Suspect's dad looks on charges with disbelief, criticizes brass

Terry Pennington hasn't seen his 21-year-old son, Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, since January when he shipped out with his Marine Corps unit for his third deployment to Iraq.

Even so, he said Wednesday he is sure his son, a 2002 graduate of Mukilteo's Kamiak High School, is innocent of murder and kidnapping charges in the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian.

"Some people call Marines trained killers, and perhaps they are, but they're taught why, when and how to use that kind of force and when not to," Terry Pennington said in a telephone interview from his Edmonds home. "These allegations, all this stuff that's being said about what they did is so foreign to anything that would come out of these guys."

On Saturday, Terry Pennington and his wife will fly to California for a two-hour visit with their son, who has been in a Camp Pendleton brig since he was returned to the U.S. in May.

The elder Pennington said he blames the anti-war movement and growing anti-Bush sentiment for his son's predicament. He also blasted commanders for failing to support the accused Marines.

"I was angry then and I remain angry now because the Marine Corps is not supporting their guys," he said.

Pennington's lawyer, David. M. Brahms, a retired Marine brigadier general, also blasted Pentagon officials for allegedly leaking details about the case prior to the charges. Of Robert Pennington, Brahms told the Los Angeles Times: "I'd be proud to have him as my son."

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted Robert Pennington to join the Marine Corps before he graduated from high school.

"I knew he had a propensity for military things — he watched the History Channel when other kids were playing video games," Terry Pennington said. His son enlisted because "he felt a calling and felt it was his duty," he said.

Assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Lance Cpl. Pennington fought in the initial assault on Baghdad in April 2003 and in the fall 2004 assault on Fallujah.

The younger Pennington saw one of his best friends die and was later injured himself when a bomb detonated "and blew him off the third floor of a house," his father said.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654