Afghanistan War Hero Silver Star Stripped For Criticizing Obama’s Afghan War Strategy
Afghanistan War Hero Silver Star Stripped For Criticizing Obama’s Afghan War Strategy
Recently an Afghanistan War Hero Stripped of Silver Star for daring to criticize the US
war strategy.
By February 20th, 2010, the Battle of Marjah had been underway
for a week. In order to seize the Afghan district—an IED-infested,
Taliban-dominated collection of villages and crisscrossing canals and
tree lines that were a defending fighter’s dream—the U.S. military had
divided its force into thirds. A task force of more than a thousand U.S.
Marines, accompanied by Afghan soldiers, assaulted the northern portion
of Marjah. Ditto for the central portion of the district.
And the southern third? It had been attacked by a single U.S. Army
Special Forces team consisting of nine men, accompanied by a handful of
Marine engineers tasked with clearing bombs from the roads and a few
hundred Afghan troops that were more of a babysitting case than true
partners. Such a light American footprint on at least part of the
battlefield would “put an Afghan face” on the operation, as the lingo
went at the time.
As the Special Forces soldiers wore Afghan Army uniforms, the Taliban
concluded that there were virtually no Americans on their southern
flank. The fighting there was intense.
Having secured a defensive position in the heart of the Balakino
Bazaar (picture the Bakara market in the film Black Hawk Down, but more
impoverished) the Special Forces team, led by a captain named Matt
Golsteyn, repeatedly attempted to expand their footprint, but regularly
met fierce resistance. On the 20th, one of the team’s assaults into
Taliban territory took a turn for the worse. An Afghan soldier was
wounded and a vehicle got stuck in the mud as insurgents raked the
coalition formation with gunfire.
Under heavy fire, Golsteyn, as Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post
summarized this week, “ran about 150 meters to the trapped MRAP to
retrieve a powerful 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, an anti-tank
weapon. While moving under gunfire, he coordinated a medical evacuation
for the wounded Afghan soldier and then opened fire with the Carl
Gustav.”
Running through the open despite the fact that the Taliban had
successfully pinned down the rest of his men, Golsteyn looked like he
“was alone fighting 30 enemy fighters out in the poppy fields.” He then
coordinated airstrikes from F/A-18 Hornets and a drone, silencing the
enemy. The battle lasted four hours.
For his actions, Golsteyn was awarded the Silver Star, and was told
that the medal would likely be upgraded to the Distinguished Service
Cross (the Army’s equivalent of the Navy Cross, and second only to the
Medal of Honor) after review by the Secretary of the Army. I can confirm
that this was true because I was present at the ceremony where Golsteyn
received his Silver Star, and personally overheard Lieutenant General
John Mulholland, then the commander of the Army’s Special Operation’s
Command, say that an upgrade was under consideration.
In fact, I know Golsteyn—now a major—well. I served alongside him in
Marjah for months (though not on the 20th of February—I was among the
thousands of Marines fighting elsewhere in the district that day) and
can attest that he is one of the most courageous, dedicated, and
honorable officers I encountered during my service in the military. He
would give his life for the men he led without a moment’s thought—and he
very nearly did, on several occasions. When we returned from our
deployments and honors began to roll in for Golsteyn, I reflected that
it is nice to see the good guys get recognized.
It didn’t last long. In 2011, shortly after a book by author and
Marine Bing West came out that detailed Golsteyn’s heroism and quoted
him making critical remarks about the American strategy in Afghanistan, I
learned that the Army had launched a criminal investigation into his
actions during the battle. (Again, full disclosure: I was also
interviewed for that book, The Wrong War, and make a brief appearance in
it.)
The investigation, apparently, had nothing to do with the acts of
bravery that earned Golsteyn his medal. Instead, according to the
Washington Post, which cited officials familiar with the case, it
concerned “an undisclosed violation of the military’s rules of
engagement in combat for killing a known enemy fighter and bomb maker.”
The investigation stretched on for nearly two years, during which time
the Army effectively put Golsteyn’s career on ice. In 2014, Golsteyn and
his lawyer were informed that the investigation was finally complete.
No charges were filed, but Golsteyn still wasn’t released from
administrative limbo.
