*I've changed names and details to obfuscate identities. I promised to post the whole story, (although it's long AF, sorry) so here we go:

At the Defense Language Institute, the Marine Detachment had a stealthily growing problem. It came in the form of the XO (Executive Officer), a man with a stocky build that suggested brawn, decidedly not brains, was his main strength. He had dark, buzzcut hair and beady brown eyes, which burned with hatred for everyone he thought weaker than himself. Every single Marine in the unit avoided him at all costs.

Bad as this was, Capt. XO was becoming even more bizarre and aggressive, especially in his behavior toward the young, enlisted Marines. When it came to PFCs and LCpls, he seized on any opportunity to punish them, humiliate them, and exercise his control over them. He labored to make up some excuse, usually an accusation that the Marine had lied to him in some form or fashion, and then proceeded to bring down the harshest consequences he could manage.

The first incident that really made me sit up and take notice was when the XO decided to go after one of my Marines, LCpl Graham. On the day Graham underwent knee surgery to correct an earlier injury in the Marine Corps, Capt. XO ordered him to go straight back to class—basically from gurney to desk.

Now this struck me as some next-level fuckery. Graham absolutely had to have the operation. Without it, he could never leave DLI to go into an active unit. He was supposed to be recovering in his barracks room on convalescent leave, which is a non-negotiable right granted to Marines who need to stay in their quarters and heal. By the book, no one in the unit could countermand the doctor’s orders.

Capt. XO didn’t see it that way. Despite his initial approval for the surgery to go ahead, he now refused to understand any part of this situation or acknowledge his own culpability. But he would not, under any circumstances, for any reason, back down. He ordered GySgt Calvin, the company gunnery sergeant, to destroy the hospital-issued leave chits bearing approval signatures. He was—for reasons unknown and unfathomable—determined to destroy Graham’s career.

When the Marine showed up in the classroom, he was staggering with the new crutches, groggy, and almost completely out of it from the pain meds. The instructors, civilian and military, decided to override the XO and send LCpl Graham back to his room.

Beyond pissed now that civilians and other Marines had thwarted his authority, Capt. XO demanded that the Marine at least receive an official reprimand—a “page 11,” as we called it—for having the surgery performed in the first place. The XO said Graham had lied to him and disobeyed him by going forward with the surgery. This made no sense whatsoever because we had the existing, physical paperwork showing that the procedure had been approved a month earlier, signed in black ink by the entire chain of command, including Capt. XO. The reprimand was still issued because the CO trusted that his XO wasn’t being a total psychopath, and LCpl Graham now had an illicit surgery on his record.

The Graham affair was only one in a series of acts escalating day by day as Capt. XO redoubled his efforts in pursuing some personal vendetta—against whom, no one knew. He oscillated wildly, ranging from sick to straight-up sadistic. And he never, ever laughed unless it was at the sight of a young Marine’s distress over the prospect of expulsion from the school.

He did things like take the Marines out on beach runs at 0430 and get all the troops neck deep in the ocean while temperatures outside were only forty degrees Fahrenheit. He never brought along a corpsman, either, and left the emergency vehicle two miles back. When Marines started to fall out with signs of acute hypothermia, he simply made the rest their squad carry them while he continued the run. By the time he felt he’d collected what was owed to him, three Marines were sent straight to the hospital, and the rest of us were so frozen that even just uncurling our hands so we could remove our boots was nearly impossible.

One particular weeknight a few weeks later, Capt. XO came to the barracks and stayed all night in his office. On this occasion, I was on duty as the Officer of the Day (OOD), and my responsibilities included touring the barracks at least twice at random intervals and having the Duty NCO report to me. I was otherwise allowed to leave the barracks so long as I answered my cellphone immediately if trouble appeared. The Duty NCO (usually a sergeant or a corporal) had the exact same standing order that every Duty NCO in the entire Marine Corps has, they must notify the OOD immediately if something serious goes down.

But Capt. XO didn’t feel like that was fun for him. He much preferred trying to screw over the Marines on duty, like me, by making it look as if we had all failed in our reporting requirements. That night, one of our female lance corporals attempted suicide by swallowing a big bunch of pills. Capt. XO saw his chance and seized it.

It was not his chance to be decent or human by leaping to the aid of this young woman. No way. Instead, he ordered the duty NCO in the barracks not to inform the enlisted chain of command about it. That way, he could use it as a gotcha against the NCOs and SNCOs for not knowing. As luck would have it, though, the Lance Corporal Underground disregarded XO’s instructions almost immediately. Thanks to the trust and rapport I’d established in the smoke pit, the Duty NCO, Sgt Wannamaker, had called my cellphone to give me the heads up.

