Moore Says He Led Troops in Combat. His Army Supervisor Tells a Different Story.

For years, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has described his Afghanistan deployment as the experience of an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper who led soldiers in combat. Now, the Army officer who supervised Moore daily says his accounts of what happened there in 2005 and 2006 are unequivocally false.

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When Spotlight first cast doubt on Moore’s claims of leading soldiers in combat, it had not yet learned about Moore’s direct supervisor, Gottschling, who has participated in two interviews with Spotlight. Gottschling’s knowledge of Moore’s daily activities in the combat zone adds a firsthand perspective to three Spotlight articles published in May that examined Moore’s path to Afghanistan, his duties and his false combat claims.

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Spotlight reported on May 10 that Moore’s records showed no prior troop-leading experience or information-operations training. His placement came through then-Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel, the brigade’s deputy commander and Moore’s longtime friend and mentor, who arranged a by-name deployment request for the newly qualified Army Reserve officer. For years, before attending his officer basic course, Moore largely disregarded the reserve military obligations he had undertaken as a commissioned officer, failing to fulfill the fundamental duties and training requirements that accompanied his commission.

Moore has described in various accounts, including his 2015 book, “The Work,” months of pre-deployment training with the 82nd at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Spotlight found no Army records substantiating that account; the records placed him in Military Police training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, during much of the brigade’s train-up period. Prior to that, Moore was not qualified in any Army branch and, by Army regulation, would have been ineligible to participate in such training.

Gottschling confirmed Moore, who is airborne qualified, neither trained with the brigade before deployment nor conducted training jumps. He acknowledged that Moore served with the 82nd in Afghanistan as an attached Army reservist, but said he was not in a jump status, didn’t receive jump pay and was not in a parachutist’s position.

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When asked whether Moore was responsible for the brigade’s kinetic combat activities, Gottschling said, “No, no, his was the information operations.”

That distinction challenges Moore’s portrayal of his relationship with the soldiers he claims to have led. In his 2015 book, “The Work,” Moore spoke affectionately about the soldiers he said were assigned to him, saying that he, “adored their passion and their hearts.” He said he knew, “which ones were having financial or marital issues. Which ones were motivated by carrots, which were motivated by sticks. Which ones were making the military a career, etc.” He said he worked hard to make himself available to them even when he was “exhausted and weary,” because that was essential to lead them effectively.

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Spotlight’s May 17 report examined additional discrepancies. In a 2014 interview with the USO’s in-house magazine “On Patrol,” Moore said he had been an infantry officer, a military police officer and then “became special ops” with the 82nd, which is not true. His military records establish qualification only as a Military Police officer, not as an infantry, special operations or information operations officer.

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Gottschling also confirmed that the duration of Moore’s deployment also differs sharply from his public accounts. In multiple interviews, Moore has said he spent anywhere from 10 to 13 months in Afghanistan. His Army records, however, document six months and 27 days in country, Aug. 15, 2005, to March 14, 2006. Emergency leave following his grandfather’s death kept him away for approximately another month, further reducing his actual time there to roughly six months.

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