Alerted about the controversy by another Army officer, Captain Will
Swenson, Congressman Duncan Hunter wrote last year to John McHugh, the
secretary of the Army, asking about the status of Golsteyn’s seemingly
endless career freeze. Apparently the secretary did not take kindly to
the inquiry, as he responded in a letter last November that not only
would he not be upgrading Golsteyn’s Silver Star to a Distinguished
Service Cross, but would be revoking Golsteyn’s Silver Star entirely, a
fact that Hunter revealed publicly in an article for the Daily Beast
published on Tuesday.
The revocation of an award such as the Silver Star is extraordinarily
rare, and typically would happen in the case of the recipient being
convicted of a serious crime that in some way dishonored his service.
But not only has Golsteyn not been convicted of a crime—he hasn’t even
been charged with one.
McHugh would not reveal to Hunter specifically why he was taking his
action beyond submitting the innuendo that he was privy to “derogatory
information” regarding Golsteyn’s record. What could this information
be? Who knows? Having, according to Hunter, spent years threatening
Golsteyn’s men, searching for and failing “to find one piece of evidence
to corroborate the allegation” that launched the investigation, the
Army clearly decided to punish Golsteyn anyway, through publicly
dishonoring him in a manner that allows him effectively no recourse or
due process.
Such institutional cravenness is even more extraordinary when one
considers the circumstances of Golsteyn’s service. Commissioned in 2002
out of West Point, he has served combat tours in both Iraq and
Afghanistan, and was already the recipient of valor awards by the time
he fought in Marjah. There, he and his handful of American soldiers
succeeded in securing a big chunk of one of the deadliest places on
earth at the time, under constant and intense opposition from the
Taliban. Working with the local tribes, Golsteyn came to be recognized
as one of the most successful officers in Helmand Province. The Taliban
tried to kill him and his men again and again, and found themselves
driven back every time. What success there was in Marjah was in no small
part due to him.
Such is the quality of American military leadership that generals and
political appointees like McHugh will send courageous soldiers like
Golsteyn into incredibly difficult (some would suggest impossible)
circumstances, then invest years in second-guessing their actions after
the fact—and then, finding no evidence of wrongdoing, still publicly
dishonor the man without giving him a chance to defend himself. Never
mind the fact that if a Taliban bombmaker did in fact die in a violation
of the rules of engagement, then in what topsy-turvy universe is that a
bad thing? The veterans who had to risk their lives because of these
ROEs have almost universally criticized them. Established and enforced
by men sitting safely in Kabul and Washington who never shared the daily
risks of Golsteyn and his soldiers, the rules were wrong and
self-serving to begin with, a politicized effort that has, without
question, caused the needless deaths of many young Americans.
In any event, if the Army truly does believe that Golsteyn violated
the Uniform Code of Military Justice, then they should charge him with a
crime. If they can’t do that, then we must conclude that insufficient
evidence of a crime exists, in which case Secretary McHugh should give
him the Distinguished Service Cross he deserves.
Congressman Hunter pointed out in his article that a recent
survey conducted by the Military Times revealed only 27 percent of the
military felt that their leaders were looking out for the best interests
of the troops. Golsteyn’s situation illustrates why this is the case,
and is of a piece with the case of Will Swenson, whose Medal of Honor
package was “lost” after he bitterly criticized his chain of command
over the ROEs, or of Jim Gant, one of the most successful special
operators of the last decade, who was nonetheless drummed out of the
Army after running afoul of his superiors.
Golsteyn, Swenson, Gant, and others like them are led by men who
interrupt their political intrigues and email flirtations with wealthy
socialites only to crucify the troops actually doing the fighting when,
for whatever reason, they become politically inconvenient—preferably, as
with Golsteyn, in a manner that allows for no response or appeal.
Most Americans would take one look at Golsteyn’s record of service
and call him a hero. The men who will not share Golsteyn’s risks, but
who will hurl innuendoes at him after the fact and publicly dishonor him
in a manner that allows him to mount no case on his own behalf? There’s
a word for them too: cowards.
Obama is slowly and systemically silencing the military in various
ways. I wonder what he is hiding? Where does his true allegiance lie?
No comments:
Post a Comment