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Commandant asks Marines for safety on holiday

The commandant’s message is simple: celebrate, but keep it safe.

Gen. James Conway released an Independence Day all-Marine message June 26 asking his troops to “evaluate the risks involved in your activities, especially those involving alcohol.”

“Recent initiatives have placed noncommissioned officers front and center to vehicle safety programs and reinforced private motor vehicle and motorcycle safety,” he wrote in Almar 024/08. “I ask for your increased support to ensure success in these efforts; you and your fellow Marines are a vital part of what makes this country great.”

The Corps tightened its safety rules earlier this year, requiring Marines to inform their commands before buying motorcycles and launching a temporary program that gives corporals and sergeants authority to grant or deny leave.

These initiatives follow a particularly deadly year last year for Marines killed in motorcycle wrecks. In FY 2007, 19 Marines were killed in motorcycle accidents, more than any previous year on record in the Corps’ history.

Since the fiscal year began Oct. 1, 2007, 34 Marines have been killed in traffic wrecks, including 15 in motorcycle accidents, according to the Naval Safety Center.

The latest private motor vehicle fatality to claim a Marine’s life occurred last week and allegedly involved alcohol. A Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based corporal died from injuries he received in a June 22 wreck on U.S. 17 outside Jacksonville, N.C.

In that incident, a sergeant was charged with involuntary manslaughter, driving while impaired and reckless driving in connection with the incident. Authorities said he was driving the wrong way down the four-lane highway when he struck the vehicle in which the corporal was riding.

Two other Lejeune-based Marines also were charged in a separate incident in which authorities said a teenager died after being knocked from his bicycle into a creek.

The driver in that incident, a lance corporal, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, driving while impaired, reckless driving and three counts of hit and run. His passenger, a private first class, was charged with two counts of fleeing the scene of an accident involving death and injury.