The Navy is investigating claims that Marines killed between five and 10 unarmed captives during the second battle for Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, current and former Marines told The Associated Press. “The investigation was launched when Ryan Weemer, a former Marine corporal injured while fighting in Fallujah, applied for a job with the Secret Service, according to an online report by military author Nathaniel Helms, who interviewed Weemer last year,” the AP reported. “When asked during a polygraph test if he had ever participated in a wrongful death, Weemer described the killings of the suspected insurgents, Helms wrote.” Weemer, 24, originally from Hindsboro, Ill., could not be reached for comment, but his sister Felicia Hudson said he was trying to put the event behind him. “He does not like to talk about it,” Hudson told the Associated Press. “He is very proud to be a Marine but he wants to get past all this and look to the future.” The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has confirmed it is investigating “credible allegations of wrongdoing made against U.S. Marines” in Fallujah in the fall of 2004, but NCIS has not described the nature of the allegations. The investigation will be difficult, according to the AP, because most, if not all, of the forensic evidence has been destroyed, as the battle took place about two and a half years ago. The second battle for Fallujah, which was waged after the White House called off the first battle, in April, 2004, because of complaints about how destructive the Marines were, was one of the most intense of the war. Marines took about a week to clear the city of insurgents, eventually uncovering several bomb-making factories, torture chambers, and extremist terror manuals.
