American Spartan

by Tyson, Ann Scott

  As charges mounted against Jim, Dan and others who had served under him were being drawn into a widening witch hunt by the command in Afghanistan. Dan had been sent back to Fort Bragg in April, but the rest of the team remained in Afghanistan.

  Dan was accused in the Kirila investigation of having a beer on Christmas, and hiring and paying Afghan contractors to fortify the qalat at Chowkay without awaiting the proper financial authorizations.

  What the investigation failed to recognize was that Dan’s employment of contractors was critical to helping keep us alive at Chowkay. Jim’s team was ordered to rapidly embed in Chowkay but not advanced any funds to do so. Had Dan not hired contractors to work and promised to pay them later, for example, we would have gone weeks without even a gate or finished walls on the qalat. Funding delays were a chronic and longstanding problem faced by Special Forces teams. Indeed, soon after his arrival in Afghanistan in 2010, Jim had criticized the cumbersome accounting process that tied up team members for weeks drawing funds. In a memo to then top commander Petraeus, Jim had proposed creating “money teams” to streamline the process and deliver the funds to the ODAs. Petraeus endorsed the idea, but the teams never materialized.

  On the charge of possible misappropriation of funds, the investigation turned up only some blank receipts in Dan’s room and statements that he and Imran fabricated one vendor’s signature on a receipt. However, according to Dan the blank receipts had been left in the operations center by a previous Special Forces team, and their use was common. Kirila also found that a “thorough 16-month review of all the previous fiscal clearing documents associated with 3430G and CPT McKone found no obvious discrepancies.” According to some officers, it is common for Special Forces teams to engage in the misappropriation of funds—stating for instance that they are buying gravel or lumber but actually spending the funds on other things that were needed, or simply pocketing the money. “Everybody who has been a team leader in Afghanistan has done that fraudulently,” according to a field grade Special Forces officer.

  One of the main complaints lodged against Dan, Fernando, and other noncommissioned officers and soldiers on the team was that they had not reported on Jim.

  “CPT McKone was fully cogent [sic] of the misconduct by the ranking officer,” but “failed to report the conduct,” Linn stated in March in a highly critical officer evaluation of Dan. “CPT McKone lacks the morale [sic] compass and integrity expected of an officer in the United States Army and therefore, it is my assessment that CPT McKone should not remain in the United States Army.”

  Unlike Jim, Dan had not completed twenty years of service, and so being forced out of the Army would mean losing his retirement benefits. He decided to fight the charges at every turn. Meanwhile, Dan was diagnosed with PTSD and a serious back injury and advised he could not return to combat for medical reasons. The Army could have simply allowed Dan to go through a medical evaluation board to determine if he should be separated or retired for health reasons. Instead, it revoked his Special Forces tab and moved to force him out by using a formal Board of Inquiry, composed of three senior officers who would rule on whether he should be allowed to stay in the Army.

  In December, the Board of Inquiry convened. An Army Judge Advocate presented the government’s case against Dan, claiming he was a renegade officer unsuited to fight the nation’s future wars. “How can we retain such officers when we are trying to teach them the rule of law,” the Judge Advocate argued—“them” referring to foreign peoples U.S. troops would encounter. At one point, one of the three board members asked Dan why he was contesting the charges against him. By then Dan was angry. He had nothing to lose. “I am here to salvage my dignity and my honor,” Dan shot back. When the team moved into Chowkay with no advance funds, Dan said, “we had to be ready to fight. We didn’t want a situation where we lost nine people. I kept asking the pay agents when the money would come in,” he said. “The bureaucratic systems were designed to make sure people are not pocketing money, buying Harleys, or anything else that anyone in the room knows has happened. The problem is that it gets in the way of the combat mission.” After five hours of proceedings, the board reached a verdict: Dan was guilty of one act of misconduct, drinking a beer on Christmas 2011 in Mangwel. In a minor vindication, the board voted to retain Dan in the Army.

