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
The Cost of False Allegations with Marine Col. (ret) Dan Wilson | S.O.S. #247
The story opens at a dinner party and ends with a near-unheard-of legal result: dismissal with prejudice. In between is retired Colonel Dan Wilson’s toughest battle—how a decorated Marine became the target of a false allegation, why the case grew despite exculpatory DNA, and what happens when command climate, politics, and process collide.
We trace Dan’s life from childhood in Africa through four decades of Marine command, the accusation, and months under a gag order as headlines spread. He recounts being sent to the brig, choosing general population, and finding purpose there, then explains a military justice system civilians rarely see—small panels, nonunanimous verdicts, command influence, and pressure that drives overcharging.
Even after an appellate court dismissed the key conviction with prejudice, the fight continued through administrative penalties and retirement disputes. Dan lays out needed reforms—ending command influence, requiring unanimous verdicts, opening voir dire, raising evidence standards, and providing real post-exoneration relief—while sharing how faith, sobriety, routine, and writing rebuilt his life.
If you care about military justice, due process, and the gap between headlines and truth, this conversation doesn’t pull punches. Listen, share, tell us which reform you’d start with—and if it hits home, subscribe, review, and pass it on.
Stories of Service presents guests’ stories and opinions in their own words, reflecting their personal experiences and perspectives. While shared respectfully and authentically, the podcast does not independently verify all statements. Views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the host, producers, government agencies, or podcast affiliates.
Visit my website: https://thehello.llc/THERESACARPENTER
Read my writings on my blog: https://www.theresatapestries.com/
Listen to other episodes on my podcast: https://storiesofservice.buzzsprout.com
Watch episodes of my podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheresaCarpenter76
Imagine being at the pinnacle of your career serving in combat, serving as a decorated marine, and as you are on your Twilight tour getting ready to retire, you are hit with what our society considers to be the most taboo crime. And you are alone and need to fight this fight without any legal assistance, without any kind of support because of the nature of this crime. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So I have here with me today a retired Marine Colonel Dan Wilson. Dan, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic, Teresa.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. There is a lot of people who I know have been waiting to watch this. They wanted to know more about you, about your books. I mean, you've read, you've you've you've written a number of books, but the book that we'll talk about the most tonight is Undaunted Gladiator, which is the story of this three-year journey that you had through the military legal system. But before we get started, as we always do, welcome to the Stories of Service podcast, ordinary people who do extraordinary work. I am the host of Stories of Service, Teresa Carpenter. And to get this uh show started, as we always do, an introduction from my father, Charlie Pickard.
SPEAKER_00:From the born, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to surface.
SPEAKER_01:And Dan spent nearly four decades rising from the enlisted ranks to the senior as a senior to a senior colonel in the United States Marine Corps, deploying 11 times and leading Marines in combat from Desert Storm through Iraq and beyond. His career was defined by combat, credibility, command, and institutional trust. Then a false sexual assault allegation changed everything. And today we're going to talk about it in public and plain terms about the allegation that followed him late in his career and the long grinding process that came afterwards. And this is not a story of ambiguity or unresolved claims. This conviction was dismissed with prejudice. And we'll explain what that means by the Navy Marine Corps Court of Appeals for factual and legal insufficiency. And the decision was issued by senior judge Angela Tang, who is now a Navy captain and still serving on active duty. Today we're going to talk about what it's like to be the face of a false allegation after a lifetime of service, combat leadership, and earned trust. And we'll talk about the personal cost, the impact on family, and the reality that even when the courts correct the record, reputational damage lingers. For a man who led infantry, Marines in combat, commanded battalions in Iraq, and carried the responsibilities of lives under fire, this became the hardest fight of all. We'll also place this legal battle in the full context of this his career, enlisting in 1981, earning meticulous promotions, and graduating as the honor student at every training milestone, and then later commissioning through the enlisted commissioning program, excelling at the basic school and infantry officers course, and then went on to command platoons, companies, and battalions. Welcome, Dan.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Teresa.
SPEAKER_01:So first off, as I always ask all my guests on the show, where were you born and raised and what made you decide to join the Marine Corps?
SPEAKER_02:Well, my mom was pregnant with me in the southern Sudan in Africa in 1960. And she was a medical doctor, uh providing uh service to the tribes people out there as a missionary, my father being a pastor. So she flew back to the States uh assessing that uh I was going to be a difficult birth. And she got here uh just in time to give birth to me in uh the end of November of 1960, and then they shortly thereafter uh flew back to uh Africa, uh, where I grew up and spent my childhood in four different countries: the Southern Sudan, uh Kenya, South Africa, and Namibia, formerly known as Southwest Africa. So I spent my childhood out there in Africa, eventually uh coming back to uh the uh United States, finishing up my senior year in Washington State at Shelton High School, and joining the Marine Corps shortly thereafter. And um I uh initially joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to be a pilot, and the uh recruiter told me that there was a pathway to uh becoming a pilot by becoming an enlisted person, enlisted member, and uh then getting into an officer program and then getting into uh an aviation program and becoming a pilot. And that was my desire until I hit OCS. And at OCS Officer Canada School, um, when I was in the officer program, I changed and I had a desire to uh go into the infantry. So uh when I was at the basic school, um my desire was to be an infantry officer, and that's what I became an infantry officer.
SPEAKER_01:So what was it about the Marine Corps that drew you in? Because if you had a background in missionary and and chat work in the in as your father was uh in in in the in the religious fields, I I'm I'm wondering, were they the ones who talked to you about the military or was it something you heard about from family, other family members? How did you know to to join the Marines?
SPEAKER_02:Well, my brother was an airborne ranger. I wanted to be a little different. And uh actually I went into the Air Force recruiting office in June of 81 because I just witnessed the Israeli pilots who had taken out Saddam Hussein's nuclear power plant in Baghdad, and I thought, wow, that is really cool. I want to be able to uh slip into an enemy country and a jet and take out something uh strategic like that and get back out. And they didn't lose any pilots or planes in the uh event, so I went to the Air Force recruiting office to become a pilot. They told me, well, you only got two years of college, come back and uh when you have a full college degree. And as I was walking out, Marine recruiter Gunnery Sergeant Nathaniel ran said, Hey, why don't you come in here? And I went in there and he showed me uh this pathway that I spoke of to becoming a pilot. And so that was uh on my mind as I became a Marine and as I was going through the uh junior enlisted ranks, and then uh I put in for the uh Marine enlisted commissioning program and got accepted. And uh again at OCS, I changed my mind and I wanted to become specifically an infantry officer because I knew it would give me greater opportunity for leading uh men in combat.
SPEAKER_01:Right, and and you did. I mean, you served uh during the Gulf War, correct?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that was my first war. I was with Task Force Ripper, I was a heavy machine gun platoon commander for first time fifth Marines, and we served side by side with uh First Time 7th Marines and Task Force Ripper that was commanded by Mad Dog Mattis. So I literally fought side by side up into Kuwait, to Kuwait City, kicking out the Iraqi troops that were there at the time from uh Kuwait, uh fighting side by side with Mad Dog.
