Episode Details

Episode Summary: "An Act of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel: Captain Gregory Guedel"

Runtime: ~12 min 36 sec · Host: Gary · Format: Solo commentary

In this episode, Gary delivers an impassioned first-person account of how his friend — a soldier in the Washington Army National Guard — was failed by the military justice system in 1998. The focus is on Captain Gregory Guedel, the assigned defense counsel whose inaction Gary argues amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel.

Key points covered:

• The gap between code and practice. Gary opens by contrasting the military's written regulations and the UCMJ with how those rules are actually applied — asserting that codes are used to prosecute service members but ignored when they reveal JAG misconduct or a soldier's innocence.
• Article 31 rights violations. Gary contends that his friend's rights were clearly violated, as documented in sworn statements by Brett Dougherty and Lineweaver, making everything that followed inadmissible. He argues Goodell either missed this or willfully ignored it.
• Goodell's failures as defense counsel. Gary lists what Guedel could have done — filed motions to dismiss, conducted discovery, interviewed witnesses, examined evidence — but did none of it. Instead, Goodell's defense strategy boiled down to telling the soldier to "just suck it up."
• The gladiator metaphor. Gary paints a vivid analogy of the soldier being led into an arena, chained and bound, while officers — Guedel, Dougherty, Major Donald Bennett (prosecutor), and military judge Dwight Williams — take turns "stabbing" the defenseless soldier, with onlookers cheering and doing nothing.
• The paper trail. Gary references efforts to escalate the case through the National Guard Bureau, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Ninth Circuit of Appeals, Senator Patty Murray, Washington state representatives, and the governor's office — all creating a documented record now archived in eastern Washington.
• What's coming. Gary promises this is only the beginning of the story, teasing that the soldier will "come back to life and fight," and asks listeners to stay tuned, share the episode, and verify the claims by researching the named individuals themselves.