← Back to context

Comment by jandrewrogers

14 hours ago

> nabbing the little guy

Politics aside, he isn't a "little guy". He apparently holds the rank of master sergeant. That's a senior battalion-level role and somewhat political.

This isn't some random E-4 getting dragged.

This might burst some bubbles but this is absolutely a little guy because anything below a field grade officer (or the CSM sidekick below brigade) is a little guy and a battalion is actually quite low on the food chain.

Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.

  • He may be a little guy but that doesn't mean that he's a fall guy. The Special Forces at Fort Bragg are a law unto themselves. I've just finished reading The Fort Bragg Cartel and the things some of those guys have been up to, and the leniency of both their commanding officers and the local civilian police toward them, are shocking. Drug smuggling, murder, theft of arms, coming back from deployment with tens of thousands of dollars taped to their persons...not to mention the war crimes.

Compared to a member of US Congress, or the senior executive branch, or the CEO class, they’re still nobody and the “little guy”.

Not that it’s defensible behavior.

  • Is he important enough to get a presidential pardon? That's how you know whether he's a "little guy".

    To be fair, that bar is quite a bit lower these days, but still..

I read this as "why are they going after a soldier who made $30k when they could be going after guys who made seven figures off of expertly timed trades on going to war with Iran"

  • He profited $400K.

    Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.

    This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.

> he isn’t a little guy

His salary this year was probably about $118k on standard pay scales. I’m not sure what your definition of little guy is, but to me that qualifies

(Not trying to be condescending to anybody here, that’s not far off my salary and I’d definitely call myself the little guy)

Master sergeant is a respectable rank (first of senior NCO) but it’s not exactly a high ranking position. Speaking from AF experience, you’ll have a couple of them or higher in a 50 person squadron, and levels like group/wing command they’re oftentimes among the lowest ranking person in the room.

This is absolutely a low level soldier getting dragged.

If he was "behind the fence", at most he would be a team sergeant or maybe even assistant team sergeant. Talking 4-6 members max.

According to Google Gemini, there are over 16,000 master sergeants. Might as well be some random, especially when it's literally the president himself, cabinet members, congress, and other cronies directly doing the same and even worse things.