Military.com: A Resignation and Mental Health Screening: The Unfolding Saga of the Marine Who Called Out Leadership on Afghanistan

8/31/2021

Konstantin Toropin, A Resignation and Mental Health Screening: The Unfolding Saga of the Marine Who Called Out Leadership on Afghanistan:

"The story of Lt. Col. Stu Scheller, the Marine officer who posted a viral video demanding accountability from military leaders for the failures in Afghanistan, took a strange turn this week after he posted a new video Sunday in which he resigns his commission "effective immediately" and threatens to "bring the whole f---ing system down.""

FormerDC

8/31/2021 06:02:05 pm

From the outside looking in, this looks so much like a stress-induced manic/depressive episode.

This doesn’t have a happy ending, but maybe the military will choose to *actually help* instead of exaggerating the impact this might have on good order and discipline to absolutely crush LtCol Scheller.

Fingers crossed for him and his family.

CTC

9/2/2021 11:35:06 am

I am sympathetic and grateful toward Lt Col Scheller's service to our Nation; particularly his combat experience both leading and losing young Marines in battles of questionable national interest.

I understand his frustration and anger with senior leaders due to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But I don't think it's an exaggeration to say his actions are an equal threat to national security to the generals' incompetence he so criticizes.

I say this for several reasons:

The popularity of viral challenges on social media are dangerously enticing for young folks—there’s nothing preventing Lt Col Scheller from becoming the latest fad. Although he purports to speak only for himself, he also stated "They only have power because we allow it...Every generation needs a revolution.”

What kind of revolution? Well—Lt Col Scheller doesn’t exactly say. The most charitable interpretation is that members should simply follow his example by openly criticizing their chain of command on social media and quit the service unless senior leaders resign.

Perhaps to many union organizers this sounds completely reasonable--but the military has a term for it: Mutiny.

And mutiny might not be all that flows from his comments…if one interprets him literally when he says “bring the whole f***** down” without elaboration. How should our most marginalized and vulnerable members interpret those words from someone they could easily regard as a high ranking combat hero—who is also now being praised for his maverick exit from the service? It’s a dangerous invitation for mutiny at best---at the margins it could be construed as a call for violence.

Now some of you might say that his own sloppy drafting shouldn’t be an aggravating factor in his failure to abide the chain of command. But that’s precisely why rules forbid members from expressing official opinions. And make no mistake—he expressed his opinion in uniform with the imprimatur of his position as an AD battalion commander.

His motives are irrelevant. Whether he is genuinely trying to enact positive changes at the highest levels of leadership or he is trying to pad his post-retirement fortunes (he has already asked for donations "to his wife") or perhaps a bit of both--China and Russia would be hard-pressed to launch a better operation designed at undermining command and control within our own ranks. His actions are a direct and effective attack on command authority--inviting members to question not the legality of their orders but to analyze for themselves how great a job they think the bosses are doing. And if, in their own untrained, outsider judgment, they disagree with the policy decisions of brass—you can simply take your concerns to the public and denigrate your leadership while receiving recognition and praise for quitting.

The publicity he’s received makes a court-martial a no-brainer. It must happen. And it should—so that we don’t see his behavior perpetuate, or worse.

None of this addresses whether his criticisms were valid. Plenty of ways to express valid criticism that don’t sow cancer into our ranks.

Brenner Fissell

9/2/2021 11:49:43 am

well said

Former DC

9/3/2021 11:33:59 am

CTC - I respectfully disagree... but I suppose that's why you're a Chief Trial Counsel and I'm not.

I think your argument rests on speculation and exaggerations. Any reasonable look at LtCol Scheller sees a veteran in crisis with a massive dose of self-inflicted general deterrence. He's lost his family, his command, his retirement, and his mental health. No one is looking at LtCol Scheller and thinking "I should do that too."

He's not a cancer to be cut out, he's a sick man to help. The World’s Strongest Military™ can survive a bit of rambling dissent from an abandoned school bus in eastern North Carolina. It is certainly not “an equal threat to national security to the generals’ incompetence he so criticizes.” Our force intuitively understands that the military can absolutely crush you when you step out of line – we don’t need another example to prove that point to our all-volunteer force. However, there are very few examples where the military treats our personnel like they’re actually our most valuable asset (although we certainly say those words often enough). This is a situation where the military broke a distinguished officer, and wants to punish him for being broken.

