Green Beret Fired for Reporter Affair

A decorated Green Beret was demoted to captain and forced to resign after it was discovered he was having an affair with a Washington Post reporter in Afghanistan while living in a “self-created fantasy world” of alcohol, pain meds, and sex. Major Jim Gant and journalist Ann Scott Tyson began an affair when they were both married, and she decided to live with him in rural Afghanistan. Gant earned the nickname “Lawrence of Afghanistan” and praise from Army Gen. David Petraeus and Navy SEAL Adm. Eric Olson. But one of his troops found that he was “intoxicated and under the influence of pain medications.” He was relieved of his duties in March 2012 after 22 months in combat. On being removed from his outpost, he said “I would have rather been in the hands of the Taliban at that point.”