Marine LTC Fired After Calling Out Senior Leaders for Afghanistan Failures in Viral Video


Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller announced Friday that he had been “relieved for cause” after nearly 20 years of service for posting a video calling out senior leaders and demanding accountability on Afghanistan.

In his Facebook post, Scheller said that he would have taken the same action if he were in the position of his superior officers.

Scheller says he knows one the people killed in the blast, but he declines to name the person until the family had been notified.

“Not making this video because it’s potentially an emotional time,” he says. “Making it because I have a growing discontent and contempt for … perceived ineptitude at the foreign policy level.”

Scheller cites remarks Austin gave earlier this year suggesting that the Afghan security forces could withstand a Taliban advance. He also notes that two Marine generals are supposed to be advising the president: Berger, in his position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and CENTCOM boss Gen. Frank McKenzie, though he does not name McKenzie.

“I’m not saying we’ve got to be … in Afghanistan forever,” Scheller says. “But I am saying, ‘Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic air base, before we evacuate everyone? Did anyone do that?'”

A Marine of his rank and position would be fired immediately over “the simplest live-fire incident” or equal opportunity complaint, he says. He then suggests that the lives lost over the past 20 years could all be for naught if high-level political and military leaders don’t take responsibility for their actions.

“Potentially all those people did die in vain if we don’t have senior leaders that own up and raise their hand and say, ‘We did not do this well in the end,’ ” he says. “Without that, we just keep repeating the same mistakes.”

Scheller participated in the noncombatant evacuation of American citizens from Beirut in 2006 and deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, the following year.

Beginning in 2010, he spent a year in Afghanistan, where he led a team in Paktika and Ghazni provinces that destroyed explosives caches and sought to prevent attacks with improvised explosive devices.

“Obviously new generation Marine Corps,” LinkedIn user Erik Watson, whose profile lists five years as a Marine officer, wrote in response to Scheller. “There are proper channels [to voice concerns] and if it is not addressed to your satisfaction, so sorry so sad, keep it moving. Submit resignation ASAP.”

But others defended Scheller. Facebook user Craig Lowell called his video “probably the most incredible act of leadership I’ve ever seen.”

It’s definitely out of the ordinary but almost certainly violates military rules, said Jim Golby, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a 20-year Army veteran.

“I’m not sure the last time I’ve seen an active-duty battalion commander openly and directly challenge senior military officers, including the Commandant of the Marine Corps, in this way,” he said.

Scheller echoes what many are feeling, but the video could be used to sow division in the ranks, Golby said, and in the end likely does more harm than good.

Scheller has no plans to resign, he said in a comment, though in the video he says his critique could cut his career short, “if I have the courage to post it.”

“I think what you believe can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk,” he says. “I think it gives me some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, accountability from my senior leaders.”

“I’ve been fighting for 17 years,” he continues. “I’m willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, ‘I demand accountability.'”

Source: Military.com



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