SPEAKER_01:And that's a that's a whole nother story in and of itself. Uh, your early career, and that's something that we really don't want to overlook here because you spent a lot of years in service before this incident even kicked off. And not only did you serve in the Gulf War, but then you went on to command uh uh in other in other leadership positions, uh just kind of increasing all the way up to where you were, I believe, about to put on one star. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Uh when when uh the first false allegation came out, it was in 2016, I was uh informed the week prior that I was going to be looked at seriously for the next uh Brigadier General selection board. And um I needed to get my uh records in order. And um in my mind, I was thinking, Theresa, well, of course, you know, I've got 35 years in the Marine Corps, I've enlisted officer time, I've been in uh, you know, a couple different uh wars, I've visited 40 different countries. I'm not only gonna be a brigadier general, I'm gonna be the commandant of the Marine Corps someday. And that was the ego that I had. Um, you know, and like the Bible says in Proverbs, pride pride comes before a fall. And I I think my pride led to that that fall. And um, the very next week uh was the first false allegation against me. And then during the course of the uh investigation, um, another lady who whom my wife had befriended, uh, they had a falling apart one night drunk test texting each other. And that lady felt that uh to really get back at my wife, uh, she could make a second false allegation against me, and I would you know be put in pretrial confinement, which is exactly what happened. So um those were the two false allegations that uh put me in uh pretrial confinement, and then uh 10 months later, um nine months later, uh I went to a court martial, which was 14 months after the uh first false allegation, which was really unfortunate because it was a mother who said who uh accused me of um inappropriately touching her daughter at a dinner party uh where we were all seated in uh our dining room on base um conducting a dinner party with uh the three kids uh that were there running around. I sat next to her father the entire night, and um there was another guest who was a doctor from USAID. He was sitting there next to it, and as they testified it under oath in court, they never saw any instance during the course of that evening where I did anything uh inappropriate toward any one of the children or in any way uh displayed any uh inappropriate behavior. So that was their testimony in court.
SPEAKER_01:And and the uh person who the the mother was the wife of a gentleman, my understanding, who you were you were mentoring. It was somebody that you knew from, I believe, a previous command who showed up to where you were stationed, and they needed just to kind of get settled in, and they were looking for friends and and and people to feel like they belong, like we all do. And that's really all this was. This was a dinner party. You had brought in the gentleman from USAID, he was doing a professional development forum for your Marines. And during this entire night, people were seeing you at at all times. There was never an opportunity for you to go into a private area and and and do what they accused you of. Is that that's correct? Am I am I tracking?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I never left the uh living room except once or twice to go to the bathroom. And uh, you know, I never was in any instance uh one-on-one with any of the kids.
SPEAKER_01:And my understanding from reading your book, which uh I recommend everybody uh check out this book, Undaunted Gladiator, um was that you didn't even know there was any anything uh uh awry until she just the the the mother just angrily got up and said, You know what you did, and was very angry and stormed out of the home. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, she had spent most of the evening in the kitchen with my wife. They were gossiping. Um, apparently, some of that gossip involved uh uh allegations that uh I had had uh several um affairs um and and what um you know my fantasies of uh uh sexual encounters were about. Um, but there was nothing in in that gossip that involved uh children. Um the only thing I can think of is there was one incident where um the the two there there were three girls, two were twins, and then their older sister, and uh the two girls presented themselves in front of their father and me, and then uh they looked at him and looked at me and they pulled up their um shirts and said, Who's got the cutest belly button? And uh remember that iny meeny miny mo, you do, and uh so you know the again the mother didn't witness that, but she heard about it, and she went into some uh lecture to the girls about uh they weren't to uh ever show their private parts. But I you know it was it was something that I I hadn't instigated. They they jumped in there and and uh did it before the father or me could do or say anything. And the father, the father laughed it off. He thought it was funny. Um so uh I don't know if that if that triggered her or the the gossip, but again, there was there was nothing um there was nothing to uh that other than her drinking that uh you know and she was also on an anti-anxiety medication called Xanax, and uh so the combination of those two, I don't know, but it was just like all of a sudden she just exploded, came out of the kitchen, and uh, and at that time she didn't even uh say you know what she was accusing me of. It wasn't until the next night that her uh husband called me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, didn't he call your her your wife? He called your wife.
SPEAKER_02:That was odd, but I didn't really uh uh pick up on that as a red flag until later on when my lawyers informed me that it had been a uh an NCIS sponsored call. For whatever reason, they called my wife's number instead of mine. Um, but they were recording it, and uh in the conversation the the next night, he said, Well, my wife says that um you inappropriately touched uh, and he named the uh the one the one daughter, one of the twins. And uh I said, Man, you know, you know, I'd pull a dexter on anybody if if I felt that uh they were doing something that to any of the kids, because I look at your kids as my kids, um and um I wouldn't tolerate anything like that. And he said, Well, my wife, you know, I got to back up my wife, and he's and he was like, Well, what what do you think I I should do, sir? And NCIS had told him to ask that question to see if I would uh, you know, like beg him not to go to the authorities or whatever. And I said, I'll tell you what I tell any Marina, you know, you do what is is in your heart and in your gut, uh, the what you think is the right thing to do. And he said, Well, um, I gotta go with my wife, and I said, Okay, you know, you do what you uh you think is the right thing to do. And um they had already uh because they left the dinner party that night and NCIS was at their house uh getting uh details of their story, and then the next morning I went to work and after briefing the general on what was going on around the world, and uh um shortly thereafter I got a call from NCIS to come over and went over and talked to them. And they they had a charge that said uh that I had raped the uh child in the living room, and I looked at these guys and I'm like, come on, man, that's ridiculous. You know that's not true. Um, so they completely trumped up the charge from the get-go and into a rape charge of a child under under the age of 12. Um, so being accused of the most horrible crime, I was immediately fired um by my general from my my position, and my orders were you can we're gonna give you an office in some uh you know obscure building on base, and you can come and go as you please um during the course of the investigation. Just stand by if we need you. But I had no reporting instructions. But uh I was there there after um I spent the next uh six months or so um just coming and going from that office and uh no one telling me anything about what was going on with the investigation. For example, six they they took uh they took uh the the child's uh underwear and sent them to labs. And uh six weeks later, NCIS uh had an answer back from a lab that it was not my DNA. So they sent it to a second lab. And the second lab came back and said, yes, uh that there is no DNA on on this child's underwear from uh Colonel Wilson. In fact, um there's 3.2 trillion more likely suspects because there is male DNA there. It turns out the male DNA on the child's underwear was the father's, and so NCIS uh went to the father and the mother separately and said, We want sworn statements from you on how you do your laundry. And they both, in their sworn statements, uh told NCIS that they always separate the girls' laundry from uh the dad's laundry and never wash it together. NCIS never followed up on that second red flag, and you know, to you know, why then why is dad's DNA on uh the one daughter's uh underwear? Uh they just let it go because it didn't fit their narrative. They were they I was the target.
SPEAKER_01:And that's that's just disgusting.
SPEAKER_02:If there really was um abuse, we didn't even find out about the exculpatory uh till right before the court martial. Right before the court martial. So they sat on that, and instead they went to the general and they said, Well, you know, it's it's not Wilson's DNA. And he was like, uh, you know, damn the evidence, uh, go find whatever else you can on Wilson. So they launched, uh they continued to investigate. They launched a second command investigation on me. Um, and then they launched a third investigation with the uh prosecution team that was assigned. And in the end, you know, just like in the Soviet Union, uh the former police chief or the secret police chief uh used to say, Beriath. Uh, he used to say that uh show me the man and I'll show you the crime. So they they scrubbed my entire 35 year record and they came up with numerous uh minor things that that wouldn't ever see the Light of day in a uh a regular courtroom.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, Dan. And that's what they do. And they did do that in your in your case. I just want to point that out because every single time I do these shows, they always tell me that this is what they do. They scrub your entire past, which all of us have done things in our past that probably weren't exactly correct or exactly by the book. We we we all have done it. I bet if anyone goes into anyone's past and they go digging, they're gonna find something. They're gonna find a minor infraction here or there. And my understanding, Dan, from your case is that is exactly what they did with your previous command.
