The Sad Case Of Marine LTC Scheller

My uncle was a lieutenant in the Army in the mid-1950s. When he got out, he left his collection of manuals with my parents, where I found them in our attic. Among them was the Manual for Court Martial, which I eagerly studied. One of the offenses I discovered was Contempt Toward Officials, which struck me as so strange that I still remember it. Although the wording has changed slightly since the time I read it, the current version is probably very close:

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

This immediately came to mind when I learned of Marine LTC Scheller's YouTube video:

In August, Scheller posted a video denouncing senior military leadership in the wake of the Kabul attack that killed 13 U.S. service members. He called on top civilian and military leaders to admit the mistakes they had made in the course of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

. . . He criticized Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the nation's top military officer, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley for their incorrect predictions that the Afghan National Security Forces would be able to withstand Taliban attacks and for the closure in July of Bagram Air Base, which meant that evacuations would go through Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport.

At which point, I remembered the words I'd read 60 years ago and simply said hoo boy. But in the video, he made it plain that he fully understood the consequences of his action:

“I feel like I have a lot to lose,” he said, adding that he thought through “what might happen to me. . . if I dared to post it. But I think what you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk.”

Accordimng to the first story above,

Scheller hasn't been charged yet, but according to legal documents, he is facing potential charges of conduct unbecoming an officer, contempt toward officials, disobeying a senior officer and failure to obey an order or regulation.

It isn't completely clear why he was suddenly jailed, but based on published interpretations, he was ordered not to make further public statements but continued to make them in defiance of the order. I hate to say this, but if those are the circumstances, I can't disagree.

What's puzzling is that, although supporters have raised close to $2 million for his defense, he appears to be distancing himself from them.

Despite his popularity in conservative circles, including more than two dozen GOP lawmakers who sent a letter calling for his release from confinement, Scheller recently spoke out on social media to distance himself from the former president.

"President Trump . I was told by everyone to kiss the ring because of your following and power," he said in a Facebook post last Saturday. "I refuse. While I respect your foreign policy positions, I hate how you divided the country. I don’t need or want your help. You do not have the ability to pull US together."

I was basically thrown out of ROTC when the instructors concluded, I thought at the time and think now correctly, that I wasn't officer material. Being officer material unquestionably means subordinating your personal opinions to the orders of your superiors. I respected that at the time and still respect it. The ROTC did me one of the biggest favors anyone did me at that time of my life.

So I have a basic issue with LTC Scheller. The biographical details I've seen include that he graduated from Officer Candidate School, which is certainly a more rigorous evaluation of potential officer material than ROTC. He then appears to have risen steadily in the Marine Corps. How many times, I've got to ask, did he have to say, "Boy, that sucks. General ____ is incompetent. But I have a career, and I'm a loyal officer. I'll make the best of it."

He signed on to the whole program. Now after 17 years, he's decided he wasn't officer material after all. He's basically gone rogue, or at least that's the appearance. I suspect his counsel will have to argue that he wasn't of sound mind when he made his statements -- that is, if he'll let his counsel do that.

It's a sad case. It's not something conservatives should be taking up.