Face of Defense: Marine Saves Man From Being Stabbed

By Marine Corps Cpl. Lucas Vega

Marine Forces Reserve

LANCASTER, Calif., March 20, 2012 – Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Joshua Escandon was going to lunch here with his wife Feb. 26 when his instincts kicked in because he heard a woman screaming for help.

He stepped out of his car and immediately knew something was not quite right. He scanned his surroundings and spotted a commotion involving a group of people.

When Escandon heard a woman yelling, “They are going to kill him! Help him!” he knew he had to take action.

The radio operator with 3rd Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company ran toward the crowd, where he was blocked by onlookers from what appeared to be a fight.

“Everyone was watching, but nobody was helping,” said Escandon, who returned from a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan in December. “Like Marines look out for each other in combat, we have to protect our fellow man too and stop letting stuff like this happen, or it will just happen more.”

As he wove his way through the crowd, Escandon saw a man being kicked and punched by two others. One of the men was holding what appeared to be a sword, Escandon said. He later learned from the Lancaster Sheriff’s Department that the two men were gang-affiliated, and that their weapon was a cane-sword -- a cane that incorporates a concealed blade.

Escandon said he felt compelled to intervene and didn’t care if he was going to get hurt. He disarmed the aggressor with the cane-sword, while the man who was being beaten got to his feet and fought off the second aggressor. Escandon said he had one of the aggressors in a choke hold until he heard police sirens approaching. He let the man go, and the two aggressors fled. They were arrested later not far from the scene.

The lance corporal suffered only minor nicks and scratches on his hands. The attack victim had a cut above his eye that required stitches, as well as other minor cuts.

The police report said the two suspects were gang-affiliated brothers who were seeking retribution against owners of a store for banning them from the shop. Claiming that the suspects had threatened their lives, the store owners had called police that day. When the suspects returned, the situation escalated to a heated exchange of words, the sheriff’s report said.

A bystander carrying a cane-sword told the two men they needed to leave, police said, holding the sword portion of the cane behind his back so the suspects would not see it. But one of the suspects noticed the weapon and attacked the witness.

Escandon arrived shortly after one of the suspects grabbed the sword from the victim as the other was stomping on his head and torso and prevented the suspects from further injuring their victim, the report said.

Marine Corps Master Sgt. Yaphet Grimes, company communications chief and Escandon’s staff noncommissioned officer in charge, commended the lance corporal for his actions to break up the assault.

“He’s an outstanding and good-to-go Marine,” said Grimes, an 18-year veteran. “He’s always going to get the job done, and every time he performs the job, he’s going to give his 100 percent.”

Enlistment Waiver Policy Works Well, Official Says

By Navy Lt. Jennifer Cragg
Special to American Forces Press Service

April 25, 2008 - Though the Defense Department is granting waivers to allow some recruits to enlist who it once may have rejected, the system is working well, a senior Pentagon official said today. In a conference call with online journalists and "bloggers," Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, said servicemembers who wear the uniform thanks to waivers are performing well.

"The vast majority of the conduct waivers are misdemeanors and a litany of three-or-more traffic offenses. And, with that, there are some felony arrests and a few felony convictions," Carr said.

The waivers he is referring to don't represent hardened criminals, he added, but rather people who participated in childhood pranks.

"But, in every case, if their community has joined behind them and offered their support, then the recruiter might, if we've got a strong candidate in terms of their other attributes, send it up for a waiver," he said.

Carr added that officials don't relax the standards in granting waivers, but do make exceptions based on solid judgment calls.

"Last year's [waivered enlistees] proved to perform; they retained as well as the non-waivered counterparts, and they wouldn't be retaining if they weren't performing," he said. "They are doing as well as the non-waiver crowd. Therefore, we are making correct bets on the risks that we take for someone that has done something that was that much of an aberration against what we expect of our teenagers."

If people with behavior or medical problems did make it to a training base, Carr noted, officials there would be quick to notice. "And, if it were creating a problem," he said, "my knowledge of the institution tells me that the training base isn't going to put up with it, and that practice in recruiting is going to change, and we would have heard about it."

Tattoos are an issue in military recruiting, Carr said, and he noted that all of the services have adopted the same standard for what types of tattoos are and aren't allowed.

"Show me the tattoo," Carr said. "I'm going to check it against a book of gangs, and in the event that you have [a gang-related tattoo], you almost certainly are going to be disqualified."

Though up to about a year ago, gang affiliation wasn't seen as a disqualification for entry into the Army, Carr said, the Army has uniformly adopted this policy with the other services. Another disqualification for entry into any of the branches of service is the presence of a tattoo that is affiliated with a hate group.

Carr acknowledged that the Army has allowed waivers for recruits who have tattoos on visible parts of their bodies, such as on their hands and neck. "You begin limiting your market based on the kind of body art that a particular generation would apply to themselves," he said.

However, Carr said, despite the use of waivers, the standards for who the services can accept remain the same.

"We insist that the services -- every one of them, every year -- draw 60 percent from the top half [of potential recruits], and most of them are exceeding it," he said. "Army's just about exactly at 60 percent. Our goal is a high-performing military."

(Navy Lt. Jenifer Cragg is assigned to the New Media branch of American Forces Information Service.)