Defend Our Marines | Nathaniel R. Helms | Tuesday, August 26, 2008 | pdf

Riverside, California--The first witness with personal knowledge of what allegedly happened at Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 is expected to testify today against his former squad leader in US District Court.

Former Lance Corporal Corey Carlisle was a Mormon missionary working in Indiana last year when he told a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigator he heard and saw events that indicated several of his squad mates killed enemy prisoners in the opening hours of the battle.

Carlisle told NCIS Special Agent Mark O Fox that his former squad leader Sgt. Jose L. Nazario, his fire team leader Cpl. Ryan Weemer, and an attached Marine corporal from the unit’s Weapons Platoon named Cpl. Jermaine Nelson killed four prisoners with their personal weapons.

He did not see them do it, Carlisle acknowledged in his statement.

Friday, Nelson and Weemer, now sergeants stationed at Camp Pendleton, took the Fifth and refused to testify in the case. They have been ordered to return to court September 29 where presiding US District Judge Stephan Larson will decide whether to incarcerate them in federal custody for criminal contempt of court.

Both Marines face general court-martials for murder and dereliction of duty. Monday Weemer entered a plea of “not guilty” at his arraignment on the charges. He is accused of killing one of the unknown prisoners with his pistol.

Carlisle was grievously wounded at the iconic Hell House fight four days later and evacuated home. Weemer was shot three times in the same skirmish, where Nazario was trapped for 90 minutes under the guns of fanatical foreign fighters and Nelson was outside trying to get in.

Two Marines earned Navy Crosses during the legendary fight that is already inscribed in the colorful annals of Marine Corps lore. The battle left one Marine dead and 10 wounded.

Carlisle, 26, was first interviewed in Elkhart, Indiana in the winter of 2007 and again in Lawrence, Indiana in the spring when he gave Fox a recorded statement intended to corroborate the fast fading case against Nazario.

He told Fox that after unsuccessfully trying to blow open the front gate of a substantial concrete house being used as a fighting position his squad from 3^rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3^rd Battalion, 1^st Marines found an entrance in the back.

Carlisle said he led Weemer, Nazario, Nelson, and two other Marines through the back door to discover four insurgents sitting unarmed on the floor.

One of them was older than the other three, a man with a white beard, he said. The other three prisoners were younger – military aged men.

On Friday the officer who commanded the Marines at Fallujah said the insurgents frequently used four-man “cells” led by an older man as typical fighting formation.

Carlisle told Fox that after a moment watching Nelson interrogating the prisoners, Nazario ordered him to team up with LCpl James Prentice and search the rest of the house, he said.

Prentice is also expected to be called as a government witness.

Prentice discovered expended AK-47 rounds on the roof and they found an unloaded AK-47 in an office, Carlisle said. They had just discovered another unloaded AK-47 secreted between two rugs in what became known as the “rug room” when Carlisle heard the first killing shot. It was from a 9mm pistol, he told Fox.

“I was actually re-searching the rug room, and that’s when I heard the first gunshot and I came to find out what happened,” Carlisle said.

Fox: Okay, and what did you see when you came out?

Carlisle: What I remember is that when I came out I saw Corporal Weemer in the kitchen and there was a body laying down as far as I could see the feet.

Fox: Okay, that was the first body you saw?

Carlisle: Yes, that was the first body I saw….He was the older man....

Weemer was standing over him with his pistol in his hand. The dead combatant was the same man Carlisle had seen Nazario and Nelson interrogating when he first entered the house.

Much of the man’s head was missing, Carlisle said.

“What kind of weapon did Weemer have?” Fox asked.

Carlisle: He shot him with his 9 mil [Beretta].

Fox: How do you know that?

Carlisle: The sound and he had the 9-millimeter in his hand.

Upon further questioning Carlisle reveals that Weemer told him the dead man had made a try for his pistol.

Carlisle: I was asking questions about as far as what had happened. And he [Weemer] had made something like “he went for a weapon” or “he went for my gun,” something like that.

Meanwhile Nazario and Nelson were in the adjacent “living room” with the three surviving prisoners, Carlisle said. Along with Prentice, he confronted Nazario.

Carlisle said he was concerned about the situation and wanted to know what was happening.

