SAN DIEGO, March 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. Marine Corps said it was taking administrative action against a Marine for having made statements critical of President Obama in a Facebook post.
Sgt. Gary Stein, 26, commented on the Armed Forces Tea Party page that he would not follow unlawful orders from President Obama such as ordering the killing of Americans or taking guns away from Americans, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice bars uniformed personnel from making comments critical of their chain of command up to and including the president.
The commanding officer of the weapons and field training battalion at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego ordered an investigation into Stein's comments March 8. On Wednesday, the Marine Corps announced that instead of filing charges against the nine-year Marine veteran, it would handle the matter "through administrative action."
Stein, a weather specialist at the San Diego installation, used the Internet two years ago to criticize Obama's healthcare proposal, the Times said. He later offered to delete the comments.
