S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
From the little league coach to the former addict helping those still struggling, hear from people from all walks of life how they show up as a vessel for service and drive for transformational change. Hosted by Theresa Carpenter, a 29-year active duty U.S. naval officer who found service was the path to unlocking trauma and unleashing your inner potential.
S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
From Navy Corpsman to MARSOC 3 | Eric Gilmet - S.O.S. #222
A decorated Navy corpsman's career derails when military justice turns against him. Eric Gilmette served 21 honorable years, deploying as a medic with Marine infantry and special operations forces, only to find himself embroiled in a four-year legal nightmare stemming from a New Year's Eve incident in Iraq.
After an altercation at a bar in Erbil left a civilian contractor unconscious, Gilmette's medical training kicked in. He monitored the man throughout the night, performing neurological checks and positioning him to maintain his airway. Despite these efforts, tragedy struck when the contractor stopped breathing the next morning and later died.
Rather than treating this as the accident autopsy evidence later confirmed it to be, military authorities charged Gilmette and two Marine Raiders with homicide. What followed exposed shocking flaws in the military justice system, particularly when a senior JAG officer made threatening comments to Gilmette's defense team, creating an untenable conflict of interest.
The case became a fight not just about what happened that night in Iraq, but about fundamental fairness in military courts. COVID delays stretched the ordeal to four years while Gilmette remained in limbo, unable to practice his medical skills or advance his career. The military's highest court eventually dismissed all charges, recognizing the violation of due process.
Gilmette's story reveals the personal toll when systems designed to protect service members fail them instead. Now retired in Michigan, he's pursuing his master's degree and speaking out about needed reforms. His journey reminds us how quickly lives can change and the courage required to stand firm when facing injustice from the very institution you've devoted your life to serving.
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Imagine serving your country for 21 years and, at the tail end of a distinguished career deploying as a medic within Marine Infantry and Special Operations, you suddenly find yourself in a legal battle where the system that you have so honorably served turns on you and now you have to navigate a new challenge after all this time. Well, that is what we're going to talk about today, but we're not going to just talk about that. We're also going to talk about his distinguished career, eric Gilmette. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Good. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:Good, good. Thank you so much for being on the Stories of Service podcast. This is Stories of Service, ordinary people who do extraordinary work, and I am the host of Stories of Service, teresa Carpenter.
Speaker 3:And, as we always do to get this show started, I'm going to play an intro for my father, charlie Pickard. From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others by showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS. Stories of Service hosted by Teresa Carpenter. Hear from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.
Speaker 1:And Eric is a retired Navy chief hospital corpsman whose story is of service, sacrifice and resilience. And we actually met because we're classmates at the University of San Francisco, getting our master's in public leadership. He grew up in a small town in mid-Michigan and at just 18 years old he committed his life to serving his country, and for 21 years he wore the uniform with honor, deploying as a medic with both Marine infantry and special operations forces. His career brought him into some of the most challenging environments where he provided life-saving care to Marines on the battlefield. But his legacy is not about also the years of service. It's also about his role in the saga of what was known in the media as the MARSOC-3.
Speaker 1:Alongside two Marine raiders, he faced several years of legal battles after being accused in connection with the death of a civilian contractor while stationed in Iraq, and what followed was a grueling fight for justice that drew national attention, highlighting issues of accountability, military justice, reform and the heavy toll such cases take on service members and their families. But during that weight of the ordeal, he's emerged with dignity and strength and now retired since 2023. He finds his peace in Michigan with family, working on projects at the lake house, golfing, birdwatching, going to school, and he continues to live with the quiet resilience that carried him through this storm. And today we're going to talk about his small town beginnings to the height of special operations. We'll go into the trials of the MARSOC-3 case and the lessons that he's carried forward from that into civilian life. So welcome again, eric.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So first off, as I always ask people, I know you're from Michigan, but where? Where I know you're, uh, where in Michigan were you from and what inspired you to initially join the Navy?
Speaker 2:and I originally had joined uh because I wanted to be a doctor and I had enrolled in college and uh got accepted to Western Michigan University and um, I remember thinking myself like I don't think I'm gonna, I don't think I'm gonna do well in college. It just didn't feel right. So, uh, I ended up joining the Navy uh to be a corpsman and I ultimately was going to do I think I had like a five-year contract when I signed up I was going to do that use my Montgomery GI Bill, maybe become a doctor someday. And then, shortly after joining, I changed my mind from being a doctor and decided to go work with Marines and I basically spent my entire career working in Marine units.
Speaker 1:What drew you to do that Like go from being a corpsman stationed at the hospitals doing standard corpsman jobs and for those of you who are not in the Navy, a medical corpsman is a medical personnel in the United States Navy but what drew you to go that route in the corpsman field?
Speaker 2:So it's funny because, you know, I don't have like some elaborate story of like what drew me in. You know people like, oh, you know I watched the towers fall or any of that stuff. It was literally just I didn't think I could make it in college, right. But uh, I didn't know anything about the military when I joined and, um, what drew me to uh work with Marines was, um, when I was going through basic training, our, they were called, uh, you know, division commanders.
Speaker 2:So, uh, my recruit division commander had everybody, all the recruits. He was talking to us and he asked who's going to be a corpsman? And a bunch of us raised our hands and uh, then he said who, who is going to which one of you is going to go work with the Marines? And I, I asked him a question, I said what's that like? And he said it's a living hell. And uh, I thought that's, that sounds kind of fun. So I decided to do that. So, you know, after I finished corpsman, a school you know you can ask for like the three duty stations you want, the first one I picked was 2nd Marine Division and I'm sure they were probably like what the hell is wrong with this idiot Like why is he picking his first pick? And they didn't deny me it. So you know I went to field medical service school and became a field corpsman and went to an infantry unit and then, you know, from there I you know, like I said, I worked alongside Marines the rest of my career.
Speaker 1:Love it, Love it. Now I have a quick question for you. To go to the technical side. I'm going to just do a left turn here. Is there a way that you're able? Are you on Wi-Fi or are you on data?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm on. I should be on Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're coming in blurry. Wait, maybe I'm not. Yeah, or not?
Speaker 2:Let me see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to put myself on the screen while you do this, If you're able to switch over to whatever you're not on. So a lot of times when people do the live shows because you were coming in real clear before the show, but what happened is you went from coming in clear to coming in blurry. And there's another way you can do this. You just log off and then come right back on under the other Wi-Fi either under Wi-Fi or under data. Whichever one, you were not on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I shouldn't have done it. Let me see if this is better.
Speaker 1:And I do apologize. These are some of the technical details that we work out on the fly, with you guys watching, and I think it's important that you guys see the show as clearly as possible, and that's another way to do that. But it's also a good time he's coming off the show and coming back on for me to give you some announcements about some of the upcoming shows I have planned. Well, here he is back. Better, yeah, sweet, okay, perfect. So tell me a little bit about what some of the experiences that you had with second Marine division in the infantry cause. That's kind of the ground zero of what Marines do. So tell me a little bit about some of those, about where you were stationed and what you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in. I was a second battalion, six Marines at Camp Lejeune, in a golf company, first platoon. So I was in, you know, a line company and it was a. It was an interesting experience, that's for sure, being you know. Like you said you know infantry is. You know, that's for sure, like you said infantry is. I guess you would say the focus of everybody in the military is to support the infantry.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It was an eye-opening experience Growing up in an unbelievably small town in the middle of Michigan to being surrounded by people who were, you know, from different walks, all walks of life. Right, it was interesting. But I really, really enjoyed my time there, taught me a lot and, you know, got to do some deployments. I was I would probably say I was busier in the infantry than I was when I was in Special Forces Did a UDP to Japan, to Okinawa, and then we had embassy duty in Baghdad for deployment, and then my last deployment then was to a small town just north of Fallujah called Saclawea, and then that basically finished out my three years with them.
