OCEANSIDE -- The families of four Camp Pendleton Marines awaiting hearings on charges that they murdered an Iraqi civilian say they won't rest until the men are exonerated.

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"The Marine Corps didn't count on this group of parents when it filed those charges," said John Jodka Jr., father of Pfc. John Jodka III, during a gathering of the group at an Oceanside restaurant Sunday. "The government wants a fight. Now it has one, because we aren't ever going to roll over, and neither are these men."

The younger Jodka and seven other men are being held in the base brig in connection with the April 26 death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

For Reyna Griffin, the fiancee of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III and mother of the couple's young daughter, the seven Marines and Navy corpsman charged in alleged killing are anything but criminals.

"Sgt. Hutchins and the other men are heroes," she said, shortly after visiting him at the Camp Pendleton brig.

Griffin said the ordeal has been hard on the whole family, including the couple's nearly 2-year-old daughter, who hasn't seen her dad in more than nine months.

"It's extremely tough," Griffin said. "This is something you think about every minute of every hour every day. There's no putting it away. It's just not getting any easier."

Hutchins' father, Larry Hutchins Jr., said he saw his son on Sunday for the first time since he and the other men were incarcerated on May 24.

"I think they were just doing their job over there, and whatever happened, there was a reason for it," said Hutchins, who lives near Boston and has stayed in touch with his son through regular telephone calls. "He told me that nothing happened the way they (the Marine Corps) say it did. Larry told me it was all a lie."

Charged with conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping and related offenses are Hutchins and Jodka, and Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, Hospitalman 3rd Class Melson Bacos, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas and Lance Cpls. Tyler Jackson, Robert Pennington and Jerry E. Shumate Jr.

The men are charged with taking the 52-year-old man from his home, forcing him into a hole on the side of the road and tying his hands and feet. Five are accused of firing on Awad.

Three others allegedly placed a stolen AK-47 assault rifle in the hole to make it appear that he was planting a roadside bomb. The charges also contend three of the men fired the rifle, collected the casings and placed them next to Awad's body, and then wiped fingerprints from the gun.

Confident but worried

In meetings with the North County Times the last two weekends, the parents and relatives of each of the accused expressed confidence that the truth will eventually show their loved ones are innocent of the crimes they are accused of committing.

Most also said that the accusations have overwhelmed their lives, their pocketbooks and their confidence in the military judicial system.

Echoing what other parents of the eight men have said, Deanna Pennington said Sunday she learned of her son's troubles when she accepted a collect phone call from the base lockup.

The conversation, she said, went something like this: "I'm in the brig. I didn't do anything wrong. Can you help me?"

Across the country, when Larry Hutchins Jr. got the collect phone call from his son, it began, he said, with a simple question from the 22-year-old Marine.

"Dad, are you sitting down?" the elder Hutchins said, adding that his son quickly told him he was in the brig and " 'It's for something we didn't do.' "

Hutchins said the news blindsided him. "You expect a phone call (that) your son was killed, missing an arm or a leg. Not something like this."

Hutchins' concern was etched on his face as he spoke.

"I'm hoping and praying everything goes well," he said. "I hope for the best."

Regiment returns

Even with their own son in the brig, the Penningtons, fresh from a move to Maui, will be there when other members of their son's unit, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment come home, an arrival said to be set for today.

The parents said they want to go in support of the men their son calls "brothers."

"My son's brothers are coming home from the hellhole," Deanna Pennington said. "I'm am so happy. It's a bittersweet happiness, but I am so happy."

They also said they believe parents of Marines not in any trouble will attend the homecoming carrying signs in support of the eight accused men.

"To be the parent of a Marine is a way-different experience than anything," Deanna Pennington said. "That fear of the knock at the door, the strange car coming up the street when you know every car in the neighborhood. … It binds us together."

The parents said they know in detail what's going on with one another's sons. They knew when one of them was having girlfriend issues; they knew when one suffered an ankle injury.

The support has come in more than just words. Take the East Coast-based Griffin, who said Sunday that she and her little girl are moving to Riverside County to live with the wife and toddler daughter of accused Cpl. Trent Thomas.

The families developed bonds long before the criminal charges, having met at a gathering that the Marine Corps hosted for departing and returning troops.

Since their loved ones were locked up, their bonds have deepened, they said, forged in a time of personal crisis for each. They have stayed in regular contact through electronic mail and occasional conference calls.

Since the first phone calls from the men in the brig, life for the families has been about finding lawyers, taking calls from reporters and defending their sons.

John Jodka Jr. has made a number of public appearances to bring attention to the case.

"I have no confidence this system will work properly without the full light" that comes with going public.

Release not likely

As weeks in the brig stretched into its third month, the families said they were eager to see their sons out of custody.

Pennington's mother said her usually upbeat son has been OK -- until recently.

"There is a sense of despair," Deanna Pennington said, referring to a phone call between the two of them about a week ago. "He said, 'Mom, I just gotta get out of here. We need to get out.' "

Civilian attorneys representing some of the men have renewed requests that their clients be released pending Article 32 hearings that are set for mid-September. Article 32 hearings, the military version of preliminary hearings, are held to determine if there is enough evidence to bind the accused over for trial.

Their release before those hearings appeared doubtful, however. An e-mail sent to the North County Times by one of the civilian attorneys on Friday said that Marine Corps officials are rejecting those requests.

Even so, don't look for the eight accused men to run for the cover of immunity or deals, their families said.

Deanna Pennington said her son told her that not only will the men not turn on one another, he told her: "There is nothing to take immunity for. There's nothing to cop to."

No matter what happens, Griffin said, she also expects Hutchins and his squad mates to continue to stand as one.

"These men have been through blood, sweat and tears, and there's no chance that any in the squad would flip on the others," Griffin said.

Outside support

Don Greenlaw, a retired Marine and Oceanside resident, won permission -- with the backing of the families -- from the Marine Corps to visit the men in the brig. On Sunday, he saw them and delivered a message of support.

Greenlaw is involved with a Web site defense fund, www.warrior-fund.org, one of several such funds established to raise to money to help pay for the men's civilian attorneys. The site has raised about $11,000 since it was established last month, Greenlaw said.

"We let them know that we are there for them and that we care," he said.

Greenlaw said he fully supports efforts to have the men released from the brig as they await military court hearings.

"They don't belong in the brig," he said during Sunday's gathering. "These guys aren't going to run -- they're going to stay here."

The Marine Corps has said the men were confined because of the seriousness of the crimes with which they have been charged.

The former Marine captain who saw action in the Korean War said the accused and their families are unnecessarily hurting.

"Their parents and their wives and loved ones are suffering, and their kids are suffering," he said.

Griffin agreed that the case, now entering its fourth month, has taken a toll.

"It's not just emotionally exhausting, it's physical as well. There is no escaping this."

- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.