I've been following closely the murder trial of U.S. Marine Joseph Pemberton (seen in the above photo), in Olongapo, as I was a frequent visitor to this wild city in the Philippines when I was a young sailor serving on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War.
Seth Robson at Stars and Stripes offers a piece on the trial and a clash of cultures.
SUBIC BAY, Philippines — Marines and sailors are pretty eager to blow off steam after weeks at sea, particularly when granted liberty in an exotic port with a notorious reputation for easy female company.
While troops get briefings before going ashore on what to expect and what to avoid, some information may have gotten lost over the two-plus decades since the U.S. military left U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay: Not everything is what it seems in Olongapo, the city that sits just outside the gates.
Marine Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton, a 19-year-old anti-tank missileman based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., who enlisted in 2013, was among those who flooded out of the USS Peleliu last on Oct. 11. He joined a few buddies at the Ambyanz nightclub on Magsaysay Drive.
By the time the night was over, transgender Jeffrey “Jennifer” Laude lay dead in a bathroom at the Celzone Lodge, a seedy hotel across the street from the nightclub.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
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