Marine Corps Times On Massey

In verifying that AP is yet to run a correction on any of its three false Jimmy Massey stories (it hasn't) I came across this Marine Corps Times article on the ex-Marine turned Cindy Sheehan sidekick. (The publication is by subscription only; this is from Nexis. Forgive me Father, for my copyright sins.)

Staff sergeant's 'outing' is justified to some,
but Massey takes high road

By John Hoellwarth; Times staff writer

Leathernecks with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, feel betrayed. They're angry. And now they feel like they're beginning to get even.

A staff sergeant who went to Iraq with them wrote a book accusing them of wartime atrocities. Now, a reporter has written an article that says former Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey's claims in interviews, speeches and court testimony are untrue or exaggerated.

"I think it's awesome that the report is out. I think he's getting what's coming to him as far as being found out," said Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Saintpierre, who was a platoon sergeant in the battalion's Lima Company.

Marine spokesman Maj. Doug Powell said the Corps investigated Massey's claims, but it failed to turn up anyone who could corroborate his allegations.

Officers who served with 3/7 said Powell instructed them not to take a position on Massey, but no similar guidance was given to Massey's peers in the enlisted ranks.

Responding to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, Cpl. John Colonder, who served beneath Massey in Iraq, wrote a letter to the paper, saying: "He was fired in Baghdad for being an ineffective leader. Jimmy Massey became angry at the Marine Corps and 3/7. ... He was angry that he was fired and embarrassed that he was sent home early."

Massey acknowledged his troubled performance in Iraq during a Nov. 11 interview.

"I think I was ineffective because I didn't necessarily believe in the missions that were put forth," he said. "A lot of intelligence reports over-inflated what was going on on the ground."

Massey also said he became depressed while deployed, and that also affected his leadership ability.

But Gunnery Sgt. Sandor Vegh, a platoon sergeant in Massey's company, said Massey lost respect among his fellow Marines when he admitted his problems.

"What idiot in his right mind comes out in Karabilah and says he's on medication and he couldn't think straight?" Vegh said. "That's not a confidence booster for the Marines. He was kind of sketchy the whole time, but he came out and said he was on medication. ... I would have just thought he was weird."

Massey said in the interview that he was prescribed the anti-depressant drug Zoloft after telling the regimental surgeon about recurring nightmares involving civilian casualties. But he said he never spread the word. Instead, he told one fellow platoon sergeant that he felt himself slipping into a bout of clinical depression, and the word spread on its own.

Massey previously had been diagnosed with depression during a stint on recruiting duty.

Now he's out and about, talking up all he sees as wrong with the service he once proudly represented. And he's not getting rich doing it, either. Massey said he's three months behind on his car payments and he didn't make enough money last year to file a tax return. His book, which was published in French only, is unlikely to become the kind of hit that gets turned into a movie, as was the case with "Jarhead," by Anthony Swofford, which offers a different but somewhat unflattering view of Marines at war.

Speaking out

Vegh, who coincidentally appears in both Massey's book and "Jarhead," is among the most affected by Massey's accusations. He recalled that when Massey testified on Dec. 7, 2004, in Canada at the refugee board hearing of an accused deserter, he specifically named Vegh as having participated in atrocities.

Vegh's response is to dismiss Massey as "a foul non-American pathetic individual."

Massey did not return the favor. He said Vegh had always been "a good Marine."

Massey maintains that his book and his anti-war work are not at odds with the values he learned and prized in the Marine Corps, nor are they inconsistent with his oath or commitment to his former brethren.

"The taxpayers are the ones who paid for the bullets that went into those civilians," he said. "My honor, courage and commitment is given to them."

But Gunnery Sgt. David Wilson, an instructor at the Staff Noncommissioned Officers Academy at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said Massey's claims were a disgrace to the Corps.

"Staff NCOs in the Corps are the consummate professionals who influence subordinates as well as the upper echelons of the command. When a Marine staff NCO speaks out, he will be heard," Wilson said. "It's a damn shame [Massey is] a staff NCO."

In fact, Wilson continued, Massey is no longer deserving of the title Marine.

"We have ceremonies where we bestow the honorary title Marine on people who deserve it. We should have a ceremony to strip the title from people who don't," he said.

But Massey said the Corps will always be a part of him.

"I've got the Marine Corps tattoo on my right forearm," he said. "That will never go away."