The memorial service for Lance Cpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt was a major event in San Antonio.
More than 500 mourners packed the Oak Hills Church to honor the Marine who was killed in combat in Afghanistan on Oct. 6. Schmidt’s father, David Schmidt, is the team doctor for the San Antonio Spurs, and several of the team’s stars mourned with the family.
(Courtesy photo via Whetstone Schmidt family) - U.S. Marine sniper Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt.
“I literally watched Benjamin grow up,” basketball Hall of Famer David Robinson said at the service.
What the family and the mourners did not know was that Schmidt, 24, had been accidentally killed by another Marine.
It was hardly a secret among the members of Schmidt’s unit in Afghanistan. Within 30 minutes of his death, most of his fellow Marines knew that he had been felled by friendly fire.
Some of Schmidt’s closest Marine friends in San Diego, where the unit is based, also learned from colleagues in Afghanistan how Schmidt died. “I knew about 10 days after he was killed,” said one, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the incident. “I kept it to myself. I didn’t tell a soul.”
The Marine said he stayed silent because he was told that the Corps had an established routine for notifying grieving family members in cases of friendly fire. But the Schmidt case and the aftermath of a 2010 Marine fatality suggest that the Corps’ protocol leaves some families frustrated despite recent efforts to improve the process.
An October 2007 investigation of 91 Marine friendly-fire incidents by the Corps’ inspector general found only four instances in which the Marines notified family members in a “timely manner” of investigations. Six of the 91 incidents resulted in fatalities, and in the other cases, Marines were wounded.
The report found that the Corps’ shortcomings were “the result of unclear procedures, outdated directives and a confusing chain of command.”
After the inspector general’s report, the Corps made across-the-board changes to ensure that families were told of friendly-fire investigations.
A Marine Corps spokesman said the process works. “In the vast majority of circumstances, families are updated immediately when an investigation into the cause of death changes,” said Maj. Shawn D. Haney, a spokeswoman for Marine Corps manpower and reserve affairs. “This is especially important when an investigation determines that friendly fire may be the cause of death.”
A reporter’s call
Becky Whetstone, Schmidt’s mother, learned from a Wall Street Journal reporter how her son died. The reporter, who had been embedded with Schmidt’s unit, said he had been told by military officials that the family had been formally notified by the Marine Corps.
Whetstone, who was driving when she took the reporter’s call, said she nearly crashed her car. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts,” she said. “I wonder what else are they going to tell me?”
The most high-profile case of a bungled friendly-fire notification involved Pat Tillman, a former NFL star who was killed in 2004 while serving as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. Records indicate that some of Tillman’s superiors exaggerated his actions and withheld details to protect Tillman’s commanders.
The Post MostMost-viewed stories, videos, and galleries in the past two hours
Loading...
Comments