The American media, left, right and center, are all referring to a certain inmate of Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo Prison as a “Retired Marine.” Some have gone as far as to call him a “Combat Marine.”
Known to his Russian jailers as simply Заключенный Пол Уилан, prisoner Paul Whelan is neither a retired Marine nor a combat Marine… period.
Speaking as an Honorably Discharged enlisted Marine of 20-fun-filled-years, allow me to smash a certain mindset that (sadly) too many adhere to. Specifically, that there’s no such thing as an “Ex-Marine”, but only “Former” Marines.
To wit, I say in no uncertain terms, bullshit. There is a caveat to the “Former Marine” appellation. As noted below, here’s a breakdown of the various types of official discharges from the armed forces.
- Honorable Discharge
- General Discharge Under Honorable Conditions
- Entry-level Separation
- Other Than Honorable (OTH) Discharge
- Bad Conduct Discharge (issued by special court-martial or general court-martial)
- Dishonorable Discharge
ONLY #1 and #2 rate to be called former-Marines. #3 is someone who never made it through Boot Camp (thusly never earning the title of “Marine” to begin with).
Numbers 4-6 are just shitbirds of varying degrees, ranging from some useless turd who took a swing at the lieutenant to rapists and murderers.
But back to the topic at hand. As I stated before, Paul Whelan isn’t retired from the Corps, nor is he a gunslinger in any way, shape or form.
As noted by the Washington Post and the official opinion of the JAG (Judge Advocate General) of the UNITED STATES NAVY-MARINE CORPS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS;
- Whelan was a reservist, not an active duty Marine prior to deployment to Iraq
- His MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was administrative clerk
- Never assigned to a Combat Arms unit. When assigned to Iraq, was attached to an aviation unit
- His time in the Marine Corps came to an end when he was court martialed for, amongst other things, the attempted larceny of $10,000 from the US government
- Whelan was convicted, then given a Bad Conduct discharge, eventually reduced in rank of Private
Now we get to the question of should the United States do some sort of trade to get Whelan back.
Think about it… a swap would entail that we have some Russian bad guysky locked-up for whatever criminal offense against the United States.
Why in the world would we surrender the likes of Viktor Blout (AKA: “The Merchant of Death“) for a two-bit thief that dumped on everything the Marine Corps is supposed to stand for?