By @InfantryDort on X, active duty Army Major
Tortured Warrior XXV: Michael Flynn @GenFlynn
The Torment
Mike Flynn was forged in the shadow wars of the post-9/11 world. As an Army intelligence officer, he lived in the shadows of Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting networks that could not be seen and enemies who slipped across borders. He spoke hard truths about how slowly and blindly America was fighting. That honesty earned him enemies long before the political battles of Washington ever did. Flynn carried the torment of being a Soldier who saw what was coming — and being ignored by those who preferred comfort to truth.
The Breaking Point
As Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn warned that radical Islam was far from defeated, that the enemy was growing stronger. For this, the establishment pushed him out. Later, as National Security Advisor, he lasted only weeks before being forced to resign, engulfed in investigations and prosecutions. His name was dragged through the mud, his career destroyed, his reputation shattered. He faced bankruptcy, threats of prison, and the torment of being cast as an enemy by the very nation he had served for three decades.
The Transcendence
But Flynn did not disappear. He endured the firestorm, turned his scars into testimony, and refused to be silent. To his supporters he became a symbol of how deeply institutions could betray their own warriors, and how resilience can survive even the most coordinated attempt at ruin. Flynn carried into public life the same defiance he carried in combat: never surrender, never retreat, never apologize for telling the truth as he saw it.
The tortured warrior is often destroyed by the very institutions he defends. Flynn bore betrayal at the highest levels of power, yet carried on unbowed. His torment became his weapon — and in it, he proved that even when a general is broken by politics, the warrior spirit can never be erased.
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Tortured Warrior XXVI: Sergeant William Harvey Carney
The Torment
Carney was born enslaved in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1840. His childhood was marked by bondage, humiliation, and the torment of being owned as property in a nation that claimed freedom. He escaped through the Underground Railroad, carving his way north to Massachusetts. There, with the Civil War raging, he seized the chance not only for his own liberty but to fight for the freedom of his people.
The Breaking Point
In July 1863, Carney fought with the 54th Massachusetts — one of the first African American regiments in the Union Army — in the desperate assault on Fort Wagner. Amid a storm of bullets and cannon fire, the color bearer fell. Carney seized the U.S. flag, refusing to let it touch the ground. He was shot in the head, chest, and leg, yet staggered forward, planting the flag on the parapet. Bleeding and broken, he crawled back with the flag still held high, gasping, “Boys, the old flag never touched the ground.” He nearly died, riddled with wounds, mocked by enemies who would never see him as a man.
The Transcendence
But Carney survived. Though disabled for life, his name became immortal. In 1900, decades after the war, he was awarded the Medal of Honor — the first African American to receive the nation’s highest decoration for valor. That shouldn’t matter to you though, because he was a soldier to the last. An AMERICAN soldier. His scars were proof that freedom was bought with blood, and that loyalty and courage are not bound by race.
The tortured warrior is often forged in chains before he earns his sword. William Harvey Carney carried the torment of slavery and the wounds of battle, but through it he raised a flag that would never fall — and proved that a man once enslaved could rise into eternal honor.
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Tortured Warrior XXVII: Stuart Scheller @stuartscheller
The Torment
Scheller was a Marine for almost two decades. He fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried the weight of command, and believed in the integrity of the institution. But Afghanistan’s collapse in 2021 struck him like a blade. Watching Marines and Soldiers die at Abbey Gate while senior leaders deflected blame lit a fire in him that he could not put out. He carried the torment of betrayal — not from enemies abroad, but from the generals above.
The Breaking Point
On August 26th, 2021, he did what no Marine officer had dared. He made a video, in uniform, demanding accountability from senior leadership for Afghanistan. Within 24 hours, the institution turned on him. He was relieved of command, investigated, thrown in the brig, and dragged through the mud by the service he had given his life to. His pension, his career, his honor — all put to the torch for the crime of asking for truth. The weight would have broken most men. Many called him unhinged.
The Transcendence
But Scheller did not break. He embraced the fire. He endured confinement, public scorn, and financial ruin. He wrote Crisis of Command, laying bare the failures of a military culture that punishes truth and rewards compliance. He became a voice for the silenced, a symbol of the modern tortured warrior — scarred, cast out, but unbowed.
The tortured warrior is often destroyed by the institution he defends. Stu Scheller stood in defiance, endured its wrath, and turned betrayal into testimony. His scars are still raw, but they speak with power — and they remind us that sometimes the price of truth is everything.
He currently serves as a senior advisor in the Department of Defense.
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