Marine Corps

MARYLAND Perjury prompts case reviews With the news that police gun expert Joseph Kopera lied about his qualifications on witness stands across the state, prosecutors, police departments and defense attorneys are taking steps to identify and review cases that he worked on during a career that spanned nearly 40 years. pg 1a Low-cost housing bill debated A bill headed to Baltimore's City Council requires low-cost homes to be mixed into some market-rate projects. But after the bill has been amended by compromise attempts and restricted by a lack of money, it remains unclear how many homes it will create and where they will be. pg 1b WORLD Marine Corps found negligent A U.S. military investigation has found that the Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq engaged in willful negligence in failing to investigate a November 2005 attack by Marines that killed 24 unarmed Iraqis, including several women and children, lawyers involved in the case said.

TODAY MARKS Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor all U.S. veterans of the armed forces.It is a day to remember those men and women who served in the military. I would like to use this column to honor several Northwest veterans.I wanted to include a woman veteran by the name of Makes, whose first name I don't know, who is said to have been the first woman to join the Air Force in 1948. If anyone reading this column knows where the former Union Bridge resident is, contact me.From Uniontown are two men who served in Vietnam.

Bill Krulak believes that during key points in his life, he has felt the guiding hand -- and mercy -- of God.During one of his two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Marine Corps infantry officer, he stepped on a land mine. It didn't immediately explode, though, allowing him to leap to safety. The hand of God, he figured.After retiring from the military, his sensitivity to people in crisis and pain led him to discern a call to the seminary and life as an Episcopal priest. Again, the hand of God.Now, he feels that hand nudging him to a church on Roland Avenue: St. David's, a congregation that had been seeking a rector for three years.

Rocky Gap Country Music FestivalFor three days of country music, family activities and arts and crafts, attend the 11th annual Rocky Gap Music Festival this weekend at Allegany College in Cumberland.Headlining the outdoor celebration tomorrow are Chely Wright and Kevin Sharpe. Sharing the stage Saturday are Deana Carter, Steve Wariner, Joe Diffie and Ty Herndon. And Sunday's lineup includes Bryan White, Trace Adkins, Sammy Kershaw and Ricochet. Regional singers and bands are also scheduled to perform each day.Gates open at noon, and music starts at 4 p.m. tomorrow.

THE U.S. air base at Aviano in northern Italy is essential to U.S. policy in the former Yugoslavia and to NATO. But if its planes kill people on training flights and maim the local economy, and if that is nobody's fault, Italy will not long tolerate this situation.Whether just or unjust, the acquittal last week of Capt. Richard Ashby by a Marine Corps court martial for manslaughter in the deaths of 20 skiers at an Italian ski resort is a disaster for U.S. foreign and military policy.It is an affront to Italy, where officials wanted to try the pilot and navigator under Italian law, and delivers a juicy campaign issue to its powerful, reconstituted Communist Party.

Bill Krulak believes that during key points in his life, he has felt the guiding hand -- and mercy -- of God.During one of his two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Marine Corps infantry officer, he stepped on a land mine. It didn't immediately explode, though, allowing him to leap to safety. The hand of God, he figured.After retiring from the military, his sensitivity to people in crisis and pain led him to discern a call to the seminary and life as an Episcopal priest. Again, the hand of God.Now, he feels that hand nudging him to a church on Roland Avenue: St. David's, a congregation that had been seeking a rector for three years.

John Michael Lehane, a sailor, lawyer and proper Irishman who flew combat missions over Vietnam as a young Marine Corps pilot, was buried Saturday after dying of heart failure at the helm of his boat, Jay Bird, on the Chesapeake Bay. The Roland Park resident was 57.A lifelong Baltimorean, Mr. Lehane attended local Roman Catholic schools and George Washington University before joining the Marines and shipping out for Southeast Asia in 1966. Twice shot down, he suffered major injuries when he ejected from an F-4 Phantom in 1967 and received the Purple Heart.

LITTLETON, Colo. -- An 18-year-old woman who attended the senior prom with one of the killers at Columbine High School bought at least two of the firearms used in the attack, authorities confirmed yesterday as they announced that 51 pipe bombs -- nearly twice as many as first mentioned -- had been found.The woman, Robyn Anderson, who did not respond to requests for comment, was interviewed by the police Monday and released.She bought two shotguns at a local gun show she attended recently with the two gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, her prom date, and is being considered a witness, not a suspect.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- Marine Corps Capt. Richard Ashby was found guilty yesterday of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for hiding and helping destroy what might have been crucial evidence of why his jet sliced a ski gondola system last year, killing 20 people in the north Italian Alps.That evidence, a home videotape recorded from inside the cockpit during the flight of Ashby's EA-6B Prowler jet, was sneaked out of the plane by the pilot from Mission Viejo, Calif., and tossed into a bonfire by his co-pilot as they faced an international criminal investigation for causing the deaths at the ski resort.

Lucky ol'Kurt. From now on it's all O'Malley's fault.Don't call systematic coporal punishment of youthful serious offenders, "boot camp." That's not what the armed forces do. It slanders the Marine Corps.Martian scientists have captured the Polar Lander and are dismantling it to learn about the life form that sent it.Correction: An item in the space Monday said, "What's a deputy mayor and why do we need five?" That should have read, "four." I regret the error.

