Chapter 9 - The Room
The formal investigation hearing was held in a conference room at the Army Medical Command headquarters at Joint Base San Antonio, on a Tuesday morning in March.
It was presided over by a colonel named Margaret Ellison, a JAG officer from the Army's litigation division, who had been detailed to the case by the Army General Counsel. She sat at the head of the conference table with a recorder and a legal pad and a still, patient face.
Simone Grant sat to her right. Tessa Ford sat to her left, in her wheelchair, with Rosa Delgado next to her. Marcus Brennan sat across the table with his lawyer, a civilian attorney from Washington named Philip Hartman, and Brian Hale sat two chairs down, in uniform, looking as if he had not slept in a week.
The room was quiet when Ellison opened the hearing.
"Colonel Brennan," she said. "This hearing is being convened at the request of the Army General Counsel to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to refer the matter of the October 12, 2019 incident at Forward Operating Base Saber to a court-martial. You are present as a witness and as a subject of the investigation. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to counsel. Your counsel is present. Do you understand your rights?"
"I do."
"Then let us begin."
The first witness was Simone Grant.
She testified for two hours. She described the phone call at 02:14 in the morning. She described writing the transfer authorization. She described signing her name. She described the moment she realized, in the veterans' recognition hall, that the page on the ceremony table was in her own handwriting.
"Colonel Grant," Hartman said on cross-examination, "is it not possible that you are mistaken? That the stress of the moment, combined with the four years that have passed, has caused you to remember an event that did not occur the way you now recall it?"
"No."
"Is it not possible that you signed the transfer authorization because Colonel Brennan asked you to?"
"Colonel Brennan was not on the phone with me that night. Major Ford was."
"Is it not possible that your memory of who was on the phone has been affected by Major Ford's own account of the events?"
"Colonel Hartman," Grant said, "I wrote the transfer authorization in my own handwriting at 02:31 in the morning. I remembered it because I had been awake for twenty-two hours and because the caller's voice was the voice of a woman who was bleeding to death and was still giving me a casualty count. I do not need Major Ford's account to remember that. I have remembered it every day for four years. I just did not know, until March, that the official record did not match my memory."
The second witness was Rodrigo Alvarez.
He had flown in from El Paso. He was twenty-seven years old. He was wearing a suit he had bought for the occasion. He testified for forty minutes and did not cry until the very end.
"Sergeant Alvarez," Ellison said, "you were the medic on the ground at FOB Saber on the night of the incident?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Tell us what happened."
He told them what happened. He told them about the first blast and the second blast and the major on the ground with no legs and the radio. He told them about her voice on the radio, steady, saying, "The casualties are eleven. Nine are walking. One is critical. One is me." He told them about the twenty minutes Colonel Brennan had been on the ground before he got on the third bird and left.
"Sergeant Alvarez," Hartman said, "did you see Colonel Brennan at any point during the evacuation before he arrived on the second bird?"
"No, sir."
"Did you see Colonel Brennan administer any medical care?"
"No, sir."
"Did you see Colonel Brennan speak to any casualties?"
"He spoke to one, sir. He spoke to a private first class with a leg wound and told him he was going to be okay. Then he got on the third bird."
The third witness was Marcus Brennan.
He testified for two hours. He described his arrival at Saber. He described his assessment of the scene. He described his "coordination" of the evacuation. He described his decision to fly to Bagram with the casualties. He described his award.
"Colonel Brennan," Ellison said, "did you write the after-action report of the October 12, 2019 incident?"
"I did, ma'am."
"Did you name yourself as the evacuation authority?"
"I did. I was the senior medical officer on the ground."
"Were you the senior medical officer on the ground, Colonel Brennan?"
"I was, ma'am."
"At what point were you the senior medical officer on the ground?"
"From the moment I arrived, ma'am."
"And when did you arrive?"
"At approximately 03:10, ma'am."
"And when did the evacuation begin?"
"The evacuation began at approximately 02:20, ma'am. When the first bird landed."
"And who ordered the first bird?"
"Colonel Grant did, ma'am."
"Who requested it?"
Brennan was quiet for a moment.
"I don't know, ma'am."
"You don't know."
"No, ma'am."
"Colonel Brennan, is it your testimony that a medical evacuation involving eleven casualties and four fatalities was ordered by a brigade surgeon in Bagram, without any request from anyone on the ground, and that you, as the senior medical officer on the ground, do not know who that person was?"
"I assumed that the request had come through normal channels, ma'am."
"Colonel Brennan." Ellison set down her pen. "Who called Colonel Grant at 02:14 on the morning of October 12, 2019?"
"I don't know, ma'am."
"Was it you?"
"No, ma'am."
"Do you know who it was?"
"I was told that it was a major in the medical operations cell, ma'am."
"What was the major's name?"
There was a long pause.
"I don't recall, ma'am."
The room was silent.
"Colonel Brennan," Ellison said quietly, "I am going to ask you one more time. Do you know the name of the officer who called Colonel Grant at 02:14 in the morning on October 12, 2019?"
Brennan looked at the table. Then he looked at his lawyer. Then he looked at the table again.
"No, ma'am," he said.
The verdict was reached four weeks later.
Colonel Margaret Ellison's written report was eighty-four pages long. It said, in careful language, that the evidence supported a finding that Colonel Marcus Brennan had "knowingly misrepresented his role in the evacuation of casualties on October 12, 2019," that he had "falsified an official after-action report," that he had "obtained an award under false pretenses," and that he had "engaged in a pattern of conduct designed to discredit the officer who had actually performed the actions for which he received credit."
It recommended that Brennan be referred for court-martial on charges of falsifying an official document, obtaining an award under false pretenses, conduct unbecoming an officer, and obstruction of justice.
The recommendation was forwarded to the Army General Counsel. The Army General Counsel forwarded it to the Secretary of the Army. The Secretary of the Army approved it on a Friday.
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Brennan was arrested the following Monday.
He was placed in pretrial confinement at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, where he remained until his court-martial began the following spring.
