His three combat tours in Afghanistan had been boiled down to a 38-second video clip, played and replayed on YouTube more than a million times. In it, Rob Richards and three other Marine Corps snipers are seen urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters they had just killed.
“Total dismay” were the words then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used to describe the video when it surfaced on the Internet in January 2012. “Utterly deplorable,” agreed then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Richards’s career in the military was finished.
More than two years later — long after the rest of the country had moved on to other scandals — Richards, 28, died at home and alone from an accidental painkiller overdose.
Now an ammunition can carrying his cremated remains sat on the table of a hotel bar in Arlington, Va., as his family, friends and fellow Marines swirled around it.
Almost everything about war is complicated, messy or morally fraught; in this case even more so. A Marine vilified by his country’s leaders and court-martialed for “bringing discredit to the armed forces” would soon be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the country’s most hallowed ground. On this mid-February night before the funeral, dozens who knew Richards beyond those 38 seconds gathered to celebrate his life.
Richards’s mother spotted her son’s platoon commander and platoon sergeant, both of whom were in the video, ordering drinks at the bar. “My boys, my sons,” she called out to them. The two men are out of the Marine Corps now and have thick beards and long hair.
The platoon sergeant rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to show off a memorial tattoo bearing Richards’s name on his wrist. “Right where everyone can see it,” he said.
Life is complicated. There are no easy answers here. Military vs non- military folks will have a different take. Men and women will never understand each other on the urge to “water” something. Perhaps its because women can’t. There was lots of shock and awe when this story broke. Should there have been? Probably in the grand scene of things, no. Had it not been for that damn video and Youtube, the incident probably wouldn’t have even been a blip on the radar.
Some facts from dailymail.co.uk:
- Former Marine Robert Richards, 28, was reportedly found dead by his wife Raechel at their Jacksonville home on Wednesday night
- A friend said that it does not appear he committed suicide and investigations are underway to determine what medication he was taking
- He was on medication for injuries he suffered in a near-deadly roadside bomb in Afghanistan
- Shrapnel went through his throat and he nearly lost a foot
- He was one of four Marines filmed urinating on dead Taliban troops in 2011
There are those who do not want Richards buried in Arlington. Still others honor him and feel he was abandoned by the Marines and by his country. One of his former commanding officer wears his tattoo at his wrist. It should be noted that his commanding officer’s career was over because of the actions of the 4 Taliban “whizzers” even though he was not present.
How does one become so indoctrinated to kill? This job is absolutely necessary in combat. How do you shut it down? Kill kill kill! Now don’t show your contempt for your enemy? Granted this isn’t the talk from the diplomatic corp.
Hillary and Leon Panetta both HAD to express outrage. The world was watching. However, I think most of us who have been around for a while know that this behavior is simply not all that uncommon. Easy access to media is perhaps what is unusual. Defiling with urine has been around as long as war itself. Hell, even animals do it. Perhaps the point is not to film one’s self doing something this gross*.
There, I said it*. I am female. Look at the antics mothers go through to potty train their sons. I am sure more than a handful of us have thrown cereal in the toilet or other tricks to teach our sons there are proper places for such activities. When our sons go out and “water” the grass, mothers generally freak out far more than fathers do. Most fathers I have know yawn and half-heartedly direct their boys to go in the house, of course, unless they are out in the woods.
Females are pretty grossed out by the notion of sprinkling at will. Males, on the other hand, go wherever some dude gets the urge to go. Some of this might very well just be that we are jealous. We can’t. Wrong equipment.
I just think that urinating on dead bodies is just so insulting and so unnecessary and probably makes our enemies hate us even more. Do we care if they hate us? Probably not on some level but why keep it going? The more hate, the more Americans are killed.
My take is, Rob Richards is dead. He died because of his service to his country. Not directly but the dots connect real easily. Of course he deserves a hero’s burial . RIP Rob Richards. You are going to where the answers are a little less complicated. The battles are over. Thank you for your service. (Pssst! and don’t do that again. Come in the house.)
Facebook Support Rob Richards
Hero.
The Military excites its troops be telling us how evil the enemy is. They are usually correct. There is more of this behavior than you can possibly imagine. It is part of the culture of war. It is the ultimate insult to someone who may have killed your friends, and how wanted to kill you.
America is uncomfortable seeing what war looks like up close and personal. It is better the curtain between the reality of war and the innocent American public watching the news from the comfort of their Barcalounger with a cold beer in their hands remain closed.
Let it be only Veterans who suffer from PTSD, nightmares, and a lifetime of guilt. That’s part of the price those of us lucky enough to survive pay for serving.
Welcome, Leveler.
Thank you for a very insightful comment. I struggled with this post. I had very mixed feelings. You can see for yourself where I ended up. For those of us who haven’t served in the military, things look different. War is so sanitized by the time it gets to us civilians.
Hero.
They didn’t HAVE to condemn them.
They are masters of spin.
