Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who
adopted Afghan orphan
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[October 09, 2024]
By JULIET LINDERMAN, CLAIRE GALOFARO and MARTHA MENDOZA
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — A U.S. Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war
orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle and raised alarms at the
highest levels of government will remain on active duty.
A three-member panel of Marines found Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua
Mast acted in a way unbecoming of an officer in his zealous quest to
bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the
military.
Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued Mast abused his position,
disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information
and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child
who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019.
Mast and his wife, Stephanie, then lived in rural Fluvanna County,
Virginia. They persuaded a judge there to grant them an adoption of the
child, even though she remained in Afghanistan as the government there
tracked down her extended family and reunited her with them. Mast helped
the family flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. Once in
the U.S., Mast used the adoption papers to get the federal government to
take the child from her Afghan relatives and give her to him. She has
remained with his family ever since.
A five-day board of inquiry hearing held partially behind closed doors
at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune was
administrative, not criminal, and intended to determine whether Mast was
fit to remain in the military. The worst outcome Mast might have faced
was an other-than-honorable discharge.
Mast, 41, who now lives in Hampstead, North Carolina, denied the
allegations against him, insisting he never disobeyed orders but was
encouraged by his supervisors, and was simply upholding the code of the
Marine Corps by working tirelessly to ensure the girl was safe. At the
front of the room, he set up poster-sized photos of the child as a baby
at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield and as a smiling toddler in North
Carolina.
But because the board substantiated misconduct, a report will be entered
into Mast's file, which could affect promotions and assignments, the
Marines said Tuesday. The board’s report will be sent up the ladder to
the Secretary of the Navy, who will close the case against Mast.
The child’s fate, however, remains in limbo. The Afghan couple who
raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s
adoption of her undone. The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened
and contended that Mast lied to the Virginia court and federal officials
to justify taking the girl, and his actions threaten America’s standing
around the world.
The State Department issued a statement Tuesday that said its decision
to work with the Afghan government and International Committee of the
Red Cross to reunite the child with her Afghan relatives “was consistent
with international law and U.S. policy to take appropriate steps to
facilitate the reunion of families separated during armed conflict.”
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Marine Maj. Joshua Mast, arrives at Circuit Court for a hearing in
an ongoing custody battle over an Afghan orphan, March 30, 2023 in
Charlottesville, Va. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
The statement reiterated that it has insisted the Virginia courts
return the child to the Afghan family.
The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the
adoption should have never been granted but the case is stalled at
the Virginia Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the Afghan couple did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Much of the government’s case in the hearing was held in secret
because lawyers were presenting classified information. Everyone
present in the nondescript conference room was dressed identically
in camouflage. And Mast chose to make an unsworn statement in a
closed session, which meant he was not subject to cross-examination.
But his wife, Stephanie, testified publicly, offering rare insight
into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the
child into their home. The Masts have long declined to talk to The
Associated Press about their actions and the Virginia court file
remains sealed. The Masts, as well as the Afghan couple, are now
barred from speaking to the media about the state court case.
Stephanie Mast wept as she described her husband’s decision to work
to bring the girl back to the United States as exemplary of his
commitment to Marine Corps values.
“It was very much an American response,” she said. “We value human
life. As Marines, you serve and protect.”
The deciding panel of two lieutenant colonels and a colonel was
allowed to ask questions, and one asked Stephanie Mast why she and
her husband continued to try to adopt the girl even after she had
been reunited with relatives in Afghanistan. They noted that
multiple high-ranking officials, including then-Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo and a federal judge, told them to stop.
When she responded that getting the child to the United States was
their highest priority, the board asked whether the assumption that
a child would be better off in the U.S. rather than Afghanistan was
a product of Western bias.
“They have a survival mentality,” she said of Afghans. “We believe
in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to
have that.”
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