SPEAKER_02:They did. I that original one charge turned into 27. And with most of them being, you know, uh, let's see, uh three and six, so nine were felony sexual assault charges, and the rest of them were as minor as one was sending a prank email. Um, and and it did happen. Uh there was there was a fellow member in the office there, and uh she went to uh the bathroom and I jumped on her computer and sent to her boss, who was a military guy, um, let's go out to dinner sometime. That right there was a a conviction at my general court martial, and it's still on my record, by the way. Um so that's the the level that uh they went down to to uh get any conviction uh that they could. And so um when the appellate court finally uh dismissed with prejudice the one felony conviction, instead of instead of looking at the others and saying, you know what, if they got this one so very wrong, we're just gonna go ahead and dismiss all the rest of them, which they should have done. Instead, they just said, we recommend no punishment for the uh rest of these uh convictions. So if my case had gone back to a uh a resentencing, um they would have had that from the uh appellate court judges that they were looking for no punishment. However, um if they had assembled another group of uh jurors, they would have all been senior officers to me, more likely general officers. Um, and there was no doubt in my mind that they would have uh they they could have given me um more time for those minor convictions than what I had originally from the one sexual assault conviction.
SPEAKER_01:So you're backed into a corner.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so uh so so what the uh uh prosecution lawyers did that were um then I was back at my convening officer level, um, authority level. Uh they recommended that I sign a um an agreement where I gave up my rights to a resentencing, I gave up my right to um a board of inquiry. Um, and if I did all that, I would get no punishment for the remaining minor convictions. And then they immediately reneged on that agreement. As soon as I got out of prison, they appealed in my voluntary retirement papers that I were sent up to the Secretary of the Navy. They asked the Department of the Navy to um uh give give me a other than honorable characterization of my service and uh to pay me in the grade of uh lieutenant colonel in retirement. And that's what uh the manpower chief of the navy uh at the time uh circled and initial. So that's what happened. And and to me, you know, that's they they not only reneged on uh the agreement, but they ensured severe punishment because the uh other than honorable means that you know unless uh the VA um cuts you some slack, you're never gonna be eligible for any VA benefits. And um 98% of the benefits that you rate as a retiree, you don't rate if you have an other than honorable characterization of service.
SPEAKER_01:So Dan, do you think that was because of her lawsuit?
SPEAKER_02:So that's another part of the story that that I want to tell the audience about is that not only uh her lawsuit her lawsuit was launched um after my court-martial conviction for$25 million, and she was looking for uh uh$10 million for uh each of the twins because when she launched the lawsuit, her story had changed that I had sexually um molested both of her twin daughters that night. So in in the lawsuit, um she she uh actually claims, and so she wants$10 million for each of those twins uh for for that, and then she wanted um five million dollars for the older girl because she said that I had uh attempted to ply her with alcohol, which all came back to a joke that night where um the girls had asked me what I was drinking. The whiskey looked like apple juice, and I said, Well, apple juice, you want to try some? I never would have, and and the father was sitting right there, we never would have let you know them try any. Uh it was just a joke, and everyone laughed. But um, the prosecution turned that into a charge. Right. And uh the the charge was ended up being dismissed, actually, because there were the three of the charges were that I, because of that joke, I had attempted to ply all three of the girls separately with uh alcohol. So those were three additional charges that were added um just from that joke. They were all dismissed, but in her lawsuit, she was claiming uh five million dollars for the older daughter because I had said that I'd made that joke.
SPEAKER_01:So did she go through the claims process? Because I know because of Ferris, you can't technically sue the military. So how did that shake out? Do you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um my stepdaughter actually brought me the claims uh in June of 2018, which which would have been about nine months after the court martial. She had uh filed a FOIA request and gotten a copy of uh the uh tort. It was a tort claim to the Department of the Navy. And apparently the Department of the Navy uh would have a year to settle it, or it would go to a federal court as a lawsuit against the government and the Department of the Navy. Um, but uh let about a year later is when I was exonerated, and the uh Department of the Navy uh refused to uh you know it it dismissed that that tort claim.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so they they did dismiss it because of the fact that they exonerated you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. So I mean it's almost like they're talking out of both sides of their mouth because on the one end, they're exonerating you. They have uh you have uh had your case overturned with prejudice, which is incredibly rare, which means they can't retry you.
SPEAKER_02:Right, but then they still my lawyer said it's like the White Sox uh winning the World Series, it never happens.
SPEAKER_01:But then they still wanted to stick it to you, but then they also didn't want to pay her out uh because paying her out, you know, you would say, okay, if they had a large, large settlement, they're admitting some culpability in this. Well, they're not because she her case was dismissed. So it's almost like they just want it to be a completely mess of a system. And and and I want to also paint a picture of the climate around this issue. And I think I have in in very in many shows, and my audience who who follows me closely knows how much I've talked about this, but this is uh still, I believe, happening today. I mean, I'm still hearing of cases that are are actively being litigated, but I don't know for sure, but it's possible that perhaps during this period when you were accused, this was during an administration and during a political atmosphere where people wanted to see sexual assault prosecutions at all costs, and even if there wasn't President Obama was specifically telling his generals and admirals, I don't care how little credibility there is in any case, you will prosecute.
SPEAKER_02:And that was uh in my case, exactly. Uh, but part of this all as well, Theresa, is the fact that um the same guy who is the senior staff judge advocate um for the uh general was also the same uh colonel that uh conducted the uh command investigation on me. So he did such a great job assassinating my character in the command investigation and nesting his investigation within NCAS's investigation that they promoted him to be the uh senior staff judge advocate for uh 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. So the same guy that had conducted an investigation on me right before my court martial was the same guy giving my convening authority advice before, during, and after the court martial. And oh, by the way, he was the same guy when I was exonerated that was still advising a new general, but the same convening authority that my case was kicked back to. Um, so you had a a colonel um lawyer who uh had the the case of his career. He had probably already gotten uh like a meritory service medal for uh taking me down. And that had probably already been presented to him in the years that I was in prison before I was exonerated. And then all of a sudden the appellate court comes back and says, Your case is so horrible. Um, we are going to not only uh dismiss this main charge, we're gonna dismiss it with prejudice. In other words, there's no way you can ever because there were other prisoners at the time who had had different um charges dismissed, but not with prejudice. And all the Marine Corps did was uh recharge them on uh other things and that were similar, and uh they were back in prison on on new charges. There was a there was a staff sergeant um that I remember uh doing the circle there when we were let out for 45 minutes to an hour in the evenings, and uh he he had he had uh been sentenced to Leavenworth on a rape charge for 20 years. After two years at Leavenworth, um they'd set aside, he went back to Paris Island, and uh a year later they ran another court martial on him, and uh they put him in prison for uh nine years under uh some type of sexual assault charge, but not rape. And uh so uh setting aside with uh prejudice was essentially telling the entire crew that uh had prosecuted me that man, your your case was horrible. Um my only bitch really with the appellate court is that you know if you're gonna throw the dirty baby out of the bath, you've got to also throw the dirty water out with it, which was all the rest of the minor charges. They did say no punishment, they recommended no punishment, but they should have just completely thrown the case out because now I've got years of trying to uh get my honor back. And again, the uh the same lawyer that uh conducted that command investigation was back there, and I'm sure he wrote up the uh recommendation on my retirement papers for the general that said, we want this guy uh retired. In fact, at that level, they they uh were advocating that I be retired as a in the pay grade of a major. And uh, and they were using all these charges for which I was to receive no punishment to justify why I should get an other than honorable, uh, all the minor, all the minor ones that they'd promised me no punishment for. So it's just crazy, but it was it was absolutely um a revenge move by that that senior staff judge advocate who um had had his case thrown back and said, Man, this case is horrible. Um he he not only went uh uh I mean above and beyond in his investigation and prosecution, by the way, he was best friends with the judge in the case as well. They were best buddies. And um there were three different times during the court martial where my lawyers um felt that uh the case should be dismissed. Uh the first the first was when uh the prosecution uh in their opening remarks put in evidence uh that uh had nothing to do with the case, but was just trying to show that um you know the prop the uh the jurors uh you know one thing or another. And then there was another time where um the uh the main uh accuser, the mom, uh and within the first five minutes of my lawyers uh um interviewing her or questioning her, uh she lied and and the judge threatened to throw her out, uh, but he never did. And he uh she had another instance where uh she just completely lost it and uh he he backed out on uh his threat. Um so you know it makes you wonder. When you say when you say lost it, you mean like really just wasn't making sense or wasn't no, she she just started screaming and yelling, and the judge uh kicked the jurors out and um told her that if she had another outburst like that, uh he was going to uh kick her out of the courtroom and strike all of her testimony from the record. And she did have another outburst. The the two women that were in there as accusers, if you read the book and the uh transcripts, um you know, talk about crazy. Uh, this this these two are just batshit crazy. And um it comes out if you read the book or listen to the audio book.
