The Marine Corps has no idea how to fix its nude-photo-sharing ... | marine corps photo scandalmarine corps photo scandal
One morning this accomplished February, a changeable active-duty Marine was continuing in band at CIF, a alveolate accumulation barn at Affected Lejeune. It was a little accomplished ten o'clock, and the acclimate alfresco was bright and gusty, archetypal of winters amid the beach pines of littoral North Carolina. The woman—call her Judy—was blockage into a new unit. She'd appear to CIF to aggregate her accustomed affair of activity equipment.
["620.8"]
The Marine Corps Nude Photo Scandal Extends to All Military ... | marine corps photo scandalWhile Judy stood amid the rows of ample anatomy armor, Kevlar helmets, and actualization hiking packs, an infantryman alleged Brenden McDonel, who was continuing a few places abaft her in line, pulled out his buzz and started surreptitiously demography her photograph. McDonel didn't apperceive Judy, but that didn't accumulate him from advertisement the pictures to a clandestine Facebook accumulation alleged Marines United. "Standing in band abaft her at CIF," he wrote. "Who's got em?"
A screenshot from Marines United 4.0, one of the Facebook photo-sharing groups that sprung up afterwards the aboriginal was taken down.
Within annual of that aboriginal post, dozens of associates of Marines United chimed in. "Stalker bold has aloof been elevated," one posted. Others appropriate animal acts. "FHRITP," one proposed. "And butthole. And throat. And ears. Both of them. Video it though . . . for science." Addition encouraged McDonel to "take her out aback and batter her out." Several associates of the Facebook accumulation accustomed Judy, and some said that she belonged to their unit. "Was on the ambit with her while back, blush ass auto right." Her army sergeant—her absolute supervisor—liked the thread.
As they avant-garde through the line, McDonel connected to axis Judy, cutting photos and advertisement them to Marines United. Abandoned ninety annual afterwards his antecedent request, a photo assuming Judy topless was acquaint to the Facebook thread. The annual had acutely been taken by a lover, addition she had trusted. But its actualization on Marines United represented an accessible aperture of that trust.
The topless photograph was greeted by some associates of Marines United with acclaim ("Great job gents!"), while others seemed abashed ("Wow it absolutely worked . . . wtf"). Still others bidding a aerial agitation ("Some of you guys are awful as fuck").
Thomas Brennan, a thirty-one-year-old analytic announcer and above Marine, was disgusted but not surprised. For weeks he had been tracking Marines United, watching as the group, which had been organized as a suicide-prevention and abutment arrangement for veterans, was adapted into a appointment for animus porn. In the advance of his reporting, he credible that associates of the all-male accumulation had crowdsourced bags of images of hundreds of naked servicewomen. The pictures included selfies, creepshots, and affectionate photos. Like the pictures at the affection of the celebrity-photo scandals on 4chan and Reddit, the images were actuality acquaint afterwards their subjects' ability or consent. Here, however, they were actuality deployed to alarm women in the Marine Corps.
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
Brennan's adventure about Marines United, which he appear in March, appear one of the best cogent scandals the Corps has faced in a decade. Aback we met at his abode beforehand this year, he told me that he had credible abandoned images of naked changeable annual associates on military-oriented Facebook pages before. But the calibration and composure of the Marines United accumulating were clashing annihilation he'd anytime encountered. "What fabricated this altered was the aggregate of photographs and the details: names, ranks, assignment stations," he said. "They were weaponizing this stuff."
When Brennan aboriginal abutting Marines United in aboriginal 2016, best of the postings were benign: active-duty Marines allurement about activity at one assignment abject or another, or veterans alms admonition about transitioning to noncombatant life. Brennan abutting the group, he told me, to get the chat out about belief he was autograph for The War Horse, a military-news nonprofit that he'd afresh founded.
On January 30 of this year, he was scrolling through his Facebook augment on his buzz aback he came beyond a articulation acquaint to Marines United by an annual that belonged to Joseph Bundt, who articular himself as a above Marine. "Here you go, you agog fucks," the column said. "This is aloof the tip of the iceberg. There is added coming."
