Lt. Col. Calischaran G. James had clearly been doing something right for a long time to get where he was, which is what makes sudden relief conspicuous for the commanding officer of Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 36 (MALS-36) in Okinawa.

Days before Thanksgiving, in the growing wake of Pete Hegseth’s war crimes and murder of civilians in the Caribbean… what could this Mustang from Dominica have done to warrant an immediate termination on the front end of an investigation announcement?

What could a logistics squadron commander with that record, and that trajectory to O-5, have done? Maybe, just maybe, if the new Caribbean war crimes by Pete Hegseth are drawing on MALS-36 for Pacific assets or supply chains, we might guess who would know what’s moving where?

Logistics personnel are literally in a choke point for commission of crimes. In the 1930s dock workers around the world shut down Mussolini’s supply lines after he invaded Ethiopia and dropped poison gas on civilians. The dock workers didn’t just resist fascism; their resistance became part of the historical record of who stood where and when. A MALS commander would see every Hegseth war crime manifest.

Could this investigation announcement be like the one Hegseth also announced against decorated vets who had dared to say simply that soldiers should follow the law?

The Marine Corps has just intentionally created an information vacuum with their announcement, which exists in a context where the military is actively purging people who object to what Georgetown Law calls Pete Hegseth’s unlawful orders to “show no quarter.”

If James was relieved for objecting to something, Hegseth would replace him with someone white, someone who’s already been in the logistics chain and expected not to object to war crimes. Someone who knows what’s on the manifests and isn’t from the Caribbean.

In the context of an administration illegally executing Caribbean civilians, replacing a decorated Caribbean-born commander with an objectively lesser (no MSM) white officer from Battle Creek is a choice that carries significant meaning whether or not that was consciously intended. Given that Pete “War Secretary” Hegseth is obsessed with PR and optics, to the point of wearing makeup, the abrupt timing suggests calculation rather than coincidence.