody and facing charges, and another service member is awaiting a federal hearing in connection to the case, said 2nd Lt. Kyle McGuire, a spokesman for 1st Marine Division.

Few details have been made public about the investigation, which McGuire said is unrelated to 10 pounds of C-4 explosives that disappeared from another California base — Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms— last month.

Sgt. Gunnar Naughton, with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, currently is confined to the brig, McGuire said. Naughton faced an Article 32 fact-finding hearing on March 19 and has been charged with larceny and military property-related offenses, he added.

Charges also have been preferred against a second member of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, but an Article 32 hearing has not yet been scheduled. The Marine Corps declined to provide a list of the charges or any personal information prior to the hearing.

"Naval Criminal Investigative Service is continuing their investigation into this matter, and I'm therefore unable to provide additional information," McGuire said.

ABC 10News in San Diego, citing an unnamed source, reported that at least five reconnaissance Marines at Camp Pendleton are under investigation for possible ties to the explosives, and thousands of rounds of military-grade ammunition were found to be missing at their base.

One Marine, the outlet reported, allegedly tried to sell the ammo online, but was caught "in a sting operation that was set up by federal agents."

A spokesman at NCIS declined to provide any details about the missing materials or reported sting operation.

"Out of respect for the investigative process, NCIS does not comment on ongoing investigations," Jeff Houston said.

Bethany Payton-O'Brien, a San Diego-based attorney, told ABC 10News she's representing a staff sergeant who let another Marine rent space on his land for a trailer. The location was later raided, she told the station.

Payton-O'Brien told Military.com her client, Staff Sgt. Alexander Czub, was released from the brig on March 4 after serving a month in pretrial confinement. Czub has not been charged with any offenses relating to the missing ammunition or explosives at Camp Pendleton, she added.

"My client is not connected with the alleged conspiracy involving ... Naughton or the attempted selling of government ammunition by [another Marine]," she said. "Based on the investigation provided to us so far by the government, there appears to be no connection between the 29 Palms case and Camp Pendleton Marines. The government has still not provided us with all evidence in this case despite numerous requests."

McGuire said no other hearing or trial dates have been set in connection to the case. The preliminary hearing officer for Naughton's Article 32 must review his case and make a recommendation to the convening authority regarding the charges. The convening authority on the case, or the officer overseeing the prosecutions, is Maj. Gen. Roger Turner Jr., 1st Marine Division's commanding general.

Those steps will determine whether the case proceeds to court-martial.

"It is not uncommon for charges to change between an Article 32 hearing and subsequent court-martial," McGuire added.

— Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

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A large number of US Marines are choosing not to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, CNN reported. 

About 40% of Marines who have been offered a shot, or 48,000, have so far declined a vaccine to protect against the coronavirus. Of the 123,500 Marines who have been offered a vaccine, about 75,500 agreed to get one, according to data obtained by CNN.

Over 100,000 Marines have yet to be offered a vaccine, the network said. 

"We fully understand that widespread acceptance of the Covid-19 vaccine provides us with the best means to defeat the pandemic. The key to addressing the pandemic is building vaccine confidence," Marine Corps spokesperson Col. Kelly Frushour said in a statement to CNN.

Marines might decline COVID-19 vaccines for several reasons, Frushour said. They might prefer others to receive priority for it or are choosing to wait until it's institutionally mandated. They could also be allergic or have already secured a vaccine through other channels, CNN reported.

"Service members who decline one day can change their mind and become vaccinated when next the opportunity presents itself," Frushour added.

The Marine Corps did not immediately return a request for comment from Insider. 

In February, a top Pentagon official said about a third of all US troops had at the time refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine. 

"Acceptance rates are somewhere in the two-thirds territory," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeff Taliaferro, the Joint Staff's vice director for operations, told the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the Defense Department's response to the pandemic.

The vaccine is not compulsory for service members, but Taliaferro told Rep. Mike Rogers, the top Republican lawmaker on the committee, that the military must do better "to help them understand the benefits."

The military's acceptance rate at the time, however, was higher than that of the general population. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, general population vaccination rates hovered around 50% at the time Taliaferro made his remarks earlier this year.