  Fernando, the skilled intelligence sergeant on the team in Chowkay, was reprimanded by Gen. Haas for being “oblivious to what was occurring” at Chowkay, Penich, and Mangwel. “You are hereby reprimanded for dereliction of duty due to your complete lack of awareness,” Haas wrote in the memo, signed April 3. “It is disturbing that you claim so much ignorance about the blatant and deliberate violations . . . which were occurring on the VSP on a nearly daily basis.” Haas offered no specifics as to what Fernando was ignorant of. In fact, Haas showed a lack of awareness in his own letter—Fernando had never served in Mangwel. Nevertheless, the reprimand had a serious negative impact on Fernando’s military career.

  Fernando had been moved to a job at the U.S. military base at Bagram when he learned of the action against him from Sgt. Maj. Edward Mongold, the senior noncommissioned officer in Linn’s command.

  “You were in Chowkay. You are being relieved of your duty and will be leaving the country,” Mongold told Fernando in a meeting in his office. “This is being command-directed by Haas. You are not the only one. It is everybody who was there.”

  The Army also took action against Tony, the weapons sergeant from the 19th Special Forces Group whom Jim had recommended for an Army Commendation Medal for valor for his bravery manning the .50-caliber machine gun on the roof during the Chowkay fighting.

  Even three lower-ranking soldiers who had served with Jim at Chowkay were reprimanded, according to Fernando, Bird, and others. Most of the infantry soldiers were moved from Chowkay to the Special Forces headquarters at Jalalabad, where they were treated as though they had been indoctrinated. “They said we were brainwashed, but we were sad because they took our commander from us,” said Pfc. Chad Armstrong, a twenty-four-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who worked at the operations center in Chowkay and had the courage to volunteer to be Jim’s driver. The Chowkay soldiers voiced resentment against Lt. Roberts for turning in Jim and Dan.

  For Jim, watching the Army go after Dan, his closest comrade, and others who had served under him was the worst punishment he could face. He felt responsible for whatever harm came to them and their careers. Once again he was unable to protect those who had followed him and sacrificed for him and the mission.

  Roberts, meanwhile, was hailed by the chain of command as a whistle-blower and paragon of moral courage.

  ON JUNE 11, JIM got up early, shaved, and pulled on the only uniform and boots he had—the oversized ones he was ordered to wear at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.

  Then he climbed into his truck, drove through the gate at Fort Bragg, and turned up a side road to the headquarters of the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), where he had been summoned to a meeting with its three-star commander, Lt. Gen. John Mulholland.

  After Schwartz recommended that Jim face a general court-martial and sent him from Kabul back to Fort Bragg, responsibility for Jim fell to Mulholland. A big Irishman known among other officers for his stubborn streak, Mulholland knew Jim and had visited Mangwel and met Noor Afzhal in 2011. He also facilitated Dan’s assignment to Jim’s team. I was acquainted with Mulholland. I had first met him in 2002, interviewing him about a major battle in Afghanistan when I was a novice Pentagon reporter and he was a Special Forces colonel. Later, I reported on Mulholland’s soldiers as they trained Afghan commandos and earned awards for valor.

  Now Jim’s fate lay in Mulholland’s hands. Still, we had no idea how Mulholland would rule on the case, or what kind of internal pressure he faced.

  Jim pulled into the parking lot outside the towering USASOC headquarters, and stopped to gather his thoughts. A light rain fell on the windshield and pavement.

&n
bsp; As he stared out the window, Jim recalled the anticipation he had felt three years earlier, when he arrived at the same building just after the publication of “One Tribe at a Time” for his teleconference with Special Operations Command (SOCOM) chief Adm. Olson.

  He had left the meeting with Olson elated, and set off to help win a war.

  He shook his head.

  You were a fool to believe them, he thought.

  Jim wanted to lash out at his accusers, but he did not. He had long planned to retire from the Army after he returned from Afghanistan, knowing he would never have a mission that could compare with his last. So he drew a line in the sand. He let Mulholland know through subordinates that he would be willing to retire as a major with an honorable discharge and full benefits. Otherwise, he planned to demand a trial by court-martial, something he believed the command wanted to avoid because they sought to keep the matter quiet.

  Jim decided not to ask any of his high-ranking supporters, such as Petraeus, to intervene on his behalf. He felt he had let them down and did not want to involve them in his troubles. As a matter of honor, he wanted to bear the responsibility alone.

