Neighbors show support for Marine's family

WEST JORDAN — They placed flowers and flags in front of the Hassoun home as gestures of support for Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun and his family.

But news of the once-believed-abducted Marine leaving the country amid charges of desertion and theft has some of his neighbors shaking their heads in disappointment. Yet the sympathy for family members remains.

"I still want to believe in the guy, but it's tough based on what he's done now," neighbor Milton Kelly said. "This casts a big shadow over everything."

Kelly, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, rallied to support Hassoun in June by setting up Marine Corps flags in front of the Hassouns' West Jordan home. But Kelly said now he's uncertain whether his faith in Hassoun was misplaced.

"If this is true, he's brought dishonor on himself, his family and on the Marine Corps," he said. "It's a black mark."

Others of Hassoun's West Jordan neighbors are still unsure what to believe about the man next door who has garnered so much national attention.

"When I saw the news trucks yesterday I went online and checked," neighbor Maury Mingle said. "I was surprised to see what he had done. I didn't even know he was there for the holiday."

Despite feeling some degree of disappointment in Hassoun's apparent decision to flee the country back to his native Lebanon, Mingle said he still feels sympathy for Hassoun's family remembers, who are left behind amid such controversy.

"I probably feel more for them than I do for him, because he's obviously running from the consequences of his actions," Mingle said.

Hassoun faced desertion and theft charges when he failed to return to duty from holiday leave Tuesday. The Marine made world headlines last July when he disappeared from his post in Iraq and re-appeared blindfolded in a video tape shown on the Al Jazeera Network. In June, Hassoun showed up unharmed hundreds of miles away in his native country of Lebanon.

After a five-month criminal investigation, Hassoun was charged with desertion, theft of a Humvee vehicle and theft of his own side-arm pistol.

On Wednesday, Marines listed Hassoun as a deserter once again after he failed to show up for duty Tuesday. Hassoun's family in Utah said he spent Christmas with them and assumed he was on his way back to Camp LeJeune, N.C., when he called them on Dec. 29 saying he was in Washington, D.C.