Parents of Jailed Marine Go to Battle; Australia’s Extreme Lockdown Enforcement | The Nation Speaks

[Music] today on the nation speaks the fate of marine lieutenant colonel stuart sheller after the chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan he aired his frustrations on social media demanding accountability from senior leadership now he's facing the consequences sheller's parents tell us their side of the story next in america q a should unruly passengers be put on a national no-fly list and in australia where pandemic lockdowns are some of the harshest in the world including strict and sometimes violent police enforcement after 18 months some australians have had enough that's what we hear from rebel news chief australian correspondent abby yamini hello and welcome to the nation speaks i'm your host cindy drew care it's still unclear what the fate of marine lieutenant colonel stuart sheller will be but one thing is clear he's accomplished the goal of sparking a conversation about accountability among the upper ranks and the ruling class on august 26 hours after a suicide bomber outside the kabul airport killed 13 american service members and 150 afghan civilians lieutenant colonel sheller posted a video on social media demanding accountability from his military leadership people are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying we messed this up the decorated battalion commander knew full well what he was risking i have been fighting for 17 years i am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders i demand accountability well his video went viral attracting a lot of support and debate about his decision to break rank he continued the conversation even after he was put under a gag order saying that he felt this was a path he needed to walk last monday lieutenant colonel scheller was taken to prison placed in pre-trial confinement since then his parents have been activated so instead of one sheller there are now two more making their voices heard kathy and stu cena thank you so much for joining us thank you thank you cindy i know it's been an absolute whirlwind for you the last week it probably feels like a year how are you holding up and where are things at right now well i told a friend of mine last night i'm not in prison i'm tired but i'm committed to help our son we're proud of our son we're proud of america for standing up finding their voice and speaking out so we're inspired i i go on uh stewart's donor page every hour to read positive comments from donors people that are donating five dollars ten dollars and those are hardships for people and they their words of encouragement for lieutenant sheller and for mom and dad are what are keeping us going yeah it is pretty remarkable that it's getting close to two million dollars and from over 22 000 individual americans who have donated so i'm sure that is helping oyster some spirits is he aware of all of that we have still been unable to speak with him i don't know if his attorney has has told him that or not the money amount is just staggering and amazing but it is the grassroots movement of the people who say you know i have i'm donating 20 and i'm going to fill that this month classic stewart he said i don't want the money we'll give it to charity or something and you know mom and i laugh he did the same thing obviously with his pension and his benefits and we're going you have a wife and three children just you have three children to go through school you have um legal expenses but you know that's that's his character so right now he is still in the brig for pre-trial confinement we don't know exactly when the hearing will be it was supposed to have been thursday but that was postponed because there's negotiations i know some members of congress got involved so what do you know right now we all we know is that hopefully i think the court is on tuesday and thursday so hopefully they reconvene tuesday congressman louis gomer from texas traveled from d.c to jacksonville camp lejeune and played a tremendous role in working between stewart's defense attorneys and the united states marine corps to get them to agree to not drop charges and to go away for the weekend and begin discussions on an amicable settlement we've also been told he probably won't get out of jail next tuesday so they've lowered our expectations that our his attorney has asked that tuesday's hearing is made public don't know if it will or not but kathy and i will be traveling to north carolina 36 representatives signed a letter and sent it to the marine commandant i'm asking americans ask your congressman and senator is their name on that letter and did they sign let me ask you this so he knew when he was making those videos that there be consequences that he was ranking breaking rank and he explained you know why he felt from his conscience that it was necessary to do that so what are you asking people to get behind our reason behind that is that he is an american war hero he has fought for his men and women that follow him he's fought on the battlefield for them i believe he's still he has risked his life he is now risking his livelihood for them he saw a misjustice happening at the top and he felt that they should be held accountable for it and yes there there there is a chain of command and there should be punishment for that but that chain of command that we saw broken we also just saw broken on the senate floor that chain of command was broken our son has been given a gag order and thrown in prison and strip searched and thrown in isolation and is facing prison or breaking his chain of command and i am wondering i'm fine if that's the exact punishment that is taken out all the way across the board for anyone who breaks command so stuart stewart asked for accountability from his senior leaders look we had senators and representatives for two days grow these senior leaders and it's evident that they are not accepting responsibility or accountability for their failures one of the things that struck me in his videos was this he said accepting accountability would do more for service members and ptsd and struggling with purpose than any other transparent piece of paper or message it seems to me that this is really you know what was behind it what was motivating him absolutely and that is my sweet spot right there because so many of our military members we've had 7 000 over 7 000 troops died within the last 20-year war and depending on how the data is juggled we have somewhere between 30 000 and 100 000 service members have committed suicide those are staggering numbers now i want people to think about some are up to 100 000 of our service people have been mistreated or misdiagnosed or not helped by our military they should be able to recognize these signs they should be able to come forward and instead of reprimanding or shaming or pressuring them they should be able to reach out and we should have something set in place to help these people and our son stewart works a lot with organizations to stop and help soldiers and military people with ptsd he does work through a hero organization he has a 50 acre farm out in north carolina where they have people come and and talk and gather and and support each other across all ranks and all branches