SPEAKER_01:And that's what I really want to encourage people to do is that we're giving you guys a snapshot of of what happened and and how this went down, but encourage people to look at the appeal, read the book, watch other podcasts with Dan. This isn't his first time going on these podcasts and and being asked the kinds of questions that I'm asking him. And I I understand that these are very hard topics to talk about. I'll tell you, Dan, every time I do these shows like you, I get hate mail. I get people who think that I am against anybody who's ever been a victim, and I get kicked out of conferences over it, being called, I say it, people say I support predators, all these things. And and I'm okay with that because I I know what I'm doing is the right thing. And when you believe in what you're doing, you have to stand for that. And I do research these cases and I do put my credibility on the line every time I do a show like this. But I also believe that until we fix due process and we have these hard conversations about sex crimes, then we're we're never going to change the system. And so we can either not talk about it and skew it to one side, which is what we're doing now and not getting anywhere with it, or we can talk about it as a due process problem. And that's everything that you're describing to me are are mistakes in due process. And there were times in this case where you were denied due process. Were there any pretrial motions before the court martial?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh, one of them was uh a gag order on us. So as as the press was putting out all kinds of articles about what a monster I was, uh my my defense team was forbidden from saying anything to the press to counter. Uh, because the we we had a lot of occasions to uh be able to say, well, wait a second, you know, how about this or that? So um talk about hate mail. I mean, my I'm and my family were getting outright death threats throughout.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure.
SPEAKER_02:And and going into prison being accused of being a uh child molester. Um, you know, they they flat out several times in in all three of the prisons, asked me if I wanted to um, you know, live in isolation. And I was like, no, I'll I'm gonna live in general population because I'm an innocent man, and um these are false allegations, and I have no fear. Um, I'm not I'm not worried about uh anyone uh trying to uh take me out.
SPEAKER_01:What was the brig like? Can can you describe for the people that have never known that side of the military what what that system is like well it was the shock of my life, and um the the first night I was in in a prison cell, I was thinking to myself, um you know how I wanted to um my performance to be.
SPEAKER_02:And I essentially gave myself uh commander's guidance, you know, as a commander, every unit that I went to, I would give my Marines guidance on my philosophy of leadership, what my expectations of were then of them, um, and what uh they could expect of me as their leader. And so essentially my guidance to myself that night, the first night, and I wrote it in my diary about a week later because it took me uh about a week to get a uh composition notebook that I started my diary in, and I kept a diary throughout my time in prison. And I wrote it in, I wrote in there that um I'm not just gonna survive in here, I'm going to thrive in here. So that mindset kept me going through uh the entire thing. It it got me into doing um 300 push-ups every day, uh no matter what. It got me into uh listening to the other prisoners and their stories and seeing if there was anything that I could do to uh help them out. And there were, um, there were a couple guys that I actually was able with my advice to uh help them out. Uh and then um interacting with the other prisoners. I interacted uh uh at different places. Uh we were allowed to play chess. Um at one place we were allowed to uh play ping pong. Um and uh how many months were you in prison? 33, just shy of three years. Okay, and uh all the while uh I tried to be a good example for these uh young men, and um the testament to that is the fact that almost every single one that I developed some kind of relationship with that got out after me is uh you know, sought me out to be my uh Facebook friend. So I have uh a whole slew of Facebook friends that I served with in uh prison. And like I tell many of the people that uh I interact with in Myrtle Beach that are civilians or former military vets, some of the finest Marines that I served with, I served with in prison. Wow, and that goes that goes along with uh one of Chesty Puller, he's a Marine Corps legend, General Chesty Puller. And he's uh quoted as saying uh one time to his driver, take me to the brig. I want to meet some real Marines. Well, I served with those real Marines for Uh 33 months, and I came away a better man. And my mission that I gave myself uh probably after the first week was someday, somehow, I'm going to uh do what it takes to make the Uniform Code of Military Justice uh a fairer system for uh future sons and daughters of America that come into uh our military. Because right now I I can list out multiple things on how it compares to uh the civilian federal judiciary and how it is so unfair. I tell people that you know you remember that story of uh the seals off the coast of Somalia that shot and killed uh three of the uh pirates, and then they took the one hostage, or they took the one uh as a prisoner and they escorted him back to the state of New York and put him in the uh the New York uh federal judiciary to be prosecuted for uh terrorism. The minute they turned him over, those SEALs turned over that terrorist to the federal judiciary, he had more rights than those SEALs who had risked their lives to uh bring him back to the states to face justice.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Because and and and and to me, that seems so wrong that the very folk, the military members that are willing to sign a blank check and the full amount of the blood of that in their body um to protect the legal and and the uh rights of American citizens, give up so many rights uh when they become a member of the military, and for no good reason. For example, um, why is it uh what is the good military reason for me not to have uh had a jury of my peers? Most people in the civilian don't uh world don't even realize that, but in the military, in every trial, you do not get a jury of your peers, you get a jury of senior officers, and there's no good reason for that. No, not only not only that in the federal judiciary, you have uh 12, 12 uh of your peers who are going to um uh you know listen to your case and and make their um decision on on your guilt or innocence in the military. You almost never will get 12, and uh it can go down to as low as five.
SPEAKER_01:Um I had I didn't know that I didn't know it could go down as low as five. And and it's only a not a three-fourths anymore.
SPEAKER_02:It used to be uh it used to be two-thirds. Now it's now it's three-fourths. So when I was going through my court martial, only five of the seven needed to agree. You don't have to have unanimity of uh of all twelve, uh, like you do in the civilian world. And uh most people don't realize that. And there's no good reason for that. You should have unanimity. And in the when you have less than 12, you have greater group think that creeps in, and you it's more likely that you're gonna have uh a consensus with a lower number than you are with uh the higher number.
SPEAKER_01:And there's no such thing as I think it's called void dire. I'm not a lawyer, but it's that process when the defense and the prosecution get to question the jurors. You don't do you get that opportunity in a court martial?
