Letter: Their bad behavior not tied to Marine training

In her attempt to find an explanation for those Marines who published pictures of nude female Marines on Facebook, columnist Kathleen Parker (“Not your daddy’s Marines”) seems to blame the training Marines undergo to make them what they are, a fierce fighting force.

She opines that Marine training should be more sensitive. She suggests, however, that such sensitivity is incompatible with the “killing culture that breaks down an 18 year-old’s humanity and instills in him an instinct for extreme brutality.” This makes no sense and clearly misses the point.

Marine Corps training has absolutely nothing to do with what these misguided Marines did. It is focused on aggressively attacking the enemy and destroying their will to continue the fight. Maltreatment of fellow Marines, male or female, is simply not part of the program. To the contrary, Marine training is all about inculcating traditional Christian values in dealing with their contemporaries and the public at-large.

This is by no means to condone what these Marines did. Their actions were reprehensible and should be punished accordingly. Undoubtedly, this will be the case, once the current investigation is completed. However, the conduct of these individuals decidedly had nothing to do with Marine Corps training.

This story was originally published March 17, 2017 at 10:16 AM with the headline "Letter: Their bad behavior not tied to Marine training."