Report: Marine accidentally killed by bulldozer as he slept

SAN DIEGO — A 20-year-old Marine who died in March during pre-deployment training at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, was killed by a bulldozer as he slept in a hand-dug foxhole, a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation concluded.


Pfc. Casey James Holmes, of Chico, Calif., was participating in a training exercise with his Hawaii-based unit, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, when the accident happened.


The Chico Enterprise-Record obtained the NCIS report on Holmes’ death after filing three Freedom of Information Act requests, then shared the report with The Desert Sun, which posted the documents online.


To read the rest of the story, click here.

Marine killed, 4 hurt at combat training center in Calif.

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. -- A Marine has been killed and four others injured in a training accident at the Twentynine Palms base in Southern California.

The accident occurred shortly before 11:20 a.m. Monday at the Air Ground Combat Center in the desert about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

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.

Read the entire story here.

New civil trial ordered in Army training death

HONOLULU — A federal appeals court has ordered a new trial in a lawsuit filed by the family of a Texas soldier who was killed and others who were injured during a live-fire training exercise in Hawaii.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturned a jury verdict that found the manufacturer of mortar cartridges not liable for causing the 2006 explosion that killed Staff Sgt. Oscar Rodriguez.

The 27-year-old from Beeville, Texas, was hit by shrapnel at the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. He was supervising the firing of two mortars when a shell detonated in the cannon. The blast seriously injured Samuel Oyola-Perez, Julius Riggins and Wilfredo Dayandante.

Read the entire story here.

Marines killed in training were young, lives ahead

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- They're called "leathernecks" or "Devil Dogs," but some of the Marines killed in a desert training accident this week were just a year or so out of high school, their boyish faces not yet weathered by life's hardships

Read the entire article here.

Navy Identifies SEAL Lost at Sea During Training

The Navy identified the SEAL commando who was lost at sea last week during training off Kaena Point as Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Matthew John Leathers of Woodland, Calif.

The Coast Guard said it suspended its search for Leathers Sunday after "exhaustive efforts" to locate the 33-year-old, who went missing during an open-ocean training exercise last Tuesday.

Read the entire story here.

Military Training Accidents

Link to radio discussion of training accidents.