A career Marine officer says he’ll leave the service after being relieved from duty for posting a viral video on social media that blasted the secretary of defense and the Pentagon’s top general for mishandling the Afghanistan withdrawal and letting down the troops.
He said in the video he wanted “accountability,” meaning his bosses fired.
Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller (photo, left) was in charge of a training battalion at Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps base in North Carolina; he had previously served duty tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He knew what would happen; he said, “My chain of command is doing exactly what I would do if I were in their shoes.” Read story here; more details here.
Scheller’s specific grievance is the U.S. military’s abrupt abandonment of Bagram Air Base, which has necessitated using Kabul’s airport for evacuations. Many other people have questioned that move, including at least two GOP senators. So it wasn’t necessary for Scheller to throw away his career to bring attention to it. (For more about that issue, see this article in National Review, a conservative opinion magazine. It quotes Gen. Mark Milley as saying he didn’t have enough troops to hold both airfields.)
The military is rigidly hierarchical. Orders come down the chain of command, and gripes go up the chain, but only with permission. (How many movies have you seen where a military character says, “Permission to speak, sir?”) What you don’t do is go around your superiors, or criticize them. It’s about maintaining good order and discipline. What Scheller did comes close to mutiny.
So you wonder what his motivations are. He seems to be basking in the attention his tantrum garnered, much of it supportive. Maybe he’s scheming to run for public office?