Could have been 20-30+ years ago. You know the details. Tragic. Didn’t have to happen. Shouldn’t have happened. The vets amongst us all know about the term ‘all present and accounted for’. But 4 days? I know I wanted someone to hang and If II remember right the lower levels felt they were being singled out as scapegoats. Higher ups need to feel that fear of neglecting the simplest stuff under worst case scenarios. these ones didn’t.
I remember that episode because it could have easily been me. At the time I had just gotten my discharge. It made me want to look into the subject of fragging but that’s another subject. It appeared in some movies at the time.
Sorry for this late reply. Today was busy.
The incident happened in the late 1980s. 33 years ago.
Here are articles I found on it:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-12-27-mn-812-story.html
Every officer with direct involvement was relieved of command/duty and probably left the Marine Corps.
I thought I had been told that LtCol Robeson had retired but cannot confirm he actually was allowed to retire. Retiring is sometimes permitted for more senior officers instead of being tried by a courts martial in certain circumstances. Very individualized, convening authority’s discretion, subject to review, etc.
The other officers were too junior in rank to retire. But they might have been offered a plea deal to accept responsibility and receive a stiff fine and resign instead of going to trial. Again, I have no specific information on what happened.
The enlisted leaders were apparently courts martialed. Don’t know how those trials turned out but it seems reasonable to hold them accountable. After all, it was their primary job to keep track of the Marines in their squad and platoon.
I was BLT and Bn S-4 on CAX at 29 Palms in 1980, so I know how bad that terrain can be. The 3 day final combined arms exercise at that time took place in the “Delta Corridor” which was a ...what?...20+ kilometer long corridor between the mountains with a dog leg left turn about 2/3rds up the valley. The exercise ended with a final assault as the force exited the top of the corridor. Then it was haul a_ _ back to Camp Wilson to clean up, turn in equipment, etc. and start the air flow I described in my first post. After at least 3 weeks, everyone was really eager to get out of there. Except me. The S-4 is always among the first in and the last out. Just the way things were then and are now.
We were there in October as I recall, so we got both extremes of the temperature range: routinely high 80-90F temps during the day and 45-50 at night.
Away from Mainside/Camp Wilson/EAF, it was lonesome. There was no ordinary back and forth traffic on the main service road leading away from the built-up areas. And once you turned off the MSR into the exercise areas, forget it. No reason for anyone to just be out there. Strictly business only.
When the sun went down, if there was no moon and you were between the ridgelines, it was very, very dark. Even with a map and compass, navigation at night is difficult because the valley floor is broad enough that recognizeable terrain features cannot be readily seen, much less identified - especially under blackout conditions. Just a vertical wall of darkness maybe a thousand feet high with the stars twinkling faintly overhead. (All the widely available GPS nav aids used today came later.) Daytime was better but you were still roadbound (easier on you and the vehicles) and navigated from road junctions and used distant but recognizeable terrain features to gauge where you were on the road in otherwise difficult to read scrub brush terrain.
My general rule for being found is to first stop being lost. That is, if possible, return to some known point that the search party is going come to. To me, that would mean staying at the checkpoint, getting as comfortable as I could and waiting.
Given the terrain and its isolation, after about 24 hours, that strategy would need re-evaluating. By now, you’ve drunk a bit of your water, eaten some of your food, and endured a lot of heat. Hopefully, you’ve made some shade for yourself and done what you could to prevent overheating.
You have no map, no compass, and you don’t really know where you are except you are somewhere on Big Ole 29 Palms. And you’re 19 years old and used to being told what to do. So choosing to try to walk out was a reasonable choice - once you forced yourself to decide to self-rescue.
The only alternative to that is something an older person might choose to do because they have enough experience to counter balance the negative of getting into trouble with the positive of saving their life. You could start a fire. And not just a little one either. You have ammunition, a rifle, an entrenching took and acres and acres of brush, highly flammable brush.
Bases don’t like fires, even in training areas. A big fire producing a lot of smoke is going to draw attention immediately and cause units to be sent to investigate its source. And there you would be waiting. Alive, still in reasonable physical condition, etc.
You MIGHT be in trouble but not nearly in half as much as the superiors who had abandoned you out there and still wouldn’t figure out they had done so for another 20 hours.
Now, the question is: Considering your maturity level, personality, temperment, etc. WHEN YOU WERE 19, would you have waited and then set the fire while you still had the strenght to do so?
Or would you have spend all your resources and energy trying to walk out, like the Marine did?
Be honest.