Evidently, Col. Joe D. Dowdy didn’t advance toward Baghdad quite as quickly as Maj. Gen. James Mattis would have liked. From How a Marine Lost His Command In Race to Baghdad:
Two weeks into the war in Iraq, Marine Col. Joe D. Dowdy concluded the crowning military maneuver of his life, attacking an elite band of Iraqi troops and then shepherding 6,000 men on an 18-hour, high-speed race toward Baghdad.But no praise awaited the First Marine regimental commander as he pushed into the tent of his superior, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, on April 4, 2003. Instead, Col. Dowdy was stripped of his command, which effectively ended his 24-year Marine career. In a final blow, Col. Dowdy says, the general asked him to empty his sidearm and turn over the ammunition. “He thought I was going to try to kill myself,” the colonel says.
Assuming a battlefield command is the pinnacle of a Marine’s career. Being removed is near the nadir, exceeded only by a court martial. It’s extremely rare for the modern U.S. military to relieve a top commander of duty, especially during combat. Col. Dowdy, 47 years old, was the only senior officer in any of the military services to be dismissed in Iraq. He says he would rather have taken an enemy bullet.
Col. Dowdy’s firing was even more unusual because he didn’t commit any of the acts that normally precipitate a dismissal: failing to complete a mission, disobeying a direct order, breaking the rules of war. “It was a decision based on operating tempo,” says Lt. Eric Knapp, a spokesman for the First Marine Division. He wouldn’t elaborate.