SAN DIEGO – The first in a trilogy of trials that form perhaps the biggest recruit-abuse scandal in Marine Corps history ended yesterday with a former drill instructor being sentenced to six months in prison.
Sgt. Jerrod M. Glass also was demoted to the lowest Marine rank – private – and received a bad-conduct discharge. A military jury had found that he beat or otherwise denigrated 23 men in his charge last winter at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.
Glass had faced a maximum sentence of 9½ years in prison.
In the coming weeks, two drill instructors who worked with Glass – Sgts. Robert Hankins and Brian Wendel – will undergo courts-martial on charges such as cruelty, assault and disobeying orders.
Hankins, Wendel and Glass supervised the same platoon of recruits. Beyond their case, more than 40 other drill instructors at the depot have been punished in the past three years for misconduct involving recruits.
Yesterday, Glass blinked several times after hearing the verdict in a courtroom at the boot camp. He told a member of his defense team that he was fine, but his eyes looked red and moist.
His mother, Barbara Glass, could be heard sobbing. His father, Jerry Glass, wiped his eyes. Outside the courtroom, the couple again said their son had acted in accordance with the wishes of his superiors.
“I have utmost respect for the Marine Corps as a whole. But the problem I have is with the judicial system. . . . The rules of evidence don't let you tell the whole truth,” Jerry Glass said.
“Marine officials have their heads in the sand if they don't think this is happening every day,” he added.
Glass neither took the witness stand nor made any public comments during his trial. The lead defense attorney, Capt. Patrick Callahan, spoke on his behalf after the sentencing.
“Sgt. Glass did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do and because it was what he was directed to do by Sgt. Hankins and Sgt. Wendel,” Callahan said.
“(He wanted) to get these troops ready for combat, combat that he had experienced himself,” Callahan added. “That his Marine Corps career is over is harder on him than the prison time he is going to do.”
The jury deliberated two hours before sentencing Glass on eight counts of assault, maltreatment, violating a lawful order and destruction of property. The abuse ranged from hitting recruits with a tent pole and flashlight to making them drink water until they threw up, then making them wallow in the vomit.
Regulations ban using undue force on recruits. But tales of boot camp mistreatment are widespread and long-running, and some former recruits believe the tough approach is a valued part of Marine Corps culture.
At least one of Glass' recruits said his former sergeant was framed.
“Sgt. Glass is a great man,” Pfc. Bradley Montgomery said yesterday. “People went in and lied about him. There was no recruit abuse. I think some people were out to bring him down.”
In his closing arguments yesterday for the sentencing phase, prosecutor Capt. Brent Stricker asked jurors to send Glass to prison.
“Drill instructors right now are going to be watching your decision in this case. . . . If he's not sent to the brig, none of the drill instructors is going to be deterred,” he said.
Capt. Greg Jensen, a defense attorney, recommended 60 days of restriction and said Glass should stay in the Corps.
“It's not time to quit on this Marine,” Jensen said.