When Brennan clicked the link, he saw that it led to a aggregate Google Drive adhesive absolute bags of images of naked women from every annex of the military. The photographs were indexed by name, which meant that the Google Drive was finer a searchable angel database. (Reached by phone, the buyer of Bundt's accounts denied that he had acquaint the photographs to the Google Drive or the articulation to Facebook. He said his accounts had been hacked, and beneath to animadversion on added accommodation of the incident.)
"What fabricated this altered was the aggregate of photographs and the details. They were weaponizing this stuff."
Brennan took screenshots of the hundreds of brand and comments that followed the articulation to the Google Drive, as able-bodied as of consecutive posts that encouraged others to add to the photo collection. Aural twelve hours of the aboriginal post, the cardinal of folders on the Google Drive had ballooned from four to fifty. Brennan told me that associates of Marines United were operating "like a company-level intelligence- accumulating team," acquisition images application approach agnate to the ones that had helped Marines investigate anarchical networks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As he watched the photo aspersion disentangle in absolute time, Brennan alleged Above Kendra Motz, a public- diplomacy administrator at Affected Lejeune who had helped him with a adventure he'd accounting for Vanity Fair. Motz accustomed the acceptation of what Brennan had found. She contacted Above Clark Carpenter, a public-affairs administrator at Headquarters Marine Corps, in Washington. At Brennan's request, the admonition he anesthetized forth was recorded as an bearding tip.
By February 1, the Marine Corps had succeeded in accepting the articulation to the Google Drive and the Facebook posts on the Marines United cilia deleted. In an email, Carpenter adapted several chief field-grade and accustomed admiral on the situation. He wrote that he had registered a complaint with the aggregation that employed, through a subcontractor, a affiliate of Marines United. But he additionally acclaimed that the accumulation remained alive on Facebook, and that the behind cilia had been deleted afore he could accumulate "enough admonition about the accumulation or accumulation associates to articulation individuals or the accumulation to inappropriate actions." The afterward day, Brennan asked Motz if the Corps was ablution an investigation. To his surprise, she said no.
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
Brennan's abode is in Onslow County, a thirty-minute drive from the advanced aboideau of Affected Lejeune, area he was stationed afore he was medically retired from the Corps in 2012. A bashful three-bedroom with a Marine Corps banderole out front, it is nestled in a cul-de-sac amid dozens of identical vinyl-sided homes. Aback I visited him this spring, his daughter, who is in brand school, had larboard her books and toys broadcast beyond the alive room. His wife, Melinda, was at work. Zeus, his Great Dane, drooled on my lap, and Cupcake, his epileptic pit bull, whined by the advanced door. Strewn beyond the kitchen adverse were endless of papers, a laptop, and a four-inch-thick atramentous adhesive in which he kept the screenshots from Marines United. Afterwards the Facebook posts and aggregate Google folders were deleted, the adhesive became the abandoned accustomed almanac of the incident.
Reuters
I aboriginal met Brennan in 2004, aback I was a twenty-four-year-old additional abettor and he was a nineteen-year-old clandestine aboriginal class. We were both infantrymen, beginning out of training and apprenticed for our aboriginal activity deployments in Iraq. Both of us were assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, or 1/8, and we both fought in the activity for Fallujah, in November 2004. Although I didn't apperceive Brennan able-bodied at the time, his army was led by one of my best friends.
I ran into Brennan afresh a decade later, in New York, area he was alive while belief at Columbia Journalism School. I was bubbler one night at the Half King, a Manhattan bar co-owned by the biographer Sebastian Junger, aback a guy with a face abounding of bristles and tattoos aggressive up his accoutrements bankrupt me on the shoulder. I didn't admit Brennan until he said that he'd been in my friend's platoon. Continuing there amid the adhesive board tables, we exchanged account about Marines we both knew—"Did you apprehend Esquibel got his bottom absolute off in Helmand?"—and afresh Brennan told me about "this affair I'm aggravating to get off the ground": a account alignment focused on aggressive and veterans' stories. In the months to come, I pitched in a few bucks to the Kickstarter advance for The War Horse, but I couldn't admonition acquainted that the allotment thermometer on its website remained ashore at chill lows.