When I arrived at the barracks, I readied myself to hear the worst of the details. By that time the commanding officer, Maj Mansfield, had also arrived. Capt. XO was in Maj Mansfield’s office, complaining that none of the SNCOs had answered their phones or even come in for a tour, and he wanted permission to NJP us all. Just then, I pounded my fist against the hatch, as protocol demands, and reported in, standing center-squared on the CO’s desk and looking straight ahead at the wall behind him. Major Mansfield looked worried and tired, but XO was almost excited.

“Oh, well, guess who finally decided to show up, there, Staff Sergeant. You were supposed to be touring the barracks, so how the hell did you not know about this?!”

I stayed at the position of attention and did not answer him at first because I might blurt out that he ordered that I not be told. The Lance Corporal Underground had given me the information, so I could not tell him that the Duty NCO had defied his orders.

Capt. XO found my silence irritating.

“Tell me something, Staff Sergeant, did you even read the duty binder?[1] Don’t even answer that because I know you didn’t. And that’s still no excuse because I read the entire duty binder out loud during the detachment formation last week! So, what’s your fucking excuse?”

To say I was severely nonplussed is an understatement. I didn’t even know where to begin so I could understand how he was making the leap from a suicide attempt to everything being my fault because something, something, binder. He expected me to say something, so I tried.

“Sir, I wasn’t here the day you that you read that.”

The whole detachment had been an unholy degree of pissed off over his little stunt. XO had stood there on a table, reading every single page aloud (and there were nearly sixty pages) for nearly two-and-one-half hours that evening. Reportedly, it was a complete shitshow that went on past the time the chow hall closed for the day. The tired, hungry Marines had stood outside in Monterey’s chilly weather while XO, all bundled up in a bomber jacket, had read aloud, using his finger to guide himself along the page.

“Oh, is that fucking right, Staff Sergeant? You’re a platoon commander. What’s your excuse for missing formation!?”

His voice oozed contempt for me, and he was berating me in front Maj Mansfield for the express purpose of destroying my reputation with the commander. But there was no way in hell I was going to let that little remark whizz by my head unanswered.

“I was in the hospital having a miscarriage, sir.”

XO sneered and in a mocking voice replied, “Oh don’t give me that poor me pity bullcrap—”

“I DIDN’T ASK FOR YOUR FUCKING PITY, SIR.” Now, now I was pissed. “You asked to know why I wasn’t there. That’s why.”

I broke position to stare directly at his face, letting my own anger come to the surface for a split second. Throwing away my rank for the chance to kick him in his throat was becoming more and more appealing by the minute, but I'd lose that fight. He was massively strong. Better to save it.

XO responded with disgust: “What are you, some kind of wordsmith or something? You damn well know what I’m talking about!”

He wasted no time getting in some good gloating over my obvious discomfort with discussing a personal loss in front of strangers. For my part, I thought, Wordsmith? This fucker knows this is a language school, right? Someone has to have told him that.

Fortunately, it was this moment when Maj Mansfield decided to step in.

“We need to first figure out why the Marines are attempting suicide. XO, what’s your take?”

Capt. XO changed his manner and tone in an instant. Now he was talking to his boss and being obsequious was yet another of his talents. Oh, yes please, Capt. XO, give us all your hot take on this situation with your epic emotional intelligence and empathy. I locked my jaws shut and went back to staring at the wall.

“Sir, it’s my opinion that the boots[2] are not being properly supervised. They sit up there in their barracks night after …”

“What is wrong with their boots?”

Maj Mansfield looked confused and irritated by this new information.

XO also looked put off by the question.

“No, sir. The new Marines are who I’m referring to.”

Maj Mansfield’s scowl deepened.

“What are the new Marines doing with their boots?”

He sounded bewildered. Privately, I rolled my eyes. Either Maj Mansfield was denser than concrete or else he was a world-class troll. I opted for the latter. I didn’t even want to think it might be the former.

Capt. XO decided on a new approach.

“Sir, the junior Marines are not being properly supervised. Not their boots.”

I really wanted to burst out laughing while simultaneously facepalming through my own head. If not for the fact that we were discussing someone trying to take their own life, I would have absolutely enjoyed telling anyone who would listen about this conversation.

Wow.

