Cpl E-4 Tia Martin, 22, an intelligence nalyst, has been a Marine for almost three years. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Marines Tiffany Torres, Deborah Larios, Nicole Flores, Nancy Martinez and Coraima Dignetti, from left, talk about what life is like as a Marine. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Tiffany Torres, 36, has been a Marine for 17 years, joining when she was 18-years-old. She was deployed to Aphganistan in 2013 and is currently a Communications Maintenance Chief. She talks about her life as a Marine. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Cpl E-4 Tia Martin, 22, an intelligence analyst, has been a Marine for almost three years. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Tiffany Torres, 36, has been a Marine for 17 years, joining when she was 18-years-old. She was deployed to Aphganistan in 2013 and is currently a Communications Maintenance Chief. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)



Tiffany Torres, 36, has been a Marine for 17 years, joining when she was 18-years-old. She was deployed to Aphganistan in 2013 and is currently a Communications Maintenance Chief. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Tiffany Torres is a proud Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served in southern Afghanistan and now oversees the maintenance of communication equipment across four battalions at Camp Pendleton.

She’s been recognized as a leader who has moved up in the vastly expanded roles the corps offers to women.

But for Torres and many other Marines, March’s commemorations of Women’s History Month – and the first anniversary of a watershed policy shift that opened combat jobs to females – arrived with a bittersweet asterisk.

As the sprawling Oceanside base, which continues to play a central role in the U.S.’s Middle East military operations, prepared to honor women in its ranks, the corps was rocked by a major gender-based scandal.

A Facebook group called Marine United, with members of the corps participating, posted and shared nude photos of hundreds of active-duty female Marines and veterans, according to War Horse, a non-profit news organization run by a Marine veteran.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service opened a criminal investigation and commands across Southern California asked affected victims to come forward. In Washington, the corps’ commandant, Gen. Robert B. Neller, said the allegations “undermine everything we stand for as Marines.”

Two Marines from Camp Pendleton’s 2nd Battalion/4th Marines were demoted, given 45 days of military restriction and punitive duties following a post on “United States Grunt Corps” that made derogatory comments about another Marine. The incident was investigated by battalion commanders on Wednesday.

“The Marines and Sailors of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines do not tolerate personal attacks on their Marines, online or elsewhere,” said Battalion commander Lt. Col. Warren Cook. “This kind of behavior flies in the face of our service’s core values and this organization refuses to condone it.”

NOT ONE-FOR-ALL

The early developments were part of the awkward news cycle backdrop as Torres and seven other female Marines met with members of the media at a recent, long-planned event meant to acknowledge their achievements and the opportunities available to women in the modern-day corps.

The women’s reactions – a mixture of disgust, anger and determination not to accept the scandal as a measure of the values of most Marines or the traditions of the branch they chose to serve – offered a less-heard perspective from some of those on the inside.

Torres, 36, fit and petite, wore camouflage fatigues as she sat for an interview. She said she viewed the online attacks on women as a betrayal of the corps’ one-for-all ethos and the premium placed on honor, duty and respect.

“Everything these individuals have done does not represent the Marine Corps,” she said.

Tia Martin, who works as an intelligence analyst preparing daily reports for Marine generals on countries of interest, has shared her success in the corps with friends via social media. She said her postings have encouraged friends to enlist.

She said she was ashamed of the people who participated in the Facebook postings and worried that it fed a negative stereotype of all male Marines.

“The Marine Corps has very respectful men,” the 24-year-old said. “It’s not fair they be labeled based on that.”

WOMEN AT CAMP PENDLETON

About seven percent of the 50,000-member Marine Expeditionary Force or 1MEF based at Camp Pendleton are women. All 337 job specialties in the force are now open to women.

They serve as pilots, in combat infantry units and on special, front-line teams that support intelligence gathering in war zones.

The corps has the smallest ratio of women among the U.S. Armed Forces at 6.8 percent, less than half that of the Navy. But the corps also points to Lt. Gen. Carol Mutter, the nation’s first three-star female commander.

Torres is among those trying to make the corps more welcoming. Among her duties include serving as an advocate for women who encounter or report sexual assaults in the corps.

“This goes back to Marines helping each other,” she said. “Sometimes, they’re afraid to come forward or cover them up and don’t reveal things until something bad happens. Unfortunately, sexual assault does exist.”

‘HOW DARE YOU’

Torres has been in the role for three years and says she’s seen things improve. But, she said, there have been more reported incidents, likely a result of an emphasis on training and awareness.

