CAMP LEJEUNE, NC – "Marines are not allowed to die without permission!" R. Lee Ermey's character famously tells a group of recruits in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. Now, twenty-six years later, the Marine Corps is putting those words into practice.
In what is being described as the toughest new anti-suicide policy in the U.S. military, the Marine Corps has announced that Marines who commit suicide will now automatically receive formal non-judicial punishment and possible administrative separation from the Marine Corps.
Any Marine who commits suicide will be charged following August 1, the drop dead date for commands to implement the new zero-tolerance policy.
"If you kill yourself from now on, it won't just be a warning or a negative counseling, but an Article 134 per the Uniform Code of Military Justice," said Sergeant Mark Davis, a spokesMarine at Camp Lejeune. "And if that doesn't work, we may have to move to an automatic administrative separation, based on a refusal to train, come to work, or breathe."
The Marines hope the program will slash suicides in half by the end of the year.
Under current policy, a Marine who attempts suicide can be charged with disrupting order and discrediting the Marine Corps; if on deployment, they are also automatically removed from the rolls of the fallen and any unit memorials. However, some commanders feel that policy does not go far enough.