Shortly after that, Maj Mansfield dismissed me and stayed with the XO to chat. On my way out of the door, I stopped in and thanked Sgt Wannamaker. If not for him, XO would have been able to spin this whole event however it pleased him. Then and there, I chose. Someone has to stop this man. He was actively hurting people. I began to plan.

XO kept his private revenge quest going for months after that night. No matter how trivial the offense, XO was more than happy to bring about the worst possible outcome. Worse, Maj Mansfield was oblivious to what was happening. For instance, XO had one female Marine kicked out of DLI and stripped of her MOS because she had forged a dental hall pass so she could return to class right away and miss as little of the instruction as possible. It was the pass that he had refused to write out for her when she had asked him. After our little run-in over the suicide attempt, XO also decided I needed some extra special attention, too. He viewed nothing and no one as sacred and, therefore, he disregarded what the consequences of his actions would be, both for himself and others.

He sent a runner to the schoolhouse with a demand that I drop everything and come straight to his office immediately. That meant he had to have me dragged out of my final exam, the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT), which was the very last word in whether a student graduates from the school. XO straight-up didn’t give a shit. The cruelty was the point.

It was during the absolute most difficult and critical part of the DLPT, the listening test, that he ordered me to report into his office so he could accuse me of lying to him about reading the duty binder. When I reported in, he started to castigate me as a liar, although he didn’t say what lie I was supposed to have told or how it had negatively impacted him, the CO, or the unit. When he got tired of threatening me without eliciting the desired squirming response, he said he was going to give me a page 11 (letter of reprimand) and dismissed me.

Surprise, surprise, executive officers do not have the authority to do that. Only the commander does, and XO would have had to explain why he wanted to undertake that action to Maj Mansfield.

He had another avenue of attack. The captain regularly hung out with the Chief Warrant Officer in charge of the admin shop, and the two talked very loudly about each female Marine, from private all the way up, and whom he thought they might be sleeping with, how hot they were, and what they might be like in bed.

Meant to be overheard, the conversations disgusted the enlisted Marines who worked in the shop and could not help listening in. Rumor had gotten about that I had XO in my sights. So, one of the sergeants in admin approached me clandestinely and reported the various remarks he and his team had been forced to listen to. Subsequently, another female staff sergeant found me and told me her own horror story of XO’s behavior while she was on duty. I asked her to write down the whole event, sign, and date it. This would be the first of at least five signed written statements I collected from different Marines who were fed up and thought I might stand a chance at changing things.

It all reached critical mass one day near the end of my tour. Capt. XO called two of my Marines from 5th platoon, Cpl Shaw and LCpl Hayes, to his office in the barracks. Of course, he did this while they were both supposed to be in class. It’s not his graduation and future on the line, after all. There he proceeded to berate them for some offense I don’t recall. This time, however, Capt. XO had indulged himself a little too much. He had called down the hall for the Company Gunnery Sergeant to come to his office to watch it all with him, thus inviting a witness to his bullshit other than his victims.

XO did not seem to be getting the same satisfaction out of that anymore, so he decided to improvise. He would have the Marines act out a little pantomime just for him. He lounged behind his desk and started his little show by making the LCpl, who was female, role-play as the XO and having her demote the corporal. Not just turn and say, “You’re demoted.” No. He forced her to take her rank insignia off, take Cpl Shaw’s off his collar, and then replace it with her own junior rank insignia. All this was to be done while Cpl Shaw stood at attention, so that he had to endure the humiliation.

Capt. XO sat behind his desk, clearly enjoying the show as the deeply uncomfortable Marines started to comply. But they just could not debase themselves like that, and LCpl Hayes finally refused to obey his orders any further. Enraged, XO, out of the blue, shouted at Cpl Shaw, “It’s your fucking fault your friends died in Iraq!”

This was so far outside the limits of what is acceptable that it almost could not be real. We all knew that Cpl Shaw had indeed been an infantryman and had deployed to Iraq prior to his change in MOS and subsequent assignment to DLI. He had lost three other Marines that he was quite close with, during a firefight with insurgents. And this slimy quasi-captain, who had never even been assigned to a real duty station, was torturing Cpl Shaw, relishing the anger and hurt he was causing.

At length, Capt. XO grew bored and told both Marines that they would be facing some sort of disciplinary action very soon. He didn’t say what their misconduct had been, only that he was planning something worse for them in the future. Dismissed, Cpl Shaw and LCpl Hayes immediately sought me out. In shock and outrage, they reported in detail what happened.

I was enraged to the point of glowing in the dark. I decided then and there that XO needed to go down, hard, and it needed to happen right fucking now. I asked them both to write statements, which they did without delay.