The coronavirus has infected more than 31 million people in the United States, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. More than 561,000 Americans have died from it. About 19% of the US population has been fully vaccinated so far, JHU data says.

Insider's Bill Bostock contributed to this report.

Have a news tip? Reach this reporter at ydzhanova@insider.com

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A positive COVID-19 test comes with a tenuous silver lining: you're protected from the coronavirus, at least for a few months.

But recent research, out today in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, has found protection from reinfection is not a sure thing. 

An observational study of more than 3,000 healthy US Marine recruits revealed that it's possible for young people to get COVID-19 twice, although those who have had it before have a lower risk of infection.

Around 10% of recruits who previously had COVID-19 were reinfected during a six-week observation period. In comparison, 50% of recruits who had not been previously infected tested positive during the study. 

The crowded living conditions of the military bases where the observations took place likely contributed to a higher overall infection rate, but the study authors said the risk of reinfection applies to young people everywhere.

Antibodies provide some protection

Among the recruits — mostly men aged 18-20 — 189 entered the study seropositive, meaning they were previously infected with the coronavirus and had antibodies in their blood.

Most people have an antibody response to infection, where the immune system produces proteins to fight off specific intruders if they return in the future. Antibodies may wane in the months after infection, but the immune system has other protective measures in place.

Commander Andrew Letizia, an infectious disease physician and lead researcher on the study, told Insider the team measured antibodies as proof of previous infection. However, he said some recruits previously tested positive but no longer had detectable antibodies at the time of the study, so the 10% reinfection rate may be an underestimate.

Those who were reinfected with COVID-19 had lower antibody levels compared to those who were previously sick and did not get reinfected.

"Antibodies are certainly protective, but they do not mean that you're going to be bulletproof," Letizia said. "You can still potentially get reinfected."

Reinfection is about one-fifth as likely as a new infection

Based on the study of Marine recruits, the authors concluded that young people who have antibodies are about five times less likely to get infected than those who do not have antibodies. Studies in other populations have produced similar findings.

A preprint study of British healthcare workers, which has not yet been reviewed, found those who had not been previously infected with COVID-19 had a five times higher risk of being infected compared to people who had a past infection.

A study of 4 million people in Denmark found that COVID-19 infection afforded people under the age of 65 around 80% protective immunity after six months. Older people were only 47% protected from reinfection.

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The Marine Corps is a small fighting force deep in lore, history, culture, and intricacies that can be tough to navigate. Marines can serve for years and not find their way to the bottom of Marine Corps knowledge.

As such, I've come to learn a few things as both a Marine, and now a civilian fascinated by history and culture.

These USMC facts are easily escapable for the average Marine, and these five represent an odd mixture of regulations, culture, and tactics that many, even Marines, may not be aware of.

The USMC Boat Marines

I served as a Marine infantryman for five years. I worked with weapons and line companies, I worked with LAR, Recon, Scout Snipers, and more. It wasn't until years later I that I became aware of the Boat Marines.

By Boat Marine, I mean 0312 Riverine Assault Craft Marine. The Corps dumped the MOS in 2020, but I was on active duty between 2008 and 2013 and never heard of these guys.

USMC Boat Marines also include the defunct 0314 and the still-active 0316 MOS. 0316 is an additional MOS and supplements a traditional infantry MOS and utilizes rubberized small crafts. The 0312 and 0314 Boat Marines operated Riverine Assault Crafts. These ruggedized patrol crafts were used in Iraq to patrol rivers and control these areas.

Boat Marines were a combined effort between the Navy and the Marine Corps and shouldn't be a surprise. Marines are water-borne infantry by their very nature, so boats have to be a factor eventually.

Capes are allowed

Have you ever looked at the Marine dress uniform and thought, "Man, it'd look a lot better with a cape?" Of course, it would. Dress blues, a sword, and a cape sound sick.

Well, boys, the USMC offers you the Boat Cloak. As far as USMC facts go, this is the most fashionable. Male Marine officers and SNCOs are allowed to wear the Boat Cloak with the Dress A or B blues uniform.

The Boat cloak features a black exterior and red interior with a soft wool-like collar and a button-down design. It's a special order item and costs about 750 bucks to make and order. Please allow eight weeks for delivery!

The Boat Cloak is rarely seen, but come blues season, at least one SNCO will pop up wearing this bad boy.