Speaker 1:Were you ever in places where you thought that you might lose your life or you thought that there might be some harm to either you or your shipmates or your Marines?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, you know, baghdad wasn't too bad. That one was a pretty easy deployment. Uh, you know, we got uh a lot of IDF uh at the, at the embassy, but um, other than that not really. But uh, that third deployment to Sac La Wea was our heaviest combat than we had seen. Um, a lot of IEDs, a lot of IDF. It was um and that's. You know, a couple of guys from my platoon got killed uh on that deployment. They were hit by a mortar round outside.
Speaker 1:So what's your opinion about uh, combat medical care. Do you feel like it's uh where it should be, or do you feel like cause they always say that that's like military doesn't always do medical well, but we do combat medical well and I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.
Speaker 2:I would say, yeah, we absolutely do combat medicine. Probably the best you know my skills going into the infantry were you don't know what you don't know right. So going in, I'm like, oh, this is great, you know, I think I felt like I knew a lot. And then, you know, when I went through my training pipeline to become a special operations independent duty corpsman and I went through the joint special operations medical training center in Fort Bragg, that was extremely eye-opening and I remember going into that what did I say? I said I thought I knew medicine but I had no idea, you know, what you can learn and what you can actually do. But yeah, we definitely do it. Well, I mean the amount of training that I went through. You know, just the rigorous over and over, going through the motions constantly, you know it's. There's definitely things from that that I'll never forget because I trained to it so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was maybe one of your favorite experiences that you had while you were serving in infantry?
Speaker 2:Oh, and you're making me think back to a long time ago. I was, you know, uh, man, 20 years ago, um, I don't know. I mean I just uh, you know, I really enjoyed being in the field. Uh, you know, with my, with my brothers, you know, and just saw the training and the deploying. I mean, you know, the things that you remember, looking back, are with my brothers, you know, and just saw the training and the deploying. I mean, you know, the things that you remember, looking back, are all the miserable times, right, but it was in the, in the shitty times that, uh, you probably have the most fun and so, uh, it was just being in that environment with those guys, like we all, we all loved what we did and, um, yeah, that was probably my favorite thing.
Speaker 1:What, uh uh dis inspired you to go from serving in the infantry to then cross over into special forces. And how did that come about?
Speaker 2:so at the at the end of my time in the infantry, I went and worked at a, a clinic uh on camp Lejeune that supported the common engineer school there and I was I think I'd been there for about a year and some change and I was like you know, I want to get out, I don't like what I'm doing anymore. Had gone through all the like the to to end my contract and uh, remember talking to my wife. I think we lived, you know, we lived in sneed's fair at the time we had just moved there and there was uh one of my neighbors. He lived like uh kind of kitty corner to me. Uh, he was a recon marine. I remember I'd be, you know, at home up in our bonus room above the garage watching TV and I'd see all his buddies you know other recon Marines, you know, drive up with their families and they'd know we all knew what a recon corpsman was right.
Speaker 2:So I remember talking to my wife and I said, you know, I don't want to get out, I want to do this. Will you, can I do this? And she said, yeah, go ahead. So I, you know, took the physical screening to go. I actually failed it the first time, and then I had to do it a few months later, and then that one I definitely passed, and then I was able to start the pipeline. So that's what drew me. That's what drew me to it.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's awesome, and I think that what you're saying really resonates with a lot of people, because the biggest memory that most people have when serving is the camaraderie and the brotherhood, or, in my case, the brother and the sisterhood. It's just being able to be with people, even in the worst of times, sometimes brings out the best of people and the biggest parts of our humanity, and you won't see that unless people are stressed, they're under under fire.
Speaker 1:So I think that there's something to be said for that, that a lot of times, especially as we retire and we get out, it's like we're we're still sort of chasing that uh community that we had, because there's just nothing that really matches that level of friendship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're absolutely right yeah.
Speaker 1:So you go from the infantry to the special forces. Take me back. We're going to start talking a little bit about your case and where you were. I want you to. I want to kind of understand where you were at your career when this thing happened in Iraq. Were you thinking this was going to be my last deployment and then I'm going to retire? Or were you thinking to yourself I'm, this is just another deployment and I'm going to keep on going?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at some point before that deployment I don't know when it was I had, you know, I was obviously so far along that I, you know, I might as well do the 20 years, but I had, I had made it up in my mind that I wanted to do 30 years.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I wanted to become the command master chief of marsac, you know. So, um, I had, uh, you know, I'd even thought about, uh, you know, at some point, maybe, you know, diverting my career and, you know, become an actual CMC, right, and then, as you know, you can go anywhere. So, yeah, I thought it might be cool to, you know, take my experiences that I learned there and maybe apply them somewhere else in big Navy, right, which I think more leaders should do, right, and I know that the Navy tries to do that, you know, as you, you know the deal, like, you could have a CMC who's a corpsman that could be a CMC of a ship, right, um, so, you know, that was that was my grand plan, um, but obviously, uh, with what happened in 2019, uh, it changed that.
Speaker 1:Yep, so we're going to get into it. That's why we're doing the call Not the only reason why I always love just hearing people's stories but this was one that really stuck out to me because it wasn't the typical military justice gone wrong. They fired me and now I'm upset, or an assault happened. Well, an assault did happen, but it's not a sexual assault, and a lot of times the cases that I cover are of a sexual nature. So this case is a lot different in what happened. So I know you've talked about this before and share just what you're comfortable sharing. Tell me, tell me a little bit about where you were stationed in Iraq and what happened on that night in question and what happened on that night in question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll provide some good context here too, because I'm sure that some people in your audience are either active duty or were in the military. You got to definitely understand where we were at right. So you'll hear people say Iraq, northern Iraq, but we were in Kurdistan, which is northern Iraq, and we were in Erbil, very permissive environment to where we were allowed to go out in town. You know, we would go out in town, go to restaurants, have a drink, you could go to the mall, sightseeing, whatever it was. Erbil is a very well when, when I was there I'm sure it's the same now a very safe city.
Speaker 2:Um, we were at, uh, at the I think it was called the erbil air base, um, and on the base there were, you know, different countries there. Uh, you know, they had their own little camps, and so we had our camp as well, which was camp 762, and on the camp you had, you know, the marines from the unit there that I was, that I was in, and then we had contractors there. Well, the contractors lived on the north end of the camp and my job didn't require me to interact with them that much. So, um, um, I knew a couple of the guys over there, but not all of them, so I think it's you know. So I, yeah, like I said, I think it's important to provide context to the people, listening to understand, like the environment, uh, and where we were at.
Speaker 1:Right, and did you? Did you know a lot. You didn't really work side by side with the contractors, or even the contractor in question, correct?
Speaker 2:No, you know before that, before the incident on January 1st 2019, I didn't even know the guy's name. I had gone back. I'd gone to where the contractors work. I was looking for a guy named tyler, uh, and rick was back there again. Like I said, I didn't even know his name at the time and walk up I said hey, is tyler around? He said no, he went to breakfast. So, back in about an hour, I said cool, and I and I left. Um other than that, the only time I'd I would see rick was in the gym because we worked out, uh, at the same time, like about four o'clock every day, but I never interacted with him in the gym. I would go in there and do my workout and leave so take me back to the night of january 1st.
Speaker 1:It's new year's day, or new year's eve yeah, it was new year's eve.
Speaker 2:So me, uh, dann, danny and Josh, we, you know, signed out, said we were going, got our vehicle and took off and we went to a place called the Grill, a pretty nice restaurant over there actually, and we hung out, welcomed in the new year, and then, at about two, three in the morning, we, we went to a place called the tea bar and that's where a lot of uh, I guess you would say Westerners, uh, hung out. Um, when they would leave the base, they would go to the tea bar to include a lot of the Marines and contractors from our camp. So the three of us walk in there, um, you know it's a bar, so people are drinking, people are dancing and I, you know, i'm'm walking, making my way through the crowd. I see rick, uh, you know again, didn't know his name, but we knew who, we, who, we were right, we both know knew we did the camp. So I went up, said hi, happy new year. We shook hands, you know, did the whole bro hug thing, talked for a little bit and then I, you know, wandered off and did something else. So so that was, you know, probably the longest, my longest interaction I've had with him to that up until that, that time, right.
