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Sgt. Maj. Paul Archie was fuming.
All day Marines had been coming to him with questions about a man who stood protesting outside Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, wearing the distinctive drill instructor's campaign cover, known affectionately as a "Smokey Bear." Like the Marines he spoke with, Archie felt that wearing the uniform item in a political protest was inappropriate and even against official regulations.
When he confronted Marine vet and former drill instructor Ethan Arguello, the heated exchange was caught on video by another protester. The 32-second clip that showed the two nose-to-nose in a shouting match was uploaded to YouTube and went viral, watched by more than 200,000 people.
The firestorm of news coverage the video created, coupled with third-degree assault charges pressed by Arguello that were later dropped, would ultimately result in Archie's resignation from his post as sergeant major for Parris Island and the Eastern Recruiting District, along with his retirement from the Marine Corps soon after.
Five months after the incident, Archie discussed the altercation and its aftermath with Marine Corps Times in his first public statements since stepping down from his post. Freshly retired from the Marine Corps, he said there's far more to his story than what the video captured — including things he felt leaders overlooked before offering him an ultimatum regarding his career.
He said his version of story deserved to be heard by the Marine Corps before a decision was made.
But he also wants the many Marines who supported him through his ordeal to know two things: that he still loves the Marine Corps, even though he believes leaders moved too quickly to force him out of his post after the incident; and that he has moved on, with a new job, a book manuscript, and a newfound mission to help young Marines in trouble.
"I stand by what I did," Archie said. "My time came and the Corps made their decision, I made my decision, and we all just had to move on."
'Did you get that on tape?'
Days before the viral confrontation, Archie said he had asked Arguello not to wear the DI cover while protesting in a phone call that he said ended amiably, with a casual invitation to get beers together in the future. On June 5, when Arguello appeared outside Parris Island wearing the cover, Archie got in his Jeep Wrangler Sahara and drove off to confront him face-to-face.
He pulled up to the traffic ramp where Arguello and other members of his group, American Patriot the III %, were protesting the recent exchange of Army prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners. According to its Facebook pages and websites, the group is a conservative, patriotic coalition organized to resist perceived attacks on constitutional rights.
The sergeant major and the former drill instructor were soon face-to-face and bellowing at each other. It was a formidable match: Archie, then 44, was a three-time combat veteran and former drill instructor whose work in 2006 to protect his forward operating base during sustained enemy attacks had earned him a Bronze Star with combat distinguishing device. Arguello, 31, was a former Marine sergeant who had enlisted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and deployed to Iraq with 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion before completing a tour on the drill field.
After a few moments of shouting, Arguello leaned in, and the brim of his cover hit Archie's forehead, causing it to topple. Archie snatched the hat as it fell, strode back to his vehicle, and drove off.
"Did you get that on tape?" a protester asks as the video ends.
Rewatching the short YouTube video, Archie said he saw in himself a Marine who was angry, but never lost control.
The day that Arguello arrived outside Parris Island found Archie in an emotionally fragile state, he said. He'd just returned from his home state of Texas for the funeral of his father, Paul Talamage Archie Sr., 67, whom Archie described as his hero. On top of that, he was reeling from news of the suspected suicide of a Parris Island drill instructor the day before.
So when Arguello showed up outside the base wearing the campaign cover after Archie had asked him not to, it struck a nerve. But while he got in Arguello's face and shouted at him, he said, he was careful to avoid escalating the conflict.
"I never touched him. I maintained the distance that I could. At no time did my hands come above my waistline," Archie said. "It's definitely taught to us on how to use your voice and your command presence and your bearing. Spit was flying in my face, but my experience just told me, do not touch this young man. It was just patience."
And while some outlets reported that Archie had knocked Arguello's cover off in a "head-butt" move, Archie maintains he kept his posture. Arguello, he said, inclined his head 45 degrees in a drill instructor intimidation move known as "brimming," in which the brim of the DI's cover makes contact with the forehead of the recruit receiving instruction. Arguello was also escalating the confrontation, Archie said, by raising his hands and gesturing in the sergeant major's face.
In hindsight, Archie said, he should have left the argument and returned to his car when he saw Arguello's hand fly up.
Unsurprisingly, Arguello remembers events differently. He told Marine Corps Times that he maintained he had been in the right "100 percent" in the showdown, as a civilian exercising his First Amendment rights.
"There were many Marines out there that took pictures of me, that passed by me. In the end, they all exemplified self-control," he said. They exemplified discipline, a leadership trait as a Marine. Paul Archie lacked it."
Archie said he did drive away with the campaign cover, which he considered to be government property. But he only took it 100 yards or so up the road and handed it to local police officers, who walked it back to Arguello minutes later. Footage captured in another YouTube video confirms this.