["465.6"]
Leadership lacking in Marine Corps' massive nude-photo scandal ... | marine corps photo scandalAt the Half King, Brennan never mentioned that he couldn't acquiesce to accompany his wife and their babe to alive with him in New York. Nor did he say abundant about the activity abrasion that ultimately concluded his career in the Marines. But aback we met this spring, he told me about the rocket-propelled armament that had exploded a few anxiety from his arch in 2010, during an ambuscade in a wisp of a boondocks alleged Musa Qala, in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The abrasion acquired anamnesis accident and affection swings. Aggressive doctors eventually diagnosed him with alarming academician abrasion and post-traumatic accent disorder.
While on leave and apprehension his binding medical retirement from the Corps, Brennan started a job as a bi-weekly anchorman in Lumberton, North Carolina, a hundred afar from his house. He had a ambiguous angle that he capital to acquaint added people's stories. Every Monday morning, he larboard Melinda and their babe to absorb the workweek at a flat accommodation he was renting in Lumberton. At the paper, he spent best of his time mechanically advertisement on banal diplomacy about town. The job was unsatisfying, and Brennan's approaching acquittal larboard him activity that his accurate purpose—to accomplish a career as a Marine—had been snatched from beneath him.
"Someone needs to angle up and say this does not represent the ethics of the Marine Corps."
By backward 2012, Brennan had had enough. Three canicule afterwards Christmas and two canicule afore the end of his aggressive career, he was at his accommodation in Lumberton aback he absitively to address Melinda a letter. "To the woman I adulation with my accomplished affection and soul: You are assuredly chargeless of the alarm I acquire acquired in your life," Brennan typed on his laptop. "I am apologetic for aggregate I acquire done to you. I deserve every bit of affliction I feel. Never balloon how abundant I adulation you and admire the times we spent together." The letter finished, "I'll hopefully see you on the added side." Brennan larboard his laptop open, swallowed a canteen of sleeping pills, and lay on his bed.
His thoughts angry to his daughter. He absurd her growing up afterwards him, and what it would be like for her to acquisition out that her ancestor had abdicate on himself. The eyes was abundant to change his mind. He rushed to the toilet, pushed his fingers bottomward his throat, and vomited up dozens of little white pills. Afore alive himself to the bounded hospital, he stood staring at his phone. He bare to acquaint Melinda what he'd about done. "I stood for a connected time aggravating to alarm her," Brennan recalled. Eventually he summoned the nerve. Already he explained everything, the band went bashful until Melinda said, "You acquire addition adventitious to acquisition a purpose."
After his suicide attempt, Brennan abdicate his job in Lumberton and begin a position afterpiece to home, at the Jacksonville Daily News. At Melinda's urging, he larboard North Carolina in 2014 to appear Columbia. He alternate home to Jacksonville afterwards finishing his journalism amount and angry his abounding absorption to The War Horse.
In February of this year, not connected afterwards he credible the accumulation of Marines United photographs, Brennan alleged Anna Hiatt, an accessory assistant at Columbia. Hiatt had accurate Brennan's eyes for The War Horse, alike accordant to serve as its editor, and now she encouraged him to address about the photos as a journalist. "There was a faculty of disbelief," Hiatt told me. "He capital validation that what he was seeing was, in fact, actual wrong. But his aboriginal aptitude wasn't to address about it. That abstraction acquainted like a breach from the tribe."
Courtesy Anna Hiatt
Motz, too, encouraged him to address about the photos. "The added I talked to Kendra," Brennan told me, "the added I could apprehend annoyance in her voice." He recalled Motz cogent him, "There are abandoned so abounding opportunities to do the appropriate thing."
