Buckley family sues Marines

Gregory Buckley Sr. gave a final salute to his dead son at a memorial and street dedication last year.

Penny Frondelli/Herald

Greg Buckley, of Oceanside, was killed in an insider attack while serving in Afghanistan in 2012. His family is suing the Marines for allegedly withholding information about the attack.

Courtesy Buckley Family

• 
• 

The family of Greg Buckley Jr., the Oceanside Marine who was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2012, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the U.S. Marine Corps and other Defense Department agencies failed to protect soldiers against a corrupt Afghan official and then colluded to suppress information about an insider attack that resulted in the death of Buckley and two other Marines.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, seeks the release of investigative material and autopsy reports connected with the August 2012 attack. It names as defendants Gen. James F. Amos, the Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy and the Naval Criminal Investigation Services. Gregory Buckley Sr. and Mary Liz Grosetto, Greg Jr.’s aunt, are the plaintiffs.

“Suing the Marines, or anyone for that matter, was the last thing we wanted to do,” Grosetto said. “We tried for over two years to get them to meet with us. I have personally written over one hundred emails and made dozens of phone calls. We have been passed around, misdirected, stonewalled and, on many occasions, flat-out lied to. We gave the Marine Corps leadership ample opportunity to stand up and be accountable.”

Buckley, 21, was working out in the gym at Forward Operating Base Delhi when Ainuddin Khudairaham, a teenager associated with Afghan police chief Sarwar Jan, opened fire with an AK-47. Buckley, Scott Dickinson and Richard Rivera were killed. A fourth victim was wounded. Buckley, who was unarmed, was shot in the back.

According to the suit, prior to the attack, Marine Corps leaders were warned through an intelligence report that Jan was a danger — he had been accused of drug dealing, sex trafficking and selling police uniforms and weapons to the Taliban — but he was nonetheless allowed access to the base.

“The Marine Corps command responsible for FOB Delhi, and the safety of the Marines stationed there, should never have allowed Jan or the murderer to enter, let alone operate out of, FOB Delhi,” reads the complaint filed by the family’s attorney, Michael Bowe.

According to the complaint, after Khudairaham ran out of rounds, he announced, “I just did jihad.”