A Hawaii-based Marine sergeant is being court-martialed on accusations that he hazed a member of his squad by ordering him to dig a foxhole as punishment for falling asleep on watch duty in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Benjamin Johns is one of three Marines accused of hazing Lance Cpl. Harry Lew of Santa Clara, Calif. Lew committed suicide April 3 after prosecutors say he endured several hours of abuse.

Prosecutors say Johns had no authority to punish a Marine by ordering him to dig a foxhole. They say ordering the dig made Johns derelict of his duty to ensure the welfare of Marines under his care.

Johns' defense team says the sergeant wasn't trying to punish Lew, and the new foxhole was supposed to help Lew stay awake.

The court-martial begins Tuesday at a Marine base in Kaneohe Bay.

An Army officer ordered a court-martial for a low-ranking intelligence analyst charged in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history.

Military District of Washington commander Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington on Friday referred all charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning to a general court-martial, the Army said in a statement.

The referral means Manning will stand trial for allegedly giving more than 700,000 secret U.S. documents and classified combat video to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks for publication.

The 24-year-old Crescent, Oklahoma, native faces 22 counts, including aiding the enemy. He could be imprisoned for life if convicted of that charge.

A judge who is yet to be appointed will set the trial date.

Manning's lead defense counsel, civilian attorney David Coombs, didn't immediately return a call Friday evening seeking comment on the decision.

Defense lawyers say Manning was clearly a troubled young soldier whom the Army should never have deployed to Iraq or given access to classified material while he was stationed there from late 2009 to mid-2010.

A discharged Marine private who slit his wrists in a suicide attempt is fighting his military conviction for deliberately injuring himself, arguing the punishment is inconsistent with the armed forces' efforts to battle a rise in suicides during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's not clear how often the Marines or any other service branch prosecute active duty members for trying to kill themselves. But the defense lawyer for Pvt. Lazzaric T. Caldwell says it's wrong to punish service members with mental health problems for genuine suicide attempts. Suicide prevention has become a priority across the military as numbers climbed in the past decade with the increasing stress of combat and multiple deployments in the wars.

Caldwell, 25, of Camp Pendleton, Calif., never deployed to a war zone but was diagnosed in 2009 with post-traumatic stress disorder and a personality disorder, according to court records. In 2010, he slashed his wrists in his barracks at Camp Schwab in Okinawa, Japan.

He pleaded guilty at a court-martial that year to "intentional self-injury without intent to avoid service," a criminal charge that the government says helps maintain good order and discipline in the armed forces. The charge is sometimes used in self-injury cases when there isn't enough evidence to prove malingering, military justice experts say.

An investigative hearing has recommended that an American soldier be court-martialed over hazing that allegedly led to a fellow infantryman's suicide in Afghanistan, but dismissed the most serious charge against him, the U.S. military said Monday.

Spc. Ryan Offutt is one of eight soldiers charged in the death of 19-year-old Pvt. Danny Chen, who shot himself on Oct. 3 after what investigators say were weeks of physical abuse, humiliation and racial slurs.

A native New Yorker of Chinese descent, Chen had been in Afghanistan only two months when he shot himself in a guardhouse at a remote outpost in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

The investigative hearing recommended that Offutt, 32, be court-martialed on charges including assault, negligent homicide, and reckless endangerment, a statement from U.S. military said.

It said the hearing, which ended Sunday, did not recommend trial for an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The most serious charge Offutt now faces is negligent homicide, which carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

The regional American military commander will make a final decision on any court-martial based on the hearing's recommendations, the U.S. statement said.

Attorneys for Offutt could not immediately be contacted. Offutt, a native of Greenville, Pa., joined the Army in 2006 and served 14 months in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan.

An Egyptian military court has sentenced a political activist to two years in prison after convicting him of criticizing the armed forces and publishing false information.

Maikel Nabil Sanad was arrested in March and sentenced to three years, but the case was appealed and sent for retrial.

Sanad was arrested following posts on his blog comparing the military to the former regime of President Hosni Mubarak, toppled in February by a popular uprising. He also charged he was tortured by military police during an earlier detention.

He is one of 12,000 civilians who have faced military trials this year, a practice critics say deprives the accused of their rights.

Amnesty International considers Sanad a "prisoner of conscience," and the U.S. has expressed concern about his detention.

A Navy ship commander is facing a military court hearing in San Diego Friday on accusations of sexually assaulting two women on his crew.

Cmdr. Jay Wylie will undergo a general court-martial, the military court reserved for the most serious offenses, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Wylie is the former skipper of the Everett, Wash.-based destroyer USS Momsen.

Wylie's attorney, Jeremiah Sullivan, wouldn't say Thursday what kind of plea his client will enter but told the newspaper that Wylie will "take full responsibility for his actions."

According to the Navy, Wylie got drunk on two occasions and sexually assaulted the women.

The first incident alleges that on New Year's Eve, Wylie pinned a junior female officer, tried to kiss her and assaulted her with his hand up her skirt.

The military's ban on openly gay troops will be lifted within weeks, but the policy can still be re-enacted in the future.

That's why a Republican gay rights organization that sued the Obama administration to stop enforcement of the policy says it will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to declare the nearly 18-year-old law unconstitutional, affirming a lower court's ruling last year.

With several Republican presidential candidates, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, indicating they would favor reinstating the ban if elected, such a ruling is needed, said Dan Woods, the attorney for the Log Cabin Republicans. Declaring the law unconstitutional would also provide a legal path for thousands discharged under the policy to seek reinstatement, back pay or other compensation for having their careers cut short, Woods said.

"The repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' doesn't say anything about the future," Woods said. "It doesn't (explicitly) say homosexuals can serve. A new Congress or new president could come back and reinstitute it. We need our case to survive so there is a constraint on the government to prevent it from doing this again."

During her campaign stop in Iowa in August, Bachmann told interviewer Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of The Union" when asked whether she would reinstitute the law: "It worked very well and I would be in consultation with our commanders, but I think, yes, I probably would."

Justice Department attorneys have filed a motion asking the appeals court to dismiss the case, arguing that the repeal process that will lift the ban Sept. 20 makes the lawsuit irrelevant.

The Log Cabin Republicans successfully won an injunction by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips last year that halted enforcement of "don't ask, don't tell" briefly, before the 9th Circuit reinstated it.