It’s a sad end to a young life, indeed!
I agree with you, Moon, but must say I HATE seeing Ollie North in the picture.
Don’t think much of him.
Oh geez, I missed seeing him. I don’t think much of him either, Punchak,
Hit submit too soon.
That said….STUPID hero.
Who the heck VIDEOS that?!
To the troops:
STOP VIDEOING YOURSELVES DOING “CLEVER” THINGS. MEMORIES ARE ENOUGH.
I have to agree with you, Cargo. No record keeping of one’s misdeeds.
Back in the day, during the Vietnam War, many people I knew came back with ears. yuck. I was horrified.
I know war is barbaric and people trained to kill aren’t quite as squeamish as I am but geez. That should be a war crime.
@punchak
He looked so old I didn’t recognize him. He would probably say the same thing about me though.
I remember seeing my first ear collection during Viet Nam. A young LRRP proudly displayed it during a family gathering at his home. That was the last time i saw him alive.
I wasn’t a collector. They were popular souvineers for the Special Forces folks.
Sounds crude, but saw worse on the other side. Way worse.
Ask John McCain.
LRRP? Help me out here.
ditto what Cargo and Leveleer said…
@Moon-howler
Haha! Yes, he isn’t the strapping young marine we saw on TV
every day, during THAT soup opera. Remember I couldn’t wait
for the show to start every day. 🙂
Almost as “good” as Starr’s inqusisition of Bill Clinton!
The last time I saw Ollie in the flesh was in Richmond at the Republican Convention when he was running against chuck Robb. I was running a NARAL table. Ha. That was a dangerous job. We were sharing the vendor table with Republicans for Choice. <-------- dying species.
I was watching one of my favorite shows the other day. Lindy wanted to have a slumber party, but her past parties had been lame. So she started changing:
Get up, say “Yay” to the slumber partay
And then she got up and started dancing as she chanted. Then Delia started dancing and chanting. And Jasmine said, “You’re not going to convince me to consent to this just because you’re dancing.” But in less than a second she was on her feet, the three of them dancing and changing:
Get up, say “Yay” to the slumber partay
Get up, say “Yay” to the slumber partay
Then the manager of the smoothie place they were chilling in came by and hushed them.
The actress who plays Jasmine, her father is in the military and has been deployed to Afghanistan. As I read about Rob Richards with this fresh in my mind, it slaps me in the face that people like Rob Richards make it possible for us to enjoy the lives that we have. I’m not stupid. I realize that much of our military exists to help certain politicians obtain and retain political power, but that’s not why our all-volunteer military signs up. Guys like Pat Tillman and Chris Kyle really believed they were fighting to protect our lives. They make it possible for us to go to the beach, have an economy that provides us a decent standard of living, and yes, to have awesome (and some not so awesome truth be told) sitcoms.
Hero. Can’t imagine what he’d been through and won’t judge based on one stupid decision.
I’ll be glad when war is only virtual because then we can change the culture of war to a clash of power and resources and not the despicable act of killing and maiming people.
LRRP — Long-range reconaissance patrol. Deep into enemy territory. Way beyond the lines. Guts and grit.
Thanks. Gottcha. NOW I remember. Wolve…I am old. Its been a LOOOONNNGGGG time since I was up on my military lingo.
I still remember those damn ears though.
reconnaissance – doggone spell check misfired.
He’s a hero. Look, war is brutal, and rightly so. The more brutal, the less-likely a society will want to engage in it. Do some reading on how nasty the fights were during WWII. So much so, that Truman was determined not to allow the Korean war to spread into China.
If we sanitize war, what is to stop us from perpetually engaging in it?
As far a pissing on some enemy dead…the enemy would mutilate our dead, behead the corpse and replace it with the head of a dog.
The fact that our press and electeds went all weak-kneed at the thought of our guys pissing on a corpse, is just another sign of the wussification of our society.
Maybe there are more female correspondents. Females don’t like that sort of thing. It’s in our DNA,
That is the reason that my mother hated the Japanese until the day she died. She worked for the war department in Newport News then transferred to the JAG school at UVA. I guess she saw and heard things not fit for human ears. She had unrelenting hate. I feel confident it was still going strong as she checked out down here on earth. She said “they just aren’t like us, meaning Americans.” She was referring to what we called atrocities.
I guess I just expect “us” to be better.. I also take into account we are talking about young men, for the most part. Young men do all sorts of things I don’t think we should do.
But I digress. My mother would agree with you about what the enemy would do and so have things I have read.
I possess a rising sun flag if anyone wants a go at it.. My best friend has a Nazi flag her father brought back.
I have always criticized WWII films because they sanitized war. I never have figured out the purpose of doing that. I would think it would have been better to let the American people see for themselves how perfectly brutal and horrible WWII really was. Their lives were on the line.
Even Vietnam War movies were sanitized although not so much as WWII and Korea. You did see a pungi stick here or there.