The U.S. Marine relieved of his command for criticizing his superiors’ handling of the Afghanistan crisis said he officially resigned this week and gave up all benefits.
“I could stay in the Marine Corps for another three years, but I don’t think that’s the path I’m on. I’m resigning my commission as a United States Marine, effective now,” Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller said in a video posted on social media.
“I am forfeiting retirements, all entitlements, I don’t want a single dollar,” he added. “I don’t want any money from the VA. I don’t want any VA benefits [even though] I’m sure I’m entitled 100%.”
Scheller was relieved of his duties last week after he posted a video in which he went after top military brass for refusing to take responsibility for the suicide bombing that took the lives of 13 U.S. service members.
Scheller said he had a personal connection to one of those killed, although he declined to elaborate.
“I’m not saying we need to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone’?” Scheller said.
“Did anyone do that?” he continued. “And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up’?”
Scheller said all he was asking for was “accountability of my senior leaders when there are clear obvious mistakes that were made.”
“I’m not saying we can take back what has been done. All I asked for was accountability, for people to comment on what I said and to say, ‘Yes. Mistakes were made.’ And had they done that I would’ve gone back into rank and file, submitted, and accomplished what I wanted,” Scheller said.
Since being fired, Scheller has received an outpouring of support from other soldiers who feel the same way.
“It takes real courage to do what he did and that was Stu all the way,” Juan Chavez, 33, of Valparaiso, Ind., who served under Scheller from 2011 to 2014, told the New York Post Saturday. “He was a magnificent leader, a breath of fresh air, who was always going to do what’s right, even if it goes against the grain.”