Senior leadership did their job so poorly that a over a dozen young servicemembers unnecessarily paid with their lives. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this fiasco will also enflame the tragic tempo of veteran suicides. Context matters, and this SHOULD enrage leaders who are charged with protecting America's young men and women who volunteer to fight. Following your logic, should we make an example of some flag officers? Otherwise, the force might think it’s acceptable to be absolutely incompetent. The military has a term for that too: Derelict.

You can parse, and twist, and rephrase LtCol Scheller’s words any way you like - but they’re just not a call for mutiny, or violence, or viral video challenges(?!). Making those over-the-top arguments to members costs credibility and could lose a technically infallible case by opening the door to jury nullification.

The no-brainer option here isn’t a pointless media-circus of a court martial to show that a terribly thin-skinned military can still crush any service member who dares question whether the emperor is wearing any clothes (to be scheduled in 2023). The no-brainer option is to separate LtCol Scheller with the VA benefits he will so obviously need, but without the retirement he’s forfeited, without the family that sacrificed alongside him for the better part of two decades, and without any opportunity to reasonably cast himself as a martyr.

CTC

9/3/2021 04:36:57 pm

Former DC,

Good points. I depart with you on the comment that nobody will emulate him. Copycats follow those who achieve media notoriety – and the press doesn’t even need to be favorable to induce those who seek it. We see it as much with Navy SEALS claiming to have shot Bin Laden as we do with school shootings. It’s grim fact of modern life. I hope nobody follows Lt Col Scheller’s example (or worse) but I’d be naïve to think there won’t be disaffected members who see him as a hero. Certainly the praise Lt Col Scheller receives only adds to the inducement to break ranks. That inducement should be offset with the deterrent of a GCM. I am saddened by the whole affair, but I am also aghast that someone chosen to lead the next generation of combat officers would pull such a stunt.

This case is bigger than crushing some rambling dissent. A sitting O-5 calling for revolution on the cusp of the collapse of 20 years' effort in Afghanistan, within the broader context of shifting world power toward the Pacific and active Russian and Chinese psy-ops occurring on US-soil may not be legally-relevant to his guilt. But it makes the choice to court-martial him not merely a referendum on compassion for war weary vets—it asks us what difficult choices must we make to combat real threats to national security. You stated that ‘any reasonable look’ at Lt Col Sheller sees a veteran in crisis. I agree. But I fear our society is beyond reason. In the era of QAnon, election hacking, and Russian trolls, Lt Col Scheller and anyone willing to trade their oath for fame (or idealism) will be used as weapons by those currently targeting our public institutions, especially via social media. The integrity of military command authority must be guarded above all else-- and that is why those like Lt Col Scheller who unwittingly do our enemies' bidding must be punished.

FormerDC

9/3/2021 08:52:10 pm

CTC - reasonable minds can certainly differ, but punishing an individual because of broader geopolitical context far outside of that individual’s control seems particularly Machiavellian to me.

If his intent was to help China/Russia I’d have a fundamentally different view… but I don’t think there’s a serious argument that this is an Article 103b (Aiding the Enemy) violation. This crosses me as a very direct, but otherwise stock Article 88 (Contempt towards officials) violation.

As it is, I think this guy is just broken after spending his entire adult life on a cause that was summarily abandoned. I don’t have the stomach to make an example out of someone going through that kind of tragedy. Especially when he’s already lost so much. I don’t think a court martial creates an ounce of general deterrence that doesn’t already exist.

Charles Gittins

9/7/2021 03:09:24 pm

I see SChaller as a broken man. He has lost Marines and he correctly recognized the incompetence of the military leadership. He called for accountabilty. There is very little of that for senior officers, O-6 and above. He should be treated and discharged/retired to the VA. We still need to address the boobs running the Pentagon and the Afghan War.

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11/12/2021 03:33:49 am

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Military.com: A Resignation and Mental Health Screening: The Unfolding Saga of the Marine Who Called Out Leadership on Afghanistan

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