  So he wrote a three-page statement, which he placed in a manila folder and tucked under his arm as he walked toward the USASOC building. At the entrance, he was barred because his security clearance had been suspended.

  “Sir, you are blocked,” a soldier said, requiring him to wear a visitor badge marked with “Escort Required.” Maj. Worlock, who handled personnel for USASOC, escorted Jim to Mulholland’s office on the top floor of the USASOC building. Outside, they waited together with Judge Advocate Col. Steven Weir until they were called in.

  Mulholland was sitting behind a large desk in a spacious office furnished with leather chairs.

  “Sir, Major Gant reporting as requested,” Jim said, standing at attention and saluting.

  Mulholland looked at him sternly and returned the salute.

  “Stand at ease,” he said.

  Jim relaxed his stance and stood at parade rest.

  “Major Gant, do you know why you are here today?”

  “Yes, I do, sir,” Jim said.

  “I am considering whether you should be punished under Article 15 UCMJ for the following misconduct . . .”

  Mulholland read the by then familiar charges against Jim: Alcohol use, possessing pain medicine and other controlled substances. In addition, he said, Jim had given me access to classified information and used his team to transport me in Afghanistan—thereby putting his men at “extreme and unnecessary risk . . . likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm.”

  “Do you want a trial by court-martial?” Mulholland asked.

  “No, sir,” Jim said.

  “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

  “Sir, here is my statement,” Jim said.

  Mulholland took the document and began silently reading Jim’s words.

  I went to Afghanistan in 2010 to try to win the war. At the time, I believed that defeating the insurgency in Konar Province would prove strategically significant for the broader war effort in Afghanistan, and that our success there could tip the outcome in our favor. I am deeply pained that my efforts to serve my country, my Regiment, my men, and the people of Afghanistan are concluding in this manner.

  Mulholland read on. A summer rainstorm blew in and drenched the lush landscape outside the window behind him. He finished, quickly set the papers down, and looked at Jim, his face tense and angry.

  “Jim, there is nothing in this statement that in any shape, form, or fashion mitigates or excuses any of your conduct on the ground,” he said curtly. “There is nothing special at all about what you did or what you were asked to do. Absolutely nothing you did in your military career, in particular what you did over there, matters any more. Reading your statement, it’s very apparent to me that you have a skewed perception of yourself and your importance to the war and to the Regiment. If anything, your statement leads me to believe that you are delusional. I have been in Special Forces thirty-three years and served with a lot of great men, and you are not one of them. You may perceive you are, but you are not. As a matter of fact, I am ashamed of you, and you are a disgrace to the Special Forces Regiment.”

  Mulholland was sitting straight up in his chair, looking Jim in the eye, growing more agitated by the minute as he spoke.

  “Do you understand the situation that you have put me and your entire regiment in? The politics of this are an absolute nightmare!” he fumed, his face flushed. “Do you know what would happen if this three-and-a-half-inch investigation became public in the New York Times or the Washington Post? If it did, you would be personally responsible for the destruction of eleven years of the hard work of the Special Forces.

  “Do you know what the Army Chief of Staff said about Special Forces after Vietnam? They had received nineteen Medals of Honor, and he said they were a bunch of lawless renegades. That is what we have been battling against ever since. It has taken us eleven years to get where we are, and this one incident could destroy all that. How many missions do you think Special Forces will be given if they know this is how Special Forces officers behave in combat?

  “You used your top cover and access and isolation to live out a fantasy. You lived a movie and not a real movie. You made your own. It was extremely selfish. When I came and visited you I was very impressed, but there were things you said that gave me pause, and in retrospect they should have made me look at your situation differently. You directly quoted Colonel Kurtz. Obviously, there was something wrong with you.

  “I want to make something very clear. You are a shame and disgrace to the Special Forces Regiment. You drank alcohol downrange. You took drugs and had unauthorized drugs in your room. You put your men at risk—you say in the statement you did not and your men would not say that, but they did—and you gave Ann Scott Tyson access to classified information and moved her around the battlefield. Is that true?”

