Marine Corps U S Personnel

A Marine captain who allegedly pushed his troops too hard during a conditioning hike in the summer heat was charged Friday with negligent homicide in the death of a corporal. Criminal charges resulting from deaths during military training exercises are rare. Capt. Victor A. Arana, 28, of DuPage County, Ill., was accused of marching his unit too fast with not enough time for breaks. Investigators said his handling of the unit violated training guidelines. Lance Cpl.

A Marine lost fingers when a firecracker blew up in his hand while he was riding to work in a pickup truck. Sgt. Bobby Souder, 22, of Fort Worth, Texas, was injured Wednesday morning as he was heading to the Twentynine Palms Marine Air Ground Combat Center, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Anita Baker. The firecracker was an M-80, the equivalent of a quarter stick of dynamite.

A Marine died early Tuesday after being swept away in a flash flood near Twentynine Palms as a tempestuous tropical weather system continued to plague Southern California. Officials said heavy rains hammered the Marine Corps' desert training center shortly before midnight Monday, unleashing torrents of muddy water that engulfed a light armored vehicle containing four Marines. The flood waters ripped Lance Cpl. Javier D. Ponce, 21, of Ontario, Ore., from the vehicle, according to Marine 1st Lt.

For almost 50 years, Helen "Bennie" Boillot was the one licking envelopes and mailing invitations to galas, parades, ceremonies and the annual air show at El Toro. Today, the retired secretary to El Toro's base commanders is pleased to be on the receiving end, a veritable VIP, she declares with delight. But the moment is also one of mixed emotions. "This was the one invitation I never really wanted to get," she says of the monogrammed slip of paper on her kitchen table in Santa Ana.

The legends of El Toro are as numerous and high-flying as the planes that took off from the base. Once, in the late '80s, a young corporal assigned to simulated flight training couldn't resist. He jumped into a jet and went for a joy ride. Or so the story goes. "He'd never flown a real plane in his life," said Tom O'Hara, a Marine veteran and the base museum curator. "He flew it around a couple of times, and landed perfectly. They bounced him out of the Marines. Corporals don't fly."

Guillermo "Bill" Romero measures change in inches. Romero, 66, has been giving haircuts at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station for 39 years. The requirements for a regulation haircut have remained the same: "Three inches on top and neatly tapered on the sides and back." But tastes have changed, he says. "They want it shorter and closer now." A haircut cost just 60 cents when Romero started. Today, it is $4. Seeing the gradual shrinking of the base has saddened Romero.

For many Marines stationed there, El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was just another duty station, albeit one with sunny weather and beautiful beaches nearby. But for Quang X. Pham, reporting to El Toro in 1990 as a young lieutenant represented a chance to come face to face with a piece of his heritage. "It's more than just a base," Pham, 34, says. "It's a place of history for my people." Pham, a refugee from Vietnam who now lives in Mission Viejo, calls El Toro the "Vietnamese Ellis Island."

Col. Stephen Mugg, El Toro's last base commander, is, in vintage Marine fashion, not one to get carried away by sentimentalities. "You're not going to get melancholy from me," he says. But Mugg, 50, is aware of his unique role in the storied history of the base and the importance of closing El Toro with dignity, grace and efficiency.

Don Saltarelli came to Southern California for the first time during the 1960s as a young officer from Pennsylvania assigned to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. He left a captain, one of dozens of former servicemen who would go on to sprout roots in the area and assume the mantle of leadership in Orange County. As a politician, Saltarelli would later help usher El Toro and the Tustin Marine Corps Air Facility into a new era that begins Friday, when both bases will be decommissioned.

NATO-led peacekeeping troops sought to maintain order in Kosovo on Friday as ethnic Albanian refugees poured back into the province at an unprecedented pace and a wave of violence left 14 dead in this capital. U.S. Marines stationed in southeastern Kosovo, meanwhile, came under attack Friday for a second time this week and returned fire. The Marines were manning an outpost in the town of Gnjilane, about 20 miles southeast of here, according to the U.S.