Disgraced Ex-Defense Chief Claims Marine’s Death Was Merely a “Tactical Casualty” in His Personal War Against Accountability

Washington, D.C. – Former Secretary of Defense Martin “Marty” Denholm broke nearly six months of public silence yesterday to address concerns regarding the 2023 training incident involving the late Corporal Garrett Schulte. Amid inquiries into his role, Denholm described the Marine’s demise as “not a loss, but a necessary tactical casualty” in his “ongoing personal war against accountability.”

In a press briefing conducted from the lobby of his attorney’s office, Denholm indicated he bore “no direct responsibility” for the events that left Schulte fatally wounded, noting his primary adversary “was and remains the insidious spread of bureaucratic responsibility.” According to Denholm, the fatal ammunition misplacement that led to the incident “reflects exclusively the dangers inherent to excessive oversight.”

A recently published report by the Government Committee on Defensive Oversight Oversight (GCDOO) unearthed eleven separate memos issued under Denholm’s tenure, warning that “external investigations are the greatest threat to operational lethality.” The report also documents the introduction of Denholm’s “Blame Deflection Matrix” — a flowchart reducing the likelihood of executive accountability to below 0.2%, according to lead analyst Dr. Joyce Glassner. “In the modern theatre, the fog of war has been skillfully relocated from battlefields to filing cabinets,” Glassner declared.

Family members of Corporal Schulte expressed confusion following Denholm’s remarks, receiving instead a commemorative patch embroidered with the phrase “For Courage in the Face of Paperwork.” According to Pentagon spokesperson Lee Vanzant, these patches are “standard issue under Denholm’s Accountability Attrition Program,” which has repurposed bereavement resources into team-building trust falls and executive indemnification workshops. “We are healing by moving forward, backwards, and laterally,” Vanzant explained.

Denholm concluded his comments by reiterating his campaign for “consequence-optional management structures,” vowing to “press the offensive until blame, like the Marines, is never left behind.” As of press time, the Defense Department had referred all further questions to the Department of Internal Narrative Management, which has suspended investigations until a more favorable storyline emerges.