Senator demands answers as servicemember's civilian casualty record comes under fire

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or.) placed a hold on the promotions of three members of the military, noting that they have a troubling history of civilian slayings.

Wyden entered into the Congressional record the specifics of the three men that President Donald Trump wants to promote, captured Punch Bowl News reporter Anthony Adragna.

In his "notice of intent to object," Wyden explained that Lt. Col. Vincent Noble was in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, in March 2007 when he "took part in the killings of 19 Afghan civilians, firing indiscriminately at civilian vehicles and bystanders. A military inquiry found that in response to a suicide bomb attack, Noble's platoon went on a rampage across a 7-mile stretch of highway, massacring unarmed civilians on sight. An investigation revealed that Noble asked marines to lie, that he submitted a false version of events to his company commander, and violated an order from the commanding officer, which explicitly directed the battalion to not operate in or around Jalalabad, according to military records."

In June, 2008, Wyden said that "the Commander, Marine Force Central Command, found Noble guilty, in accordance with his plea, of violating Article 133, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Allowing marines under an officer's command to kill civilians indiscriminately is a serious war crime. Those who commit or allow such actions or make false reports about those actions should be held accountable and certainly withheld from promotions within the military."

Lt. Commander Thomas MacNeil was in Mosul, Iraq, in 2017, serving in a platoon under Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher. MacNeil posed for photos with the body of a teenage boy after Galligher stabbed him to death while he was wounded and being held captive. Gallagher held the boy's body up by the hair for photos with the knife in the other. That's when MacNeil posed as well. When Gallagher was accused of war crimes, MacNeil was also implicated.

"The Commander of the SEALs at the time, Rear Admiral Collin Green, pushed for Chief Gallagher and others, including MacNeil, to be stripped of their Tridents. President Trump intervened multiple times to prevent the Navy from disciplining Gallagher, and in 2019, then-Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly also intervened and decided to drop the Navy's review of MacNeil and others. While MacNeil was the junior member of his platoon and eventually testified against Gallagher, he exercised poor judgment as an officer and should not be promoted within the U.S. military," said Wyden.

The third hold is on Col. Thomas Siverts, who Wyden alleges appeared on a podcast in March 2023 called "The Berm Pit," an antisemitic and racist podcast. Despite requests, the Marines refused to provide Wyden with a copy of the podcast to uncover what was said by Siverts. The show appeared on Rumble at one point but is now marked "private." The podcast is co-hosted by former Marine Scott Siverts, the latter Siverts' younger brother.

A report on the podcast by the Pittsburgh City Paper on Sept. 10, 2025, noted that Scott Siverts was ousted from his job as "a bar manager at Mario’s Saloon after disparaging comments about Black and Jewish people he made on the podcast hit social media..." He and the owners of the bar came to a financial settlement "for work already performed," the report said.

Investigative reporter Jordan Green wrote that just five days after that report, Thomas Siverts was assigned to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He noted that Scott Siverts has even gone so far as to call for the execution of Secretary Pete Hegseth. The discussion was part of a show in which Siverts and co-host Matt Wakulik graded Trump's cabinet picks.

“Why don’t we grade them on a scale of how many bullets I put in their head,” Wakulik said, as Scott Siverts laughed.

When Wakulik named Hegseth, he said, “Six bullets. I’d have to put another one in there after I emptied the whole chamber — or the whole cylinder.” Wakulik is also known for raging at failures around the case of trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He has also called for the death of others, including the FBI director, chief of staff, secretary of state, secretary of Health and Human Services, the director of national intelligence, director of the CIA, then-director of the Department of Homeland Security and even the president himself, Green wrote in a report. He also threw in Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

The military is generally not allowed to speak on the record with the media. In late 2025, Hegseth made military comments to the press so concerning that he issued a memo that significantly limits military communication with the media. It also requires a slew of conditions that must be met before a member of the military can speak out at an event that is not hosted by the military.