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At 1 a.m. on June 5, 2021, a pair of US Marines knocked on the Pennsville, NJ, door of Stacie Beals, a hospital nurse who usually works nights. Sharing precious few details, they told her that her son, Dalton, died while training to be a Marine on Parris Island. The four-mile-long facility, located in Beaufort County, SC, has been used to season recruits since 1915.

When, soon after graduating high school, Dalton announced that he wanted to be a Marine, Stacie wished he had opted for college. But she supported him with one provision.

“I said to him, ‘Just promise me you will not go into infantry,’” Stacie, 53, told The Post. “I did not want him on the frontlines. That was my worry. I did not worry about something happening to Dalton in the United States. The last thing I worried about was him dying during training in his own country.”

Now, an official investigation into the 19-year-old’s death recommends “punitive or administrative action” against his company commander, series commander and drill instructor.

None of these people have yet been identified by name.

Dalton’s boyhood friend Zach Manorowitz thought the Marines would be a perfect fit. “Dalton was a big, strong dude, always one of the best, and he liked to show it,” Manorowitz told The Post. “His friends and I, we expected him to breeze right through training.”

Instead, according to a newly released and heavily redacted “Command Investigation Report,” produced by the Marines, Dalton died of hyperthermia. Though he passed away before his temperature could be taken, Stacie said that another recruit had registered a dangerously high reading of 107 degrees.

Soon before passing away, Dalton wrote his mother that he was excited for her to see him in his Marines dress uniform. She did, but not as expected.

“It was an open-casket funeral with Dalton in his dress uniform,” Stacie said. “That was heartbreaking, a sight I will never forget. He is missed. What happened to my son is still hard to believe.”

On the afternoon of June 4, 2021, Dalton was in his 11th week at Parris Island and in the midst of the Crucible, a final leg of basic training before recruits are deemed worthy of becoming Marines. It is a 54-hour stretch of hardcore challenges in which, according to the corps’ website, recruits test “physical strength, skills and the Marine Corps values.” Food and sleep are both limited.

That Dalton and other recruits in his platoon undertook the Crucible in 90-degree heat made the challenge all the more grueling. At that temperature, the weather condition is, according to quotes from former Marines Gunnery Sgt. Clifton McChesney on the Marines’ official site, as “black flag.” He added: “If it’s not absolutely for you to be outdoors training, you shouldn’t be doing it.”

But, according to the report, the senior drill instructor initiated “unauthorized incentive training.”

Stacie put it more bluntly: “Dalton was being hazed.”

Speaking of the senior drill instructor, Stacie said, “Apparently, he was self-righteous. He was going to make his platoon the top platoon. It was an ego trip for him.”

Confirming what was revealed in the report, Stacie said, “During breaks, when [the senior drill instructor] was supposed to be coaching the [15] recruits, he didn’t do that. Instead, he was in an air-conditioned vehicle while his group remained out in the sun.”

The death of Dalton happened after a pugil stick fight: a competition between two platoons, in which fighters don what look like football helmets and smash at each other with padded sticks. Standing more than 6 feet tall and weighing around 210 muscular pounds, Dalton was a formidable stick fighter. Living up to his nickname of Big Deal Beals, given to him by others in his platoon, Stacie said, “Dalton was doing more fights than the others because he was winning. But, as a result, Dalton was suffering more than the others.”

As she learned from the report as well as conversations with recruits in Dalton’s platoon, “[Other recruits] saw Dalton stumbling. He fell over. He was seen having problems breathing. He told a kid that he couldn’t see. He was delirious and hallucinating. He wanted water. You are not supposed to go alone. But everyone was struggling. So the buddy system was not being followed.”

When Dalton went for a drink but failed to return, his platoon-mates began searching for him. But at the time, as explained by Stacie, “Someone yelled, ‘Recruit down!’”

Another would-be Marine had bitten the dust. When a recruit thought it to be Dalton and asked the drill instructor how Dalton was doing, Stacie said, “He replied, ‘It’s none of your business; don’t worry about it; get out of my face.’ He didn’t know my son’s name; he didn’t know any of their names; he called them all ‘Pig.’”

According to Stacie, the drill instructor did not realize that Dalton was missing.

After 60 minutes, another drill instructor found Dalton in a wooded area. “It sounded like a scurry,” said Stacie. “The one who found Dalton started CPR and called for help. Others arrived in no time. But it was too late. Dalton was already gone.”

Particularly upsetting for Stacie, as a nurse, is her belief that steps could have been taken to save her son. “You cool him off with IV fluid,” she said. “You get his core temperature down. It should not have gotten to that point. This was just a training exercise. It wasn’t war.”

Asked about the circumstances of Dalton’s death, Major Philip Kulczewski, a Marines spokesman on Parris Island, responded to The Post via email: “MCRD Parris Island Leadership is in contact with the family and provides information as it becomes available … Currently, [this] case is under review by military prosecutors. However, it would be inappropriate at this time to speculate about the details of the case with the ongoing review.”

Although Dalton’s survivors cannot sue — the 1950 Feres Doctrine prevents lawsuits against the Federal Government due to injuries of military personnel — Stacie hopes that her son has not died in vain. His family initiated a private autopsy and she will not discuss it ahead of the Marines releasing the results of its own autopsy. But she does have advice for parents of of would-be Marines.

“I would not recommend the Marines unless there are changes made,” said Stacie. “There are flaws in the system. They said they reconfigured the Crucible, so that the square footage is smaller. And they want to get [wearable] monitors to tell the locations and temperatures of the recruits. But that is not even the issue. The issue is their leader. He was on an ego trip.”

The report stated that the leader “did not have the maturity, temperament and leadership skills necessary to be an effective senior drill instructor.”

Stacie, Dalton’s two sisters Logan and Jordan, and his father, Melvin — divorced from Stacie for five years — attended the graduation of Dalton’s platoon. “This was 10 days after Dalton died,” said Stacie. “The graduation was hard. Everyone around us was so happy. But it was important for me to see Dalton’s barracks and to meet the people he spent time with.”

There was a memorial service for the family members and recruits from his platoon.

“It was special,” recalled Stacie. “They all had a chance to tell us something about Dalton. He was highly thought of.”

She also spoke with the senior drill instructor on whose watch her son perished. “I met him, not knowing what I know now,” she said. “He was nice and I kind of felt bad for him. I thought he felt guilty but did not know why. I thought he felt bad for losing a recruit. Dalton’s bunk was right outside his window and he said that when he looks out, he sees him. Now I know that, in reality, he did not even know who my son is.”

Stacie said that her feelings for the instructor have changed dramatically as she awaits news on whether or not the Marines will bring him to a military trial.

“Now I feel that he should not even be a Marine,” she said. “At minimum, he should get a dishonorable discharge and be thrown in the brink for the maximum number of years.”