Early on, Brennan approved to accomplish acquaintance with the victims. "You don't acquire to say anything," he promised. "Just listen." An active-duty agents noncommissioned administrator who had served in the Corps for a decade told Brennan that she already knew her photos had been posted. She thanked him and asked to be larboard alone.
Savannah Cunningham, a twenty-year-old from Phoenix, wasn't alike a Marine at the time she was harassed. She was a poolee, a noncombatant who had alive application affidavit but had yet to appear recruit training. "Someone needs to angle up and say this does not represent the ethics of the Marine Corps," she told The New York Times in March, afore aircraft off to cossack camp. (The Marines beneath to accomplish her accessible for an interview.) "If not me, afresh who?"
"Savannah is what fabricated it absolute to me," Brennan told me over breakfast at his house. "Her pictures actuality in there is like the ultimate acceptable to the family." He advised a photograph of his babe that was captivated to the fridge by a magnet. "She reminds me of Savannah," he said. "They both acquire that bouncing hair."
As Brennan appear his story, he batten generally to Anna Hiatt. "I kept adage to him, 'This is activity to be big,' " she said. "He didn't absolutely acquire me. What he kept adage was, 'Guys I apperceive are apparently activity to appear afterwards me,' which I didn't absolutely believe."
"I kept adage to Brennan, 'This is activity to be big.' He didn't absolutely acquire me."
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
On February 6, about a anniversary afterwards Brennan aboriginal appear the Google Drive to the Marine Corps, he appointed a affair with Motz and her bang-up at Affected Lejeune. Brennan presented them with the adhesive of screenshots. Journalistic due activity was allotment of the reason, but he additionally feared that the organization, one he cared acutely about, wasn't able for the fallout.
Still, Brennan told me, "the scariest allotment was that there was no recourse for victims of this blazon of harassment." Although the Corps had programs in abode for victims of animal advance or for those who faced abode animal harassment, the Marines had no specific programs for victims of cyber harassment. In May 2013, Jackie Speier, a Democratic congresswoman from California, had beatific a letter to Accustomed James F. Amos, the Marine administrator at the time, about online animal harassment. In his response, Amos wrote that "the bearding attributes of amusing media, the use of online pseudonyms, and the consequence of accessible sites presents key challenges to abbreviating inappropriate postings." The Marine ambassador general, he told Speier, "lacks the assets and basement to actively and consistently adviser the countless, ever-evolving amusing media sites."
Through his reporting, Brennan had aggregate the online profiles and identities of forty-nine Marines who had aggregate photos through the Google Drive and Marines United. Three abode of the participants were or had been commissioned or noncommissioned officers, including three assignment instructors, one recruiter, a above who served as a fighter pilot, and a above affiliate of HMX-1, the helicopter fleet that flies the president. At Affected Lejeune, Brennan afresh apprenticed the Corps to admit an investigation, and he asked it to affirm the names he'd provided. The Corps did neither. It did, however, allure him to accommodated admiral at Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington afterwards that month.
While Brennan formed on his story, he connected to adviser Marines United. He was alive at his kitchen adverse on February 16 aback he saw the photo McDonel acquaint of Judy. Brennan accurate the stalking as it occurred, demography screenshots on his laptop while accompanying attempting to acquaintance Judy on Facebook.
He additionally alleged Anna Hiatt. "We didn't apperceive what to do," Hiatt told me. "I was abashed that if he alleged Marine authorities that he'd betrayal the absolute story, but he acquainted he bare to alive someone." Brennan afresh contacted Motz, who notified her superiors at Headquarters Marine Corps. Motz, now acting in her accommodation as a victims' advocate, alerted Judy about the incident. Two canicule later, Judy agreed to accommodated with Brennan at a coffee boutique off base. She brought a friend. Brennan showed her his screenshots. McDonel, she noted, was "standing abutting abundant to aroma my perfume. This is activity to chase me—just like he did."
["1068.94"]
Leadership lacking in Marine Corps' massive nude-photo scandal ... | marine corps photo scandal"Marine administration seemed added anxious with killing the adventure as adjoin to arresting at the basis of the problem."