Demolishing a vicious prick like Capt. XO would be a treat and a half. After a year or so working under him, I concluded that he was rotten and beyond redemption. He was a terrible cocktail of arrogance, malice, and cringing insecurity. Had he ever actually hit the fleet instead of hiding in an MOS school, I absolutely guarantee he would have gotten someone killed and done so without remorse.

On the other hand, I thank the gods of power plays that he was stupid and petty. Those were two traits that gave me, a lowly SNCO, a much-needed advantage. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) prescribes specific punishments for enlisted servicemen who level accusations against officers, should those accusations fail to pan out. Once I had decided I was going to take a swing at him, I needed to be certain I didn’t miss. He would never, ever let that pass without exacting revenge. If I accused an officer of misconduct, the other officers, including Maj Mansfield the CO, would most likely close ranks to protect one of their own. I had to find a way to make XO appear as a clear and present danger to the officers and enlisted alike. That way, he’d be without allies. Fortunately, I had already thought of that.

There’s a little-known and rarely used legal mechanism in Marine Corps processes for addressing issues far above your pay grade. It’s called “Requesting MAST.” Requesting MAST allows any Marine, regardless of rank, to take a problem or issue up to as high a level in the chain of command as they desire, even to the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The rules state unequivocally that a request MAST had to be dealt with immediately, as an emergency. The entire chain of command, between the Marine and the person or office they are requesting to speak to, must take steps to handle or pass on the request within 72 hours. Any interference with the request is strictly forbidden and carries penalties ranging from demotion to incarceration. Finally, the Request MAST paperwork itself is filled out and put into a sealed envelope by the initiating Marine. No one is allowed to open it or read it without specific permission from the requestor.

For all these reasons, Marine officers, and most especially Marine commanders, react to the news of a request MAST with intense trepidation. If they fuck it up or break any of the rules, it is now their ass that is about to be court martialed. In addition to that, there’s a very good chance that if the request goes above their level, it will give rise to some very pointed and serious questions as to why the hell they were not trusted to deal with the matter in the first place.

I decided to request MAST. After I had collected every single signed and dated statement from the other Marines XO had wronged, I filled out a Request MAST form, requesting to speak with Col Schneider, the commanding officer of all Marine Intel schools. Truthfully, I was ready to take this beyond our detachment if needed, but that was not the outcome I was actively going for. What I wanted was to give Maj Mansfield a clear wakeup call that his XO was dangerously close to damaging the major’s own career—permanently.

I dropped the request off the very day Maj Mansfield returned from leave. I didn’t trust XO not to break rules about interference. The captain, after all, had no scruples or ethics whatsoever. When I got to the part of the MAST form that asked me to describe my complaint in detail, the only thing I wrote was For Colonel Schneider’s Eyes Only. I also did not include copies of the written statements along with the form. Capt. XO would violate the whole request process the very first chance he got. I could see him opening the envelope despite it being addressed to someone else, shredding the supporting paperwork I’d gathered, and then trying to press charges against me for false statements.

Nope, the form was going to be sent up all by itself and with as much ambiguity as I could get away with.

As expected, Maj Mansfield seemed very worried and anxious when I was summoned to his office later that afternoon. When I entered the room, I saw him seated behind his desk, the palms of each of his hands flat on either side of the official envelope, while he stared at it like it was unexploded ordnance. He invited me in, asked me to take a seat, and then took a deep breath. Part of the courtesies surrounding these requests states that leadership is allowed to politely ask the requesting Marine if there was any way they would be willing to give them a chance to resolve whatever the issue was in lieu of MAST. Maj Mansfield also had the S-1 admin chief, CWO3 Polk, sitting in. It was my right to ask him to leave, but no, I wanted at least one witness for this. I knew Polk was sweating the possibility of his own name being in my complaint, thanks to those loud conversations he and XO had had. All right, sir, let’s see how close to XO you really want to be after this.

Maj Mansfield came right out, still fixated on the envelope and its dangerous secrets, and asked me: “Staff sergeant, I understand that you’ve requested MAST to Col Schneider. Before I send it up, is there any way you’d be willing to let me have a chance to resolve it instead? Is this something you’d be satisfied with, attempting to address this at my level instead?"

Here it comes. Let’s get this started.

“Sir, I would be delighted if you can resolve this at your level. I’d only requested to speak with Col Schneider because you were out on leave (even if a Marine is away on leave, once MAST has been requested, it must reach the Marine and be dealt with ASAP), and I did not think this could wait. Now that you’re back, I am confident we can sort this out.”

