In Boot Camp, I once got hit on an inspection for leaving a “Commie tag” in my Dungarees.

I had to get on my hands and knees in front of the company and blow that thing the 50 or so yards from one end of the barracks to the other, chanting “Get out of my life, Commie Tag!”

For three hours straight.

I’m sure there are millions of veterans out there with similar stories of “reconditioning.” The point of these exercises is to teach the recruit that if he doesn’t follow orders, in training he gets punished, but in combat, he dies.

Right now, there are 8 US Marines who are fighting for their very lives. And numerous others could be soon as well.

Not on the battlefield,or behind enemy lines, but in their cells at the Camp Pendleton Brig. Because they followed their orders to the letter.

If we don’t do something, many of them could be executed.

In one case that occurred in Hamdaniya, Iraq in April 2006, 7 Marines and a Navy Corpsman are accused of dragging a disabled Iraqi out of his home, executing him and planting a shovel in his hands to cover it up because they were upset they couldn’t locate the actual target of their raid. They are being held in virtual solitary confinement, while the Marine Corps tries to get one of them to turn on the others by threatening them with death. There is no evidence other than the word of the enemy.

In another that occurred in Haditha Iraq earlier in November 2005, Frank Wuterich and his entire squad are accused of “executing” two dozen unarmed civilians in cold blood after an IED killed a fellow Marine. The NIS completed the Haditha investigation on August 1st, 2006, but handed the case off to an Article 32 hearing, which will then determine if there is enough evidence to even go to trial.

If this had been say, illegal immigrants charged with killing a family in a bad drug hit, the mainstream media would have been on both of these stories like white on rice. Their silence is deafening. The only time they say anything in regards to these 2 cases is to pounce on something negative and incriminating.

Many “anonymous sources” have already chummed the feeding frenzy by declaring that the investigative findings seem to support the murder allegations. There has been no due process. No gag orders, no exhumations, nor autopsies. No ballistics, no nothing in either of these cases. Zero, zip, nada.

These US Marines have fewer due process rights than terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

John “Cold-Blooded” Murtha (D-PA) has already publicly stated on several occasions that the Haditha Marines overreacted and killed unarmed civilians in cold blood.

While he is trampling on the Constitutional rights of a US Marine who was so good at his job he was actually promoted to Staff Sergeant, Murtha is hiding behind arguable constitutional protections that are supposed to exist when Congressmen are in chambers debating matters of public policy, not appeasing their antiwar constituents with inflammatory rhetoric.

Learn the truth. Write your representative and Senator. Demand the immediate release of all of these men, along with the immediate resignation and incarceration of John Murtha for his misuse of Congressional authority to score cheap political points.

NOTES: Donate to the fund to help all of these Marines here. If you do decide to get involved to try and help the ones who are presently confined, write them a letter and let them know there are people out there listening. They really need your support. They can be reached at the following address:

SGT. Lawrence G. Hutchins III

CPL Marshall L. Magincalda

CPL Trent Thomas

LCPL Tyler A. Jackson

LCPL Robert B. Pennington

LCPL Jerry A. Shumate Jr

HN3 Melson J. Bacos

PFC John J. Jodka III