Speaker 2:And then when we're getting ready to leave, or close to the time to leave me, danny, josh, were at the bar talking to the owner of the place, and then Rick, you know, got my attention. I moved away from the group to hear what he had to say and, you know, the conversation definitely caught me off guard. I don't remember everything that was said, but I remember some things, and the the part of the conversation that sticks out to me the most was he said uh, hey, I'm a former, uh, green Beret, I got five bronze stars and why don't you show me any respect? And I remember when he had said that, I thought to myself like okay, okay, dude, I don't give a fuck, uh, but whatever, um. But you know I could tell the dude was dude, I don't give a fuck, uh, but whatever um. But you know I could tell the dude was I don't know if he was i- could tell he was drunk.
Speaker 2:I didn't want it to get dumb, so I just said hey man, sorry, you feel that way. Um, and that was it.
Speaker 1:And then I went back to my conversation with danny and josh it's just so odd that he would just go up to you and and and he was just feeling combative, it sounds like at the moment, for whatever reason, out of all the things that unfolded from like that moment up until I got out, that's probably the the one thing that I think back and I'm still confused about like why, dude?
Speaker 2:like, like, why that moment that night, why come talk to me about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so he says what he says, you say what you say and you guys go your separate ways at that point.
Speaker 2:Yep, we go our separate ways. And um, and then you know they they turn the lights on. Uh, you know, everybody can tell it's time to go. I got my jacket on and Rick is right next to me and I give him a pat on the back. I just said hey, man, I just want to make sure everything's good. And he started talking about it again and he was a little more agitated this time. And finally, you know, he's getting in my face swearing at me and finally, at this point I'm like you know what, dude? Go, fuck yourself right. And uh, the bouncers see what's going, what's happening. They separate us and they kicked him out. And it's important to note that they kicked him out because earlier that night, before we'd even gotten there, he had gotten into a verbal altercation with another person that was there. So I think they probably had their eye on him, right. So they tell him to go. They ask us to wait for about five minutes. We were like, yeah, sure, no problem.
Speaker 2:And then we leave, and as we're walking out, you know, we exit the place, we turn left to head down to our vehicle and Rick is waiting there with some of the other Marines from the camp and a couple of his buddies who are other contractors. And before we had left, you know, I told Danny what was going on. He's like, okay, but we weren't in there. I, you know. I told Danny what was going on. He's like, okay, um, that was, but we weren't in there like planning anything, you know. He just said you know I'll handle it, you know I'll take care of this. And he attacked Danny and Josh came in and I think before Rick could hit him a third time, josh knocked him out.
Speaker 1:Right, and it sounds to me like at that point it's just a self-defense move, because he's already been hit twice, like you said yeah At this point. You just want to defuse the situation and fight back, exactly, yeah, no, at this point you're just. You just want to diffuse the situation and fight back.
Speaker 2:Exactly yeah, so Josh had a right to come in and defend defend his friend yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. So he falls to the ground. And what happens then?
Speaker 2:He falls to the ground and, um, there's a crowd around him. So I go up and I I see Rick on the ground and I can tell he's unconscious. And I tell everybody hey, everybody, back up, you know, let's give him some room. And I check him out. He's still breathing, fine, there's no obvious injuries that I can tell. And I put him on his side to put him in the recovery position. That's a way to keep somebody's airway open, because when he was on the ground he was also starting to snore, right. So I could tell, could tell, okay, maybe his tongue is starting to block his airway, right. So that's why I put him on his side. And when I put on a side, I could take a look at his backside and he had a small laceration on the back of his head, probably about an inch something. Okay, maybe it hit his head, uh. But then, other than that, there were no issues.
Speaker 2:Um, I looked at you, at all the Marines and the that were there with them, and I said, hey, you guys going to get them off the street, you know, and they all looked at me like I was an idiot. So I said, okay, fine, we'll, we'll take them Right, let's get the fuck out of here, right, like we're in the middle of Erbil, right, uh? So we we put them in the back of our truck, uh, and by in the back of the truck I mean the back seat. Right, we had that quad cab F-150. So there's a lot of room in the back when you put up the seats, you know.
Speaker 1:So the same person that just picked a fight with you guys. You're like, okay, now it's on us to take care of him.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, yeah, because none of his buddies, or at least people that knew him right, were going to do things. So that knew him right, we're gonna do things. So we gotta go. So, um, took him back. Uh, danny was asking hey, eric, what do you want to do? I said, let's, let's just head back to camp and get him in his room and I'll I can evaluate him there. So, um, and just so you know people in your audience understand this you know I was a provider, right, so I had, uh, you know this, being able to check him out and make sure he's okay, is was within my purview as a, as an independent duty corpsman, like I'm authorized to do that. So it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing or know what I was looking for, right. So we take him back to camp, uh, go to to tyler's room with that, the contractor that I said I knew, and I said, hey, you know, there was a fight and Rick's Rick got knocked out. He's unconscious. Uh, we got to get him in his room. He's like, okay, so he, uh, gets us into Rick's room, we take him in there, put him on his bed and, uh, I proceed to spend the rest of the night Um, I think it was probably on four or five in the morning maybe. So, yeah, not the rest of the night, but the rest of the morning keeping an eye on Rick.
Speaker 2:I did some checks to make sure there's nothing wrong with him neurologically, because at this point that's my biggest concern. There were multiple things that I checked for and nothing had indicated that he needed a higher level of care and nothing had indicated that he needed a higher level of care. So at about 9 o'clock maybe 8, 30, 9, I went and got some breakfast. I had Tyler keep an eye on him come back from breakfast. It wasn't that long, maybe 10 minutes, and he had rolled out of bed, rick, and he was on the floor. So I'm like, okay, I'm like Jesus. And so I put him back on his side, covered him up, put a pillow on his under his head and and, uh, hung out for a little bit longer.
Speaker 2:And then finally I asked tyler. I said, hey, can you, can you keep an eye on him? I gotta go get some sleep. I had a brief in like a couple hours, so I was exhausted. So he's like, yeah, no problem. Tyler knew where my room was at. I said, hey, come get me if there's any problems.
Speaker 2:And around 10 o'clock that that morning, uh, tyler comes in my room and wakes me up and he says, hey, uh, rick's not breathing. You gotta come right now. So I threw my shoes on and ran over to where Rick was at and, um, yeah, I could tell he wasn't breathing. He was you know, his face was blue. He had to look like some vomit around his mouth. And so I go up, I check his pulse. He had a really weak pulse and he wasn't breathing. I look at Tyler and I said, hey, go get help and get a vehicle. Right now.
Speaker 2:And not a lot of time passed, a vehicle shows up with some Marines, including the doctor. We had a doctor on the camp Ashley Fang was her name and I said we got to get him in the truck and get him to the roll to hospital right now. So we threw him in the truck and drove over there and I was in the bed of the truck with him. At some point on the drive I lost a pulse. So I started doing CPR in the back of the truck, uh, and then we we rolled up to the hospital and um, uh, they came out with a gurney and, uh, they took him inside and that was, you know, the last. That was the the end of my treatment for with Rick.
Speaker 1:Right, and then how? How much longer after that were you told that he ended up passing away?
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't think. I think it was four days later, but I think that what it was was he was on. He was on life support, um, because he had gone, what was it? I think he was in cardiac arrest for probably six minutes, right, yeah, so you know, nobody's coming back from that, um, so I think it was about four days later. They, you know, they flew his family out to germany and, uh, they took him off life support.
Speaker 1:So so this very tragic thing happens. You don't know what is happening those first few days, other than the fact that he's in the hospital in critical care. When did this? At this point you're just getting questioned about it from an investigative standpoint or just an incident report. Like you know, you go and you hurt yourself at work in the military and you have to do a report. So where were they at in terms of the authorities with how they were handling what happened with how they were handling what happened.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't until that evening Josh had gone on a quick like convoy that day and he came back and the three of us went and found our first sergeant and said, hey, this is what happened last night. And he said okay. And we went back to our rooms and shortly after that, found our first sergeant and said, hey, this is what happened last night. And he said okay, and, you know, we went back to our rooms and shortly after that, um, you know, they told us, hey, you guys are, they took away our weapons, they took away our phones, our computers and said, hey, you guys are confined to your rooms, uh, and you guys, you know, can go eat. You eat, eat food and go to the gym. Essentially, that's all you can do. So, immediately, you know, within you know a few hours of everything kind of, I guess you could say, settling down right around camp. You know, they had, you know, pegged us as the the suspects in the in in this case.