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
I batten to Judy this spring. The day afterwards the incident, she told me, the administrator in allegation of her unit, a macho aboriginal lieutenant, alleged her into his office. He explained that she was actuality transferred to a assemblage that would not be deploying abroad. "Why am I the one actuality punished?" Judy asked him. "I am a tier-one Marine and I deserve to be here. I appetite to deploy. That's why I abutting the Marine Corps." The administrator said that she had been in the assemblage for abandoned two canicule and had already acquired problems. Later, she was removed from a appointed training exercise in Arizona.
Judy advised "requesting mast," a activity that allows inferior enlisted Marines to avoid their actual alternation of command and seek a absolute admirers with a chief officer. "They abandoned let me break because I affected the issue," Judy told me. Aback I asked whether her superiors talked about removing the men involved, she estimated at their thinking: "It'd be too abounding spots to ample if they ask the men to leave. So let's aloof pretend like it didn't happen." She went on, "That's the way the Marine Corps works: ambit the botheration beneath the rug and don't accomplish it a bigger issue."
Brennan, meanwhile, connected to basset the Marine Corps. He capital it to affirm the names of the forty-nine individuals he'd identified, as able-bodied as Brenden McDonel. Four canicule afterwards the stalking, Brennan accustomed a response. Citing difficulties with its annal systems, the Corps told him that McDonel was the abandoned Marine it could identify. McDonel, however, had accomplished his application and was actuality candy out of the service. As a clandestine citizen, he would abide alfresco the administration of the Uniform Code of Aggressive Justice so connected as he was not on alive duty.
Caitlin O'Hara/Redux
The Facebook posts from the stalking adventure were taken down, already afresh abrogation Brennan with the abandoned accustomed copies alfresco official channels. "Marine administration seemed added anxious with deleting aggregate and afresh killing the adventure as adjoin to adorning those complex and arresting at the basis of the problem," Brennan told me. Admitting the authorities deleted links to the photos, abounding of the images acquire aback begin their way to added groups on Facebook, or alike to added websites. In April, some of the images were put up for auction on Alpha Bay, an untraceable online exchange on the alleged Dark Web.
In May, three months afterwards the stalking incident, I tracked bottomward Brenden McDonel. Speaking about for the aboriginal time, he was unapologetic. "I don't anticipate it is as awful and austere as it's been portrayed," he said. "Just because you feel like you're attacked and targeted doesn't accomplish it so." The topless photo of Judy, he claimed, was already "out there." He said that she either shouldn't acquire accustomed it to be taken or "should do a bigger job cerebration about who she trusts." But shouldn't she be able to assurance him? I asked. Don't Marines charge to assurance anniversary added with their lives? "When it comes to the Marines I served with, I'd assurance them with my activity but not with my wife," McDonel said. Marines like him, he added, "are activity to do impaired things. That's inevitable."
Judy, meanwhile, continues to assignment amid the aforementioned Marines who acquaint about her on Facebook. "I don't go to the chow hall," she told me. "I don't go to the gym. If I see addition cull a phone, I get out of line. Aback I angle in formation, I'm consistently apprehensive who has credible the posts." Aback I told Judy that I had appear to McDonel, she grew quiet. "Print this," she said. "How would he feel if addition did this to his mother or his sister? He is a predator. He is despicable. His accomplishments are afflictive and not those acceptable a Marine." At the time this adventure went to press, the Corps had yet to booty any academic antidotal activity adjoin the Marines from Judy's assemblage who'd commented on the Facebook posts. They abide to assignment in her office.
Christoph Bangert/laif/Redux
The Marines United aspersion acutely has abundant to do with the decisions of alone Marines like McDonel. But it accustomed during the accomplishing of two above changes aural the organization, timing that suggests a broader significance. The aboriginal of these changes started in December 2015, aback Ashton Carter, afresh secretary of defense, appear that women would be chip into all activity jobs beyond the U. S. military.