Experts say the U.S. military's recent recruitment success is due to the recession - young men and women, lacking job opportunities during a period of relatively high unemployment, have volunteered for duty in record numbers despite the nation being at war. Hard to argue with the experts; "the economy," up or down, is a factor in everything, starting with the career choices young Americans get to make. Throw in pay raises and signing bonuses, and you can see why the Army and Marine Corps were able to reach recruitment goals and then some - nearly 170,000 fresh faces signed on the dotted line during the last federal budget year.

The choice was obvious. Who should lead the Navy football team onto the field inside a packed Ohio Stadium last Saturday afternoon, proudly holding the American flag aloft? Senior Cameron Marshall, of course. The special teams player and third-string defensive end. The 26-year-old former Marine sergeant. "It's an immense honor," Marshall said. "Holding that flag - it feels like you're holding the country in your hands." Marshall does not say that lightly. He spent four years in the Marine Corps and served two tours in Iraq before attending the Naval Academy.

He was a cross-country star in high school, an incurable optimist and a young man who wanted to be a Marine so badly that he signed up when he was 16, two years before they could take him in. Now Michael W. Heede of Edgewood, a combat engineer on his third tour of duty overseas, has become one of the latest casualties in the increasingly deadly U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. "I'm now a member of a club I never thought I'd join - mothers of young people killed in the war," his mother, Gloria Crothers, said Wednesday.

Midshipman William Selby surveyed the options for graduates of the Naval Academy and passed over ship officer, aircraft pilot and submariner for arguably the most dangerous selection of all: a career in the Marine Corps. "An easy choice," the Frederick native said. "I wanted to be where the action is." Selby, 21, is one of 273 first classmen, or "firsties," who will receive commissions in the Marine Corps this year. It is the highest number in recent Naval Academy history, accounting for more than 25 percent of the graduating class of just over 1,000.

Frank Joseph Hamilton, retired founder of Profit Programming Inc. and a former bank director, died Feb. 19 of prostate cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Cedarcroft resident was 76. Mr. Hamilton was born and raised in Chicago. He graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep in 1951, and earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1954 from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. He studied law for a year at Marquette University before enlisting in the Marine Corps in 1956, where he served as a member of the ceremonial drill team in Washington, and as an economics and accounting instructor at the Marine Corps Institute.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton * Age: 61 * Experience: U.S. senator for New York, 2001-present; first lady of the United States, 1993-2001; partner, Rose Law Firm, Little Rock, Ark. 1979-1992; associate, Rose Law Firm, 1976-1979; faculty, University of Arkansas Law School, Fayetteville, Ark., 1975; staff attorney, presidential impeachment inquiry, U.S. House Judiciary Committee, 1974; staff attorney, Children's Defense Fund, 1973. * Education: B.A., political science, Wellesley College, 1969; J.D., Yale Law School, 1973.

John W. Ripley, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a renowned hero of the Vietnam War, was found dead at his home in Annapolis over the weekend, family members said. A cause of death for Ripley, who had undergone two liver transplants, had not been determined yesterday. He was 69. A Virginia native, Colonel Ripley was best known for a daring feat during the Easter Offensive of 1972, when he dangled for three hours under a bridge near the South Vietnamese city of Dong Ha to attach 500 pounds of explosives to the span, ultimately destroying it. His action, under fire while going back and forth for materials, is thought to have thwarted an onslaught by 20,000 enemy troops and was the subject of a book, The Bridge at Dong Ha, by John Grider Miller.

Vietnam veteran Gerald W. Elliott had waited 40 years for this moment, and he wasn't about to let Tropical Storm Hanna keep him away from the military ceremony at which he was to be decorated with two Purple Hearts. Elliott, 61, a Salisbury resident, accompanied by his wife of 39 years, a daughter and a granddaughter, arrived shortly before the 11 a.m. ceremony yesterday at the Marine Corps Reserve Center in Northeast Baltimore. Originally scheduled outdoors, it was moved because of the foul weather to a large gymnasium that was filled with Marines, some 50 of whom were in military formation.

Stephen Boyd Brown, a former commissary worker and Marine Corps veteran, died Aug. 16 at his Glen Burnie home. He was 57. Mr. Brown died of undetermined causes, said his daughter, Kelly L. Brown Vensel of Hampstead. Mr. Brown was born in Lovettsville, Va., and was raised there and in New York City. He eventually moved to Pasadena, where he graduated from Northeast High School in 1970. From 1971 to 1974, he served as a lance corporal in the Marine Corps. The former Hampstead resident was an expediter at Westinghouse Electric Corp.

Lt. Col. Raymond F. Latall, a decorated fighter pilot who flew both the Korean and Vietnam wars, died of cancer July 22 at his Highland home. He was 79. Raymond Frank Latall was born and raised in Chicago. He was a 1947 graduate of Amundsen High School and attended Wright Junior College in Chicago for two years. He was a 1967 graduate of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Va. Colonel Latall joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1950. After completing flight training, he received his wings in 1953 and was sent to Korea.