SPEAKER_02:But what but people don't realize is that the very guy sending you to the trial or court martial in the military is the same guy that gets the hand pick the jury pool, the whole jury pool.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, every single one of them.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, in my case, for example, uh Major General Miller, my convening authority, put in three generals to the jury pool that he directly was their boss. They they all knew exactly what he wanted. Uh, he wanted you know me hammered because it it would uh affect his promotion if if I wasn't hammered.
SPEAKER_01:And that's what people also don't understand is that the and you mentioned this in the last podcast I heard you on, is that the Senate confirms the general officer nominations. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. And and let me give you it, let me give you a case uh where this actually happened. There is if she was actually a female general, a three-star general Lieutenant General Helms, an Air Force uh general, and she had made a decision uh in a case involving a uh Captain Watkins, I believe, or Walker, and uh he had been accused of uh sexual assault and convicted. Anyway, she overturned uh the conviction, I believe. And uh Claire McCaskill, uh a senator, um it was in 2013, held up her promotion. She was the the Air Force, uh the Obama administration, Air Force wanted to uh put her in a uh four-star position. And uh McCaskill put a uh permanent hold on on her promotion because senators can do that. People don't realize that. So my jurors, for example, they all knew that if if they didn't let me go free the night of the uh the senate or the uh convictions were coming in, um, that they would never see another star in their collar. So that's why they threw me under the bus.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's just crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Career jeopardy, personal jeopardy of their own careers. Um, and and I had this exact same thing happen in a court martial in which I was a member uh four years prior to my court martial on Paris Island. Um, we had a we had a staff sergeant who was accused of rape. And um we all most of us in the uh jury pool uh were convinced that uh he was innocent, right? Um and I was we were we were debating it and we were in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom with the senior member who was a fellow colonel but senior to me, so he was the president, and he said, Hey, you know, Dan, um I'm gonna vote for him to be guilty because you got the votes to uh you know set him free in in essence and acquit him. Uh but if my boss, who is a female general at the time, finds out that I voted to uh that for for him to uh be acquitted, um, I I'm gonna get a horrible fit wreck. Uh, she's gonna take it out on me. And uh so I hope you understand. But I'm gonna, since you got the votes anyway, the the two-thirds at the time, um, I'm gonna go ahead and vote that the uh he's guilty, uh, just so that um she'll know that uh you know not to uh take it out on my career.
SPEAKER_01:That's sad.
SPEAKER_02:Four years later, they they did that exact same thing to me. And you know how I know is because um that sexual assault conviction that they uh they found me guilty of on the 9th of September 2017 had a sentence of 26 and a half years. Now, Teresa, if you and I are sitting in a court martial or a trial in the civilian side, and we really believe that someone molested a kid or raped a kid, we're gonna give them all 26 and a half years and ask the judge for more and say, can we give him more? 100%.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Why would you get why would you give him five and a half? No, you wouldn't because you know that he's innocent and to soothe over your guilty uh conscious for uh throwing him under the bus for your personal career, uh, knowing that if someone in the Senate ever found out how you voted, uh they would put a permanent hold on your promotion, like they did with that one uh lieutenant general from the Air Force. Um, that that swayed them. And that's why they gave me only five and a half years. And um I'm convinced, and that's why in my book I call uh call that jury a jury of cowards. They were moral cowards. They uh they let me bleed out on the legal battlefield and they left me behind without coming to you know invoke true justice in my case. Because if you heard the closing comments, when we left when we when we had the closing remarks by the uh the prosecution was horrible. It was like he was he had nothing, no evidence, nothing. And he just stood there and had a uh emotional tirade. My lawyers got up and pointed out that you know, no facts here, DNA, this, that, and the other. Everyone left that courtroom high fiving and saying, There's no way, there's no way that jury or any jury is gonna find you guilty of those main charges. And uh indeed they found me innocent of uh eight of the nine, but then they picked that one and gave me a sentence of five and a half years. 20% of what they should have given me had they believed I was really guilty.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And we knew we knew that we had won. And one of my lawyers went into the head, ran into a prosecution lawyer, and the prosecution lawyer stuck out his hand and said, You guys had a really good case, and uh Colonel Wilson's innocent, and congratulations. And um, but the jury didn't get that memo, they were worried about their careers.
SPEAKER_01:You that's insane. You're trying to sell me, too, that even the prosecution knew that this was this was a weak case and that it should have never and here here's the part that really upsets me is that this is also being forced down the throat of the Jags to go along with this, this charade. Because what's happening is the commanding officers are like, oh, I scared. Talk to my Jag.
SPEAKER_02:That lead prosecutor went on to work for a two-star general who was a really good friend of mine. And after retirement, I had a couple of conversations with the general, and he told me that uh that lead prosecutor told him that there was so much pressure from the highest echelons of headquarters Marine Corps uh legal department um to find me guilty to put as many charges on me as he could, and to find me guilty of as whatever they could, however they could, by cook or crook, just find me guilty of as many charges as they could.
SPEAKER_01:But but I think but my bigger point too is that we're abusing our Jags because basically what we're saying is our commanders are refusing to command.
SPEAKER_02:And the other concept, um, you know, you don't see it, you haven't seen it lately, and because of all the political prosecutions, uh, particularly against Trump the last year, but um a prosecutor is not supposed to take a case into court if he doesn't feel that uh the evidence and the witnesses are are there for him to uh to win that. Um, but that doesn't happen in the military. In the military, a a senior legal SJA says, you're gonna be the prosecutor and uh you are gonna take this no matter what you think of it. Um I mean, for example, uh, why would you bring in DNA that uh I was I was uh there were 3.2 trillion more likely uh matches to that DNA than me. I mean, there haven't existed in the entire history of the world 3.2 trillion men. And um yet he brought the DNA and his his stated purpose to the judge was just to uh uh show that uh the DNA was male DNA and uh therefore I'm a male, and kind of put a little doubt maybe in the uh juror's minds that well, maybe it is Wilson's DNA, when all the markers pointed that it was a hundred percent match for the father of uh the child in question.
SPEAKER_01:I have a really good question from an audience member, and I'm sorry there's been so many comments that I haven't been getting to them, but there's one that I really want to get to.
SPEAKER_02:Someone's actually watching this.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. So this one here, and this is a great question. As a CO, did you ever refer charges on someone you thought you had questionable evidence or was in the same situation you found yourself in?
SPEAKER_02:No. Uh, in fact, I had two cases that uh were taken away from me because uh in one case I had a staff sergeant who was accused of um violently abusing a uh a child that he had taken in. Um and NCIS's investigation was so horrible. Um I didn't believe uh you know the uh the charges that and NCIS wanted me to uh take him to a court martial and charge him with. And I refused. I told NCIS no. And uh what they did was take it to uh a uh my my boss, uh who was a uh a female general at the time, the same one I was talking about earlier, that uh my my buddy worked for directly uh during the court martial. And uh NCIS convinced her to uh literally strip the case out of my command and uh bump it up to her level.
SPEAKER_01:And that's and they and they can do that. The investigators can just shop it around to the the the the committee convening authority that they that that that they know will get the outcomes that they are are looking for. This whole system is such a shit show.