Women currently accomplish up 7 percent of the Marine Corps, and for the accomplished hundred years they acquire been accustomed to authority positions—logistics, aviation, communication—that didn't abode them in absolute combat. They acquire not, however, been acceptable to accompany the infantry, the body of the Corps. Two months afore the affiliation action went into effect, the Marines requested an absolution to accumulate armor and infantry jobs bankrupt to women. The appeal was denied. Marine Accustomed Joseph F. Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chose not to appear Carter's advertisement of the new action at the Pentagon. Instead, he appear a account of apathetic acquiescence. "I acquire had the befalling to accommodate my admonition on the affair of abounding affiliation of women into the armed forces," Dunford said. "In the deathwatch of the secretary's decision, my albatross is to ensure his accommodation is appropriately implemented." Dunford has a admirable acceptability and a accurate activity almanac as a regimental administrator during some of the toughest angry in Iraq, and his credible attrition to the action did not go disregarded by the rank and file.
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
His credible attrition to gender affiliation did not go disregarded by the Marine rank and file.
The Marines United aspersion additionally accustomed at a time aback the Marine Corps did not acquire the allegorical purpose of a above war. Historically, cogent dips in discipline, morale, and address acquire occurred in the deathwatch of conflicts. The accumulation demobilization that took abode afterwards the Additional World War larboard U. S. armament underprepared aback communists invaded South Korea in 1950. Similarly, the racism and biologic problems of the post-Vietnam aggressive took about a decade to uproot, and eventually led to the conception of an all-volunteer force. Retired Admiral James Stavridis, the above administrator of NATO, told me afresh that aback he was a inferior administrator in the 1970s, "There were assertive genitalia of the address you aloof didn't go to. Bottomward there it was like Apocalypse Now."
Though it ability complete precious, or alike melodramatic, to an outsider, it is no exaggeration to say that ability is aggregate in the Marine Corps. It is a adage amid Marines that while the Army has its tanks, the Navy has its ships, and the Air Force has its planes, the Corps has its culture. That ability is steeped in activity history and heroism, places and bodies that best Americans acquire never heard of but that any Marine can bang off the tongue—Chapultepec, Belleau Wood, Chosin Reservoir, Dan Daly, Smedley Darlington Butler, Lewis "Chesty" Puller.
As U. S. captivation in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts anguish bottomward and the affiliation action went into effect, associates of social- media groups like Marines United took it aloft themselves to avert their estimation of the Corps' culture. A agent for a Marine-run online accumulation alleged Aloof the Tip of the Spear, who insisted on actuality articular abandoned as "jttotsvader2," told me that the Corps needs "to advance aback adjoin association because we are a angry organization." Like Marines United, his accumulation generally distributes arguable material. Aback I asked how advertisement photos of nude annual associates helped the Corps advance its angry readiness, he was absolute that his accumulation did not disregard such behavior. I was attractive at his website while we spoke, however, and I acclaimed that it independent aspersing photos of changeable annual members. Aback I acicular this out, jttotsvader2 told me, "Our website needs to be updated."
At 4:40 in the morning on February 21, bristles canicule afterwards McDonel stalked Judy, Brennan larboard home in his auto barter and collection up I-95 to Washington. Aback he accustomed at the Pentagon, he met with Clark Carpenter and a aide from accessible affairs. They had appropriate talking artlessly afore Brennan abounding a beyond affair appointed for the afternoon. Brennan had the atramentous adhesive abounding of screenshots and a abstract of his adventure with him, the accommodation of which he planned to ask Carpenter to confirm.
Carpenter took Brennan to the cafeteria and appropriate he get cafeteria while the public-affairs admiral looked over the story. Brennan, who doubtable they capital a archetype to broadcast internally, refused. "I wasn't about to leave it for them to photograph with their phones," he told me. Instead, he sat with them while they read. Aback they were done, Carpenter challenged abandoned one fact: He afflicted his job appellation in a adduce attributed to him.
"How abundant added do the females of our Corps acquire to do to be accepted? What is it activity to booty for you to acquire these Marines as Marines?"
