WASHINGTON — His three combat tours in Afghanistan had been boiled down to a 38-second video clip, seen on YouTube more than a million times.
In it, Rob Richards and three other Marine Corps snipers are seen urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters they had killed.
“Total dismay” were the words then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used to describe the video when it surfaced in January 2012. “Utterly deplorable,” said then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Richards’ career in the military was finished.
Last August — long after the rest of the country had moved on to other scandals — Richards, 28, died at home and alone from an accidental painkiller overdose.
Now, an ammunition can carrying his cremated remains sat on the table of a hotel bar in Arlington, Va., as his family, friends and fellow Marines swirled around it.
Almost everything about war is complicated, messy or morally fraught — even more so in this case.
A Marine vilified by his country’s leaders and court-martialed for “bringing discredit to the armed forces” would soon be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the country’s most hallowed ground. On this mid-February night before the funeral, dozens who knew Richards beyond those 38 seconds gathered to celebrate his life.
Richards’ mother spotted her son’s platoon commander and platoon sergeant, both of whom were in the video, ordering drinks at the bar. “My boys, my sons,” she called out to them. The two men are out of the Marine Corps now and have thick beards and long hair.
The platoon sergeant rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to show off a memorial tattoo bearing Richards’ name on his wrist. “Right where everyone can see it,” he said.
White-gloved hands
The next morning, a Marine in a dark overcoat held the ammo can with Richards’ remains in two white-gloved hands and marched slowly toward the grave site.
The Marine set the box down on a small riser in front of Richards’ mother, his wife and his grandfather, an 83-year-old combat veteran, clad on this day in his Army dress uniform. Behind them, about 300 mourners had gathered.
A Navy chaplain stepped to the front and delivered another version of Richards’ life. “He served with honor … gave so much … and bled for our freedom,” the chaplain said. “Today we lay him to rest in a fitting place.”
Most Marines in Afghanistan rarely saw the enemy, who fired at them from behind walls or blasted them with pressure-triggered land mines. Snipers were the exception. They stalked the Taliban, watching them through their scopes as the terrorists planned attacks, shared meals and went about their day.
“Every single mission, we came back with multiple kills,” said former Sgt. Edward Deptola, Richards’ platoon sergeant.
On the day the video was filmed, the snipers had pushed out farther than ever before, searching for a cell of fighters who had killed one of their Marines and hung one of his limbs from a tree, Deptola said.
The snipers were about 50 yards from the Taliban when they shot them. Usually, the Marines left the bodies of the Taliban fighters for the locals to bury. This time, perhaps because they were already so close, their commanders ordered them take the bodies back to their base so Marine Corps intelligence could search them, Deptola said.
The snipers were buzzing with joy, anger and adrenaline as they approached the enemy dead. Then came the moment just before the video. Then came the 38 seconds, and now several years later, Deptola was explaining why they decided to urinate on them.
“Because killing them wasn’t enough,” he said. “That wasn’t enough justice.”
The end of a career
After the funeral, the mourners gathered at a bar in Georgetown. Richards’ wife, Raechel, was talking with his company commander from his last Afghanistan tour. The Marine officer wasn’t with Richards on the day the video was recorded, but it still ended his career.
Richards often said his only regret from the day was that his actions had compromised the careers of his superior officers.
Nine months after the incident, he turned down an instructor position at Marine sniper school and volunteered for his third tour. His wife begged his platoon commander to make him stay home and heal.
“He may look like he’s ready,” she recalled saying. “But as his wife, as the person who sees him when he sleeps at night, I don’t think he’s ready.”
The video appeared on the Internet a few weeks after Richards returned home from tour No. 3.
“Well, it looks like I’m going to be famous,” he said a few hours after the video surfaced on the TMZ gossip website. At that moment, Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators were waiting to interview him.
As the months passed, Richards worried that the 38 seconds would follow him for the rest of his life. The investigation and court-martial took nearly two years before the Marine Corps offered Richards a plea deal that reduced his rank to corporal and allowed him to leave the military with an honorable discharge.
After the military, Richards fell into a depression and became addicted to opiates. Eventually, he went through drug counseling. He and his wife separated briefly and then reunited after he had finished treatment.
Their last few months together were some of the best of their marriage. “He was finally coming to terms with it,” she said.
A few days before he died, Richards and his wife had put in an offer on a house near Orlando, Fla., where they both had attended high school. They had already begun to box up their possessions for the move from their home in Camp Lejeune, N.C.
There are many reactions to seeing death: Raechel’s was disbelief. “Not like this,” she would remember screaming as she stood near her husband. “Not like this.”
