A career infantry officer has taken command of the Recruit Training Regiment at the Marine Corps' East Coast training depot amid an upheaval in leadership there following the death of a recruit in March.
On Wednesday, Col. Matthew St. Clair began his new assignment at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. This is a homecoming of sorts for St. Clair, who served as the battalion executive officer for the 2nd Recruit Training Battalion and Drill Instructor School from July 1999 to June 2002.
St. Clair is the second infantry officer to take command at Parris Island in the past week. Brig. Gen. Austin Renforth took the reins at the training depot on June 10. Both commanders will have to deal with the fallout from the death of recruit Raheel Siddiqui, 20, who fell nearly 40 feet in a barracks stairwell on March 18 while assigned to the 3rd Recruit Training Battalion.
Col. Paul Cucinotta, former head of the Recruit Training Regiment, and Sgt. Maj. Nicholas Deabreu, the regiment's former top enlisted leader, were both fired on June 6 in connection with an investigation into Siddiqui's death.
Two other commanders at Parris Island have been fired for separate matters. Lt. Col. Kate Germano, former commanding officer of the Marine Corps' only all-female recruit training battalion, was relieved of command in June 2015. Shortly afterward, a complaint was made to the Marine Corps Inspector General's hotline about Lt. Col. Joshua Kissoon, former commanding officer of Parris Island's 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, who was fired on March 31.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat representing Michigan, has asked the Marine Corps if Kissoon's firing was connected to Siddiqui's death, but a Parris Island spokesman has said that Cucinotta decided to relieve Kissoon the day before Siddiqui died.