A separate fitness test for one specific role

Marine Corps Body Bearers have both the honorable and sad job of carrying Marines to their final resting place.

These Marines are subject to strict requirements, including: having a first-class PFT and CFT, being between 70 and 76 inches tall, being within regular Marine Corps height and weight standards, and being a sergeant or above.

Additionally, they have to pass a Body Bearer fitness test and maintain these weight lifting standards. Body Bearer Marines must be capable of completing 10 reps of the following exercises:

• 225 Pound Bench Press
• 135 Pound Behind the Neck Military Press
• 115 Pound Strict Barbell Curl
• 315 Pound Barbell Squat

Currently, this is the only fitness test the Marine Corps utilizes weight lifting techniques for. This has led to USMC Body Bearers being labeled the strongest Marines in the Corps.

These USMC facts help me set my own goals even as a gross civilian.

We use grappling hooks

It's true, of all the USMC facts we have, at least one makes us look like Batman. We use grappling hooks!

Marines wield grappling hooks for a variety of reasons. This includes searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines. Marines can tuck behind cover, throw and drag a grappling hook through a suspected IED area. It's like a version of the claw game you see with teddy bears in supermarkets, but it's for things that explode.

Grappling hooks make an appearance in urban operations and give a means for Marines to climb over walls and into windows. While it sounds like Batman, the grappling hook often gives a holding point and a little boost to the climbing Marine.

You aren't scaling up the sides of buildings like Batman and climbing multiple stories. However, an 8-foot wall or second-story window is easier to get over while wearing full gear with the assistance of a grappling hook.

The Yucca Man

Finally, we get to the story of the Yucca Man. This is likely the most widespread of the USMC facts on this list. Anyone who was stationed in Twentynine Palms knows the story of the Mojave bigfoot.

According to legend, any Marine unlucky enough to find himself on watch in the endless desert of the Twentynine Palms training area may have an encounter with the Yucca Man.

The natives of the area have long told stories about these desert bigfoots and their spread to the Marine Corps. I think it's due to two main reasons. First, these stories are fun to tell new Marines and work them up a bit before sending them out for some night guard duty or road guard position.

Second, training at Twentynine Palms for a battalion level combined arms exercise (CAX)/Mojave Viper training event will exhaust the Marines. It's made to simulate a month at war, and Marines are constantly training and dealing with the desert heat, endless training operations, and sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation and exhaustion can cause hallucinations, and I'm willing to bet some exhausted Marines have had some visual and auditory hallucinations.

On my first deployment, I remember many nights on post after a 24-36 hour operation guarding the base and having a healthy amount of hallucinations.

USMC facts, myths, and beyond

America needs an Army, an Air Force, and a Navy, but America wants a Marine Corps.

The Marines have long held the heart of the American civilian. A mixture of glory and capability mixed with a perception of a plucky underdog gives the Marine Corps a completely different cultural impact. Part of that impact is the unique culture, roles, and capabilities the Marine Corps has.

These small USMC facts are only part of a much richer culture, so sound off below on your favorite USMC facts that we might not know.

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Mike spoke on condition of anonymity over privacy concerns. His identity has been verified by Insider. 

I used to move US Special Forces troops around Iraq and Afghanistan. As a Navy SEAL, I was awarded Bronze Star Medal in Iraq and a Bronze Star with V for Valor in Afghanistan. Now I move rich families around the world on vacation.

The idea for the Servius Group came after my cofounder Ethan (not his real name) was on vacation with a wealthy family at the Monaco Yacht Show. The family and other guests would travel between yachts in a small boat, and he was shocked when one of the guests revealed he was carrying $1 million in cash in his bag. 

In summer 2020, Ethan and I decided to launch a company that would organize vacations with Special Forces-trained security. Our team consists of  ex-Special Forces personnel, such as former Navy SEALs, Rangers, and Marines. Each team member has completed 10 to 12 combat tours, so they are masters of risk mitigation. We are also multilingual — I personally speak English, French, and Farsi. 

We start working for clients a month before they travel.

We check routes, find English-speaking doctors, and see where the nearest US embassy and police stations are located. We send an advanced team to the destination and make sure their chosen restaurant isn't in a seedy part of town. We look for the red flags. 

