Marine Corps U S Personnel

The widows of three Marines killed last year in a crash of the innovative Osprey aircraft implored the Pentagon on Friday to correct safety problems afflicting what one of them called a "multibillion-dollar program that has sadly spun out of control."

Authorities have arrested three Camp Pendleton Marines on suspicion of armed carjacking. Pfc. Deon L. Hudson, 20, a machine gunner from Dallas, and Pfc. Monterrio D. Ridgle, 23, a mortar-man from Fort Worth, Texas, were arrested Monday on charges of conspiracy, robbery, carjacking and vehicle theft. Pfc. Gerren Phipps, 19, a rifleman from Raleigh, N.C., was arrested Tuesday. All three were being held Tuesday in county jail.

A Marine Corps second lieutenant at the base in Twentynine Palms has been charged with involvement in a gay pornographic Web site, officials said Monday. Douglas W. Shirer, 26, a supply officer, has been charged in connection with a San Francisco-based Web site that purports to show naked Marines. Participation in pornography is forbidden under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The pilots of a U.S. Marine jet that sliced a ski gondola's cables in northern Italy in 1998, killing 20 people, acted as "criminals," an Italian parliamentary commission said. The panel said the U.S. chain of command at Aviano Air Base, where the airmen were deployed, was responsible. "It's a shame that these two criminals--because this is what they are--were acquitted," Ermanno Iacobellis, who headed the 25-member commission, said of the pilots. A U.S.

The top U.S. Marine in Japan won't be punished for calling Okinawan officials "nuts and a bunch of wimps" in an e-mail message to his staff, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Marine Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston's comments became the latest irritant in the touchy U.S.-Okinawan relationship when they appeared Tuesday in Ryukyu Shimpo, the biggest newspaper published on the Japanese island, which is home to 26,000 U.S. troops.

A Marine Corps 1st lieutenant was arrested Tuesday in an alleged plot to scam a bank in Los Angeles out of $2.7 million by claiming the money was needed to pay Marines during an upcoming six-month deployment. Agents from the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrested Matthew Tenney, 24, on the San Diego Freeway in Santa Ana as he was going to John Wayne Airport for a flight to Brazil, said FBI Agent Jeff Thurman.

Pentagon officials said Friday that the commander of the Marine Corps' Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft program admitted that he asked his maintenance crew to falsify records. But they insisted that the faulty data did not play a direct role in crashes that killed 23 Marines last year. The Pentagon released a letter from a Marine whistle-blower at the plane's base in New River, N.C., warning top military officials that forcing the maintenance crew to cover up the Osprey's shortcomings "is illegal."

In the latest blow to one of the Pentagon's most controversial programs, the Marine Corps on Thursday suspended the commander of its MV-22 Osprey training squadron amid allegations that he had urged subordinates to falsify maintenance records. Lt. Col.

The Marine Corps is investigating whether Marines at Twentynine Palms and other bases have posed naked for gay pornography being sold on the Internet, officials said Wednesday. The investigation began after pornographic pictures allegedly involving Marines were sent anonymously to a weekly newspaper and to Commandant Gen. James Jones. Along with pictures was a note asserting that Marines at Twentynine Palms are being recruited by other Marines and offered money to pose naked.