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 to be terminated so abruptly without an explanation? If the latest Caribbean war crimes by Pete Hegseth are drawing on MALS-36 for Pacific assets or supply chains, 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 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.”