SPEAKER_02:And I had another gunny, uh similar uh situation where um he was accused of uh infidelity um uh while he was still married. And I knew that uh if if I just ran NJP on him, that would ruin his career. He'd never get promoted uh beyond what he was, and uh he would uh therefore he would be retired at a uh a grade lower than what uh he could have been and uh lose out on uh thousand, tens of thousands of dollars over his retirement uh pension lifetime. I felt that was more than enough punishment. And so I ran NJP on him, and a couple weeks later, um that same general called me and said, uh, I'm taking this case and uh ran him for a court martial. And uh he got much more severe punishment out of it than uh what what he would have gotten from uh me. Um and there are other cases that I had uh that I could talk about. I'm not gonna waste your time though. Uh similar situations were just stripped from me, and uh my recommendation was uh not heeded, and uh a lot of it is just because the climate at the time was too uh, you know, we it couldn't couldn't let the Marine Corps uh be viewed by the uh public or by Congress as taking it easy on on Marines, even though I felt that you know the punishment that they were gonna get under my command was uh sufficient um and uh harsh enough.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Um while you were in the brig, did you get the sense that there were other people who were also unjustly punished?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Um, like I said, uh to get out of my own woe is me pity party, I would I would listen and talk to the other prisoners, and uh I I got uh I got to hear probably um well over a hundred different stories in detail of uh different guys that I sat down with at the three different prisons that I was uh uh I started out at Camp Lejeune's Brig. Um I was transferred to Mirmar's Brig, and then I was finally transferred to Camp Pendleton's Brig. Um, so I interacted with uh service members from all branches. Uh for example, like at Mirmar, uh there was a uh an Air Force major I got really uh close with, Clarence, Clarence Um Anderson.
SPEAKER_01:And he's a future guest.
SPEAKER_02:What's that?
SPEAKER_01:He's a future guest. I'm interested in.
SPEAKER_02:Good. Uh you know, uh when I first got there, uh he was kicking my ass in ping pong. And around Christmas this time in 20 uh 17, I started uh turning the tables on him and kicking his butt. But all the while getting to know him and his story, and his story is is is uh a horrible also story. Um and what I found out at Mirmar's Brig, a lot of the uh fellow prisoners there were minorities. And um it seemed to me that a lot of uh their court-martial convictions were uh what I would term uh convicted for uh being a minority, uh specific particularly African American. Uh there were there were several different cases that involved um uh white uh military members, and um I could just I could just envision a sense of bias, yeah. A mostly uh white uh jury pool of senior officers. Um, you know, so my assessment overall, getting back to that point, is um I believe at least 25, but maybe as high as 30 to 35 percent of the uh prisoners and Briggs during the time I was in there, at least that I talked to, um were um wrongfully convicted or they were um overcharged. For example, uh one one sergeant um he was an American Indian and uh at his court martial, all of the sexual assault charges were dropped. There were two or three. Um, but he was he was uh nailed for seven years for uh sending intimidating texts, right? Not even not even getting in someone's face, but you know, the the text messages themselves. It got seven years. Um so uh he spent a lot more time in in prison than I did. And uh he got out recently, but we became Facebook friends and we've been chatting. Um, but uh yeah, uh at least 25, probably as high as 35 percent, should not be in prison at all.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm gonna be doing an upcoming show where I just talk about the the brig condition.
SPEAKER_02:But going to a court martial in um in the military, um, it's like going to Vegas and playing against the house. You're gonna lose, you're gonna lose almost all the time. Um, and uh that's because the military has all the cards, they're able to stack the jury pool. Uh I I talk about in my book about how um a couple of uh folks contacted me either while I was in in prison or afterward and said that they had been contacted about being in the jury pool, but they were specifically excluded because they uh had a uh a favorable opinion of me, right? So the jury pool was selected um specifically that they either did not know me or they had an unfavorable opinion of me. That was okay, but if there was a favorable opinion um about Colonel Wilson, then they were excluded from the jury pool. So how fair is that? Um, and again, the jury pool is exclusively at least when I was going through, hand picked by the uh staff judge advocates that work for the general. They know the guy, they know the guys out there that are going to be hammers and and uh and they stack the jury pool. And even if in Board War, you have to get more people in the jury pool, they're still handpicked by the same guy. Right.
SPEAKER_01:They're still coming from the same jury.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's like the district attorney that's um you know is prosecuting somebody. And instead of having a uh you know a proper uh uh selection of peers, is able to handpick not only people out of the community, but people out of the community that are in higher positions um of authority. And that's the way it is in the military, and there's no real reason for it. There's there's no good order and discipline that comes out of having the uh government be able to um court-martial someone, and uh 99% of the time, mark my words, I I have yet someone to challenge me that 99% of the time, if you walk into a general court martial as a military defendant, you're walking out the other end with one or more convictions. Now, that conviction may not be the main charge. For example, two years ago, we had a drill instructor that was um went to a court martial for manslaughter, right? Uh a recruit had died, uh, had a heart attack. The the doctors had uh told the general, you know, it's it's a crime to send this guy. You know, the recruit obviously had a prior medical condition. It wasn't anything from the drill instructor. But because of uh, you know, political pressure and knowing he wasn't going to get promoted if he didn't at least send it to a court martial. He sent the kid, the uh drill instructor to a court martial. He was clear to that main charge, but they had so many other charges, and one of them was felony name-calling because he had called recruits war pigs, which had been the third battalion uh uh mascot down there. And he, you know, he'd yell at the recruits sometimes, you war pigs. He got a conviction on that. Can you believe it? Um, so yeah, if if you go into a court martial as a military member, there's a 99% chance you're coming out the other end with one or more convictions.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And I know that what we're talking about is really hard for people to believe, and they're they they try very hard to poke holes in the things that I talk about and the things that we bring up on the Stories of Service podcast when it comes to these cases. And that's why I always say I invite people to read Dan's book. Read, read, read the information in the book, read the appeals. I will also say though, you can't get all your information or all your facts just from the appeals. Uh, as I've talked to more and more people, even in the appeals, they're written in a way that still favors what the government wants you to know. And a lot of the records of transcripts are available online. You it isn't like you can go get a PACER account like you can in the civilian world, which you do have to pay for, and you can look up court transcripts in case law. You can't really do that uh as a as a citizen. And so that's the other thing that that I got.
SPEAKER_02:Um, when my case went to the appellate court, uh my lawyer uh that my daughter, my stepdaughter paid for out of her purse because I was I didn't have any money at that time. I I'd gone without a paycheck for a long time, and I I couldn't hire a civilian appellate attorney. And the one that they assigned me uh in my first phone call said, Well, you're essentially on the back burner. I remember my parents were or my daughter and my wife were so incensed they hired a civilian appellate attorney, Katie Trikaski. You'll probably see her on uh a lot of different shows as a legal advisor. Uh, Newsmax, Fox, CNN, and uh her and her husband, Andy and Katie. So she wrote an appellants brief, right? And her first assignment of error uh for the court martial was that uh my case should be uh thrown out because there were no facts, and uh it was also the the charge wasn't even written correctly. That they didn't they screwed that up, and so uh her first assignment of error was 13 pages long, and she pointed out everything that was uh screwed up about no facts, witnesses, or evidence in the case. The government's rebuttal to that was three sentences, three sentences, and essentially it just doubled down, said you know, everyone, everything, all the facts and stuff were presented in the uh court martial, and that was about all they said on it.
SPEAKER_01:So they just didn't want to do the work to do.
SPEAKER_02:They not only didn't want to do the work, but there was no work to be done because they didn't have a case. And another testament to it is the fact that after um the appellate court got the government's appeal uh to uh have uh the full court take a look at it, the full appellate court, they that got rejected within uh uh 12 days, right? So then their next option was to be able to appeal to the civilian court of the armed forces. They didn't. They could have, they didn't because they knew they didn't have any case. And so they specifically and and what would have what would have you know shouldn't have been any skin off their nose to at least try.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:They didn't even try. So what does that tell you? They had absolutely no case and they knew it.
