Army battalion commander under investigation for political social media posts
Davis Winkie
U.S. Army Central is investigating social media posts made by Lt. Col. Joseph Cannon, commander of the Michigan National Guard’s 3rd Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, for potential violations of Defense Department political speech rules.
“U.S. Army Central is investigating social media behavior within its formation not consistent with the Army values and allegations that violate DoD’s policy on political activity by members of the Armed Forces,†said Col. Armando Hernandez, the ARCENT spokesman, in a statement to Military Times. ARCENT was unaware of Cannon’s social media conduct until contacted for comment by Military Times.
Military Times obtained more than 30 screenshots of posts about politics and conspiracy theories made on Cannon’s personal, mostly private Facebook page. While Cannon has made hundreds of political posts since at least 2009, many of the screenshots are of posts shared or written since his battalion mobilized and deployed to the Middle East earlier this year, according to their timestamps.
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/10/22/army-battalion-commander-under-investigation-for-political-social-media-posts/
