Alaska-based soldier found guilty in fellow GI's shooting death

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA — An Alaska-based soldier from South Carolina will serve nearly 12 years in a military prison and be dishonorably discharged after shooting a fellow soldier in the face on Christmas morning, killing him, a military judge determined Thursday.

Spec. Marshall D. Drake Jr., of Mount Pleasant, S.C., was sentenced by Maj. Stefan Wolfe on Thursday to 11 years, 9 months after being convicted in a general court-martial of involuntary manslaughter.

The 23-year-old Drake was accused of shooting Pfc. Grant W. Wise, of Fairport, N.Y., in Drake's barracks room on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, The Anchorage Daily News reported.

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Navy Charges 2 in Deaths of 2 Divers at Md. Pond

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - Two members of a Virginia-based Navy dive unit face military criminal charges of involuntary manslaughter and dereliction of duty in the February drowning deaths of two divers at an Army facility test pond near Baltimore, officials said Wednesday.

Navy officials said the two defendants, whom they haven't identified, are a chief warrant officer 3 and a senior chief petty officer in Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2. The sailors had a supervisory role in the events at the pond, according to Navy officials in Washington who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

They also belonged to the same unit as the victims, Diver 1st Class James Reyher, 28, of Caldwell, Ohio, and Diver 2nd Class Ryan Harris, 23, of Gladstone, Mo., said Lt. Cdr. Charity Hardison of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command in Virginia Beach, Va.

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