Marine unit has city’s support

The city of Huntington Beach’s relationship with the Thundering Third Marine unit will not change in the midst of a criminal investigation looking into the November deaths of Iraqi civilians, officials said last week.

Last year, the city voted unanimously to support the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment and the troops’ families with local fundraising.

The battalion, which returned to Camp Pendleton from their third deployment after six months, is being investigated for the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians, including women and children. in Haditha, Iraq. A separate investigation is being conducted to see if the number of dead was underreported by the Marine Corps, which General Michael Hagee acknowledged at a Wednesday Pentagon news conference, according to news reports.

Originally, the Marines reported 15 Iraqis had been killed.

“In a wartime situation, when you’ve got people losing their best friends in horrible ways right in front of their faces, people sometimes lose their cool and do things that are wrong, and the military people need to be trained to the point that they can keep that under control,” said Huntington Beach Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. “It appears here some people ? may have lost their control and may have done things that are illegal.”

Huntington Beach City Councilman Gil Coerper ? who spearheaded the effort to adopt the battalion to help support the troops and their families last year ? said the city’s relationship with the battalion will remain the same.

“I think we have to wait until the investigation is over to make an independent decision,” Coerper said. “There are still a lot of extremely good Marines out there that everybody can be proud of, and so I would say I would want to wait until we find out exactly what occurred, and that’s through the judicial court system.”

Rohrabacher was in agreement with Coerper, saying that the actions of some cannot determine the integrity of the whole battalion.

“In fact, we should make sure the battalion knows that we are 100% behind them and that we understand that even though some of them may have done some wrong things, but that does not in any way ? suggest that everyone else in that battalion are any less heroes and brave and courageous.”

Coerper will be following the story. .

“When one group sheds bad light, that doesn’t mean the whole organization is bad, so I would wait until the investigation is done and then reassess,” Coerper said. “Again, it’s the families we support and I would continue on supporting the families because they are the backbone of the Marines.”

“I’ve met the new commander, Lt. Colonel Chandler,” Coerper said. “He’s an outstanding man, an outstanding Marine, and?. I think the new commander is stepping right up to the plate and making things happen.”

Rohrabacher said that, although inexcusable, it’s understandable that in the heat of battle some Marines may have lost their cool.

“If some Marines killed some people because they lost control ? well, we can’t excuse that ? we can understand that, but we can’t excuse it, we can’t ignore it,” he said. “We also can try to be a little understanding as well?. When the chaos and shooting starts, you never know until you’re there. You just don’t know who’s who and what you’re going to do.”

Huntington Beach Assemblyman Tom Harman was aware of the investigation and declined to comment, a spokeswoman said.

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