Speaker 1:So I'm. It's just crazy to me, because this, everything you're telling me just says that this was a tragic accident. That happened because somebody was in a position where they took a blow and during that blow they just expired. I mean that that can happen, and one of the things?
Speaker 1:one of the questions uh, mandy fight has and I think I can answer it, but she just says uh, from four to 9.00 AM, did he ever gain consciousness? I believe the answer to that is no, no. Did he ever speak to your friend during that time? No. And was he bleeding from the laceration on the back of his head? No, okay. So you're now getting this feeling that this is not going to be just. You say what happens and they take your statement and well, we didn't not even taking a statement.
Speaker 2:I mean, we just said that, hey, this is what happened. We were out that night and there was a fight, rick got knocked out and you know just right, and that was it. Um, here's the names of some lawyers for you guys to call, and I called Colby Vokey, who ended up being my civilian lawyer through the whole process, and he said, uh, yeah, I'll take your case. He said, uh, do not make a statement to anybody. I said, yeah, I'll take your case. He said do not make a statement to anybody. I said, okay. So I think it was probably a couple days after the incident, they flew the three of us to Bahrain, where the NCIS headquarters is in the Middle East, and we stayed in a hotel there for a couple days. But when we went in, they did the whole rigmarole ride of our pictures and our DNA and took our fingerprints and they gave us this sheet.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think we lost you, we lost him. Let's see if I can get him back. I'm going to go full screen just for a second, but thank you guys for your patience and sticking around with us for a minute. So I don't know if it's it might be because we changed over the connections, but let me see if I can get you back on. Give me just one second. Nope, not yet.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to use this time a break in the show to talk a little bit about what I've got lined up for the next couple weeks on the Stories of Service podcast. There's a lot of people who always ask me hey, can you put out a schedule? And I am hesitant to do that because a lot of times I make changes to the schedule or somebody cancels and then they have to reschedule and come back on. So I'm not able to always do that. But I will let you know some of the shows that I do have on the agenda, and I will not have to do that because I got Eric back on the agenda, and I will not have to do that because I got eric back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my sister was facetiming me.
Speaker 1:I ignored it and then I just lost everything no worries, let me take the other one, kick this from studio and then now we are back. So to catch this back, you call colby. You tells you not to make any statements. That's where we are okay.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, about a couple days after the incident, they ended up taking danny josh and I to bahrain, where ncis headquarters is in the middle east, and, uh, you know, they brought us in one at a time and, uh, you know, did the whole take our pictures and took our fingerprints and DNA. And you know, they gave us the sheet of what we were accused of. Um, uh, it was a negligent homicide and voluntary manslaughter and, uh, maybe a couple other things. And you know, so you're kind of reading through the list, and then at the end, at the bottom, it says, you know, uh, sign here, mark here if you want a lawyer. So I did that and I said, yep, I want my lawyer present if you guys are going to ask me questions. And that ended it. So I never ended up giving a statement to anybody, which is, actually, if anybody's listening and you are ever for any reason brought in, don't say anything to anybody, trust me yeah, even if you're innocent, I agree, don't say anything, because it can be used against you or twisted.
Speaker 1:Yes, so how did you feel when this happened? Were you surprised that they were coming after you guys?
Speaker 2:uh, no, I wasn't, um, because you know, at this time, uh, you know you had the uh, the eddie gallagher case was heating up. Uh, you had the issue with the navy seals and the raiders and you know the molly case. Um, I mean, I think there's shit. There was like a congressional, I think that at the beginning of that month there was a congressional review or inquiry, inquiry I can't say that word um, inquiry, yeah, about, uh, you know, discipline issues within socom, right. So when all this started going on, I was like I had a feeling I'm like this going to get really shitty really fast because all that stuff was going on, right.
Speaker 1:So Right, yeah, and they also need something to explain to the family. Yeah, and so there's always Logical to say, ok, the person that knocked him out must have knocked him out in a way that could be construed as murder, so I can understand why they investigated it 100%. Yeah, in their shoes I would have done the same thing. It's what you have to do. So you lawyer up in Bahrain. You're in Bahrain. What?
Speaker 2:happens next? We're only there for probably two, three days and they send us to Kuwait I can't remember the name of the camp, but we were there for a couple weeks and basically it was on us to figure out how to get home and we ended up jumping on a commercial flight that had a bunch of soldiers and it was flying into I think Dulles is where it flew into and we got off the plane there and there was a van from the unit that came and got us and took us back.
Speaker 1:I think I got back home onuary 17th or the 21st, something like that, I think okay, so not too, too, not too long after the incident happened, you're, you're back at your, you're back at marsauk, at your home base. And what's? What is life like now? Now it's like full-on, most just fighting the legal case.
Speaker 2:No, we hadn't. We didn't get, like, officially charged until December of 2019. But I was, you know, they took, they took away my ability to see patients. You know, I wasn't in a, in a team, so I, you know, I, basically I sat in the aid station. I sat in the aid station working on college. I was in my bachelor's program and I did that, and that summer I finished my bachelor's degree and then I got an associate's degree as well that summer on a computer. So I'd spend my days finding an excuse to not have to go into work or, uh, be doing school work.
Speaker 1:That's how I spent because they took away your ability to do your job and you were just in a holding pattern while they did the investigation. That's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah okay, so they do an investigation that takes from January to December, so it takes a year to do About. Yeah, wow, okay. And during this time, your colleagues are in the same position you are. They are on hold, they can't go anywhere, they can't do anything For a full year. They're just under investigation and their lives are on hold and they don't know what's going to happen next. Correct? Yeah, and during this time, was your lawyer your civilian lawyer or your military lawyer? Were they working with the command to try to negotiate some kind of a deal or try to get more information, or try to get information that NCIS was collecting, or how did that work during that year?
Speaker 2:no, they, um, I mean, so I mean, I know, you know this, but I'm here, I know you're asking me this for your listeners, so you know the only ones, that the only entity so if you, you know the prosecution is the only one that talks to the command, you know, know, they work hand in hand with them. It's like saying here's what's going on, here's updates, stuff like that. The defense has nothing to do with that. So they didn't try to, you know, contact them, maybe because they knew that none of them were going to listen. I think it was probably a couple years after it had happened, was probably probably a couple years after it had happened. Our defense lawyers did reach out to the command and asked hey, can we come talk to you? Guys, you've only gotten, you know, basically, it's like you've only gotten one side of the story. Can you sit down with us and hear? Hear this side of it? Um, and they didn't. They didn't want to hear it from them.
Speaker 1:Wow, and to keep you on hold for that long over something that took place over the period of gosh a few hours. That just amazes me that it took a whole year to investigate this issue. During that year was this already in the media and getting highly publicized.
Speaker 2:Well it was, but it actually never got that much. It never made it to mainstream media, I think the highlight it made it into the Marine Corps Times, it made it onto Ask and Purpose a couple other things, but it never got the publicity that Nett and eddie gallagher, got sure, so okay, so then I guess we'll go right into december.
Speaker 1:So december you get charged, and your colleagues get charged, and that's when, then that that's when everything starts for you. What happens after that?
