A Marine trainee was shot and killed in a nighttime live-fire coaching train held Thursday by the Corps’ School of Infantry-West on the Camp Pendleton base in California.
The deceased was not initially recognized in Marine Corps statements made Friday, pending next-of-kin notification.
Lance Cpl. Joseph Whaley, 20, of Maury County, Tennessee, was in his fourth week of 13 within the entry-level reconnaissance course for the Marines, the Marine Corps Training and Education Command defined in a press release to the privately printed Marine Corps Times newspaper Saturday.
Whaley had earned the National Defense Service Medal previous to his demise; issuance of the medal has ceased as of Jan. 1., 2023.
“The command is fully cooperating with the investigation efforts,” Marine Corps Training and Education Command spokesperson Maj. Joshua Pena advised the Department of Defense’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.
Maj. Pena additionally defined that data on the precise chain of occasions that led to Whaley’s demise are a part of an ongoing investigatory probe, and as such was not instantly out there to the general public.
The incident comes simply over a month after Sgt. Maj. Steven Burkett was relieved of his command at SOI-W for “a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to perform his duties,” on the a part of his commanding officers, Maj. Pena defined to the Marine Corps Times.
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