{"id":51337,"date":"2021-07-02T21:34:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T21:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/07\/02\/former-marine-captain-cleared-in-2011-corpse-urination-video-calls-decision-vindicating\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:39:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:39:33","slug":"former-marine-captain-cleared-in-2011-corpse-urination-video-calls-decision-vindicating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2021\/07\/02\/former-marine-captain-cleared-in-2011-corpse-urination-video-calls-decision-vindicating\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Marine captain cleared in 2011 corpse urination video calls decision \u2018vindicating\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marine Capt. James Clement learned that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2020\/08\/11\/former-recon-marine-appeals-for-another-shot-at-freedom-in-wyoming-murder-case\/\" target=\"_blank\">Devil Dogs<\/a> under his command had recorded themselves urinating on Taliban corpses at about the same time the rest of the world did, when news outlets around the world broadcasted the incident \u2015 months after the mission had ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI had no idea the Marines had made the video, had done what they\u2019d done,\u201d Clement told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2019\/11\/25\/manhunt-continues-for-marine-deserter-wanted-in-murder-facebook-group-supporting-him-hits-1000-members\/\" target=\"_blank\">Marine Corps Times<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clement had never been accused of being present, witnessing or knowing of the incident when it occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what unfolded over the next few years after the video surfaced would end his career, and bring the wrath rolling from the president, Congress, Pentagon and Marine Corps commandant.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2017\/11\/09\/marine-who-urinated-on-dead-taliban-wins-in-court\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/635920984371887950-mar-joseph-chamblin03jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Marine who pissed on dead Taliban wins in court<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The court found that the former commandant violated the scout sniper&#039;s due process rights.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It wasn\u2019t until this June \u2015 10 years after the incident and seven years after he had left the Corps \u2015 that Clement would find support for his vindication from the Board of Corrections of Naval Records and intervention by Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI can\u2019t believe that someone finally believed me,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter all those years being called a liar by all those people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2021\/06\/30\/acting-secnav-clears-record-of-marine-officer-separated-over-scout-sniper-urination-scandal.html\" target=\"_blank\">Military.com<\/a> first reported the board\u2019s results on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though Clement had received an honorable discharge and associated benefits, his discharge papers carried a special stigma \u2015 he had been separated for \u201csubstandard performance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That will be wiped clean and an overdue award, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, is headed his way, which he should have gotten at the end of that 2011 deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>\u2018How could I be blamed?\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In July 2011, Clement was on his first combat deployment after having gone on active duty four years before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He and his team of scout snipers with 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were running regular missions in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Clement served as executive officer of Kilo Company during the deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under intense fighting conditions, 3\/2 would lose at least seven Marines during the seven-month deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On one of their missions, scout snipers posed for a short video clip in which some urinated on what were said to be corpses of Taliban fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The video didn\u2019t surface online until early 2012, but drew swift action by top Marine leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Initially, then-Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser was assigned, as the top-ranking Marine in Afghanistan, to investigate the incident and dole out punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In that investigation, Clement said, he was interviewed by Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents and didn\u2019t fear for any consequences on his part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy initial thought was \u2026 how could I be blamed for something I had no knowledge of,\u201d Clement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But then-Commandant Gen. James Amos ordered another investigation when Waldhauser\u2019s decisions resulted in nonjudicial punishment for some of the six scout snipers and Uniform Code of Military Justice<b> <\/b>violations for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was when he re-interviewed with NCIS on that investigation that Clement\u2019s feelings about his fate shifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhoa, they\u2019re going to accuse me of crimes here,\u201d Clement said he remembered thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even during his Board of Inquiry hearing, then-Gen. John F. Kelly testified to the Corps that Clement should receive an official apology for what he had been through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Board of Corrections of Naval Records\u2019 12-page report calls out Amos\u2019 involvement with the case, citing a 2017 Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals decision to dismiss charges against Staff Sgt. Joseph Chamblin, one of the Marines involved in posing with the Taliban corpses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The board notes that Amos \u201cdirectly interfered\u201d with the cases, saying Chamblin and others charged \u201cshould be \u2018crushed.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The board also noted that authorities pursuing charges against the Marines withheld evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clement, speaking with Marine Corps Times on Friday, credits the Chamblin decision with his record being cleared by the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite those findings, the Board of Corrections of Naval Records Executive Director Elizabeth Hill countered the board\u2019s decision, saying that Amos\u2019 comments did not have any effect on Clement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hill recommended denying Clement\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker came down on the board\u2019s side, not the director\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pages-long points, counterpoints and rebuttals were swiped away by Harker\u2019s pen, who circled one sentence: \u201cApprove board findings and recommendation to grant relief,\u201d before he signed it on June 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the news reached him through his attorney in June, Clement was shocked, and called the decision, \u201cvindicating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The former captain hadn\u2019t charted out a lifelong career in the Corps. At the time he was charged he was serving as an instructor at The Basic School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He loved the assignment and was preparing to do follow-on education and return to the fleet in hopes of being a company commander through another combat deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That all ended with the second investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clement pushed back on his experience, saying that if it hadn\u2019t been for the support of his command at The Basic School and the tenacity of his attorney he might have given up and pleaded guilty to initial UCMJ charges, which quickly faded to possible NJP and a Board of Inquiry that ended his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, those around him supported him, encouraged him to stick to his principles and the truth \u2015 that he\u2019d done nothing wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now a civilian working in the technology sector, the chapter of his life where a young captain\u2019s integrity was challenged has ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt gives me the opportunity to move on,\u201d he said. \u201cI can talk about my past in a much more confident way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It took seven years for the charges to be cleared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":33700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[28,29,116,117,15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3419],"class_list":["post-51337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disaster","category-home","category-left-column","category-middle-column","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"HOFCDLB2PZDGTHTOCW5F67CELQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2021\/07\/02\/former-marine-captain-cleared-in-2011-corpse-urination-video-calls-decision-vindicating\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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