Marine gets 21 months in slaying of Iraqi man
CAMP PENDLETON — Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, who had attained a boyhood dream by becoming a Marine infantryman, was sentenced Thursday to 21 months in the brig for his role in the killing of an unarmed Iraqi man.
Jackson, 23, apologized to the family of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52. “I wish I had the courage to prevent his death,” he said.
Also Thursday, a judge at Ft. Campbell, Ky., sentenced Army Spc. James P. Barker to 90 years in prison for raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her family. Barker is one of four soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division charged in the March 12 killings.
At Camp Pendleton, Jackson’s parents pleaded with the judge, Lt. Col. Joseph Lisiecki, to be lenient with their son. He faced a maximum of 15 years in prison.
“He was my first child born alive; he was a blessed miracle to me,” Terri Jackson said tearfully. “I lost several before him and several after him.”
Jackson pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice in exchange for the court dropping charges of murder, kidnapping and larceny. Lisiecki credited Jackson for six months served while awaiting trial, making him eligible for release in 15 months.
Jackson was the third of eight servicemen charged in the case to plead guilty to reduced charges in the April 26 killing in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad. Prosecutors say the eight hatched a plot to kill an insurgent suspected of planting roadside bombs. They did not find their original target and chose Awad, also a suspected insurgent, instead.
Navy corpsman Melson Bacos, 21, was sentenced to a year in the brig. Marine Pfc. John J. Jodka III, 20, was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months.
Jackson grew up in Long Beach and in Tracy in Northern California and knew from “an early age” that he wanted to enlist in the Marine Corps and join the infantry.
“That’s what my grandpa was” during World War II, he said.
Bing West, a former assistant secretary of Defense and an author of two books on Marines in Iraq, said he thought the sentences for Jodka and Jackson balanced justice with empathy.
“Their action was wrong and deserved” punishment, he said in an interview.
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