SPEAKER_01:Right. The the whole case just upsets me, as as all these cases do. Every time I do one of these shows, I just get so incensed at this process and the fact that there are so many people who've been caught up in it.
SPEAKER_02:The problem in this case, though, is that um that stigma, no matter if you're exonerated and everyone's like, Yep, good, he's exonerated, let's let him go free. No one wants to back you up in helping you uh fix all the other uh little elements of the case, like the OTH getting that corrected, or getting paid as a uh Fulberg colonel, as I should be getting paid. Um you're on your own. Uh, no one wants to say, well, you know, uh let's look. It doesn't matter what the crime he was accused of, it's the injustice of it. No one looks at it that way. It's like, oh, you know, he was accused not only of sexual assault, but of sexual assault on a child. The worst crime in the United States to be accused of.
SPEAKER_01:Worse than murder.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely in people's eyes. I've loved to be falsely accused of murder over uh sexual assault of a child.
SPEAKER_01:And a war crime makes you a warrior, makes you a hero, especially over a terrorist.
SPEAKER_02:So until quickly the president jumped in in December of 2019, right about the same time I was going through uh my retirement process.
SPEAKER_01:And uh and to be fair towards the Gallagher case, it that was also a hard slog for those guys. And it was, I mean, I had Tim Parlatore on the show, and and that was a a shit show of a case with the judge, I mean, with the with the Jags and and other issues. But the point being is that Eddie Gallagher, because he was a a Navy SEAL, because it was happened during the war, he he was able to receive, at least from the conservative right, a broad swath of support all the way up to the president. But when you try to talk about sex crimes, Dan, I can't even get some of my peers in the military podcast community to cover these cases. Now that's changing little by little, and that's what gives me hope.
SPEAKER_02:I started that it's not really brought out in my case is the fact that um in CIS uh within minutes of uh you know bringing me into their office and uh putting that rape charge on me, they had assembled, they they they wouldn't let me back into my office where I had uh several electronic devices, and uh they took my BlackBerry from me. They had all my electronic devices and files going back 20 years, thumb drives that had emails on going back you know almost two decades. And and and all that, they not only never found any child porn, of course, because I I'm not into child porn, I'm not into porn. They they didn't find any porn. They had nothing to bring into court to say, yeah, not only did he do that, but this guy is a you know a known uh uh acquirer of child pornography. I I which you know I had a case where I was a commander and um you know NCIS had a thumb drive full of child pornography in this guy, and I'm like, oh yeah, absolutely. We put him in pretrial confinement. The the only guy that I ever assigned to pretrial confinement on my watch, but NCIS had the receipts, they had nothing, they had no witnesses that ever came in and said I'd ever had any kind of conversation with anybody in my entire career about um you know anything involving uh children.
SPEAKER_01:Um it would there was just nothing they just didn't have a case, they didn't have any any sort supporting evidence to back up the accusation, and no matter how hard they tried to dig, all they found was one person who had an axe grind to somehow bolster your case, which is very common. Again, I Holly Yeager was on on here in the comments earlier, and her her case of her son, uh Robert Condon, who I had on uh recently, Holly, is very similar, where they they basically dig into your past, they find the people who have an axe to grind, or sometimes they even convince women who don't think that they're victims to now feel as though they are now victims for consensual encounters. And so this is this is such a bigger case than you, Dan. And I have to say, every time I hear these cases, I I just my heart goes out to you, to your family, and to all the people who are trying to do what they can to help this system. I just talked to Mike Kanzachi earlier tonight. I was texting back and forth with him, and he said to tell you hello. Uh, he's a he's a wonderful advocate and investigator uh on a lot of these cases. I know that our.
SPEAKER_02:I've talked to him several times, but when you talk about family, I want to bring out one more thing about the military justice system, and that is in 2014, Kirsten Gillibrand was able to get a rider under the National Defense Authorization Act. In other words, she was able to hold the entire uh budget for the military um hostage unless that rider passed. And that rider essentially said that if you're accused of one crime going into a military trial or court martial, and that's the crime of sexual assault, you're not allowed to use good character as a defense. Well, I'm here to tell you in many of the he said, she said cases, that's all you have. So there I was sitting in my court martial with my stepdaughter and my daughter behind me, and they were not allowed specifically to get up on the stand and testify to what a good father I had been to them, and that I'd never made any kind of even a yellow comment ever in their presence. And uh I wasn't allowed to do it thanks to Kirsten Gillibrand. And it's a total violation of the Equal Protection Act of the 14th Amendment that states that you can't discriminate um against classes like that. You have to treat everyone fairly. So, but in essence, what what it means is if I'd had a fellow defendant sitting next to me accused of murder, he could use good character as a defense, but I couldn't because of uh Kirsten Brandt's Kirsten Gillibrand's uh change uh to the UCMJ. So that's another thing that's got to go. And I thought actually my case would may end up in the Supreme Court and and uh that it would correct that. Um, but until a case gets up to Supreme Court or they make new changes to the uh uniform code of military justice, um it's it it stands there.
SPEAKER_01:And uh to make these changes, uh, they need to have all warriors on deck. Like they need to have more people, in my view, talking about these issues, not being afraid to speak about them. I will tell you, Dan, I started taking on these cases, I would say maybe around April or May of this past year. And at first I I got so much hate. I mean, and it even culminated in me getting kicked out of a conference, a military influencer conference, and somebody making a nasty video about me. But I will tell you that after a while, there's nothing anybody could say because I I I bring the receipts, I I I let the audience decide for themselves. I I I'm not trying to hide things. I'm I'm open to having discussions on either side. I I bring people on who are people who I believe are legitimate victims of an assault. I've brought on people who I believe are victims of false allegations. I bring on people who have been unfairly targeted by the system for something else entirely, like being prosecuted for going past a stop sign at the army uh at West Point. I mean, just what I'm getting at is that this isn't about this one case. This is about a bigger problem. But the only thing we ever see in the media, and this is what really angers me, even today, a very wonderful prior podcast guest and friend, she put out a blog on her Substack about Pete Haiggs that's not being tough on sexual assault anymore. And it was basically the the whole thing and changing around the wording and certain policies to say certain things. And it's and I I wrote her and then I also later made a Facebook post about it. But I wrote her personally and I said, this is a due process issue. I said, when are we gonna talk about it as due process and stop talking about it as justice for victims or look at all these guys who've been screwed over, all these warriors where complaints are getting weaponized. We have to talk about it in terms of due process and UCMJ reform. And until we have that conversation, we're never gonna fix the problem because we're not we're just we're just talking past one another about what the issues are. So I that that is what I want to see going forward. And I do hope that one day you'll receive that justice. Um you've had several other books besides this book, Undaunted Gladiator. So tell me just a little bit as we're wrapping up the call, what this post-military chapter has been like for you and your for your writing, your writing career. I know that I was listening to that show that you were on uh earlier this year. You have a very disciplined morning and day routine about how your life is now. So tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, um I I think it all goes back to shortly after I got out of the military. Um you know, obviously I'd I've been sober in prison. Um, when I got out of prison, my lawyer handed me a bottle of bullet whiskey, and I got right back into drinking until I retired. Two weeks after my retirement, I decided, you know what? Um all my best times in the military were when I was sober. I want to, I don't want to be that guy that goes so deep into the bottle that I'm standing in line at a hospital for a liver. And um I don't want to be that guy. I want to really enjoy and embrace retirement like uh nothing else. So I got sober in January of uh 19 uh 2021, uh coming up on five years ago.
