For former Lt. Col. Asad “Genghis” Khan, who was relieved from command of Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, while it was deployed in 2004 with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the fall from grace was shocking and devastating, he said.
“The organization turns on you,” he said. “Prior to my relief, people were saying ‘this guy’s going to be the commandant of the Marine Corps. ... As soon as this incident happened, I was treated like roadkill. Some of my best friends didn’t speak out, because they were worried about their own careers.”
Beloved by his Marines, Khan was relieved following a number of inquiries into his unit’s command climate tied to allegations he was too rough with his subordinates, and a video clip showing a captain under his command cursing at his junior troops and thumping one on the chest. Though Marine leadership attempted to assign Khan to another command in Iraq, he refused the assignment and opted to retire immediately, with little fanfare. The officer who fired him, 22nd MEU commander then-Col. Frank McKenzie, would go on to earn a first and second star.
Khan criticized Amos’ decision to relieve commanders in the heat of incidents that generate negative publicity for the Marine Corps, whether or not the commanders were directly to blame for the issue. And he sees a double standard applied when such incidents involve a general officer.
He pointed to September’s high-profile Taliban raid on Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, which resulted in two Marine deaths and the destruction of tens of millions of dollars worth of U.S. aircraft. The top Marine general in southwestern Afghanistan at the time, Maj. Gen. Charles “Mark” Gurganus, has since been nominated for a third star and a new assignment as director of Marine Corps Staff at the Pentagon, the service’s de facto No. 3 general. Questions have been raised about Gurganus’ decision to reduce the Marine security force patrolling outside Bastion and Camp Leatherneck by more than 60 percent prior to the attacks. But the military has not publicly addressed this concern and Marine officials say they do not plan to make their own review of the incident public.
“Aircraft were destroyed and Marines were killed and wounded; there’s no accountability there,” Khan said.
