ROB REINER, A FEW GOOD MEN, AND MAGGIE GOODLANDER

     

ROB REINER, A FEW GOOD MEN, AND MAGGIE GOODLANDER

Marine lieutenants Bill Adams and Mike Moffett at Camp Fuji, Japan - 1984

The tragic murder of Hollywood star Rob Reiner and his wife Michele stunned and shocked the world. While 17,000 people were murdered in the U.S. in 2024, such violence really strikes home when one knows the victim—and most of us knew Reiner due to his 50-year career as an actor, writer, producer, and director.

Tributes to the late icon recollected his acting and especially his directing, which included wonderfully successful films like The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, and especially A Few Good Men, about which I’m writing here.

A Few Good Men came out in 1992, starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland and others. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including “Best Picture.” Its storyline involved a death coverup which occurred on the Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) American military base. A couple members of Gitmo’s Marine Security detachment were accused of murder after the hazing death of a fellow Leatherneck who was deemed a substandard performer.

Lieutenant (JG) Daniel Kaffee (Cruise) and Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway (Moore) were assigned to provide defense counsel to two young Marines accused of murder. Captain Jack Ross (Bacon) is the JAG (Judge Advocate General) prosecutor. Marine Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (Nicholson) was the overall commander at Guantanamo Bay. Marine Lieutenant Jonathan Kendrick (Sutherland) was the immediate officer in charge of the unit involved.

Based on an actual Guantanamo hazing incident that first inspired an Aaron Sorkin play, A Few Good Men was a perfect movie to rewatch as a way to honor and remember Reiner. So, I found it and watched it during a recent frosty December evening. The rewatch proved to be enormously compelling, beyond the Reiner connection. The movie was all about illegal military orders, a subject that has been and remains very newsworthy today, given the video put out by six Democratic congresspeople—including New Hampshire’s Maggie Goodlander—concerning the responsibility of military people to refuse “illegal” orders. Their video created a figurative firestorm which still burns.

But beyond all this, as I rewatched A Few Good Men, I realized that Lieutenant Kendrick (the Kiefer Sutherland character) was based on a real-life friend of mine—Bill Adams. The realization stunned me. Did Bill issue a fatal, illegal order?

Many years ago, Bill and I were fellow lieutenants in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. We reconnected last year at Camp Pendleton, Calif. for the dedication of a memorial honoring 29 Marine comrades from 3/5 killed in a helicopter crash during a training mission in South Korea.

(That night training mission was a reprise of the 1980 Iranian hostage rescue mission, also involving six CH-53 helicopters. The mission commander was one of the pilots from the ill-fated Iranian Desert One mission. The CH-53 behind mine hit a mountain top and memories of retrieving the bodies of our comrades will always stay with us. Hence the memorial dedication. But I digress.)

It was great to reconnect with Bill and other 3/5 survivors, including our Lima Company Commander, Captain Jay Paxton, who retired as a four-star general and assistant USMC commandant in 2016. As we all compared notes and got caught up on respective life journeys, I recalled that Billy was assigned to Guantanamo Bay after leaving 3/5—about the same time as the infamous hazing incident there.

Following my A Few Good Men rewatch, I googled the Gitmo hazing incident and found a 1992 New York Times story and was stunned to learn how much the movie coincided with the actual hazing incident. The real-life victim was a Private Alvarado (Private Santiago in the movie). The private was supposedly a substandard performer and a snitch who wanted to be reassigned. Rather than reassigning him, the Marines opted to apply illegal barracks justice (a Code Red) to Alvarado to teach him a lesson. He nearly died. (In the movie, Santiago does die.)

According to the Times story, Lieutenant Bill Adams got his squad leaders together and stated “I don’t want you to hurt him. I don’t want you to touch him. I don’t want you to throw him from any third story. But if he falls down the steps in the middle of the night, oh well.”

After midnight, a group of Marines subsequently barged in on Alvarado, bound and gagged him, and stuck a rolled-up stocking in his mouth, which asphyxiated him—just as in the movie. Alvarado ended up in a coma and was airlifted to emergency care. After several days in a coma, he recovered.

Bill and ten other Marines now had to contend with attempted murder charges. Seven of the men took less than honorable discharges. Three went to prison. Billy’s case was dismissed for missing the statutory requirement for a speedy trial by one day.

General Al Grey, soon to be USMC Commandant, flew to Cuba and met with officers and “ranted and raved” about Alvarado’s near death. Grey emphasized that Marines did not sanction blanket parties or barracks justice and that is what they were to tell investigators.

The truth is that Marines absolutely do look to junior non-commissioned officers to police each other as well as subordinates. That’s how leadership skills are developed, and unit discipline maintained. But sometimes barracks justice can go too far, as with Alvarado/Santiago.

Were illegal orders issued? I don’t know enough to judge. There are written orders and implied orders. Implied orders leave no paper trail.

The Lieutenant Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) in A Few Good Men, seems to be reprising Bill’s Gitmo platoon commander role. But Kendrick is a villainous fanatic and liar who bears no resemblance to Adams, who I know personally to be a stalwart officer and excellent Marine, caught up in a situation that escalated out of control.

The movie’s climax provides one of Hollywood’s most powerful scenes ever, where Kaffee (Cruise) puts Jessup (Nicholson) on the stand. Jessup famously tells Kaffee that “You can’t handle the truth!” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sLcfQKU_co&t=106

Kaffee goads Jessup into admitting that he issued an illegal “code red” order. The Marine colonel is subsequently arrested with the accused enlisted Marines acquitted of murder charges.

Goodlander and company’s video was an unnecessary partisan political stunt. But their video, along with Reiner’s movie, does focus attention on inevitable moral and ethical issues that confront leaders who must issue orders, sometimes in the heat of battle. And while American military justice—like all justice systems—is imperfect we should be proud that we have provisions for accountability in place that are historically absent in other military organizations, such as Putin’s Russian army, to name one.

If you’ve never seen A Few Good Men, you should check it out.

R.I.P. Rob Reiner.

                                                            Jack Nicholson (Wikipedia)