Speaker 2:So it was called an Article 15 hearing, which is basically a grand jury right. So you can't mean we went in and all three of us and they brought in some witnesses, lawyers got to ask questions, uh. But after that was done, um, they had the command split up danny josh and I to where they they had a combined trial or a joint trial scheduled for danny and josh, and then I was, you know, on my own, um, so I actually had a. They had brought in for my judge a naval commander who was out of Norfolk at the time His name was Commander Larson, hearing that my trial was set for May of 2020. And then, you know, so we were, you know, basically starting to get ready for that.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, here comes March 2020, and we all know what happened then. Right, you know, the fancy flu struck and everything got shut down. So, uh, covid ended up delaying my trial, or my I guess you say my trial, I guess you would call it my my, my court proceedings. It delayed it by two years, three years your court martial yeah made two or three years because of COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what had happened was, you know, it was so like everything just kept the can just kept getting kicked down the road, right, because people couldn't travel because of COVID. Well, one of the biggest issues was so that hospital that we took they're called a Roll 2, the Canadians were in charge of it. So on my handoff, it was to a Canadian doctor I think his last name was Wistra and you know the Canadians were really stringent on their civilians with COVID, especially their doctors. Well, dr Wiescher was an ICU physician.
Speaker 2:He cannot come to Canada for trial because, you know, he would have to do not only like the two weeks of my trial, but then, you know, danny and Josh's trial would be two weeks as well. So we're talking about a month not at home working. So Canada was not cooperating with the government in terms of him coming here to trial. So finally they had the judge were like, ok, well, we'll authorize a deposition, right? And Canada said sure, we'll authorize a deposition, right, and Canada said sure, but you guys have to come to Canada for this deposition. So by the time it got all figured out on schedules and stuff like that, it wasn't until the beginning of November of 2021 that we went to Canada for the deposition.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, that is absolutely. I've just I did not understand, eric, when we talked about this case before, that these were delays that were worked into the system because of COVID and how? I mean because during this time all three of you are just in limbo. I mean, yeah, that's what Mandy fights. She's just like holy shit. And I'm kind of like that too right now, because I, your, your whole family is you, you can't move on, your career is in the balance of all this and you're just waiting and there's nothing. I mean I'm not blaming the military either at this. I mean this is just. I don't think people understand. Like I'm sure there were other court martials that were impacted the same way, where certain witnesses were not available, and so because they were not available, uh, these cases just just lingered on yeah, exactly so she said please tell me you got a master's degree during that time period.
Speaker 1:Not funny, but two years is ridiculous. Well, no, he didn't get a master's degree. He's getting one now with me yeah, I had actually side note.
Speaker 2:I had actually started applying for uh, I wanted to. I started thinking, okay, eventually my career is going to end, right, right, it's either going to end with me retiring or something with this court-martial?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what were you facing, Eric, Like what were they telling you when you got charged? That was going to be the punishment for this if you were found guilty.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like 10, 20 years in prison, something like that.
Speaker 1:My God, how did you handle the stress? Well, you know, I really enjoy cocktails, so um and you have a family, and a family, yeah, oh yeah yeah, but I mean, I I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole, um, it was just.
Speaker 2:I'll just say this it was stressful, right, um, no, I'd actually, uh, I decided, okay, well, if I get out, um, I thought about wanting to be a uh, what the hell is it called? Like you know, like the chief operations officer, like a co of, like a hospital or something? Right, okay, there's. There were two schools that I looked up you know, I did a lot of research on this and one was, uh, unc chapel hill. They got a really good, uh, I think it's called masters in health administration, I think is what it's called. Uh, they had a really good program and it was kind of like what we're doing for San Francisco is hybrid, right, so it was basically all online, I think.
Speaker 2:Every semester, you, you go to Chapel Hill, which is where I lived at. It was like a two hour drive, right, it was nothing. You go there like every twice, two days, every semester. And then I applied to that one. I obviously disclosed what I was going through because they had asked these questions and they didn't accept my application because they thought I would be a threat to the students on campus. Yeah, and then I applied to another program, university of Central Florida, which has a really good MHA program as well, which is all online, and they would not accept me because of what I was going through, eric.
Speaker 1:people are just absolutely flabbergasted about this. This was absolutely amazing that this was allowed to be this delayed. I am shocked too.
Speaker 2:Well, before everybody starts thinking like, oh shit, like this took way too long, like we all need to, everybody pumped the brakes for a second Right, because I know we're getting to this part of the story. But without these delays my trial would never have been or my my charges never would have been dismissed. So it was, it ended up being a good thing. And you know it ended up being a good thing. And you know. The other thing too is like, once COVID happened right, you know, and, and you know, teresa, like you know, it was essential personnel only coming into work, right, well, you know, on the list of essential personnel in my unit, eric was at the bottom Right. So you know, I didn't come in for a while.
Speaker 2:And then, finally, once people started trickling back into work, I went to my senior chief and I said hey, uh, sean, I'm not, I'm not coming into work anymore. I said I don't. I told them I'm like, I'm not coming in. I said, uh, I don't, I don't do anything, right, pointless. I said I'll be at home, call me if you need me. He was like okay, dude. So for the next, from from the time COVID happened until I retired, I went into work I don't know five times.
Speaker 1:And how many years was that? That was like three year period, right.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a three. I guess you could see how it's a four year period all 20, all years. Yeah, it was, it was a three. I guess you see how it's a four-year period all 20, all 2020, 21, 22 and most of 23. So I stayed home. I stayed home and I, I took up woodworking and I, I, uh, I learned you, you know. You know, you're a master grocery shopper when you know where every single thing is in the grocery store. Right so you? So you know, I became Mr Mom, right Like I was. You know. I remember going into Food Line to get groceries and like learning all the aisles and then at some point I was able to just like, oh, where's the chopped almonds at? Oh, yeah, that's in the baking section, right Like I became that guy. Right so you know.
Speaker 1:But it was a blessing in disguise, because I was able to you know, still get paid and, but be at home and and do what I wanted to do. So, yep, you can educate yourself and work on and help your lawyers prepare for your day. I mean, that's a lot of times, yeah and uh.
Speaker 1:that sometimes is just the best you can take away from an obvious, less than ideal situation. So let's go back to when this finally comes around, when the court-martial comes around. My understanding is yours was separate, danny and Josh. They were tried together in the same court-martial and then yours came later, or yours came before my trial.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, see I never went to trial.
Speaker 1:That was right. I'm saying, well, when this got, when this got adjudicated, when this got dropped, oh, my, uh, my, so my, my trial.
Speaker 2:So after that deposition, deposition of of canada, that basically was like, okay, that was the final thing that was needed and they had set our trial date. So mine was set for, uh, january, and I think it was like january 21st and I think danny and josh's was at some point after that, I can't remember um, what year, january 21st that was january 21st. Got it, excuse me, 2020. Was it 2021? No, sorry, 2022.
Speaker 1:January 1st 21st 2022.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, we never even made it to trial because, you know, shortly after that deposition, that's when Colonel Shaw, you know, made those comments to my military lawyer and that got the ball rolling for the trial to get or the charges to get dismissed, and that is another part of this story that we're going to now pivot to, because, as you three were waiting for your day in court or your day to clear your names and to actually talk about what happened and to look at the evidence, something happened within the jag community that should have never happened, and I'd like you to tell us a little bit about that so it was um, right before, uh, the thanksgiving holiday, um, right before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Speaker 2:I had two military lawyers. I had three total. I had Colby, my civilian lawyer, and then I had Matt Thomas and Keegan Riley. They were both captains in the Marine Corps. Matt was told he had to go to this dog and pony show for a guy named Colonel Shaw. He was one of the how do they call it? One of the chiefs of staff to the staff judge, advocate of the Marine Corps. There's four colonels that work for that general, you know, taking care of specific things within the community. Colonel Shaw was in charge of billet assignment for all JAGs in the Marine Corps and sorry, not billet assignment, their assignments.
Speaker 1:Right, he's in charge for people that don't know what billet assignment is. He's in charge of telling, letting you know, working with the JAGs on where they want to go next and what is good for their career timeline Like what if they need a milestone tour, if they need this or they need that, or if they're trying to retire, and what is good for their career timeline? Like what if they need a milestone tour, if they need this or they need that, or if they're trying to retire and go on the off ramp, whatever. He's the person that they work with. So he's probably the equivalent of a, of a detailer, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not a detailer. I mean they work. He works with the detailer and he's going around to. He's doing his East Coast trip. He stopped at Cherry Point and talked to, you know, the prosecution and the defense teams there. He was at Parris Island and I think Lejeune was his last stop. So he's got these meetings with defense counsel. And it's funny because Matt was telling his boss he's like I don't want to go and he's like no, you're fucking going right. So Matt goes to this meeting like no, you're fucking going right. So matt goes to this meeting.
