Marine involved in controversial Afghan adoption will not be fired

A U.S. Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan sparked a years-long legal battle and raised alarm at the highest levels of government will remain on active duty, the AP reports. A three-judge panel of Marines concluded Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua Mast behaved in a manner unbecoming of an officer in his zealous effort to bring the little girl home, his separation from the military was not warranted. Marine Corps lawyers argued that Mast abused his position, disobeyed orders from his superiors, mishandled classified information and misused a government computer in his fight to save the child, who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019 Having “stolen” it from relatives who raised it after it was orphaned.

A five-day investigative committee hearing, held partly behind closed doors at Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, was administrative, not criminal, in nature and was designed to determine whether Mast was fit to remain in the military. The worst that Mast would have expected would have been a less than honorable discharge. Because the board has proven wrongdoing, a report will be placed in Mast’s file that could affect promotions and assignments, the Marines said Tuesday. The panel’s report will be forwarded to the Secretary of the Navy, who will complete the case against Mast. However, the child’s fate remains in limbo. The Afghan couple, who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan, want to reverse Mast’s adoption, but the case is stalled in the Virginia Supreme Court.

Mast and his wife, Stephanie, were living in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia, when the child was orphaned. They persuaded a judge there to allow them to adopt the child, even though he remained in Afghanistan as the government there located and reunited with her extended family. Mast helped the family escape Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power in 2021. Once in the United States, Mast used the adoption papers to persuade the federal government to take the child from her Afghan relatives and give him to him. Since then she has stayed with his family. Stephanie testified publicly at Tuesday’s hearing, giving a rare glimpse into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the child into their home. “They have a survival mentality,” she said of the Afghans. “We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to have that.” (More Afghanistan stories.)