I got this email today, and it really set me off. This is an email sent from COL Tammy Baugh, the commander of 1st Aviation Brigade on Fort Rucker, to a LTC. If you’ll notice, she replied all to 323 other people and gave them a front row seat while she berated a fellow officer.
I don’t know what led up to this. Frankly, I don’t care. There was absolutely ZERO reason to use this kind of condescending and disrespectful tone to belittle this fellow senior officer for all to see. If you’re just hearing about Tammy “Tam Tam” Baugh for the first time, let me fill you in. In 2014, Baugh was recommended for relief after the 15-6 investigating officer determined the allegations of toxic and abusive behavior FACTUALLY took place. Here is the Army Times Link to the article.
LTC Baugh was not only NOT fired as battalion commander, but after a stint at the pentagon and promotion to Colonel, she was given command of a brigade where she currently resides. I cannot BEGIN to tell you how many hundreds of messages I’ve received about her toxic behavior and the way she has treated not only students (junior officers), but her staff and seniors as well. She has gone out of her way to make life difficult for everyone she can wrap her tentacles around. She’s seemingly immune to any kind of correction or check on her behavior, because she consistently does the same things that led to her recommendation for relief in 2014.
Bad behavior and lousy leadership is part of the world we live in. We’ll never curb our ranks of it entirely, and I realize that. But to have a person recommended for relief because their behavior was so monstrously bad not only DODGE THE RELIEF, but go on to become a brigade commander over thousands of student soldiers, is simply appalling. It’s shameful what we allow to fester within our ranks, but it’s even more shameful to pretend people matter by using hashtags like #thisismysquad and #peoplefirst while demonstrating that people absolutely do not come first when careers are at stake.