The Biggest Mistake Service Members Make Under Military Investigation

Now we’re going to talk about the biggest mistakes that service members make. These are things I’ve seen over the course of my entire career, starting back when I was a JAG, back in 2001. That’s when I came into the JAG Corps, and I was a JAG for about six years. Then I got out and went into private practice representing service members.

Here’s the biggest mistake. I say it, people don’t listen, and they keep making the same mistake. Here it is: you talk too much. You talk too much. You don’t know when to shut up. You think you’re making the situation better, and you’re not. You’re literally talking yourself into career-altering repercussions.

Most people we represent are Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. They’re above board. They’re senior leaders. They’ve been in the military for a long time. If you’re hiring us for a command-directed investigation, you’ve probably been around long enough that you care and it matters. Because if you’ve been in for two years, they’re probably not going to do a command investigation, and if they do, you probably don’t care much, in most cases. But if you’ve been in for 15, 20, or 25 years and you’re the subject of one of these, you need to be careful.

Here’s the problem. You’ve been around long enough, you believe in the system enough (you’re part of the system, the military system) that you simply think, “Oh, I’ll just explain everything. The investigator will understand.” It sounds reasonable, because we’re always taught to tell the truth: if you tell the truth, you’ll be fine. That is not how it works. There’s this idea that “if I just tell my side of the story, they will realize it’s all a big misunderstanding. I didn’t do anything wrong.” That’s great if the investigator is fair and neutral, doesn’t presume you’re guilty, and there’s no agenda behind it. But in many of these cases, they presume you’re guilty, there is an agenda behind it, and they’re gathering evidence to take action against you. That’s often what happens.