The aftermath
After Archie left the scene, though, things rapidly got worse for the sergeant major. He got a call from the local Port Royal police officer that night who said Arguello had filed a third-party citation for third degree assault and battery. Archie turned himself in the next morning and was booked and arraigned. Soon, local news outlets had a copy of his mugshot photo, orange jumpsuit visible. Fewer Marines at Parris Island were voicing support for him as publicity intensified.
"I've never gotten arrested, never spent any time in the back of a car," Archie said. "My career was defaced. I was definitely in shock."
Perhaps the most significant questions regarding the incident have surrounded the circumstances under which Archie stepped down from his position, just days after the incident.
The Marine Corps released a statement at the time emphasizing that Archie had stepped down of his own accord.
"Understanding the Marine Corps has very high standards of personal and professional conduct for its most senior leaders, Sgt. Maj. Archie voluntarily stepped down as the depot sergeant major, and the commanding general regrettably accepted his retirement," it read.
But while Archie said he was presented with two options, neither of them entailed remaining at his post aboard Parris Island.
Archie had left his office for the weekend on a somber note. On Friday, the day after his confrontation with Arguello, Brig. Gen. Lori Reynolds, then-commanding officer for the recruit depot, had had a difficult conversation with him.
"It wasn't good. I was seen all over the Internet, the story went viral. Can I still lead Marines effectively?" Archie recalled Reynolds asking. "I remained quiet and said 'yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am.' She said, 'good luck to you; I'll be praying.' I could see the writing on the wall after that conversation."
That Friday, Archie received a call from Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike Barrett. Barrett supervises all sergeants major advising general officers by virtue of his post. Archie described the conversation as professional and mutually respectful, but firm.
"[Barrett] said, 'You know you were wrong, you shouldn't have done what you did,' " Archie said. "'You've got a couple of choices. You have to step down. You'll never work for another general again, and you retire at the end of your contract.' "
That would have been a career setback, Archie knew. Within 15 minutes of the phone call, he said, he had taken his other option, submitting his retirement paperwork and his resignation, effective immediately.
A spokesman for Barrett, Gunnery Sgt. Chanin Nuntavong, confirmed that a closed-door conversation had taken place between Barrett and Archie. While Nuntavong said Barrett had offered Archie the opportunity to take another post, he added that sergeants major serving general officers are selected through a slating process, meaning that the sergeant major of the Marine Corps does not have complete purview over future assignments.
The rapid chain of events left Archie reeling. After nearly 26 years of service that included three war zone deployments and a Bronze Star for heroism, he felt that his future had been decided in the course of a weekend.
"I didn't have a retirement [ceremony]; all of my certificates were mailed to my home of record," he said. "I didn't make a big stink out of anything. But I wouldn't want anybody else to be treated the way I was without hearing their version of things."
He knew that discussions had taken place between headquarters Marine Corps officials and his chain of command before Barrett's call. But he felt that key circumstances, including his sterling service record, his emotional state at the time of the confrontation and the restraint he believed he'd exercised with Arguello, had been overlooked.
Nuntavong said this wasn't the case.
"I'm certain that Sergeant Major Barrett gathered all the information he needed to advise Sergeant Major Archie with another alternative for service in the Marine Corps," he said.
Reynolds did not respond to an emailed request for comment, but in a June 13 video interview with the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, she spoke highly of Archie.
"He is a great Marine. I would like all these young men and women, these drill instructors, to look at his service and say, 'I want to be like that guy,' " she said. "But it's a very high standard, and that's what we're looking for in all our Marines."
After months of uncertainty, Archie's outlook has begun to improve. His retirement was finalized Sept. 30. And Port Royal municipal judge Jim Grimsley dismissed the charge against him Oct. 10; soon, the arrest will be expunged from his record.
Archie has since relocated his wife and four children from Parris Island to Chicago, where he now works as the sergeant major for a military school and junior ROTC program, the Marine Leadership Academy. He loves his job, he said.
He also spent his time on terminal leave writing most of a book on leadership that draws from his experiences in the Marine Corps, tentatively titled, "Got Guts?" He expects the manuscript to be complete in January, including a section detailing his confrontation with Arguello and subsequent fall from grace.
Since his showdown hit the news, Archie said he has received thousands of emails and Facebook friend requests from Marines who say he did right in confronting a man who he believed was using the official uniform inappropriately.
"They say, 'Thank you. You made a correction, and Marines are taught to make corrections,' " Archie said. "I've been swamped with love."
The experience has also given him a passion to help Marines who feel they are being treated unfairly by speaking up for them or offering advice.
"I'll make sure the little people don't get done wrong," he said. "I wouldn't want any private or above to go through what I went through."
And while he maintains in retrospect that he should have left the conflict with Arguello when he perceived it had gotten out of hand, he says he stands by what he did. And, he says, he remembers his time in the Corps with fondness.
"I forgive everyone," he said. "I've done a lot in 25 years; I don't have any regret."