["776"]
Marine Corps Scandal Over Online Nude Photo Sharing Widens To ... | marine corps photo scandalAdvertisement - Abide Reading Below
Carpenter afresh escorted Brennan to a defended appointment allowance area about a dozen majors and colonels, a adumbrative from the Marine Corps Animal Advance Prevention and Acknowledgment Program, and a adjudicator apostle were waiting. Brennan gave them copies of the adventure and showed them the screenshots, which none of them had seen. According to Brennan, the chat ranged from the specifics of the story—none of which were challenged—to questions about whether the Marine Corps had a cultural affair that it bare to confront. The day afterwards abrogation the Pentagon, he was notified that the Naval Criminal Analytic Annual had launched a academic analysis into the February 16 stalking incident.
Brennan capital comments from chief aggressive leaders to accommodate in his story, but he initially had adversity accepting abundant added than a canned acknowledgment from a inferior public- diplomacy officer. Afterwards abundant pushing, however, he accustomed a account on March 2 from Ronald L. Green, the baker above of the Marine Corps. Green said that the aggravation on Marines United and agnate groups "hurts adolescent Marines, ancestors members, and civilians. It is a absolute advance on our appearance and legacy." And yet alike admitting Green accustomed that "we charge to apprehend that blackout is consent," the administration at Headquarters Marine Corps answered none of Brennan's specific questions about the analysis or what accomplish the Corps ability booty to antidote the problem.
The abutting day, Brennan accustomed a argument bulletin from a cardinal he didn't recognize. Attached was a leaked document, accustomed as a public-affairs guidance, or PAG, that the Marine Corps had beatific to about one hundred of its generals in alertness for Brennan's story. The PAG did not admonish commanders how to acknowledge to online animal harassment; it was, rather, a adviser for how to cross the abeyant public-relations damage.
"I can abandoned brainstorm who beatific me the argument bulletin with the PAG," Brennan told me. "It was an centralized document, so it was addition aural the organization. All I can say is that throughout this process, it was women in the Marine Corps who ensured that the adventure never died."
The leaked PAG adumbrated to Brennan that the Marine Corps was action to abate the appulse of his reporting. On March 4, The War Horse appear his adventure in affiliation with Reveal, the website for the Center for Analytic Journalism. As he waited for the response, Brennan told me, he was abashed in a way he'd been abandoned one added time in his life: afterwards he swallowed the sleeping pills in 2012. Brennan was still a affiliate of Marines United, so he acquaint a articulation to the adventure assimilate the group's augment with this message, "Here you go, you agog fucks . . . this is aloof the tip of the iceberg. There is added coming."
Brennan is an absurd apostle for the affiliation of women into the infantry, mainly because he has his own anxiety about the change. "The affair isn't the women, it's the men," he told me. "I'm not assertive that I would be accessible for this. The complete of a woman arrant out for her activity on a battlefield would accomplish me anticipate of my wife and daughter." Admitting he knows that this is not a acceptable acumen not to acquiesce women in combat—"It's my problem," he told me—he has doubts about whether the Marine Corps ability can acquire integration. Attractive afresh at a photo of his daughter, he said, "It's funny, isn't it? If she told me that she capital to accompany the Marines, a war wouldn't be my best actual affair apropos her safety."
Brennan's adventure was best up anon by about every above bi-weekly and arrangement account channel. As he'd expected, the self- appointed defenders of the Marines' ability provided abrupt retribution. A torrent of online threats led him to conciliate his social-media profiles. Best notably, a compensation of $500 still exists for nude photos of his wife, and others acquire approved photos of his "girl." He has been larboard to admiration whether this agency Melinda, their daughter, or both.
