Doing that tonight. Results forthcoming.
Okay, Folks, here’s a few observations:
We start with 197 relieved officers.
The 157 USAF majors were the result of a RIF (Reduction-in-Force); it was a personnel action that most likely had nothing to do with an ideological purge.
CAPT Litchfield, USS Essex, was relieved for cause for endangering his ship and the lives of his crew, when Essex collided with another vessel at sea.
RADM Gaouette had nothing to do with Benghazi. Gaouette wasn’t even in theater when it happened, and the Stennis Battle Group was in the Pacific. The Gaouette relief is not connected.
GEN Ham also has questions regarding his relief from USAFRICOM. There’s been debunking there too; I just don’t have the proper links to prove or disprove yet.
That reduces the total number of legitimate questionable actions to 37. But of those 37, we have the following:
Most of the reliefs were Navy, specifically in command positions, especially ships at sea. The ships involved were home-ported either 6th Fleet, or 7th Fleet - based coincidentally in FEMA Regions 3 and 9. The Marines that were relieved also followed this pattern as well.
Now, the purge of commanders in 2012 and in 2013 show a shift in focus. The 2012 reliefs were all unit commanders, either at ship/brigade level. The 2013 reliefs raised up to installation or major command levels.
This shift of focus could be the result of a purge (”It’s payback time”, declared Night Stalker). Flag-rank officers, particularly among the missile command structure, being let go is significant of such a purge.