The Tortured Warrior

By @InfantryDort, an Active Duty Army Major, on X

We all have a bit of the tortured warrior inside us.

Only those who have been institutionally betrayed know the feeling best.

Nothing drives a man to madness faster than telling the truth and being destroyed for it.

I carry scars. But they are nothing compared to a @stuartscheller or anyone cast aside over COVID.

Before 2024 I had not fully awakened. At least not to the point of speaking aloud. When I watched Stu demand accountability after the Afghan withdrawal I was inspired. But I did not yet understand.

The same was true when I saw men and women stand their ground and be cast out for refusing the vaccine. At first I thought they were troublemakers. That worldview shattered quickly.

I think about what @PeteHegseth must have felt trying to do his duty in 2021 at the inauguration, and being cast aside without immediately knowing the reason why.

I often lay awake at night and try to understand what it was like for them in those moments of defiance and betrayal.

What did it cost? How did it feel for some of them to sit in jail? How did it feel to be thrown into the street with nothing?

I consider myself an empathetic man, but here I fail. When I imagine being in their place I journey to the edge of a visceral rage and then I turn back, unwilling to leap.

So when you see the anger of these men and women you must respect it.

To dismiss them as unhinged only reveals a blindness in yourself.

A civilian can barely fathom it. Lose your job and you usually find another.

A warrior signs a blank check to the nation up to and including his life. That is the last full measure of devotion.

When that devotion is betrayed for politics or expedience it wounds in a way words cannot capture. It drives a man into madness.

I admire them. I admire Stu and those cast out over COVID. I admire them the way an art lover admires Picasso or a reader admires Hemingway. Knowing that beauty was born from chaos.

They went into the abyss. They wrestled with demons. They returned with something powerful. You do not insult the ingredients of a meal when they look unpleasant while being cooked. You wait for the finished dish.

So wait. Be patient. The betrayal of Afghanistan and COVID cut deep. What we are seeing now is the healing. The battle for accountability and restitution. It will be messy. It will hurt. But it will be beautiful on the other side. Do not listen to those who see only dysfunction. Do you insult the hideousness of a cracked egg before it becomes the omelet?

My grandmother told me on her deathbed. Patience is a virtue. Have it here. Lean forward in the fight but know the fruits of this chaos will yield something majestic. Something that will last generations.

And God willing it will shield the U.S. military and her warriors from ever being so mortally wounded again.

Why America Needs Tortured Warriors

Scars and Stars
The system bucks so hard against tortured warriors because we are no longer allowed to have them. Every ounce of energy is spent hiding faults, projecting flawlessness. But what happens when blemishes are outlawed? When perfection is the price of survival? Scars are erased, and so is the wisdom that comes from them.

The Value of Scars
It is difficult to recognize the value of scars in others unless you have carried some of your own. That is why WWII generals (the Marshalls, Grants, Pattons, Eisenhowers) gave second chances. They had tasted failure themselves. Today, “exemplary conduct” is defined so narrowly that a single mistake ends a career. Scars are no longer lessons. they are punishments.

The Cost of Perfection
Do you know what it costs to keep a blemish-free record? Integrity sacrificed. Brothers and sisters hung out to dry. Truth swallowed until the taste of it is gone. You learn to survive by omission, not by courage. And so those who rise are often those least willing to bleed for principle.

The Disgust of the Scarless
That is why many in uniform recoil at our current civilian leaders. They look at men and women riddled with scars (political, personal, moral) and find them grotesque. Not because scars are ugly, but because they have none of their own. To the scarless, scars look like weakness. They cannot comprehend that scars are survival.

The Predictable Result
When a system crushes its tortured warriors for the struggle itself, the result is predictable. You are left with leaders who confuse perfection for strength. You are left vulnerable to catastrophic thinking: DEI fads, unlawful mandates, disastrous campaigns. You have exiled the very people of principle who could have insulated you from disaster.

The Truth
A general/admiral is, at its simplest, someone others are willing to follow. And history shows us something that modern promotion systems do not: America follows the scarred. The imperfect. The tortured warriors who stumbled, bled, and got back up again.

The Call
We must turn scars back into stars. We must remember that the answers we seek lie not with those who look flawless, but with those who emerged from struggle alive and unbowed. America forgets, but she must remember. The tortured warriors are not our liability. They are our only chance.

You all have a role to play in fixing this. We can only do so much in the military without the support and understanding of the citizenry. We run downstream of our culture. Remember this.

The Tortured Warrior

We all have a bit of the tortured warrior inside us. Only those who have been institutionally betrayed know the feeling best. Nothing drives a man to madness faster than telling the truth and being destroyed for it.

I carry scars. But they are nothing…

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) August 28, 2025

The Final Word: Why America Needs Tortured Warriors

Scars and Stars
The system bucks so hard against tortured warriors because we are no longer allowed to have them. Every ounce of energy is spent hiding faults, projecting flawlessness. But what happens when blemishes are…

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) September 1, 2025