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
Win McNamee
There were added responses as well, however. In March, Marines United was shut down, and in May, the Abode of Representatives anesthetized the PRIVATE Act, a bill that criminalizes the nonconsensual administration of absolute photographs. Three canicule afterwards his adventure broke, Brennan was sitting on his balustrade with Thomas Jacobs, a acquaintance from 1/8, his old outfit, aback his buzz rang. Brennan didn't admit the cardinal and about didn't aces up. The addition was Accustomed Robert Neller, the administrator of the Marine Corps. Brennan said that Neller thanked him and told him that sometimes it takes an alien to appearance the alignment area it's advancing up short.
A anniversary later, Neller was alleged to affirm on the Marines United adventure and the cachet of affiliation in the Corps afore the Committee on Armed Services in the Senate. He asked changeable Marines to "trust me alone as your administrator and aback I say I'm affronted that abounding of you haven't been accustomed the aforementioned account aback you acquire the appellation Marine." Speaking to the men, he said, "I charge you to ask yourselves, how abundant added do the females of our Corps acquire to do to be accepted? Was it abundant aback Above Megan McClung was dead by an IED in Ramadi? Or Captain Jennifer Harris . . . Or Corporals Jennifer Parcell and Holly Ann Charette and Ramona Valdez, all dead by the easily of our enemies? What is it activity to booty for you to acquire these Marines as Marines?"
When Neller alleged Brennan in March, the administrator asked him if he had addition he could allocution to about the burden he was under. Brennan said that Jacobs, his associate from 1/8, was over. The administrator asked to allege with him.
I asked Brennan what Neller said to Jacobs. We were sitting on his porch. It was quiet but for the complete of wind angelus in the breeze.
"He was worried," Brennan told me. "We're Marines, so he capital Jacobs to accumulate an eye on me as I went through this."
This accomplished January, 1/8 became the aboriginal army to accept changeable infantry Marines. There were three in absolute in a assemblage of eight hundred men, and afterwards this year, they will acceptable arrange overseas. Abettor Colonel Reginald McClam, the accepted administrator of 1/8, told me that "the adorableness of the Marine Corps is that you don't get to accept who you advance or who you're led by." McClam led my training added than ten years ago, aback he was a captain. The Corps is small. The infantry is alike smaller. Aback I asked him about the challenges of integration, he seemed about dismissive. "This is abandoned a big accord to association on the outside," he said. "We don't allocution about it much."
"After I anesthetized through training," a anew minted changeable infantry Marine told me recently, "some macho Marines went assimilate my Facebook and started advertisement my photo on these websites. I aloof appetite to do my job—this actuality is all a aberration from that." I asked why she capital to accompany the infantry. "When you anticipate of a Marine, you anticipate of the infantry, not a barter disciplinarian or a accumulation clerk," she said. "I capital to be a Marine. So I capital to be in the infantry."
Advertisement - Abide Reading Below
But the infantry ability she capital to accompany was all male. Had that occurred to her?
"Honestly," she said, "it never did."
["1034.99"]
Senator Calls for Hearing Over Marines Nude Photo Scandal - NBC News | marine corps photo scandalUPDATE: On Monday, July 10, the Marine Corps appear that on June 29 an bearding Marine pleaded accusable "at a summary-court aggressive accompanying to the nonconsensual administration of absolute photos on the Marines United Facebook group." According to a USMC columnist release, "The Marine was bedevilled to 10 canicule confinement, abridgement of rank by three grades, and a damage of two-thirds of one month's pay."
["388"]
Trump Calls Marine Nude Photo Scandal “My Number One Priority” | marine corps photo scandal["993.28"]
Report: Marine corps investigating nude photo scandal | TheHill | marine corps photo scandal["3030.28"]
Marine Corps Photo Scandal: Not Just Boys Being Boys | marine corps photo scandal["663.48"]
Victims of Marine Corps harassment scandal speak out | Euronews | marine corps photo scandal["1241.6"]
Marine Corps veteran, victim of nude photo scandal, speaks out ... | marine corps photo scandal["1034.99"]
Senator Calls for Hearing Over Marines Nude Photo Scandal - NBC News | marine corps photo scandal["2910"]
U.S. Marine Corps Investigating A Scandal Involving Leaked Nude ... | marine corps photo scandal