Speaker 2:Um, and uh, colonel shaw starts talking about changes within the, uh, the ucmj. Right, so the I think it was around this time frame they had finalized all the stuff to where a lot of things. When the within the ucmj were being changed, like for, for example, there was going to be no, a commander wasn't going to be a convening authority anymore on big cases, right, like murder, rape, assault, stuff like that they were going to put that power on a local prosecutor on the base to figure out if people are going to be charged or not. Right, taking the responsibility away from the commanders. Colonel shaw was talking about that and matt asked a question. He basically had said hey, what's going to be done to protect those prosecutors I guess you could say, basically, serving as a uh, a da right, uh, what's going to be done to protect them from outside influences?
Speaker 1:right. What's going to make sure that the prosecutors use the rule of evidence versus any outside bias or undue command influence? Exactly what is going to make sure that that doesn't happen?
Speaker 2:yeah. And colonel shaw looks at matt and says uh, captain thomas, I know who you are, I know what cases you're working on and you are not protected. And I think everybody's you know? Reaction was like did he really just say that? And then he goes on to say, like you think you're, you think you're protected, but you're not. He said your, your, your fit rep shields you, but it doesn't protect you. And he said the the lawyer on the promotion board is going to know what you did. Those were his exact words. And then he starts talking about uh, lawyers, uh, from the haditha cases, those, that's the stuff in iraq, the war crime stuff, like 2006, I think. Um, he starts saying how you know those defense lawyers from the haditha cases? They weren't promoted. Uh, well, one thing everybody needs to understand colonel shaw said that because he knew. Not only did he know that matt was my lawyer, he knew that matt was working alongside colby. Well, in 2006, colby was the lead defense lawyer for the haditha cases and colonel shaw was the lead prosecutor for the haditha case.
Speaker 1:He knew intimately, he knew him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he knew what he was saying. Right, he was talking about Colby, and Colby didn't get promoted to colonel. He was a. He was a, he was a commander Lieutenant colonel.
Speaker 2:He was a lieutenant colonel at the time and he didn't get. He didn't get selected for colonel, he ended up getting out of the Marine Corps. So when he said that he, all the lawyers were like holy, holy shit, I cannot believe that guy just just said that, and he had said some other things too that were pretty bad, but this is specific to my case. Right and word quickly spread what had happened.
Speaker 1:My lawyer. How many JAGs was in the room? How many JAGs?
Speaker 2:I think like six or seven To include Matt's boss, who's a major, and they all wrote statements and provided them to my legal team and we we filed a motion to our uh judge to dismiss the the charges with prejudice based on uci and yeah okay, so you do that.
Speaker 1:And what does the judge say?
Speaker 2:so, uh, we, we had a motion to to talk about this. And one thing that I kind of understand before going into this is my judge was excuse me, he's a really good judge, he was very smart. And you know one thing that you get, like, so you'll submit these motions, right, and it's got all this stuff written out, like our argument and all this shit. So he would read through that stuff, right, and so we would submit that all that shit. And so he would read through that stuff, right, and so we would submit that. You know, we had submitted my sworn statement and we had submitted, uh, keegan and Matt's sworn statement saying how there was a conflict of interest. And you know, they had reached out to their respective bar association and, um, their bars had said, hey, yep, there's a conflict here. So they knew what this conflict like. You cannot, you cannot continue to represent me, right? It's very illegal to do that, um. So all that stuff was written out and given to the judge beforehand. So I say that because, like, when we get into a motion hearing, he wouldn't like ask anybody to repeat that stuff because it just it's a waste of time. We've already written it down. It's a sworn statement. He already knows what we said and what we're thinking. So you know he just he asked Matt and King. He's like hey, do you guys think there's a conflict? They said yes. He said do you guys want to be removed as his lawyers? They said yeah.
Speaker 2:He asked me. I said hey, I talked to Colby to think about. You know, talk it over for a little bit. He's like sure, we recessed for about five minutes. I came back in. I said hey, this I'm paraphrasing. I said, uh, yeah, this whole thing is fucking shitty. But yeah, I don't want him as my lawyers anymore because there's a conflict. And when I said I don't want them as my lawyers anymore, judge larson had this look on his face. Like when I think back on it, I know what his facial expression was. His facial expression meant holy fuck, I have to dismiss these charges now. Like it was just like this. Something came over.
Speaker 1:Murphy just realized yeah, because if you aren't going to play, if you aren't just going to say, oh well, you know what I? I've developed this great relationship with Keegan and Matt and I believe they'll still do the right thing, even if Colonel Shaw is threatening them, then the judge could have said, oh, my hands are clean. Exactly, stood up for yourself and said, no, the, I can't have them represent me anymore because obviously their careers are on the line if I get, uh, let off or if I'm not charged or whatever. So that was his sign of oh, the the. The ball is now in my court and I've got the stings on me to deal with this yeah, and I don't know it.
Speaker 2:And then, so, after, so that was the very first thing we dealt with in that motion hearing. And then he, you know he had made his determination that, yes, the defense has raised enough evidence to show that there's UCI and the burden now shifts to the government to prove that there isn't right. And they have to now prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no UCI. That will affect the proceedings. But the truth of the matter is it's already affected. It Right?
Speaker 1:Right it happened.
Speaker 2:It happened two minutes ago.
Speaker 1:And you had to drop your lawyers when I had to drop my lawyers.
Speaker 2:That's, that's the issue, right, and now that can that, can't. They can't take that back now, yeah, they can't walk back exactly. So, um, you know, colby was like, hey, obviously I need, I need some more lawyers, because you know he had those two that he just lost. Um, he's and the judge like obviously we're going to do a continuance on this, uh, and colby's like, hey, we also can't have, uh, any marine lawyers. So before all this stuff had happened with the motion hearing, um colby had reached out to I can't remember her name, but she was a colonel, she was in charge of all defense lawyers in the marine jag corps and she had actually written a statement saying hey, um, every single marine lawyer doesn't want to represent eric.
Speaker 1:So, um, so this just blows my mind, eric. I'm sorry, I just have to interrupt for a minute. Where are the people who are reprimanding colonel shaw for even saying this in the first place? Where are those people?
Speaker 2:uh, obviously nowhere, because they all thought he didn't really do anything that bad. So, um, this is ridiculous. This is why I do a show, guys.
Speaker 1:By the way, this is why we talk about hard issues on the stories of service podcast I, I. This floors me that they put the burden of the responsibility on you to say, okay, now I got to find a new lawyer and oh, by the way, just out of curiosity, were you given an investigator?
Speaker 2:no, I wasn't, because, uh, they don't. Well, they do that in the marine corps, but they give you like a private. So we didn't do something yeah, okay, okay, danny had a a navy lawyer, uh, commander, uh, she was lieutenant commander loose at the time and he had a private he had, like a dude who would like, worked at ncis for years and was out doing PI work now and he was his investigator.
Speaker 1:So Danny did get one, danny got a really good one, a really good free investigator, but you. On the other hand, we're giving somebody who is inexperienced and who we didn't even.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know until after the fact that we had one and we didn't use them.
Speaker 1:So so somebody said, well played, eric, well played. Yeah, I mean I got to hand it to you. That was a very courageous move to just go from three lawyers to one, but of course, I mean I would have felt backed into the same corner that you did. I would have been like, well, no, obviously they know their career. How did they feel about it, were they? I mean because they put all this work into the case and they probably felt like, well, this is bs now, now I I'm off of a case that I, that I feel strongly about and that I'm I'm tied to and I'm attached to, I mean they, I'm sure this was tough for them too in a big case.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was the biggest case of their career and uh, keegan's keegan's a great lawyer and matt was a is an unbelievable lawyer matt's out now, but he was, he was awesome. I mean, um, yeah, but you know, it's interesting because you know you talk about how. You know I walk in there with three lawyers and I leave with one, right, like that was the main point in in uh, uh, I never sent this to you. I gotta send this to you. I gotta send you the, uh, the written ruling from commander larson, uh, dismissing my case because you know he had talked about.
