GruntsandCo has covered several of the controversies surrounding former Marine Commandant General Amos. Those controversies all revolved around the infamous Taliban urination case where several Marine scout snipers took pictures of themselves urinating on Taliban insurgents killed conducting operations against coalition forces. It hardly created a ripple in the news cycle but the investigation clearing Amos of allegations of protecting a former Commandant Conway’s son promotion while others were frozen was released upon orders from a federal judge.
It clears the Commandant of preferential treatment explaining that Conway, the XO of the battalion at the time did not have a supervisory role. The investigation doesn’t address that the battalion commander had separated his command into two elements and the XO was actually running the combat ops that the offending scout platoon was part of. Both the battalion commander and XO were present in the operations center when the incident occurred.
Other allegations surrounding the incident include General Amos used his influence to ensure the offending Marines were court martialed and/or separated from the service. Aspects of those allegations include “shopping” for a General that would do the Commandant’s bidding. The first Marine General who could not promise a verdict was replaced with another after Amos acknowledged he may have misspoken and pressured the first General.
There were also instances of inappropriate behavior including retribution against the lawyer defending the Marines which included being shut out of his office and being deferred to a psychological evaluation because of a strongly worded letter he wrote to the Commandant’s lawyers. Further, it was coincidental the Marine Corps Times was temporarily banned from Marine exchanges with leaders pointing at each other and citing miscommunication about cash register display space being the reason the periodical which was aggressively covering the above issues was temporarily removed from the shelves.
Investigations into these aspects of the case have yet to occur or be released.