2 Marines Ordered to Face Court-Martial in Drowning

Rejecting a recommendation from a hearing officer to drop the charges, the top general at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Thursday ordered two swimming instructors to face a general court-martial in the drowning death of a drill instructor during a swimming survival course.

Brig. Gen. John M. Paxton Jr. ordered Staff Sgt. David J. Roughan and Staff Sgt. Fernando Galvan to be tried for involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide and dereliction of duty.

They are accused of failing to notice that Staff Sgt. Andrew Gonzales, a 30-year-old veteran of the Iraqi war, was struggling in the crowded, noisy swimming pool. If convicted on all counts, the Marines could each be dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Paxton did not explain his ruling. But Maj. Joseph Kloppel, a spokesman, said the general remained confident in the recruit depot’s swim training.

“It appears some individuals abused that process and they may have caused the drowning of Staff Sgt. Gonzales,” he said.

Gonzales was a student in a course meant to prepare new drill instructors for an even more difficult water survival course that has the motto “Swim or Die ....Just Don’t Quit.”

Five days of swimming instruction is at the center of recruit training, and many recruits consider it the most arduous part of the 12-week regimen. Drill instructors teach recruits to rescue a fellow Marine or kill an enemy in water.

In February, a drill instructor at the training base at Parris Island, S.C., was acquitted of criminal charges in the drowning of a 19-year-old recruit. Several Marines were administratively punished in the incident.

Paxton rejected the hearing officer’s recommendation that charges should be dropped because Gonzales’ death was the tragic result of an “institutional failure” of the Marine Corps to develop a training manual and safety procedures for the course.

Since Gonzales’ death, a new officer has been put in charge of the swimming program. Also, rescue equipment that proved faulty has been repaired and roughhousing games called “water polo” and “underwater hockey” have been barred.

Gonzales’ widow, Michelle, contacted at her home in Houston, said she was pleased with Paxton’s decision. She called it the best news she has had since her husband’s death.

“I think the institution is responsible,” she said, “but I don’t think individuals should not be held accountable for their actions.”

The hearing officer, Lt. Col. Paul L. Starita, a reservist and an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, had concluded that, if the two drill instructors are to be punished “for their alleged acts or omissions, then so should each and every individual that could have controlled or supervised the conduct of the course and failed to do so.”

In rejecting that recommendation, Paxton sided with the head attorney at the recruit depot, Col. Bruce White. In reviewing the testimony at the so-called Article 32 hearing, White concluded that there was evidence to order Roughan and Galvan to a court-martial.

Two other Marines face lesser charges in the case.

Staff Sgt. Duane Dishon, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the swimming pool, has been ordered to a special court-martial, where the maximum penalty is a bad-conduct discharge and one year in custody.

An Article 32 hearing is set next week for Capt. Vincent Guida, the commanding officer of the instructor training company when Gonzales died. Like Dishon, Guida is charged with dereliction of duty; neither Dishon nor Guida were present when Gonzales drowned on Aug. 1, 2005.

Testimony at the Article 32 hearing showed that Roughan and Galvan were training other swimmers when Gonzales foundered and that an emergency oxygen bottle that was supposed to revive him was defective. No one was assigned to act as a lifeguard during the training, and no one at the pool knew how to use an external defibrillator.

Gonzales had complained to instructors that the training was too rough and initially refused to play “water polo,” an exercise where students are told to attempt to rescue instructors playing the roles of panicky swimmers. At one point, Gonzales yelled, “Let me go, let me go.”

Gonzales had been sick several days before his death, a factor that may have made him more susceptible to drowning, according to medical testimony.