GOOSE CREEK, S.C. — Here in South Carolina's Low Country, Melanie Dianiska encouraged her son Corey to enlist in the Army two years ago. Across the country, in Washington state, Deanna Pennington would have preferred that her son Robert go to college rather than join the Marines.
Both mothers trusted the military to take care of their sons. Dianiska had grown up in a military family and married a soldier. Pennington, despite her misgivings, watched with pride as her son graduated from boot camp.
Each woman worried that her son could be maimed or killed in Iraq. But neither was prepared for what greeted them this summer: The young men came home in shackles, accused of murdering Iraqi detainees.
Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, 22, was charged in June with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the shooting death of an Iraqi on April 26 in the western town of Hamandiya. Six other Marines and a Navy corpsman were also charged.
Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, 22, and three other soldiers were charged in June with murdering three Iraqi men they had taken prisoner during a combat operation north of Baghdad on May 9. Military prosecutors say the soldiers conspired to kill the men and cover up the crime.
After the initial shock, both mothers responded in a way that few parents of accused soldiers have. They broke the unwritten code of military silence and went public with harsh, emotional criticism of the military they once trusted.
They have since learned to negotiate the military justice system, and to amplify their voices in the era of websites, e-mail, talk radio and 24-hour cable news.
"The military wanted these guys to plead guilty and keep it hush-hush within the military," Melanie Dianiska, 40, said in her soft Southern drawl. "Well, they certainly didn't expect someone like me. I'm putting it all out there for the world to see."
Both women have started websites to support their sons. Dianiska has acted like an investigative reporter, cultivating contacts with military prison guards and other soldiers. Pennington has used the military's network of family contacts to take her son's case to the American public.
"I got into a take-charge, flight-or-fight thing. All my adrenaline kicked in," said Pennington, 49, a financial controller for a travel agency. "You have to fight like your son's life is at stake, because it is."
'I feel so let down'
On May 11, two days after the combat mission, Clagett phoned his mother from Iraq.