Speaker 2:You know, near the end of his ruling he talks about. You know, all these things that the defense is saying. Or it's not the defense, the prosecution is saying how they, you know, relieved the or got rid of the appearance of UCI, like that it wouldn't the proceedings anymore. And he said in his, in his ruling, he said all, all, uh, eric's defense team team needs to do is point at their table and say where, you know, where there once was three, now there's one. You know, yeah, like that's. He's like that's all they need to do, right, he's like because that's, that's it, that's, that's what it came down to was that right? So, yeah, we had. You know he had granted the continuance.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's what happened at this point. So they go down to one lawyer, go down to one.
Speaker 2:Colby's trying to, you know, reach out to the Army Air Force, you know Navy to get a lawyer. To get me a couple more, we had another motion hearing sometime in January where the government got to argue again that they had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that UCI wouldn't affect the trial. That's when, I think a couple days before that motion hearing, we got the results of the investigation into Colonel Shaw and that was a whitewash of an investigation. They basically said he didn't do anything wrong, right.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is that you had statements.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You have recordings or just statements?
Speaker 2:Just written statements.
Speaker 1:But you know it's it's, it's you know seven sworn statements from seven, from Marine officers, right Like that does carry weight.
Speaker 2:Right, it does so, you know obviously all didn't tell the same thing, because or the exact same story, because everybody interprets stories their own way, right. Or the exact same story because everybody interprets stories their own way, right. But the the, the gist was this is what Colonel Shaw said, and and and everybody's like thinking man, he fucking, he just threatened Matt. That's basically what everybody left thinking.
Speaker 1:So, um, I can't believe he wasn't reprimanded for this Like, at least like they he was kicked out of like remove him from his job um, you know he.
Speaker 2:He retired as an 06.
Speaker 1:You know that's full benefits they did they? Didn't, and then no strike against his law license, none of that no, nothing, nothing. He wasn't yeah, that mandy fight. Did shaw get fired? Yeah, so he did get fired from his position, but retired with full benefits as an 06 and still as a practicing attorney, and no bar complaint.
Speaker 2:Or there was a bar complaint, or, if there was a bar complaint, nothing came of it I think people did try to go after him in the bar, but it didn't come to anything. It didn't come to anything okay.
Speaker 1:so now, at this point, the government is still I mean, because this is so off the subject of even your case, like your case should have been about whether or not a murder took place. That all all there to it, and you weren't even the one who punched this individual. You were the one who took care of this individual. That's the part that also blows my mind is that how in the world did they even associate you with this when you weren't even the person who hit him back?
Speaker 2:It just blows my mind the person who hit him back. It just blows my mind. Well, I mean, you know, I think I think what the government did is they, they, they came to the determination that I did something wrong medically and he died, um, because of, uh, a lack of medical care on my part. Well, I'll fast forward and kind of talk about danny and and Josh's trial. Basically, at the end of that trial, it was determined him hitting his head didn't kill him. He aspirated on his own vomit because he was drunk, right. Even the government's own witnesses I think was it like their neurosurgeon or neurologist witnesses, I think was it like their neurosurgeon or neurologist Even he had said, yeah, there wasn't enough bleeding in his brain to for him to die from that. Even they were saying, yeah, it was, it was, it was the, the not breathing for six minutes that killed him. So the, the, the, you know the, the head the head trauma cause.
Speaker 3:It is it's head trauma right Anytime you hit your head and you're bleeding.
Speaker 2:They're like that. Basically, that didn't. That's not what killed them. So but yeah, they, you know we could all tell that they were probably trying to focus their efforts on me because of the medical stuff. But then, you know, once you get into Danny and Josh's trial, it's like they diverted back to. Well, it was the fight that caused them, so. But anyways, I just kind of jumped onto a tangent there.
Speaker 1:No, it's okay, it's just. I think that, honestly, it looks to me like the prosecution and the government wanted to just go to what was the most easiest explanation, and the easiest explanation was dependent on the people that he got into a fight with, instead of looking at the evidence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, was dependent on the people that he got into a fight with instead of looking at the evidence. Yeah, exactly so, um, so, yeah, after that that second motion hearing in january it was around I think the beginning of february uh, commander larson gave his decision and it was to dismiss, dismiss the, the charges with prejudice, and for anybody that doesn't know what that means, it means you can't be charged with it again. So there's dismissing charges with and without prejudice. But shortly after that the government said here's the next part of it right Now I start going through the appeal process. So the government appeals that decision by my judge. And so now I have, you know, colby's still my lawyer, but I had two appellate lawyers taking care of my case and the first appellate court at MN2 is the Navy Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals.
Speaker 2:That happened in when was that? I think it was August, summer, I think it was. It was june. It was june that they, they did their oral arguments to the, to the justices at nmcca, and then, august, they gave their decision and their decision was yeah, uh, commander larson shouldn't have dismissed these charges. Eric's charged again with these. Uh, eric, the charges are reinstated.
Speaker 2:So then, uh, my lawyers got to request an appeal to the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, which is the military Supreme Court, and they took the case and it was in April of 2023 that they heard oral arguments for that and actually went to washington dc to see that, because all those are open to the public, right, um, I went there and watched that and that was that was very, very interesting to see. Uh, it was awesome actually, because, you know, my lawyer got to talk first, uh, kristen, and she did an unbelievable job. So, you know, so they're standing there. They have I think it was like 20 minutes to talk. So they have their, you know their spiel, what they want to say, and the justices can ask them questions.
Speaker 2:I think there's five of them that were up there. They can ask them any question they want to during their presentation, right, and she had some questions that were, I guess, tough, but she answered them great and like she got to keep flowing, right, you could tell like she kept going through and saying like all her main points, like she got to all of them, um, and then the government steps up and this dude doesn't make it 30 seconds without Chief Judge Olson interrupting him and asking him the most important question and the only question that needed to be answered. He asked him what was Colonel Shaw's purpose and intent saying what he said to Captain Thomas and nobody can answer the question, what he said to Captain Thomas and nobody can answer the question. And and basically, I knew what, what, what justice, uh, uh, what the, what the judge was getting at. He was getting at we don't know what he meant by that, so we have to take it at face value, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and at face value.
Speaker 2:it's a threat to Matt it is. It's basically what it came down to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically got away with it. I mean, that's, that's the bottom line in it, you know. And the thing that really upsets me too is, I mean I still think back to, like Rick's family and they were also harmed by this because this now drug out for four years, because this now drug out for four years. They had command, they had the lawyers getting threatened.
Speaker 2:I mean this family obviously doesn't feel like they got justice in this issue either. I'm sure, yeah, but I mean. The other thing too, though, is the prosecution lied to them for years, you know Right and biased them oh yeah, you know right.
Speaker 1:And bias them to oh yeah, oh yeah. To not look at the evidence and not see what happened, but to believe the prosecution's version of this for years. It's like parental alienation alienation when you're only subjected to one side of the story over and, over and over again and you don't have the opportunity to look at the evidence holistically from both sides.
Speaker 2:This is, this is sadly what will end up happening so you know the deal too, because you've been covering all this stuff is you know the prosecution will take. You know, and all investigators do this right like they take little pieces from the evidence and then weave that all together to make the story that they want to tell. But but the truth is like you know, those pieces of the evidence line up for what they want to tell, but that doesn't tell the whole story, right?
Speaker 1:So, and that's why open court is so important and that's why we can't, you know, there has to be discovery, that's why both sides have to call witnesses, that's why we absolutely need a process that's fair, no matter what the case is. And what I'm learning in a lot of these cases, like the one I'm covering here tonight, is that unfortunately, there's these factors that come in that, like this undue command influence issue, that just completely tear the case apart. I mean this this could have been a case number one. It should have never been delayed the way it was for covid. I mean, I that part I'm not completely blaming the military for, but I'm kind of like that's a little ridiculous. But then, number two they sabotaged what should have just been a case that looked at the evidence and instead it went down this whole other rabbit hole that had absolutely nothing to do with the case because of somebody tainting the outcome, and that's just.
