The commander of the 2nd Marine Division has a message to all his Marines out there: if you don’t want to end up dead like that Marine who recently died in an IED ambush in Afghanistan, you should probably wear your seatbelt.
If that sounded insensitive, that would be because it is- and the paraphrasing isn’t far off from the real deal.
Major General David Furness made waves while speaking on the All Marine Radio podcast, noting that Marines who don’t wear seatbelts get killed.
“In Iraq and Afghanistan, I was presented right up front with the fact that the more disciplined a unit is going into a fight, the less it bleeds, period,” Furness said. “I’ve seen it played out time and time and time again. The last one in Afghanistan, 19 of the 31 casualties we had, those 19 were the fault of the Marine, either doing something he was told not to do and he was trained not to do, or not doing something that he was trained to do. Like wear a seatbelt. Like do not mess with an IED once it’s been identified.”
As the commander of Regimental Combat Team 1 in Afghanistan in 2010, 21 of Furness’ Marines were killed, including one that sustained blunt trauma injuries after an IED rocked the poor Marine’s vehicle.
“It’s everybody’s responsibility,” Furness said: “Like I said the whole thing about not wearing a seatbelt and the driver killing himself because he hit an IED and he went 200 G’s into the steering wheel and separated his aorta from his heart, and he bled to death. Well, why didn’t his [assistant driver] tell him to put his seat belt on? That kid could be alive today if that one act was done. Why wasn’t it done?”
According to Task & Purpose, Furness is known for his micro-managing ways, going so far as to create a daily routine for every Marine and Sailor under his command.
© 2019 Bright Mountain Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
The content of this webpage may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of Bright Mountain Media, Inc. which may be contacted at info@brightmountainmedia.com, ticker BMTM.
