A Good Guy: Under Oath
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2024
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
All Marines take an oath to defend the Constitution. After Sgt. Joshua Abate participated in the events on January 6, the Corps has to decide if he is a Marine worth keeping. Did he break his oath when he entered the Capitol that day? And what does his case say about the changing narrative around January 6?
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, January 6 casts a long shadow. NPR's Tom Bowman and Lauren Hodges follow the military's efforts to address extremism in the ranks, and the political hurdles it has faced along the way.
LEARN MORE:
- View the Report on Countering Extremist Activity Within the Department of Defense, from the Countering Extremist Activity Working Group (CEAWG) at the Department of Defense.
- Read this investigative piece from the AP about radicalization in the military.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This message comes from Indiana University. |
| 0:02.8 | Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that |
| 0:07.5 | improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. |
| 0:12.3 | More at IU.edu slash forward. |
| 0:20.2 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And we're back with the second and final episode of A Good Guy. If you miss the first one, it's yesterday's episode of this podcast. In our previous episode, a Marine ended up in federal court for what he did on January 6th. The judge in this case |
| 0:39.1 | told him he had made her a better judge. She could have given him six months in prison, but she |
| 0:44.0 | decided on community service instead. And now in this episode, we're going to talk about the Marines. |
| 0:50.3 | They have to figure out if this Marine is worth keeping. And let me just say that process is going to be a little different than what he got in court. |
| 0:58.4 | Here's Tom Bowman and Lauren Hodges. |
| 1:03.0 | This administrative discharge board will come to order. |
| 1:05.7 | The reporter will note the time and date for the record. |
| 1:08.5 | It's December, 2003. |
| 1:14.2 | Joshua Bates' military career, it's on the line. |
| 1:19.0 | He's at the Quantico Marine Base in this nondescript government conference room. |
| 1:23.2 | This is an administrative separation proceeding. And what this essentially decides is, |
| 1:30.5 | should Sergeant of Bate remain in the United States Marine Court? He needs to sit through what the Marines call a retention hearing. |
| 1:34.6 | Here they have to decide, do we keep Josh Abate in the Marines? |
| 1:40.4 | Or do we kick him out, the Marines call it separating him, for his actions at the Capitol? |
| 1:45.4 | The purpose of this administrative district boards is to give the respondent a full and impartial hearing. |
| 1:46.4 | Josh's lawyer actually gave us the audio from this retention hearing. |
| 1:50.1 | Now, it's not like a court martial with legal consequences, but it kind of looks in some |
| 1:55.1 | ways like a court because there's someone arguing in Josh's defense. |
... |
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