Letter: Rush to judgment has collateral damage

On June 7, the Beaufort Gazette reported that Marine Corps Col. Paul Cucinotta had been fired from his job as the commanding officer of the Recruit Training Regiment at Parris Island as a result of the investigation into the death of recruit Raheel Siddiqui.

Col. Cucinotta and his wife, Beth, never met Pvt. Siddiqui and probably never met Maj. Gen. James Lukeman, who fired her husband because of Pvt. Siddiqui’s unfortunate death.

Beth Cucinotta was, until her husband’s relief, a third-grade teacher at St. Peter’s Catholic School on Lady’s Island. Yet it is ordinary people like Mrs. Cucinotta, her family, and the students who love her that suffer when military commanders like Maj. Gen. Lukeman decide to offer the public a sacrificial lamb like Col. Paul Cucinotta because the Marine Corps has been cast in a poor light in the press.

For the uninitiated in the politics of military command, it may come as a surprise that the one enemy all commanders truly fear is bad press. I know this because I was also once a commanding officer of a recruit training company at Parris Island and I know firsthand the rush to judgment that occurs when a recruit is severely injured or dies.

Now I know firsthand how this kind of rush to judgment has collateral consequences, as I try to comfort my crying 8-year-old daughter because Mrs. Cucinotta, her favorite teacher, has to leave Parris Island.

This story was originally published June 23, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Letter: Rush to judgment has collateral damage."