Military investigates 2 Marines for social media post
SAN DIEGO >> The Marine Corps is investigating two active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton for a social media post of a photo of a corporal in uniform holding an assault rifle and the message: “Coming to a gay bar near you!”
Maj. Staci Reidinger said Thursday that fellow Marines alerted officials to the post, and authorities were able to track down the Marine in the photograph and another one who reposted it.
According to the Marine Corps Times, the post appeared on a private Facebook group for male Marines with the words “Too soon?” before the administrator deleted it and banned the person from the group.
“We believe that it was a very insensitive and possibly dangerous photo that needed to be taken seriously given the nature of the possible threat,” the administrator, Michael Moss, said in an email.
Moss said the group has 25,000 members and receives about 3,000 posts a week.
“We rely on our members, who are comprised of all active duty and veteran service members, to help moderate, which they did,” Moss wrote. “As a group, we do not condone any type of hate speech or threats.”
Reidinger said the posting goes against Marine Corps values.
“This is a very serious incident and we see this as potential misconduct based on the fact in the picture is a US Marine and the person who reposted the picture also is a US Marine,” she said. “This goes against good order and discipline within the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps has a very high standard of not tolerating discrimination against any type of group.”
She added that fellow Marines policed their own by immediately reporting the post.
“It’s an embarrassment to us,” Reidinger said of the post.
The post follows Sunday’s terror attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people and injured more than 50.
10 responses to “Military investigates 2 Marines for social media post”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect your pay or benefits sucker.
The few, the stupid, 2 grunts
Glad that other marine members reported that post. Totally uncalled for.
More people need to step forward with posts like this. We can’t just shrug it off. Doing this can save lives.
Just because someone goes into the military doesn’t mean they are a decent human being. They are not all a hero and they don’t all deserve to be saluted. Some are just another piece of garbage.
These two utterly clueless Marines are going to be ripped by their Commander and worst of all, their Gunnery Sergeant, 1st Sergeant, and Command Sergeant Major. Life in the USMC as they know it suddenly changed. They can expect UCMJ action like reduction in rank, mega extra duty, and loss of pay.
What were these two baboozes thinking? Were they thinking?
Poor misguided youths! We were young and naive when we enlisted but after our tour our parents marveled at our growth of maturity. Pray that these boys will be given the chance to grow up and become better Marines!
Ironic considering the large number of gay marines.
Playing “devil’s advocate” here. Maybe they meant that they were heading to the bar to provide protection for the patrons of the bar?
Then you wouldn’t be advocating for devils.