Carlisle: We came over and talked to Sgt. Nazario. We went over there to find out what was going on and that’s when we saw the three of them lined up in the living room. 

Fox: Was anything said?

Carlisle: Something along the lines of them asking Prentice if he wanted to participate in shooting one of them. At that time, Prentice was pretty livid towards the fact that previous of this Lance Corporal [Juan] Segura had just died, we had just found out – barely – that he didn’t make it, so he was pretty ticked off. So at the time he wanted to shoot one of them so… and I wasn’t sure what was going on in the confusion so I started pushing him out and told him that he didn’t want to.

Fox: Prentice?

Carlisle: Yes, I told Prentice that he didn’t want to do that.

Prentice and Carlisle left the living room seeking a way out of the house. They went to the front door first, but it was locked, Carlisle added. About that time they heard the first of a series of shots.

Carlisle: As soon as we got to the front door there was a shot. It was my suspicion it was Sgt. Nazario that shot one of the individuals. All three of them were shot. Between intervals of, I don’t know, Sgt. Nazario – I don’t know - those two individuals were in the room. The first shot came when I was going to the front door. And then I turned around to get out of there and we met up with Weemer.

Fox: When you turned around did – did you see, look into the living room?

Carlisle: Umm yes, there was one individual down and the other two – I do remember the individual’s faces. Umm, they were, they had just seen their buddy get shot and their faces were not exactly - pretty somber. I saw that, and as soon as I saw that I still knew I needed to get out of there so I started heading for the back door and then on the way to the back door Cpl. Weemer then told us we needed to get out of here and so all three of our fire team left the back door. Now, between, I was talking to Cpl. Weemer and the back door there was two shots. One when I was talking to Cpl. Weemer and then one right as we started to walk out the back door.

While riding in a Humvee back to their firm base after the incident Carlisle claimed Weemer told him that the order to execute the prisoners came from higher ups on the radio.

Witness allegations that Nazario received orders to execute the prisoners from superiors over his radio were the centerpiece of the government’s allegations when the case was presented to the federal Grand Jury that indicted Nazario.

Curiously, the matter has been ignored since the case went to trial and wasn’t even mention in the government’s opening arguments.

The veracity of the alleged orders has been questioned by several witnesses–including the platoon radio operator who said it never happened. Even those who say they knew Nazario received radioed orders cannot agree how and when he received them, or who gave them.

Nazario denies the incident happened at all.

On Friday Major Timothy Jent, a captain and commanding officer of Kilo Company at Fallujah, testified he knew nothing about prisoners being taken by anyone in Kilo company until much later in the battle.

Upon seeing Nazario in the courtroom hallway last Thursday morning he warmly greeted his former squad leader and gave him a comradely hug before quickly parting company to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

During the opening hours of the battle on November 9, Jent was all over the battlefield, according to After Action Reports and numerous other internal documents detailing the battle. His commanding officer Lt. Col Willard Buhl, now a colonel at the Pentagon, later cited Jent for his brilliant leadership on November 9 when the alleged killings occurred.

 On 09 November while elements of Company K were stopped along Phase Line Isaac waiting to push west along Phase Line Donna, the Headquarters Element received three accurate enemy 82-millimeter mortar rounds.  One of the rounds landed directly in front of the company commander’s vehicle, severely wounding two Marines. Ignoring his own personal safety, Captain Jent tended to one of the wounded Marines, helped him into the back of the vehicle, and bandaged the severe shrapnel wounds on his legs. Additionally, Captain Jent personally organized a casualty evacuation for the wounded Marines, ensuring their timely transport to the Battalion Aid Station for critical medical treatment.

Like Jent, Jesse Grapes, now a captain in the Marine Corps reserves, and numerous other battalion, company, and platoon senior marines, Buhl has denied any knowledge of the alleged executions.

Buhl, Grapes, and several other senior Marines who would have had knowledge of the alleged incident by virtue of their positions and responsibilities, were either subpoenaed and then not called to testify by the government or ignored.

The government has no corroborating physical evidence, or identification of the alleged victims, to demonstrate that the incident ever occurred.

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Nathaniel R. Helms
Defend Our Marines
26 August 2008

Nat Helms is a Contributing Editor to Defend Our Marines. He is a Vietnam veteran, former police officer, war correspondent, and, most recently, author of My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story (Meredith Books, 2007).