Maj Mansfield exhaled and let his posture relax.

“Thank you, Staff Sergeant. Do I have your permission to read the complaint?”

“Yes, sir. The form in the envelope does not have any information, though. I brought that with me separately.”

I held up a manilla folder with all the documents in my hand. I slid it across his desk and watched him open the envelope first. Then he turned his attention to the folder.

“Is this the specifics of the issue right here?”

He opened the folder and scanned the top page. As he started reading, I backfilled him with an overview of the entire situation, making sure to touch on every event for which I had evidence. I failed to mention CWO3 Polk’s name. No point in giving XO an ally. Partners in crime always seem to burn alone. At the conclusion, I stated what my desired outcome[1] was.

I wanted Maj Mansfield to rein in the XO because he was “bad for good order and discipline within the unit.” I was very careful to make sure I didn’t ask for the XO to be reprimanded or to suffer any other specific disciplinary action. I needed this to sound like a very sincere and honest concern, not a personal grudge against an officer for being a hard ass. All I wanted, I told the major, was for the CO to look into Capt. XO’s increasingly bizarre behavior.

After we exchanged a few more questions and answers, Maj Mansfield and I reached an agreement that he would immediately look into the issues I brought up. If his inquiries did not bring about the desired outcome, then Maj Mansfield would at least be able to say to Col Schneider that he had given it his best effort before sending it up further.

Maj Mansfield asked to keep the statements, and I agreed, having already made photocopies just in case. I expressed my belief that Capt. XO would be all over those papers the minute the CO’s back was turned. Maj Mansfield put them in a safe, which only days later, XO opened because he knew the combo. He waited until Maj Mansfield left his office to attend a graduation ceremony and stole the papers, read everything, and then put them back. The only reason I know he did this is that the same afternoon, he called to his office each Marine who had made a statement about his behavior. None of them was afraid to answer him, especially not LCpl Hayes and Cpl Shaw. XO had grossly violated the rules of MAST by seizing the evidence, and if he tried anything that even looked or sounded like retaliation, he was toast.

On my final day in the command, I was about to depart from the offices when a clerk stopped me.

“Staff Sergeant, Capt. XO wants you to come to his office.”

Well. Shit. Obediently, I took my service record book and went to stand outside the XO’s office, waiting for whatever chaos he was about to unleash. Whatever else, he was still my XO and I owed him the obedience. I had hoped to get a jump on afternoon traffic, but this was probably going to take a minute.

As I stood there, clutching my folders, CWO3 Polk walked by. He stopped and glanced up at the sign over the door. Then he looked back at me.

“Why are you out here, Staff Sergeant?”

“Sir, Capt. XO ordered me to come to his office.”

I stood staring at the end of the hall.

CWO3 Polk frowned and saw my record book in my arms. He held out his hand for it, and I gave it to him unquestioningly. He opened it, flipped through the pages, and then closed it back. He looked me dead in the eyes as he handed it over and said one word: “Leave.”

“Aye, sir.”

I fled the building and never saw him again.

I later ran into the Company Gunnery Sergeant, GySgt Calvin, in Iraq on Al-Asad roughly eight months later. He informed me that after I had left the command, Maj Mansfield “got deep in the weeds” investigating Capt. XO. GySgt Calvin said Maj Mansfield interviewed everyone the statements even mentioned in passing, including himself and MGySgt Collins. That pleased me immensely because before I dropped the MAST paperwork, MGySgt had suggested that I should try to understand that the Captain was going through a divorce and maybe I should hold my fire. Another member of the chain of command suggested that, since I was departing a mere week after the allegations were made, I shouldn’t pursue this because I would not be present to stop XO from tormenting the Marines who had trusted me with their statements. Both arguments only supported my hypothesis that many more people than I knew what XO was doing and just decided to look the other way. That convinced me even more that I had done the right thing.

GySgt Calvin shook his head and sighed.

“I don't know what you did to him, Fluffy, but he’s no longer in the Marine Corps. He was forced out in disgrace within months of your departure.”

Fuck him.

[1] Requesting MAST requires the requestor to have a clearly stated objective that they want to achieve and would consider a satisfactory resolution.

[1] A 3-ring binder that contains all of the emergency phone numbers, threat condition warnings, procedures for specific events and emergencies, and so on.

[2] Boot = The New Marines. Can be used for both Marines straight out of basic as well as Marines joining the unit for the first time.