Lt. Col. Joshua Kissoon, a commanding officer at Parris Island who was fired last year for allegations of misconduct, will face an Article 32 hearing next week at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.
Kissoon is the highest ranking of 20 personnel at Parris Island facing disciplinary or administrative action in connection with three investigations conducted by Training and Education Command into allegations of abuse at the Marine Corps’ famed East Coast recruit training depot.
The former commanding officer of the Third Recruit Training Battalion is accused of failure to obey a lawful general order, making a false official statement and conduct unbecoming an officer, TECOM announced Saturday. No further information about the allegations was immediately available.
Kissoon was relieved of command on March 31, 2016. Although Marine Corps officials have stressed that Kissoon was not relieved of command because of the March 18, 2016, death of Muslim recruit Raheel Siddiqui, who was in the Third Recruit Training Battalion, the exact reason for Kissoon’s firing has not been made public.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who represents Siddiqui’s family, has pushed the Marine Corps to provide more answers about the circumstances surrounding Siddiqui’s death, including why Kissoon was fired.
“Was there any indication of his not being sensitive enough to the needs of recruits?” she wrote Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller in April 2016.
So far, the Marine Corps has fired two leaders in connect with Siddiqui’s death: Col. Paul Cucinotta, commander of the Recruit Training Regiment, and Sgt. Maj. Nicholas Deabreu, the training regiment’s senior enlisted leader.
Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix is accused of slapping Siddiqui before the recruit ran to a nearby stairwell and jumped to his death. Felix faces a general court-martial that is slated to begin on Aug. 7 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He is also accused of ordering another Muslim recruit to sit in a commercial dryer and then turning it on several times while taunting the recruit’s religion.
