Five months later, Stuart Scheller says he has no regrets about how his 17-year military career ended.

And now he is writing a book that lays out his concerns about the way senior officers are more focused on equal opportunities or COVID-19 than winning wars - with a 13-point plan to fix what he sees as a rotting institution.

'The problem is, you have generals that try to please their bosses,' he told DailyMail.com in an interview to coincide with Memorial Day.

'So what happens is you get generals that will just do anything to please the politicians because it takes Congress to get appointed to be a three or four-star general. 

'And so they're willing to inject into the military the initiatives of the politicians of the time without advocating for what's best for the military, which is what a general should do. 

'So it's not necessarily woke - but that you just have people-pleasing generals, and they cater to whatever person is in charge at that time, rather than advocate for what's best for the military.'