The Marine Corps relieved two commanders at its West Coast infantry school earlier this month, citing “loss of trust and confidence in their ability to execute the responsibilities of their commands,” according to a statement from the service on Thursday.
Col. Seth “S.W.” MacCutcheon, the commander of the School of Infantry-West, and Maj. Nicholas Engle, the commander of the Reconnaissance Training Company, were both relieved on March 8 by Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, the commanding general of the service’s training command.
Both units are based out of Camp Pendleton, California, and follow five other firings of leaders in charge of training programs in the Marine Corps in the last eight-plus months. The reconnaissance training company is a subordinate unit to the School of Infantry-West, also known as SOI-W.
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A spokesperson for the service would not specifically say why the firings occurred and if they were related. However, they occurred on the same day.
“There were a number of factors that informed the commanding general of Training Command with sufficient information for him to come to the determination that a relief was appropriate,” Maj. Joshua Pena, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps, told Military.com on Thursday.
The relief of MacCutcheon comes months after the school’s top enlisted leader was also…
