After commanding Special Forces teams in two combat tours, his Distinguished Service Cross — the nation’s second-highest award for valor — has been revoked and he is being forced out of the Army with no pension.

Why? In 2010, Golsteyn and his nine-man team were advising an Afghan battalion charged with seizing a portion of Marjah district in southern Afghanistan.

The Marine colonel in overall command placed a Marine platoon under Golsteyn’s control; the Afghan battalion held its sector, thanks to Golsteyn’s team. Near the end of the campaign, however, two Marines were killed, blown up by an IED. Amid incoming fire, screaming, and carnage, the Green Berets cared for the wounded and the dying. About a year later, the CIA recruited Golsteyn for field operations. He took a polygraph that troubled CIA lawyers.

Although polygraphs are not admissible in court, the CIA showed parts of the test to the Army. According to the Washington Post, the Army believed Golsteyn was guilty of “an undisclosed violation of the U.S. military’s rules of engagement in 2010 that resulted in the death of a known enemy fighter and bomb maker. So, after the two Marines were killed by a bomb, the Army concluded that a nameless enemy bomb-maker had died.

The Army separated Major Golsteyn from his Special Forces unit and kept him in limbo status for three years at Fort Bragg, while investigators conducted a witch hunt. They leaned heavily on every member of Golsteyn’s team. They called Bing West, looking for something. They pawed through the garbage of Captain William Swenson, a Medal of Honor recipient who stood up for his friend Golsteyn. The investigators uncovered no evidence or testimony of wrongdoing from anyone who had been on the battlefield.