Speaker 1:That's really upsetting, it's unfortunate and it needs to be talked about, because I'm sure your case isn't the only one. In fact, I know it isn't because Darren Lopez was another one who this happened to and he's on the call right now, and this is a common issue that happens within military court cases, and it's why we need to reform the military justice system. So I think this is really important and I know we've gone way over the hour time and at this point I'm okay with that because this is a really important conversation that needs to be had. So you get to the Supreme Court of the Armed Forces and you're sitting there and what happens? What's the outcome?
Speaker 2:Well, they didn't make it. They didn't have the outcome that day, but it wasn't until I actually that, so that summer of 2023, I was. I knew it was coming to an end quickly, right? So, you know, we had plans to move to Michigan in the home I'm at now, and so I came up here with my family and, uh, because we wanted to get the kids in school, uh, and I had to yeah, I'd taken leave, but I had to get back. I maxed out my leave I think I had like 35 days at that point and I had to go back to north carolina on august 2nd. And the next day, on August 2nd, and the next day, I got a call from my appellate lawyer saying, um, hey, they they up, they reinstated or they, they've dismissed your case. Uh, this dismissed your charges, it's over, it's done.
Speaker 2:So, um, I think that that next day I went and saw my command master chief, joe Martin, and I was like, hey, joe, I want to get the fuck out of the Navy right now. And he's like, what day do you want to retire? I'm like, well, they, let me retire the end of this month. And he made some phone calls up to you know wherever NAVPERS or wherever you have to talk to, and they came back and said hey, if he puts in August 31st, we'll approve it. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure I set the record in the military for quickest retirement request Processing, for the quickest processing. Yeah, so not even one month and I was gone. But I had actually done a bunch of stuff beforehand, I was well prepared, I already done all the stuff for my va claim and um, yeah, I just, I was, I was ready to go. And um, yeah, august 31st, I was, I was done, I got to retire honorably.
Speaker 2:And uh, it's funny because you know, I do look back at this and you know I think back to. You know the command, you know they're, they're definitely out to get us and they, you know they they're, they're definitely out to get us. And they, you know they threw hundreds of thousands of dollars, right, if not more, if you were to come on, you think about all three of us right, me, danny and josh at this to try to, to try to burn us right. And I got nothing. I wasn't njp'd, I didn't lose my rank, I didn't lose any money, right. So, if anybody, if anybody from that unit is listening, yeah, I won. Motherfuckers. That's right. So, um, uh, the only the only downside is that I was in 2020. I was, uh, I was, selected for senior chief and they, they didn't give me that promotion, but I'm fighting to get that back at the Board of Naval Corrections.
Speaker 1:Good. Good, I mean your name has been cleared, and I believe that's the right thing to do, and there are people within the DOD that I believe or hope that are working those processes quicker. I've heard there are lots of delays when it comes to those processes not just that, but medical boards and other things and I do believe that those processes need to be done in a timely manner, and I will continue to talk about those issues as well, because I believe that people deserve not to have things delayed over the course of four years for something that could have been resolved within a year or so. I mean, that is my viewpoint on your case.
Speaker 2:I need to remember, teresa, you got to send me some reminders, to send you some stuff. That's some good reads, like my judge's ruling, the Shaw investigation. There's a lot of good stuff out there. I'll send it to you because then we'll have some talking points when we get out to San Francisco next month.
Speaker 1:I love it, yeah. So Eric and I are also working on a piece together that is going to talk about some of these flaws in the military justice system, and we know there are a lot of lawyers who follow my show. I'm very thankful for my lawyer friends and they know the law better than I do, so, as an advocate, we want to see some of these changes happen. I mean, it was the reason why I've said this a million times. It was the reason I supported Pete Hagseth. This was the reason I did this, because I wanted to. I did this this past January.
Speaker 1:I went to that Senate confirmation hearing because I wanted to create safe working environments for my shipmates, and I did not believe, with the current system, that people could feel safe, whether it's in the criminal justice system or whether it's in the administrative system, and this is example. This is front and center. The reason I don't think shipmates are safe right now is because the system will turn on you if it is politically expedient for them to do so, and so I thank you, eric, so much for your courage to come forth and share this story. As I said, we did go an hour and a half, only about 25 minutes past time, so that's not too bad. Darren Lopez says thank you for your service.
Speaker 1:Darren has written a wonderful book. It was called the Sailor Spy versus UCI, so he is intimately familiar with this process. He spent three years in the brig for what I do believe is a crime that he did not commit. He has shared his story on my podcast and it's pretty eyeopening, so I will continue to share these stories. These are the hardest shows I do, but they are the most fulfilling and I believe they're the most meaningful. So thank you so much, eric. Is there anything else that I didn't ask you about the case or anything else that you want to add before we leave the call?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I think you can tell from talking and there's definitely a lot of like tangents to the story. I mean, there's things you could you know. There's different facets of this story that could each be their own episode, so there's a lot to it, I mean, and what's interesting is like a lot of people listening probably thought I told the whole story.
Speaker 1:I mean, I really just scratched the surface. I mean and what's interesting is like a lot of people listening probably thought I told the whole story I mean, I really just scratched the surface. You did, you did. There was the whole tangent about the medical reports that you were able to decipher in a way that, like it, just to this day amazes me that, like they didn't have that kind of expertise and how that came in handy. That's a whole tangent right there that we didn't get into.
Speaker 2:So there's that. I mean there's that. There's, you know, going into, like the investigation into into Colonel Shaw. There's, you know Danny and Josh's trial, because I had immunity at that and I was a witness in that and I was on the stand for about three hours taking questions. You know they're. They ultimately got found guilty of for for drinking, for you know violating, ultimately got found guilty for drinking, for violating General Order no 1. They were still able to retire, but last December they appealed their conviction and it was overturned at NMCCA. They said, yeah, there was UCI. Colonel Shaw did affect their case as well and they and MCCA ended up dismissing their or setting aside their conviction.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to it.
Speaker 1:There is, and what I also hope, eric, is that your conversation with me as long as it's not shadow banned, because of social media likes to shadow ban my podcasts but I'm hoping that we can spread this podcast far and wide, especially with the reels that'll come out, the blog that'll come out, and we inspire other service members to know that there are safe spaces to share these stories and to let people know that they are not alone.
Speaker 1:They are not the only ones fighting a difficult case and they are not the only ones trying to get through the system and not pay an arm and a leg for a lawyer and not understand the process or understand all the tricks of the prosecution and the motions that can be drafted and all these other things that people are not aware of that happen within our legal system, and there needs to be transparency on that so that people are prepared of what they're up against if the system turns on them. So I really thank you so much, eric. You explained this really well and we did have a number of people people that are very near and dear to me, including Darren Lopez and Mandy Feint that joined us tonight, and I have no doubt that others will continue to follow this case and follow your journey as well. So thank you so much, eric.
Speaker 2:Thanks, teresa, I appreciate it Awesome.
Speaker 1:I will meet you backstage as I go full screen. All right, guys, thanks for sticking with me. I know this one was long.
Speaker 1:Next week I only have one podcast because I am going to Kansas and I'm actually going to be a guest on my friend Chase Spears' Finding your Spine podcast, so we're going to record in person. And then towards the end of the week, I'll be having back on former Navy SEAL Bill Brown and he's going to be giving an update on the New York City SEAL Swim, which, of course, was a very, very special event for myself and many others, and we will also be talking about his ongoing lawsuit against his law firm and also pushing for legislation within the state of New Jersey to make veterans a protected class. So that is an interesting case that I didn't know anything about until Bill educated me on that. So we're going to be talking about that and ways in which we can tighten up our legislation and make sure that it's fair to veterans. So with that, I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. As I always close out these calls, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other and talk to you all later. Bye-bye now.