More Marine Mishmash

The Wreck

Marine Corps Security Force assignments overseas are typically considered "hardship" tours, and tend to only last from 1 year to 18 months.  My tour lasted from August of 1991 to January of 1994.  The Souda Bay, Crete, Greece tour was supposed to only last a maximum of (1) year.  Mine lasted over 18 months, plus the 6 months I served in Sicily, Italy.  The reason?  I was in a pretty serious car accident in town, and I was put on "Legal Hold", which meant I wasn't allowed to transfer off the island until my legal situation resolved itself...  Here's the story:

There were three of us.  Lynch, Rhodes, and myself.  It was Rhodes' birthday, so we decided to go do some repelling in the morning, and then go into town and get trashed per standard operating procedure.

We rented a car, got our repelling gear together...  (we had 3 150' foot ropes, gloves, carabiners, descenders, throw bags, etc...  A lot of stuff we bought while in Sicily as repelling was fun shit, even though I have a fear of heights.   Fast roping is fairly fun as well.  I've got pics of both, and I'll get them scanned and post them soon.

So we got the car and our gear, and went into the mountains.  We found an abandoned monastery which had been carved into the rock of the mountain.  These are all over the place in Greece, and some are even still occupied.  This one wasn't however, and one of the windows of the monastery overlooked a nice descent of about 50-70 feet, which was perfect for repelling.

We repelled for a couple of hours, even trying "Australian" style repelling and then gathered our gear and went back to base.  We took showers and got dressed to hit the town early and have a nice dinner before hitting the bars.

Now, the Naval base we lived at was situated in the foothills of the mountains.  Going into town is a downhill drive all the way and at the outskirts of the town, the road branches...  the main way takes a left and curves around and around until going into town.

The other way, branches from the main road when it curves to the left.  The secondary road continues straight and basically "drops" off to a steep incline.  We called this route "The Elevator" cause when you took it, you dropped down pretty quickly.

Now, normally, I never wore my seat belt, nor did Lynch or Rhodes.  But on this day, we all wore them, including Rhodes who was in the back seat.  We approached "The Elevator"  probably around 40-50 mph.

I crested the top of "The Elevator" without slowing down, and we went over the top of it....

Immediately, we dropped over and there, on the other side, in the middle of the road, was another vehicle on its way up.  It was almost to the top of "The Elevator". 

I had no time to brake, change directions, or otherwise...  I wrenched the steering wheel to the right and hit the brakes in an attempt to avoid the other vehicle, but since it was in the middle of the road, and the road was narrow, and it was near the top of "The Elevator" there was no time.

We impacted head on at around 40mph.

We were wearing our seat belts.  They weren't.  My knees hit the dashboard and the seat belt locked before I could hit the steering wheel.  Lynch was in the passenger seat up front, and his did the same, with his knees getting cut up from the dash.

Lynch wasn't as lucky...   he was in the back and had his belt on.  But it was just a lap belt and didn't include a shoulder strap.  His lap belt locked up and his upper body wrenched forward...  he was wearing a crucifix on a chain which flew out of his shirt and impacted the seat in front of him at the same time his chin impacted the seat, and in the same place.   The crucifix tore open his chin, and his back was wrenched forward but the lapband held him firm.

In the other car, they were not so lucky.  They were travelling around 30 mph and was struck by us going around 40.  The impact pushed their car backwards and into the ditch next to the road. 

They were not wearing their seat belts, and both people in the front seat hit the windshield.  The daughter in the back flew to the front and hit the dashboard with her head...  The mother and father in the front both received extensive cuts to their faces...  very deep cuts.  We got out of our car and ran to theirs to help them out.  Both of their doors were jammed, so I grabbed an iron fence post out of the ground and used it to pry their doors open and get them out.  The mother and daughter both just had deep cuts, but the father had the ball of his hip come out of its socket.

We got the family out of their car and got them settled down and applied first aid to their cuts as well as we could.  The police arrived and took charge of the situation, and a Navy guy from the base that I knew stopped as he was driving by, and started taking pictures for me.

Rhodes' back was really bad shape so he couldn't be moved easily and remained in the car.

We finally got back to base, and the CO had me checked out by a Corpsman and they also took blood to check my alcohol level, which, thank god, was zero, cause we had decided not to drink and repel.

Found out later that day, that I should have been arrested by the Greek police on the spot, but somehow, one of the Naval personel that showed up at the scene talked them out of it.

Rhodes got to go home for 30 days of convalescense leave, and he thanked me for a great B-day present.  His backed healed up fine.

I got a local lawyer under the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), and promptly found out that the lawyers were on strike.  Lawyers... on strike.  So, since I couldn't go to court without a lawyer, the CO of the base put me on Legal Hold, meaning I couldn't transfer to another unit, or leave Crete permanently until my case was resolved.

The lawyers remained on strike for almost another year.  So, I stayed in Crete for almost 18 months due to a traffic accident.  I received a Letter of Reprimand from my CO, which would be removed from my Service Jacket when I transferred to a new unit.

We submitted a waiver of punishment (or something named like that) to the Greek government which stated that I had been appropriately punished by my government and that they didn't need to prosecute me for reckless driving and reckless endangerment causing injury.

Finally when the lawyers ended their strike, the Greek government accepted the waiver, and I paid a small fine.    In essence, my punishment was my letter of reprimand which did not follow me to my next command.

Once I scan some pics, I'll post pics of the accident, as I have a bunch in my possession.  I appreciate that the Naval friend had the mind to take pictures.  They helped my case for the waiver.

Coming up...  Being a Non-Commissioned Officer and punishing Marines for screwing up, but doing so without it showing up on their record.