By @InfantryDort on X, active duty Army Major
Tortured Warrior XXXIV: Colonel Jon Bender
The Torment
John Bender should be commanding a division or corps today. An armor officer of the highest caliber — brevet-promoted to full Colonel, chosen as the G3 of the 1st Cavalry Division, trusted with the hardest jobs. Yet when the Commander’s Assessment Program came, the torment began. In a behavioral screening, an “expert” told him his greatest strength was a flaw. His ability to endure stress — forged over decades of service — was branded a liability. A warrior built for the storm was told he could not lead because he carried it too well.
The Breaking Point
When he asked for his own file to learn from, he was denied. Told to file a FOIA for his own records. CAP, meant to weed out the toxic, had become a parody of itself. It sidelined one of the most qualified armor officers in the Army while promoting others through favoritism and manipulation. Bender retired in protest in December 2024, walking away from the institution he had given his life to, not because he failed, but because the Army failed him.
The Transcendence
Now, CAP is gone. And rightly so. But look what it cost. It cost leaders like Jon Bender — warfighters with decades of experience, men forged for command, cast aside by a system that lost its way. On the outside, he thrives. Yet his absence from the Army is a wound it inflicted upon itself. His story is not one of personal defeat, but of institutional blindness.
The tortured warrior does not always fall on the battlefield. Sometimes he is cast out by processes that cannot see true strength. Jon Bender should be commanding. Instead, he stands as a reminder of what we lost — proof that the price of broken systems is paid in warriors.
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Tortured Warrior XXXV: George C. Marshall
The Torment
George Marshall was not a battlefield hero in the mold of Patton or MacArthur. Early in his career he was stabbed by a bayonet in a training accident, a reminder that even in preparation the Army exacts its price. He held almost no command positions for most of his service, relegated instead to staff jobs and the slow grind of planning and administration. He watched others rise with flashy reputations while he endured obscurity, carrying the frustration of a system that seemed designed to bury men like him.
The Breaking Point
Marshall’s gift was not in leading charges but in seeing men clearly. He had a rare instinct for talent — Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Ridgway — he recognized their worth when others ignored them. But that same clarity made him dangerous. He spoke truth when it was uncomfortable. In one infamous incident, he corrected General Pershing publicly in a staff meeting, cutting through rank and protocol to say what no one else dared. Years later, he did the same with Roosevelt, bluntly refusing to flatter him and insisting on hard truths about readiness. In a system that rewarded silence and politicking, Marshall’s candor nearly doomed him more than once.
The Transcendence
Yet it was that very bluntness and patience that saved the Army when war came. In 1939, Roosevelt needed a Chief of Staff. Marshall was a Brigadier General. In one stroke he was vaulted from one star to four, bypassing every gate and timeline the modern system worships. He reorganized, mobilized, and expanded the Army from a few hundred thousand men to millions. He created a machine that could fight across two oceans, and he stocked it with the commanders he had quietly identified for years. He never led an army in the field, never had a great combat command, yet he became the architect of victory.
Marshall’s scars — obscurity, rejection, blunt words that nearly ended him — became his forge. His life is proof that frustration inside the system can make a man uniquely suited to change it. Today, under the rigid “gates” and careerist metrics of the modern officer corps, George Marshall would not have been a general at all. The Army would have discarded him. But history reminds us that when war comes, it is the tortured warrior — patient, scarred, honest, and unbound by convention — who shapes the fate of nations.
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Tortured Warrior XXXVI: Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard
The Torment
Tulsi Gabbard wore two uniforms at once — one as a U.S. Army officer, rising to command a battalion, and one as a public servant, willing to challenge the political establishment. For this, she was branded. In 2019 she was smeared as a “Russian asset” on national television, flagged by elements of the intelligence community, treated not as a patriot but as a traitor. The sting was deep: she was still drilling in uniform, still responsible for Soldiers, yet her own government questioned her loyalty. Few torments cut deeper than being accused of betraying the nation you swore to defend.
The Breaking Point
The weight of that attack could have destroyed her. Other officers would have hidden in silence, retreating into anonymity. But Gabbard did not. She bore the humiliation, the suspicion, and the whispers that followed her through the ranks. She was forced to stand alone, knowing her words would be twisted, her service disregarded, her patriotism doubted. She carried the torment of being caught between loyalty to her oath and condemnation from the very institutions she had pledged her life to.
The Transcendence
Now, she has returned in power. Appointed as the Director of National Intelligence, she stands at the helm of the very community that once cast her under suspicion. From that seat she works to restore integrity, to right the wrongs of politicized intelligence, to ensure that no Soldier or citizen is ever again destroyed for speaking uncomfortable truths. Her scars are now her strength.
The tortured warrior is not always broken on foreign soil. Sometimes she is scarred at home, accused, ridiculed, and betrayed. Tulsi Gabbard endured the fire of slander and emerged unbowed. From battalion commander to DNI, she proves that what was once used to destroy her can become the fire that reforms a nation’s most secret halls.
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