We also vet staff working in venues and track private jets. And if a VIP family is enjoying a coastal or lake holiday, and their teenagers are using jet skis or cars, we tag the vehicles and track them for the parents. We also offer cyber protection for bank accounts and our client's identity. 

When we travel, we look like a member of the family. 

We don't wear suits or earpieces. While our services are expensive, we can make our clients' travel insurance cheaper. When you're entering a channel known for piracy on a $200,000 vacation, it helps to have ex-Special Forces personnel on board. We protect the family, but we can also protect the yacht's contents — some of our client's yachts have multi-million-dollar art collections on board. 

Our first clients came by word of mouth, and we now work with luxury travel advisors Embark Beyond to support their VIP guests. 

While some of our clients just want to relax on the beach, others want to have a life-changing experience.

We have a client who enjoys scuba diving for three months at a time. We dived with him in French Polynesia where it's common to see humpback whales and manta rays. Safari is also really popular with our guests — we've been to the Ivory Coast, Mozambique, and South Africa. We've even joined clients on chartered yachts to the South Pole. 

We recently provided security for a bachelor party that was held on a yacht in Miami. The men wanted to spend the day on the boat cruising around and visit some clubs at night. And no, we didn't leave anyone behind. 

If they want to trek to Everest Base Camp, as one of our clients did recently, we'll first make a baseline assessment of their physical abilities to know that they can meet the physical demands of the trip. 

If we have a guest who has never skydived before, we'll hook them up with a Special Forces instructor. And if it's your first-time scuba diving, our ex-Navy SEALs will be next to you with a safety line. But if it's skiing, it would be more fun for the client if they book professional lessons. Are you going to find an ex-Special Forces person on the nursery slope? No. 

The job only gets challenging for us when unexpected guests join the party, but we're used to dealing with last-minute requests.

As former Special Forces, we're trained for extractions. We once had a client who found themselves in a dangerous and vulnerable situation, so they contacted us and asked for an extraction. We got them out of that location, collected their valuables from elsewhere in the world, and took them both to a safe place.

So far, there's only been one request we couldn't accept, which was to take 15 guys to South America with 24 hours' notice. The government said it was too short of a notice for visa approval. 

We try to help our clients as much as possible, but there are two things we won't do: We won't help acquire drugs and we won't be photographed. 

Our guests could hire a ski guide or scuba diving instructor to join them on their trips, but they want to hear our stories. A ski guide may be an expert, but he's never deployed in combat or sat in at a tribal meeting in Afghanistan. 

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The US, together with its international partners, is conducting a massive evacuation operation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where tens of thousands of people have been seeking a way out of Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban taking over the country.

Efforts to evacuate people on military aircraft and other flights have been affected by all sorts of challenges, both inside and outside the airport.

Capturing a different side of the situation, the US military has released photos that are as heartwarming as they are heartbreaking of US troops caring for children waiting to be evacuated out along with their families.

The US stepped up its efforts to evacuate US citizens, along with Afghans who supported the US war effort and their families, after a sweeping Taliban offensive that captured city after city and reached Kabul on August 15.

As the Taliban reached the capital, thousands of people rushed to the airport looking for a ride out of the country.

Amid the chaos at the airport, videos emerged of people swarming US military C-17 transport planes on the runway.

Some continued to cling to the aircraft after takeoff and fell to their deaths.

The US military, with the support of its international partners, has since managed to create a more stable situation at the airport, where thousands of people are now being evacuated each day.

The White House reported Tuesday morning that over the previous 24 hours, 21,600 people were evacuated from the airport.

That figure included 12,700 on US military flights and 8,900 on over 50 coalition flights, according to Voice of America.

Though the situation has improved, there continue to be security issues at the airport, including an exchange of gunfire outside the gate on Monday in which an Afghan soldier was killed.

Outside the gates, the Taliban has also hindered people's efforts to reach the airport, the only way out at this point.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday that the US is working to evacuate any American that wants to depart Afghanistan and as many at-risk Afghans as possible, but the current deadline for the end of the drawdown of American forces and the evacuation operation is August 31.

The Taliban has warned that if the US attempts to carry out operations in Kabul past that deadline, there will be unspecified "consequences."

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