Investigation Against Former 2ID Battalion Command Team Determines Racism Claims Were Unfounded

Last December a battalion command team in the 2nd Infantry Division were suspended for anonymous racism claims. Well now it has been found out that the racist claims were unfounded though the battalion commander was relieved any way for a poor command climate:

In December 2020, Army officials announced the command team of the 602nd Aviation Support Battalion, Lt. Col. Sean McBride and Command Sgt. Maj. Mario Salomone III, was “immediately” suspended when 8th Army “received allegations of racism, bigotry and discrimination in one of our formations via the Eighth Army Anonymous Assistance line.”

However, the ensuing Army Regulation 15-6 investigation found that McBride and Salomone did not violate the service’s Equal Opportunity policies.

“I am continuing to pursue options for appeal of this investigation and am humbled by and grateful for the outpouring of support I’ve received from those I’ve served with over the past 26 years,” McBride told Army Times when reached for comment. “More importantly, I’m proud of the soldiers of the Warhorse Battalion who continued to provide dedicated support to their fellow soldiers despite a global pandemic and challenging command climate on the Korean Peninsula. It was an honor to serve as their commander and I remain tremendously impressed by their accomplishments.”

But McBride’s rebuttal memo, which Army Times also obtained, expressed dismay at how senior leaders had announced the suspension following anonymous complaints that ultimately weren’t substantiated as EO violations.

“Commanders at echelon made public statements announcing my suspension from command and accusing me and CSM Mario Salomone of racism, bigotry, and discrimination on their official Twitter feeds,” McBride said in the memo. “Articles [about the suspension] define my online persona to this day. My professional and personal reputation has been destroyed [by unsubstantiated allegations].”

Army Times

I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but what made his case so unusual was how the senior military leadership in USFK and 8th Army on social media the racism claims that were ultimately unfounded.

Remember 2020 was the year of racial justice protests and that is the only explanation I can think of, of why something like this was tweeted out before any investigation was done. The Army leadership wanted to get ahead of any criticism of racism regardless of what the investigation found. LTC McBride essentially was “cancelled” by the Army. Good luck to him trying to fight back because it is going to be hard to get the Army to admit they screwed this up, but hopefully other senior leaders can learn from and prevent something like this from happening in the future.