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Col. Amy Nieman, a senior JAG officer stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, was scrolling through reactions to the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk when she decided she needed a break from social media.
"Signing off for awhile. Facebook is just too awful a reminder of where we find ourselves," she wrote in a post, which was visible only to her friends on Facebook. "Awful to see the number of people who say this is the fault of one side and in no way related to the proliferation of guns or the devolution of political discourse."
Soon, Nieman's private musings ended up in the hands of Sam Shoemate — an Army veteran whose X account has been a clearinghouse for leaks purporting to expose troops and military personnel he calls out as "woke."
In the aftermath of Kirk's murder, Shoemate has posted separately about a dozen people tied to the military. Nieman, a 24-year Army veteran and a senior lawyer in the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps, was his most prominent target.
Shoemate published a screenshot of her post to X, along with a message he said was from his anonymous tipster: "Team Woke is still holding the levers."
Things escalated quickly. The address of Nieman's home, where she lives with her husband, Seth, and two kids, briefly appeared in posts on X before they were taken down. Within days, Amy Nieman was suspended from her position as the staff judge advocate of the Army's prestigious 101st Airborne Division.
The reactions shocked the Niemans. "We're not liberals. That's what I think is so laughable about some of this," says Seth Nieman, a retired Army Special Forces major. "Nothing Amy said was hateful."
What happened to Nieman is part of a broader crusade against so-called "woke" ideology in the military. Active-duty troops stationed at bases across the country say the effort has helped unleash a free-for-all of leaks and accusations, feeding an atmosphere of intense suspicion.
Screenshots of internal Defense Department emails, policies, images from military bases, private messages, and old social media posts, dredged up by a loose army of veterans and online sleuths and targeting troops of all ranks, now regularly pop up on X.
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, the administration has fired more than a dozen high-ranking officials, including the top JAG officer in both the Army and the Air Force, often with little or no explanation. Five are women.
Conservative groups, as well as independent posters like Shoemate, have circulated lists of dozens of "woke" troops they believe should be dismissed.
"Some people need to hang to restore justice," Shoemate posted to X in April, responding to a post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the military's support for service members ousted for refusing to get COVID vaccines during the pandemic. "That's not hyperbole."
Hegseth made it clear this week that, in his view, the future of the military is the past. In a speech to hundreds of generals and admirals on Tuesday, he announced a "1990 test," where American troops would be held to the "highest male standard" and any changes to military standards in the last 35 years will be reviewed.
The White House says its rollback has boosted morale and contributed to a surge in recruitment. In a statement to Business Insider, Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said that pre-Trump policies "such as reducing fitness requirements and forcing woke ideology" had "hindered readiness."
Just as in corporate America, change in the military hasn't always been universally welcomed. There were surely service members in the past who silently chafed at policies they believed were too progressive.
Senior leaders are "very wary of honest give and take. The folks on active duty are paralyzed."
Some troops and military experts believe what's happening now goes well beyond the typical course of institutional change.
Twenty-four active duty and recently retired troops who spoke to Business Insider, including generals, military lawyers, and junior and senior officers, say the administration's actions have stirred up paranoia and challenged the uniformed service's nonpartisan ethos.
Military lawyers say they're so alarmed by the leaks coming from their offices that they avoid sending emails, while others say they have distanced themselves from past accomplishments for fear of being tied to programs that are now unpopular.
"Everyone is on eggshells," says Dan Maurer, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and associate law professor at Ohio Northern University. "To me, it's like '1984' where neighbors are turning in neighbors for supposed violations of thought crime."
A US Army general says he found recordings of his own meetings posted online.
"People are recording the mundane, bureaucratic operations of the military in hopes that someone will say something that can be painted in a light that they've somehow stepped out of bounds," says the retired general, who, like other current and recent service members, requested anonymity to speak openly. "I think that makes senior leaders very wary of honest give and take. The folks on active duty are paralyzed."
A three-star officer says he now checks his email first thing every morning "to see if I still have a job" — or if statements he made in support of diversity or the COVID vaccine mandate, back when those things were official military policy, have come back to haunt him.
People are too scared to even engage in conversations about what is happening. We just don't trust each other."
If targets keep their jobs, many are hit with waves of online harassment for having carried out their duties under previous administrations or, fairly or not, exercising free speech in a way that runs counter to, or annoys, the MAGA faithful.
The accusations have spread to much lower-ranking officers and enlisted troops. Among those dragged online are a staff sergeant whose email signature included her pronouns and a lieutenant who wrote a letter defending women's submarine service.
"I've never seen a group get together and say, 'I don't agree with the policy positions of a certain administration, so I'm going to smear every officer who carried out those policies,'" says Brad Duplessis, a professor at the Army's Command and General Staff College who retired from the Army in 2021. "I've never seen an ideological movement like this on the left or the right until now."
Many of the anti-woke posters are among the 8,000 vaccine refusers who were forced from the military under President Joe Biden's 2021 mandate. The Pentagon rescinded the mandate in 2023 after Congress repealed it, with Republicans arguing the mandate hurt recruiting and lacked reasonable exemptions. The Trump administration has encouraged the troops who were fired to return to the military with back pay; about 1% have taken them up on the offer.