SPEAKER_01:Congrats.
SPEAKER_02:And um my recovery has brought me closer to uh God. Um, in fact, that first book I dedicate to God, who uh was really the only one that stood by me in prison um consistently. Uh I had several, I I talk about in um different books about some of the spiritual experiences I had in prison. And I wasn't a prison convert. My dad was a preacher, a missionary in Africa. I became a Christian when I was nine years old in Africa. Excuse me, I just gotten away from it in the Marine Corps and um toward the latter end of my career, uh, particularly when I was in under investigation. I got I got deep into the whiskey bottle. Um, so I I give all credit to um the fact that I got sober and over the past five years I've had um spiritual strength and development and growth in my daily routine as a priority. Praying, uh reading the Bible, reading other religious, um spiritual, I don't want to call them religious, but spiritual readings to uh improve my spiritual strength. Because I know that my spiritual fitness is the only thing that keeps me away from uh going back to drinking. Um so I have I have 1,802 days now of uh complete sobriety. And then uh after my first year or two of sobriety, I decided, you know what? Uh I'm gonna I'm gonna get rid of these other bad habits that I have. And uh one of those was I dipped uh tobacco for um you know uh years as an infantryman in the Marine Corps, and so I got rid of that, and then recently I decided um uh I was uh getting too addicted to uh caffeine, and the the effects of caffeine uh were having such a bad effect on me that I decided I needed to quit caffeine. So I tell all that in a story or a book that I wrote recently uh called Dan 2.0. And I just share my uh recovery from uh alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. Um, I wrote a book about uh weight loss, uh 110% mentality. Uh I wrote a book about uh one of my heroes, uh Francis Marion, and how Marine Corps war fighting tactics and strategy developed from what uh his strategy and tactics were during the Revolutionary War. Uh and then I wrote another, I got into pickleball a couple years ago, and I love playing pickleball, try to play it every day. And I was uh taken one day by, you know, if one of the guys that I studied as a Marine officer was playing my pickleball partner, what would his style of play look like based on his style of warfare? So I that would give birth to a book called uh Pickleball Battlefield, where I take 21 warriors of the past, everyone from Sun Tzu to um uh Genghis Khan, Sherman, and uh Desert Fox Rommel, and uh 21 total, and and say this is what their pickleball game would look like if they were my partner. And then I wrap it up with uh if if you were to use Marine Corps warfighting tactics strategy, this is what your pickleball game would look like. Um, the other book um I was really uh excited is my most recent one, um, was a biography on a 102-year-old living World War II veteran that I've been visiting every Wednesday afternoon for the past three years. And uh I would take over snippets of books I was writing to him, and and you know, he would and he loved them. And uh a couple months ago he's like, Would you write my biography? Um, and so I wrote uh the blonde bombshell, and it's uh about Robert Joseph Hirsch, uh one of the greatest of the greatest generation, still living, still uh alert, still uh with it. And um uh he uh I wanted to get it done before his 102nd birthday in August, and I got it done a couple weeks before. So for his birthday, you know, he had a lot of family and friends. He was able to hand out copies of his book to his uh family and friends. And uh two of his daughters. He had 10 kids, also former mayor, also former mayor of uh of um Myrtle Beach. And uh and during the war, he was a football star at Cornell and then dropped out to uh be a pilot in the Army Air Corps before it became the Air Force. And he smuggled his his dog Tiger with him over in his the plane that he flew over to fly his missions in. And uh Tiger was awarded an air medal for flying 157 missions with his his uh his uh dad um Bob. And uh he came back and went right back into Cornell and continued playing football. And he was such a good football player that the uh NFL Eagles coach called him up and wanted to draft him into the Eagles. Uh but at that time, back in 1947, when he was graduating, uh football players didn't make a lot of money at all. And uh he wanted to uh be an engineer and and he had a family already, and and so he turned down. He also got offered uh to play professional uh baseball. Uh so an amazing man.
SPEAKER_01:What a fascinating guy!
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and and it's a really, really good story. I've had already uh he had 10 kids, and two of his daughters have already written me uh really nice letters about how they love the book and how it um they're so happy that their dad's legacy is preserved um for future generations. So yeah, it was a labor of love and um it's one of my favorite books. And then I wrote uh my memoir, um, Out of Africa and Into the Core, uh talks about all kinds of uh things growing up as a kid in Africa, from you know, dodging uh deadly snakes um to uh tribesmen that tried to uh kill me, quite frankly. And um all kinds of stories like uh climbing Mount Kilimanjaro when I was a teenager, to uh you know, swimming in the Okavongo River and dodging crocodiles. So a lot of a lot of really good uh stories in that book that uh essentially describes uh my childhood growing up in Africa and my 39-year uh career in the Marine Corps.
SPEAKER_01:And what made you so strong to take on this kind of fight? I mean, that's what's so fascinating about your story, Dan. And it's almost as though God put you where you needed to be to take on this cause in such a large way, and especially through your writings. Every one of your books that you describe is such a unique gift and a different aspect of life, too, that others can derive so much from. So I would love to have you back on the show once I've read some more of your books. I I'll be honest, I've only read Undaunted Gladiator, but I I definitely want to read Dan 2.0. I know myself I I've been trying to give up caffeine. I I just now started a food diary. I already have a workout diary, and my husband and I are very disciplined with our fitness routine, and now I'm trying to get my food and my protein and all those things uh at the same place. But I think living a disciplined lifestyle uh keeps you keeps you balanced and keeps you happy and keeps you grounded. So uh I I drive a lot of inspiration from you. And I really want to thank you so much for for coming on the show and sharing your story.
SPEAKER_02:And every day that I write in a book, I literally get on on my knees and I say, May the words that I write be an inspiration and uh reflect um your glory. Um, because one of my missions in life that I feel is my personal mission is to try and uh impact through my writings or just interacting with other people, a desire in other men to have a higher power or God of their understanding that they can have a relationship with. Because I believe as a as a vet that that is um I've had so many vets who've uh committed suicide, and and I believe that if if we work on our spiritual fitness and our relationship with God, a God of our own understanding, that is literally to me the key to uh all of life's problems. I agree God works in so many ways um to take care of us, and he wants what is good for those who love him and are called according to his plan and purpose. So um that's that's what I try and do in my books. Uh, my first book, like I mentioned, I dedicate it to God. Uh, but in in in every one of my books, I try and weave in the the theme that if you can develop a relationship with God, that is literally the key to life and living. Because, like uh Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Well, I love it, Dan. I'm gonna meet you backstage while I go full screen, but I want to thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast and talk about this very important issue and also just sharing overall your story with us and definitely would love to have you back on as a returning guest.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for the opportunity, shipmate Teresa.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. All right, guys, that was the second show of the night. Thanks for sticking with me. I know this one went a little bit over, but these kinds of shows and these kinds of topics always do. I hope you all have a very blessed holiday with your friends, with your family, uh, with your support group, wherever it is you find yourself uh this holiday season. Just try not to be alone. I know for some of us that can it also can be a very lonely time. It has been a very lonely time for me uh in the past, but thankfully uh these days I do have a support system and a network of friends and family. But as I always say to close out these calls, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and I will be back with you guys, I believe, next Tuesday. So stay tuned. All right, bye bye now.