  A long pause followed.

  “Yes, sir,” Jim said.

  Mulholland took a deep breath. “There is a famous British saying,” he said. “ ‘The further you move into the jungle, the nicer the clothes you should wear to dinner.’ You failed to do that. You let us all down,” he said. “Now get out.”

  Jim turned and walked out.

  Worlock followed him, closing the door.

  “Damn, dude, are you okay? That was brutal,” Worlock said.

  “Yep,” Jim said.

  They sat down. But Mulholland was not finished yet. Behind the closed door, he was consulting with Col. Weir, the JAG, on what punishment to mete out. About ten minutes later, the general called them back in.

  “Did anything I said resonate with you?” he asked Jim. “Do you feel any remorse? One of the first things I noticed when you walked in here is that you are out of uniform and you need a haircut, which makes me think you just don’t care. You don’t have any discipline whatsoever.”

  “Yes, sir, I do feel very bad about the situation and I have from the beginning. It is hard for me to get up in the morning, sir.”

  “Someone who loves his regiment does not do this,” Mulholland said. “Your statement does not show any remorse.”

  Jim was silent.

  “All right, Major Gant,” Mulholland said, almost mockingly. “Here is your punishment. I will give you this Article 15 in your official military file. I will give you a general officer letter of reprimand. I will support your tab revocation. Do you have anything else to say?”

  “Yes, sir. I would ask that you look very carefully at Captain McKone’s situation. I was the commander.”

  “Captain McKone is a seasoned Special Forces soldier, commissioned officer, and grown man,” Mulholland said. “He could have approached you or this command at any time. He could have stopped all of this with a phone call or an email. That was his duty. I am embarrassed that the officer I sent to you didn’t do that, and we had to have a first lieutenant in the Infantry show that
moral courage.”

  Mulholland looked at Jim, his face a mixture of anger and disappointment.

  “Major Gant,” he said, “this is a sad day.”

  Mulholland picked up a pen and signed the Article 15.

  “You are dismissed.”

  SOON AFTERWARD, MULHOLLAND ISSUED Jim this reprimand:

  While fully acknowledging your record of honorable and valorous service to the Regiment, our Army and our country, the simple truth is that your subsequent conduct was inexcusable and brought disrepute and shame to the Special Forces Regiment and Army Special Operations. You were entrusted to maintain the highest standards of discipline, operational deportment, and leadership in an environment of austere conditions and high risk; the very conditions in which Special Forces is intended to thrive. Instead, you indulged yourself in a self-created fantasy world, consciously stepping away from even the most basic standards of leadership and behavior accepted as a norm for an officer in the U.S. Army. In the course of such self-indulgence, you exposed your command and the reputation of the Regiment to unnecessary and unacceptable risk. In short, your actions disgraced you as an officer and seriously compromised your character as a gentleman.

  BEHIND THE SCENES, JIM received encouragement from several more senior Special Forces officers who valued his talents and considered his punishment over-the-top. “What went down with you was ridiculously shameful,” said Lieut. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Special Forces officer who served three tours in Afghanistan and was an architect of the VSO program. “I consider you a modern day Lawrence of Arabia,” he said. “History will reflect your impact. The [Special Forces] Regiment will recognize that one day.”

  Bolduc, who returned to Afghanistan in mid-2012 and oversaw the expansion and strengthening of the Afghan Local Police and VSO programs, told Jim that his work in Konar was pathbreaking. “If you had not done what you did early on, there would not be two thousand Afghan Local Police in Konar now,” said Bolduc, who was promoted to brigadier general in 2013. Despite major unresolved problems with pay, logistics, communications, and financing, the Afghan Local Police are the most successful and cost-effective grassroots security force in Afghanistan, Bolduc said. As of 2013, he said, the approximately twenty-five thousand ALP patrol rural areas inhabited by about 20 percent of Afghanistan’s population. The ALP are the number one target of insurgents and suffer a higher rate of members killed in action than the Afghan national army or police, he said. Bolduc helped secure Afghan government approval to increase the ultimate size of the force from thirty thousand to forty-five thousand and extend the duration of the program from 2015 to 2025.