Reliefs and such: It’s been quite a summer

— The vice admiral commanding the 7th Fleet was shown the door a few weeks before his scheduled retirement in response to a series of mishaps in his ships. Sends a message: “Accountabilty — it’s not just for field grade officers anymore!”

— An Army major general is under investigation for sending racy texts to the wife of an enlisted man.

— The commander of an air defense artillery brigade at Fort Bliss, Texas, was suspended after being charged with a DUI.

— The deputy chief of staff of the Arizona National Guard was ridden out of the Guard on a rail by his commander, who had the colonel escorted out of the headquarters by armed guards. The commander wrote that his former deputy chief of staff “suffered from one of the highest levels of narcissism I’ve ever seen in my 30-plus years in the military.” Whole situation is rated murky.

— An Army colonel at Fort Gordon, Georgia , and his wife, plus a third party, pleaded not guilty to a whole bunch of financial stuff.

— An Army lieutenant colonel who is the X0 of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was changed with felony assault by strangulation on a woman.

— The former commander of the 3rd Battalion at the USMC’s Parris Island boot camp was referred to a court martial as part of the continuing investigation into hazing and such.

— In other Marine reliefs, the lieutenant colonel commanding a support squadron was fired in July. The following month, the commander of a logistics battalion got the big boot. Funny how the Marines are more open about reliefs than the Army is.

— An Air Force lieutenant colonel was expelled from the service for running a secret UAV base in Tunisia like a frat house. Biggest problem was his inappropriately close relationship with an 18-year-old enlisted female. He loses his retirement pay. Oddly, according to my receords, this is the second time in recent years that an Air Force lieutenant colonel surnamed “Paquette” has been caught up in trouble.

— The director of the Air Force’s School of Advanced Nuclear Deterrent Studies at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, was charged with criminal sexual penetration of a minor. The director, Adam Lowther, has published several books about deterrence as well as about asymmetric warfare.

— Another Navy officer pleaded guilty in the “Trump-sized Leonard” case.

— A Navy lieutenant is accused of killing his wife in Belgium. He says it was a suicide.

— In other military martial murder news, it turns out that an Army sergeant at Fort Drum who allegedly killed his wife and a state trooper enlisted in 2007 despite a troubled past with a juvenile criminal record that included planning a Columbine-like attack while in high school. Not clear whether the Army knew about his six felony convictions before he enlisted.

— Speaking of recruiting, a recently discharged Airman was charged with pipe-bombing an Air Force recruiting station in Bixby, Oklahoma.

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