Marine kicked recruits, court-martial is told

SAN DIEGO -- A drill instructor whose motto was “pain retains” kicked, hit and cursed recruits and forced an injured recruit to perform strenuous exercises that made his injury worse, a Marine prosecutor alleged Monday at the instructor’s court-martial.

Sgt. Mark A. Delarosa made a recruit with a fractured ankle repeatedly stomp his foot and taunted him with, “Does it hurt? Good. I don’t care. Stomp your feet,” the prosecutor told the jury at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot.

Delarosa’s defense attorney, though denying the specific allegations against Delarosa, conceded that he was a tough drill instructor.

“Sgt. Delarosa was intense as a drill instructor because we are at war,” said Capt. Patrick Callahan, his voice rising to a shout. “Marines graduate from here and go to Iraq. Marines are dying in Iraq.

“Sgt. Delarosa never wanted to have to tell a wife or mother that a Marine had died in Iraq because Sgt. Delarosa failed to properly train that recruit,” Callahan said.

Capt. Brent Stricker, the lead prosecutor, said Delarosa improperly used pain to correct mistakes by his recruits and broke Marine Corps regulations that prohibit striking or degrading recruits or making them do exercises sure to cause injury.

Delarosa, 25, an Iraq veteran, is the first of four drill instructors to go on trial.

Charged with assault, false statements and other crimes, he faces a maximum of a year in the brig and a bad-conduct discharge if convicted.

The jury is made up of two officers and two staff sergeants.

Jared Arvanitas of Utah, who left boot camp because of an injury allegedly inflicted by Delarosa, said Delarosa kicked him in the shin when he failed to line up properly.

The injury got worse, he said, when Delarosa later forced him to perform rigorous exercises.

Arvanitas, who left the Marines, said he soured on the corps when other drill instructors coerced him into not seeing a doctor for his injury, which would have led to an official report about the cause.

“They injured me and told me to keep my mouth shut about it,” he said.

Stricker said that one Marine would testify that Delarosa threw keys at him, striking him in the eye, and another Marine would say Delarosa hit him in the chest and then said, “I hate you, I wish I could hurt you all the time.”

Callahan, the defense attorney, said Delarosa plans to testify.

He said Delarosa would tell the court that, during the period when he allegedly mistreated recruits, he was consumed by news about Marines being killed in Iraq.

Callahan said the future role of the Marine drill instructor may be affected by the trial’s outcome.

“This is the Marine Corps,” he said. “This is not the Air Force, this is not the Army. We train recruits hard.”

--

tony.perry@latimes.com