Marine general fired after 9 dead in training accident

americanmilitarynews.com ^ | June 10, 2021 | LIZ GEORGE

[PROCON]

A Marine Corps general has been permanently relieved of duty after the service determined he failed to properly train Marines and sailors, leading to the deaths of nine troops when an amphibious vehicle sank off the coast of Southern California last year.

On Wednesday, the Marine Corps confirmed Maj. Gen. Robert F. Castellvi, the former Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division had been relieved of his command. “He will not return to that position,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Andrew Wood said in a statement Wednesday, reported by Business Insider.

Wood added Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger “took adverse administration action against him.”

According to officials, Castellvi was first suspended in April following the deadly but preventable training accident 70 miles of the San Diego’s coast.

“He was found responsible for a lack of training. No action was taken against him, and up until last week he was, in fact, the inspector general for the Marine Corps,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) during a hearing on the incident in May.

[pelican001]

Don’t be too hard on this guy. It can happen to any senior officer in a command position when he is forced to take responsibility for anything that happen in his command.

My nephew is a commander in a Navy destroyer squadron. He says that a mistake by even the lowest level seaman can screw up your career.

[Captain Walker]

That was 1956; it was referred to as the “Ribbon Creek Death March”. Six recruits drowned.

[Captain Walker]

It couldn’t have been 70 miles; they were making a run from the beach to one of the ships.

[RC one]

I would have been run over by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle one night if I didn't have the radio handset jammed up against my ear and clipped onto my helmet strap. I heard the vehicle commander screaming BACK UP! BACK UP! when enemy infantry was advancing on his vehicle from the front and I was right behind him. I head another vehicle commander scream "DON'T BACK UP! But he did anyways but I was able to get out of the way. That same year we had a tank driver drowned in his driver's seat in a failed river crossing. The tank sank into the mud and wouldn't budge and it just filled up with water. At one point field artillery miscalculated and lobbed 155mm rounds into people's yards. Nobody was hurt thankfully. Then during a nightfire training exercise, one of our Bradley gunners managed to shoot an actual helicopter that he mistook for his training target. Another guy forgot to lock his barrel into the breach and sent it flying downrange about 50 yards when he engaged the weapon. In my sister unit, a private bounced 5.56mm rounds off another soldiers helmet during a trench clearing exercise. I heard the CO about beat him to death for it. Then there was the guy that shot another soldier with a 7.62 machinegun because he didn't understand the concept of open breach firing. It looked like it took his leg off. Someone left me a coax machine gun with 3 live rounds in the feed tray once and I accidentally charged the weapon as I removed it from the turret. I was about to let the bolt go forward when I thought "I better look first". Sure enough. I would have fired that weapon inside an armored vehicle had I not looked. Another soldier handed a M16A2 to his buddy after accidentally charging it instead of clearing it in the clearing barrel and he had no idea until he went to clear it a few hours later. And then there was the 5 ton we rolled down a mountain in Bosnia. And then there was the bridge we destroyed accidentally with a Bradley fighting vehicle. And the civilian car we ran over accidentally. And then there were the card games which occasionally escalated into attempted murder.

Training can be dangerous.

[4yearlurker]

Maybe this was a different episode. I remember watching this story on the local news in the 1980s.

[familyop]

"Can he face criminal charges?"

Did he take an action that caused the deaths? Unless he undertook an action or gave an order that was likely to cause those deaths, it would be more proper, for example, to imprison tailgaters in vehicle traffic for manslaughter for causing deaths. If some inaction on his part caused the deaths, then no.

[Cen-Tejas]

I agree with everything you said. Removing the General from this position permanently was the right thing to do and it probably means we will hear in the not too distant future that he retired.

Send him to prison and that will send a chilling message to the rest of the officer corp that could cause an officer to hold back in future situations which is not good for the Corp as a whole.

[cherry]

sounds like it was multiple mistakes....mulitple examples of lack of training, let alone common sense.

[Captain Walker]

I was actually down there myself in the 1980s; it would have stood out in my mind.

After the Ribbon Creek incident, the MC was ALL OVER the supervision of the drill instructors; it is almost unthinkable that any drill instructor would have had the leeway to train or discipline his troops the way SSGT McKeon did in 1956.

[PROCON]

Did he take an action that caused the deaths?

We can only speculate but the article mentioned that the vehicles weren't properly maintained and that was a factor that led to the accident.

Now, if the general had diverted maintenance budgets elsewhere, this could have been another factor of his negligence. Again, this is only speculation.

[Theoria]

Happens from time to time, a few guys died[4] in Ranger school in Florida phase in 95. Another soldier died this past March. Rip, RLTW.

[4yearlurker]

Okay. I was watching the local news out of Philly. Maybe it was in the early 1990s or so. Perhaps a Marine died during training and the news alluded to the story from 1956. When I read this news story headline this other story about the Marines dying during training popped in my head.

[wardaddy]

In Jackson Mississippi where I grew up we had a huge plot of Dutch airmen killed in flight school at Jackson Army Airbase in WWII

my grade school class used to visit Veterans Day and lay tulips so they weren’t forgotten

Now that cemetery is surrounded by ghetto sadly

https://nlintheusa.com/royal-netherlands-flying-school/

[Captain Walker]

It’s quite possible.

[jpsb]

OK, thx, article says 70 miles but that makes no sense. Sadly editors appear to be a thing of the past.

[MinorityRepublican]

Don’t be too hard on this guy. It can happen to any senior officer in a command position when he is forced to take responsibility for anything that happen in his command.

If it's a honest mistake, force this guy to resign from the Marines. Accidents happen. That's part of training. We are teaching our boys (and girls) to kill.

[pierrem15]

Neither the NCO nor the men were trained properly on safety procedures that required them to exit the vehicle when the water was ankle deep. They waited until it was knee deep and then a wave went over the top and that was it.

The vehicle was known not to be seaworthy when handed over to the next unit to be trained.

This wasn't an "accident:" the incident was inevitable given the lax safety training and poor maintenance. There were repeated cases of dereliction of duty regarding maintenance and training running from the general on down.

[absalom01]

Well, to be fair, the other problem was that that LVTP (and a few others) were not seaworthy, and should not have been deployed for a training exercise.

[jagusafr]

It is possible. The article says the Commandant “took adverse administration action against him.” The could range from a letter of reprimand all the way to a general courts martial.

First half correct, but a court martial is a military justice (criminal) action (not administrative). An officer cannot be demoted, but can be dismissed from the service by a court martial panel. Administrative action
can be followed by retirement in the “highest grade in which the officer served honorably”. To the shame of my Corps, we had a TJAG (2-star) who was retired as a colonel and a future TJAG fast-burner type, meeting his Brigadier General board, who retired as a 2LT when it was discovered that he’d been disbarred before entering the JAG Corps.

I agree, likely a letter of reprimand with UIF entry or an Article 15. Regardless, he’s toast, career-wise.

Colonel, USAF TJAGCR (Ret)

[Vaquero]

Patton resurrected would be my choice.