“This was a fail in every single aspect,” she said. To us, he was the glue that kept the family together.”įor Chase Sweetwood’s mother, Christiana, closure means court-martial proceedings for those who have been found at fault. “At the end (of the briefing), they talked about him and said he was an excellent marksman and that the others in his company saw him as a brother and trusted his shooting,” she said. “I would like some closure to just speak to them and tell them who my brother was.” “I’d like to see a personal apology from the ones that made the decisions,” she said, adding it felt to her the lives of her brother and the other men were considered dispensable. To have closure, Cathy Barranco said she needs to see the faces of those who made the mistakes. I wonder that if when it was happening, he said, ‘I knew it.’
“He told his sister, Selma, he didn’t want to do it,” Garcia said. Mom, we need to get out when water reaches our ankles.’ I still remember his face he was really serious and scared about it.” “He told me, ‘This is dangerous training. “He had a bad feeling about the exercise,” she said. Lupita Garcia, Andy Barranco’s mother, said her son had been afraid of getting inside the AAVs for a trip in the ocean. At any point, if they had done something right, they could all still be here.” And, them not being briefed on the beach. “It felt like my brother was let down by two branches of the military,” she said. The report said a communications mix-up between the Navy ship and the Marines left each thinking the other had supplied the boats. She said she was most shocked at learning there were no safety boats accompanying the AAVs as they traveled several miles out to the awaiting USS Somerset – they are required with all amphibious operations. “My dad was scared they would say my brother and the others had messed around,” said Cathy Barranco, Andy Barranco’s sister and the wife of a U.S. I would think you would expect more of people who hold others’ lives in their own hands.”įor the Barranco family of Montebello, a moment of relief came when they learned that Barranco and his fellow infantry Marines had no fault in what happened. “I was more taken aback that all these things were in place and they never followed through,” she said. Sarah Villanueva was alone in her college apartment in San Diego on March 24 when she received her briefing. Mark Van Skike, sitting at their kitchen table, told the Baltierra family: “As an organization, we catastrophically failed.” Senior military officers well-versed on the report briefed the families last week, the individual visits taking hours as they walked through the details and the conclusions. Or was the accident so sudden, no one could intervene? Some wondered if their sons had done something wrong. Perez, 19, of New Braunfels, Texas, was found unconscious in the water on the scene and later pronounced dead.įamily members of the Marines said they agonized these past eight months while waiting for the investigation to unravel what occurred. Two Marines had to be airlifted to local hospitals and Lance Cpl. Navy Hospitalman Christopher Gnem, 22, of Stockton.Įight other Marines escaped the AAV, which had been crippled by mechanical problems, as it took on water and sank nearly 400 feet to the ocean floor. Sweetwood, 18, of Portland, Oregon and U.S.
Jack Ryan Ostrovsky, 20, of Bend, Oregon Cpl. In addition to Cesar Villanueva, the others who died were riflemen Pfc. The 2,000-page investigation report released last week details poor decisions and failures that piled up in the months and minutes leading up to the AAV sinking and, Marine Corp officials said, were preventable: standard operating procedures not followed and lapses in training and leadership coupled with the poor condition of the aging AAV fleet and an inability to quickly get Marines out of the vehicles. Those who died were part of Battalion Landing Team 1/4, which was attached to the Camp Pendleton-based 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit that was preparing for a deployment in September. Villanueva, of Temecula, and the other families, who are spread across the nation, learned last week the details of what happened in the July 30 accident, the most deadly accident in the Marine Corps’ history using the seafaring armored vehicles, commonly called AAVs, to transport troops. Families look for closure in final report on deadly Marine AAV training accident – Orange County Register Close Menu
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