Command, not instructors, blamed in staff sergeant’s drowning

[USMCRET6391]

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — The investigating officer assigned to examine allegations against two staff noncommissioned officers at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego is recommending dismissal of the charges in last summer’s drowning of a staff sergeant.

But the officer, Lt. Col. Paul Starita, suggests blame for Staff Sgt. Andrew Jason Gonzales’ Aug. 1 death rests instead with the command for lacking proper swim tank safety measures, ignoring training regulations and standing operating procedures. Starita issued his recommendation in an April 10 report, which is being reviewed by Brig. Gen. John Paxton, the depot commander.

Paxton hasn’t made a decision yet on the case, depot spokesman Maj. Joseph Kloppel Tuesday.

On March 16 and 17, several former students and water survival instructors testified at an Article 32 hearing for Staff Sgts. David Roughan and Fernando Galvan, two combat swim instructors charged with manslaughter, negligent homicide and dereliction of duty. Gonzales, who was an Iraq war veteran and new drill instructor, died halfway through a two-week preparatory course intended to ready him for the formal course in Coronado, Calif., to become a certified water survival instructor.

In the report, Starita, a reservist and an assistant district attorney in San Diego, had strong words for the case, which he called “absolutely tragic” because Gonzales’ death “was preventable.”

“In my opinion, Staff Sergeant Gonzales’ death resulted from institutional failure,” he wrote, adding that there was “a complete failure to adequately supervise the conduct of the ‘work-up’ course.

“It is incomprehensible that such rigorous training as the ‘work-up’ course was conducted without a formal SOP or formal safety protocol, and that not one Marine officer did anything to remedy this colossal failure.”

Blaming the two staff NCOs, Starita wrote, “fails to address the much larger problem that ultimately led to” Gonzales’ death, which he said was “a failure of the command to develop and then supervise the implementation of a formal SOP and safety protocol.”

Court-martialing the two Marines, he said, should also put blame on “every individual that could have controlled or supervised the conduct of the ‘work-up’ course and failed to do so.”

Since Gonzales’ death, Marine Corps training officials ended the prep course and have made sweeping changes in water survival training. Some of those recommendations predated the incident and came from a curriculum review held earlier last year.

In his report, Starita noted a lack of clear testimony and evidence. He also noted that Gonzales likely was weakened by a mild cold or flu and was stressed about possibly failing the course, which “likely impacted his physical stamina.”

Starita recommended that charges be dropped against Roughan for using tight grips on two students while he helped at the Coronado course in May 2005. In his view, he wrote, “at some point … one instructor or evaluator is going to be the toughest that a student has encountered.”

Two other Marines with the training company – Capt. Vincent Guida, its commander, and Staff Sgt. Duane Dishon– are facing charges of dereliction of duty. The Article 32 hearing for Guida is slated for May 9-11.

Paxton and prosecutors may also decide whether anyone else would be charged in Gonzales’ death. During testimonies March 17, several Marines slated to testify instead were read their rights by Starita after he believed their testimony could incriminate them.