JAGs like Nieman have come under particular scrutiny for their professional role in the vaccine mandate and DEI programs. Dozens have been doxxed or targeted online.
Several of these military lawyers say there have been so many leaks of emails, documents, and group chats that they now favor in-person meetings to discuss sensitive topics.
"People are too scared to even engage in conversations about what is happening," says one active-duty JAG. "We just don't trust each other."
It's unclear if the Department of Defense is investigating who is behind the leaks. The JAG says they've seen no evidence that they are, and the DoD declined to comment.
"We know they are still out there," the JAG says of the leakers.
It's ultimately up to civilian leaders to determine military policy, whether about diversity or vaccine requirements. Experts warn that targeting military officers who followed those policies and encouraging the military's rank and file to weigh in could set a dangerous precedent.
"If everybody has this free rein to express political grievances down to the lowest private — and their squad leader doesn't like that — then that's going to drive them apart," says Luke Baumgartner, a fellow researching extremism at George Washington University who served as an Army officer. "It's mission first. It's not politics first."
The leaks and public accusations are increasingly attracting the attention of top Pentagon officials.
On September 3, Hegseth and Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, hosted a listening session at the Pentagon with some of the most prominent of the anti-woke figures operating online. Among them was Shoemate, the veteran who would post about Nieman about a week later. (Shoemate declined a request for an interview.)
Following Hegseth's listening session, the number of posts and the variety of targets markedly increased.
ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
The next day, another veteran in attendance at the Pentagon posted a screenshot of a US Navy doctor's LinkedIn profile where she listed her pronouns and described her specialty as "transgender healthcare." The post was picked up by Libs of TikTok, the popular right-wing account, who tagged Hegseth, writing: "Can you please look into this?"
"Pronouns UPDATED: She/Her/Fired," Hegseth replied.
Trump has also welcomed high-profile critics of previous administrations back into the fold, including some who were disciplined for speaking out against military policies.
Matthew Lohmeier, a former Space Force commander and F-15 pilot, serves as Trump's undersecretary of the Air Force, overseeing roughly 700,000 people and an annual budget of $220 billion.
Lohmeier was fired from command in the Space Force in 2021 after self-publishing a book about the spread of Marxism in the American military and criticizing its DEI policies in interviews. Lohmeier later served as a vice president at Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, an anti-DEI nonprofit.
After attending a Trump campaign rally last fall, Lohmeier urged troops to gather training documents and emails that demonstrated the "pro LGBTQ agenda, pro trans, pro anti-white racism, anti-Americanism."
Win McNamee/Getty Images
"We will ensure we eliminate this rot from the military," he wrote on X. "Capture the evidence."
Lohmeier, who declined requests for comment, has kept a relatively low profile since his confirmation in July. Shortly after Kirk's death, when a user on X flagged that a senior enlisted airman had called Kirk "a POS who spread hate," Lohmeier sprang into action.
"I've asked our senior military leaders to read the member his rights, and place him and his entire chain of command under investigation," Lohmeier said on X. "Zero tolerance for this."
In April, the popular Facebook account US Army W.T.F! moments posted a photo from Fort McCoy, a training base in Wisconsin. Portraits of Trump and Hegseth had been turned around on a wall displaying the chain of command. "Fort McCoy just playing with fire," the caption read.
The outrage was immediate, and spilled over onto X, where users began speculating about who might be responsible. Several prominent accounts — citing no evidence — named Col. Sheyla Baez Ramirez, the garrison commander and a 26-year Army veteran, as a likely culprit. The first woman to hold the position, Baez Ramirez was soon being branded online as a "DEI plant."
Within days, the Army announced Baez Ramirez had been suspended for unspecified "administrative reasons." Her suspension fed another round of shaming, as social media users dug into her background and previous statements.
Baez Ramirez was quietly reinstated to her post in mid-August. She declined a request for comment.
Chris Hanson, the director of public affairs for the 88th Readiness Division at Fort McCoy, declined to elaborate on the reason for Baez Ramirez's suspension but says she was never under investigation for the command board incident.
"Unfortunately, there are people across the political spectrum that are getting dragged through the mud right now," he tells Business Insider. "Our focus is to make sure that we're maintaining the truth. And the truth is that she wasn't associated with the command board."
Meanwhile, tensions over the leaks and accusations have crept into the most banal interactions among the operational force.
An Army major was recently planning a field exercise when a question from a junior officer caught him off guard. The lieutenant wanted to know whether a "DEI" advisor would be included in the head count.
The question itself wasn't unusual, but the lieutenant's reference to "DEI" landed like a verbal grenade.
The major's immediate thought was that it might be a trap — that his response would be reported up the chain or leaked to someone online, who'd use it to brand him as "woke" and endanger his decade-long career.
"That's the first time I've ever had to think about that," the major says.
The troops and military experts who spoke to Business Insider say they were most concerned that the military's men and women could start being judged by their politics rather than their effectiveness in their roles.
"We actually need people who are good at fighting and winning wars," says Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a new history of the US military's relations with civilian leaders.
"The right answer," Schake says, "is for the military to have no politics at all."
Sam Fellman is the deputy editor of Business Insider's military and defense team
