Ex-brigade commander slammed for behavior - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Ex-brigade commander slammed for behavior

An investigation into the command climate of 67th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade blasted the former commander as a “bullying leader” whose command triggered at least two congressional inquiries.

Nebraska National Guard Col. Philip Stemple, the brigade commander in Iraq until he was relieved in April, would publicly belittle, berate or disrespect fellow soldiers, according to an Army 15-6 investigation obtained by Army Times. He has since retired.

Stemple “created an overall environment of anxiety and degradation in which open communication and professional discussion were nearly impossible and members of his command lived in abject fear,” the investigator, Brig. Gen. Michael X. Garrett, deputy chief of staff of U.S. Forces-Iraq, said in his report.

Stemple’s brigade deployed to Iraq with 750 people in August 2010. The unit included two military intelligence battalions and provided intelligence support to three divisions spread throughout Iraq.

The Army released a copy of the investigative file in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The 510-page file includes sworn statements from 74 members of the unit, 58 who blamed the unit’s negative environment on Stemple. Their names and several sections of classified material were redacted.

“I would rather have a root canal without anesthesia than have to deal with him,” said Stemple’s assistant, a female sergeant.

When reached by Army Times, Stemple, a 28-year career guardsman, declined to comment. He denied wrongdoing in his own sworn statement to Garrett. He said he was oblivious to his unit’s negative climate and “stunned” by his subordinates’ allegations.

Stemple told Garrett, “This is the worst day of my career.”

“These are revelations I never, in my worst imagination, thought would be said about my command and my leadership,” he said, adding later, “I was in a false reality about how my people were perceiving me and therefore interacting with me.”

A recent Center for Army Leadership survey of more than 22,000 soldiers and civilians found that roughly one in five sees his superior as “toxic and unethical”; 27 percent said they believe their organization allowed the frank and free flow of ideas.

In October, the Army instituted “360-degree” officer evaluations, which require input from peers and subordinates, not only superiors.

‘Anxiety and degradation’

Stemple’s soldiers’ sworn statements paint a vivid picture of a man who from day to day, shouted obscenities at them, threw objects at them in anger, or was prone to kicking them under the table during briefings.

Subordinates also accused him of bigotry, sexism and rudeness.

Garrett found that Stemple had subordinates perform personal tasks for him, against military regulations. According to the report, Stemple had his administrative assistant pay his personal bills and make travel arrangements for Stemple’s family. He ordered two field-grade officers to do his laundry or pick it up.

The brigade judge advocate said Stemple smoked two to three cigars each day, often indoors, and helped himself to more than 100 of the lawyer’s cigars — at a cost of $8 to $15 each.

“There are times I’ve offered, but it’s so gone past that now that it’s just he comes in,” the lawyer stated. “It’s ‘my humidor is his humidor.’”

Fond of calling his soldiers “fatty, chubby, baldy, or tubby,” Stemple had his drivers track the number of desserts eaten by his command sergeant major and put the results on a slide in a staff briefing.

“He had drivers for three months go through my trash can to see what I ate and then displayed that publicly to everyone in the staff,” said the noncommissioned officer in his sworn statement. “And he thought it was hilarious.”

The brigade intelligence officer said when he corrected Stemple in a staff meeting, Stemple shouted, “I am so f---ing mad, I want to punch you in the face!” The officer said Stemple later apologized.

‘Allergic’ to women

More disturbingly, the investigation found that Stemple openly made disparaging remarks based on race, religion and gender — charges Stemple denied in his sworn statement to Garrett.

Stemple reportedly implied to subordinates that a black colonel on the USF-I staff was promoted due to his race and that a black general would do well under President Obama.

On numerous occasions, Stemple allegedly referred to the 141st Military Intelligence Battalion, a Utah National Guard unit, saying, “Those Mormons are not to be trusted.”

Stemple’s alleged prejudice against women was such common knowledge it yielded an office joke that he was, “allergic to the female anatomy,” according to the report.

Stemple reportedly said a sustainment brigade was “f---ed up” because it was led by women; he barred women from serving as his driver or his doctor; and he reportedly said he did not want a woman to sing the national anthem at the unit’s going-away ceremony.

The lone woman on Stemple’s staff said he had never let her complete a brief to him. His female physician assistant said she told him, “he would never, never, never see a female doctor.”

Serious problems surface

The first major problems surfaced just prior to the unit’s deployment. Stemple knew as early as March that USF-I had cut the number of deploying soldiers from about 996 to 752, but ordered his staff to withhold the information from subordinate commanders, the report stated.

As a result, more than 200 troops did not learn until a week before the scheduled sendoff that they would not be going. By then, the unit had already been at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., for a month.

The brigade personnel strength manager said that unit had to find new homes for 75 soldiers who had been uprooted. “A lot of soldiers were affected financially and mentally by this reduction of forces with no plan set in place,” the officer said.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., launched a congressional inquiry into the snafu.

Stemple described for Garrett a series of conflicting orders and said he was not told by his higher headquarters to make the cuts until just before he announced it.

Another controversy was that Stemple denied interrogators in the brigade permission to strip their uniforms of identifying patches when conducting interviews, a common practice for intelligence soldiers.

Subordinates said Stemple sat on requests for exceptions from his soldiers. This sparked fears among interrogators that subjects with insurgent ties might identify them and target their families in the U.S.

The controversy ultimately triggered another congressional inquiry.

Stemple, in response to the inquiry, said his stance was consistent with policy in place since 2009 and claimed he never received the requests — which Garrett, in his report, concluded was just short of a lie.

“I find these responses were not outright lies, but I do find them to be intentional misrepresentations of the facts,” Garrett wrote.

On Nov. 10, 2010, Stemple held a meeting with the heads of the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion to explain why the uniform guidance of higher commands was improper or did not apply to unit members.

Stemple’s subordinates said at the end of the brief that he gave them an ultimatum. He looked each commander, first sergeant and command sergeant major in the eye and asked whether they would support the uniform policy or prefer to resign — a charge Stemple denied.

“The result of the seminar was that my command team believed [Stemple] would relieve anyone who questioned his policy,” the battalion commander said in his statement.

Intimidation on patches

Stemple also made waves when he insisted soldiers wear the combat patch of 67th BfSB and intimidated them if they did not.

This was a break with Army policy, which permits soldiers to wear the previously earned combat patch of their choice.

In one incident, Stemple pulled off a captain’s 101st patch in front of a group and replaced it with the patch of the 67th BfSB, the report stated.

Another soldier said Stemple got into his personal space over an 82nd Airborne patch he was wearing.

“He stated, ‘Let me put it to you like this: You live in a house with your current girlfriend yet you keep a picture of your ex-girlfriend on the shelf,’” the soldier quoted Stemple as saying. “‘Probably not going to make the current girlfriend happy.’”

In his interview with Garrett, Stemple said, “To be honest with you, sir, that’s one thing I would definitely, amongst many things now that I am hearing, that is one thing I would back off of.”

Editor’s Note: The name of the investigating officer has been corrected.