The case of USMC Lt. Col Stuart Scheller
Soldiers are not automatons, they are primarily Citizens
The US Marine Corps is a granite institution you cannot dabble with, especially if you are yourself a member of the USMC Brotherhood with officer rank. Blind obedience, we are told, is the simple rule of life for a US Marine, which is indispensable in view of the extreme risk that characterizes the Corps’ mission. Yet even such sacrosanct diktats may come under pressure because of corrupt and catastrophic (political and military) leadership decisions. The unfolding saga of USMC Lt. Col Stuart Scheller is a stark case in point.
Touched by the tragic forced exit from Afghanistan, and the double-faced babbling of the Biden administration, not to mention the evasive language of the top military brass, about the Kabul calamity, the colonel made the unpardonable gesture of speaking out publicly to blast Ole Joe et al. and deliver a much-needed urgent message to all Americans. Unsurprisingly, he was relieved of his duties on August 27, one day after he uploaded a video blasting the “ineptitude” of the Biden administration, and subsequently announced he was resigning his commission and foregoing a substantial pension and associated benefits.
The colonel’s subsequent postings on social media attracted billowing attention and approval, facts that further angered the leadership. The Corps immediately slapped him with a gag order and ordered him to undergo a mental health evaluation – a gesture that resembles authoritarian regime methods, which America herself publicly and staunchly criticizes as tools used by Soviet-style autocrats aiming to suppress mischievous dissidents.
Now, Lt. Col Scheller finds himself locked up in the brig awaiting to be court martialed. The Corps claims he has not formally completed his resignation and, thus, appearing before a court martial is “lawful and consistent with the rules.” A USMC spokesman stated that the accused “… currently [faces] no charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice [but] multiple UCMJ charges are being considered.” Expecting what was in store for him, the colonel himself called upon the USMC to arrest him; concluding a Facebook post, the colonel said: “… please have the MPs waiting for me at 0800 on Monday. I’m ready for jail.”
The Scheller case raises several key questions about the limits of blind military obedience, individual constitutional rights, and the obligation of military commanders to take the extra step in defending the country and its constitution and doing their best for the men and women under their immediate command.
Those who conceive the military professional as an automaton, programmed to obey blindly orders without question, have the wrong idea about the primary core of military service, which is to defend and support human values.
Military professionals in a democratic society are not nameless thugs in a system of violence and oppression; they are, above all, citizens in the Ancient Greek sense of the term. An Ancient Greek citizen had the right to contribute and pursue enlightened political engagement, which addressed, among others, the right of citizens to evaluate, criticize, and debate the actions of the Polis, whose modern equivalent is our modern constitutional democratic state. Military professionals, we often forget, are members of our broader civilian society, and enjoy the same constitutional freedoms as the rest of us nonmilitary individuals. As Chaplain (Colonel) Maloney put it:
Although servicemen wear uniforms, they also participate in an intricate network of civilian relationships. They have wives, children, husbands, parents, hopes, fears, dreams, religious ideals, and names. The successful leader remembers that he or she is dealing with whole beings, people who are infinitely more than mechanics, clerks, typists, technicians, artillerymen, or pilots.
Recent history delivers devastating lessons of the deadly risks inherent in creating an authoritarian military organization. Adolf Hitler’s very first action, as chancellor of Germany in 1935, was to impose a personal oath of loyalty on the German army. The officer corps of the day, comprising stiff professionals, who were products of a long imperial military tradition, accepted this demand unquestionably only to become the main instruments of a total war of aggression that cost unprecedented worldwide death and destruction, including the ruination of Germany herself.
Postwar research, attempting to analyze the Nazi death wish in pursuing the conflict Germany had already lost before the gates of Moscow in the winter 1941-42, constantly ran into this personal oath of loyalty as the core reason the military leadership remained loyal to the madman to the very end in the ruins of Berlin. Today, we simply cannot afford to allow politicians to pursue similar, albeit more “refined” methods, in imposing severe rules of silence upon militaries of modern constitutional states.
Our modern world displays severe anarchic trends liberally laced with possibilities of yet another global conflagration that could easily spell the end of this poor planet. America, beginning with Vietnam, has cut a path of military global intervention that is increasing and deservingly criticized as counterproductive and dangerous. Ever since 9/11, we have been struggling with the burgeoning longer-term implications of the amorphous “war on terror” with little success—and those in the know usually agree with this assessment.
Against this backdrop, we must approach differently the Schellers of this world if we are honest in our pursuit of true security for the United States of America. There are, of course, severe political, institutional, and, yes, corporate barriers to making progress in attempting to be daring and realize the enormous damage caused by consistent political and military debacles, which the political class, irrespective of partisan identities, continues to showcase insistently as “successes” that make America “safe” or, at least, “safer,” under the circumstances.
I must admit I am pessimistic about the ability of our current political system, as it is morphing into a “woke,” “equity,” and “diversity” nightmare, to tackle the real fundamental problems of American national survival. And we need to realize, even if belatedly, that this current struggle, of which the Scheller case is a telling blip on the proverbial radar screen, is the last before-last attempt to preserve and promote the core interests and defenses of our Founding Fathers’ creation.