Females were the targets of the social media abuse now being investigated. But Torres stressed condemnation of the conduct came from men and women Marines alike.

“We are trained not to see ourselves as individuals,” Torres said. “It was like, ‘How dare you come at one of us?’ ”

Torres and the other women were called to mandatory base-wide meetings involving several thousand Marines and sailors, where the online postings were addressed.

Speaking to small seas of uniformed Marines in gatherings across the base, Sgt. Major Brad Kasal appealed to the rank-and-file’s sense of unity and defending their comrades. “If you attack one one of us, you attack all of us,” he told the gatherings. Looking out for each other, he said. “We would do that on the battlefield. All I ask is that you do that 24/7.”

Rebuilding trust among all Marines may require a sustained effort, said Gregory Daddis, a retired U.S. Army colonel who now heads up Chapman University’s War and Society program.

“The corps leadership is going to have to aggressively tackle long-standing cultural norms that erroneously suggest that men are better than women when it comes to being an effective Marine,” he said. “A narrow ‘band of brothers’ attitude, that informally excludes women from what male Marines see as their special purview, will have to be excised for the leadership to regain trust of women in uniform.

“And this goes for all military branches, not just the Marines.”

JOBS OPEN TO WOMEN

It was little less than a year ago that then-Secretary of Defense Ray Mabus came to Camp Pendleton to announce women would be allowed for the first time to compete for jobs in tank, armored and infantry units.

The decision to open such jobs to women wasn’t popular in all corners of the corps. Marine Corps leaders sought to keep certain infantry and combat jobs closed to women, citing a task force study at the Marine Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. That study, published in 2015, cited one experiment that found teams with women performed worse than all-male teams.

Torres and the other women interviewed said they’ve seen more women advancing, especially after additional jobs were open to females.

In the 1MEF, 685 women serve in infantry divisions, and 155 of those now are assigned to previously restricted units. Twenty-two are serving for the first time in combat jobs, said 1st Lt. Bryan McDonnell.

Staff Sgt. Nicole Flores, named last month as the Navy League’s 2017 Senior Enlisted Woman of the Year, works at an air station in Yuma, Ariz., reviewing satellite and other images used for intelligence gathering. She said she joined the corps after witnessing her husband’s transformation — an added swagger — when he became a Marine and served two tours in the Middle East.

“I wanted whatever it was that changed him,” she said.

Since joining the corps in 2006, Flores has earned a bachelor and master’s degrees and now is pursuing a doctorate. Like Torres, Flores said the online nude photo scandal emboldened her to speak up.

“The individuals who took part in sharing images on the Marines United social media accounts made the reprehensible decision to cyber bully and exploit their fellow Marines,” she said. “And that includes those who chose to stand idly by and not report the abuse of our sisters-in-arms.”

“This goes back to Marines helping each other. Sometimes, they’re afraid to come forward or cover them up and don’t reveal things until something bad happens. Unfortunately, sexual assault does exist.”

The corps decision to open combat jobs to women will strengthen its war-fighting capability, she said. “We will see a more integrated force … a culture change,” she said. “Thinking outside the box or out of the norm in today’s asymmetric battlefields is what it takes to defeat the adversary.”

Torres was an honor student and athlete in West Palm Beach, Fla., and had a scholarship offer to a local college when she enlisted in 1999. Her grandfathers served in the Army and Navy, but she said her family respected the Marines for their toughness and high standards.

Seventeen years later, Torres said she can’t imagine being anywhere else. She started as a ground communication repair technician and hoped to be assigned to U.S. embassy security duties. Her plans changed when she learned she was pregnant with the first of her two sons.

Instead, she became a drill sergeant taking young female Marines through boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. She would place the official emblem of the Marine Corps — an eagle, globe and anchor pin — in the hands of women who demonstrated the dedication, enthusiasm and camaraderie to survive boot camp.

“It was during these moments, I realized my journey in the Marine Corps had come full circle,” she said.

At Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan four years ago, she was responsible for all base communications. She recalled the night the base was shelled by rocket-propelled grenades and she was responsible for getting her civilian contractors to safety. “It was a reminder that even on base, anything can happen,” she said.

Torres credits much of her success to her parents who believed she could make it in the corps, and to a male Marine: her husband, Ceasar Torres. He left the corps in 2004.

“I couldn’t have done it on my own,” she said. “When your kids are small, you only have so much time.”