John worked solidly for several hours as the noise levels outside his office slowly rose, finishing his needed reports and sending each off to their respective departments, then sitting back with a sigh. And pulled his hand downwards over his face as he took a deep breath.

He had just been getting by on auto-pilot before, and he had known it. Too burnt out from the war and the politics that went with it. On top of that, when he had just been getting himself put together and thinking of taking his ten years and leaving due to those same politics, he got voluntold to report to SGC and got shoved to the hate filled marines here. ‘And political agenda Weir. Don’t forget her,’ He thought to himself. Remembering all her attempts to “get to know him better.” During the time he’d met her and made a face. Eeewwww.

For all the jokes about his “Kirking” around, he hadn’t had sex for real or even gotten a “stiffy” since he had been captured by the Taliban and held captive for four weeks under their “loving care”. Due to his PTSD and Combat Trauma.

Too good a spec force and pilot to be let off long enough to see if he was healed mentally, he was back in the war with more wounds unseen, for over two years. Which had led to his ending up pissing off his uptight and by-the-book CO and ending up at McMurdo with that black mark on his record, then getting ordered out to Atlantis on what was supposed to for volunteers only job. But he was needed, and he was volunteered for the job. Which everyone seemed to either forget (McKay, his trio of science buddies, and the leadership back home), use against him, (Weir and Carson) or not know (everyone else).

Well, his mail home to O’Neill was to remind him of the fact he wasn’t a volunteer. And if he needed to, he could remind those at home that his ten years were almost up and he had yet to see a renewal contract in the incoming mail. And remind Landry, O’Neill, the President, SecDef, and IOA that he was an American citizen with the Constitutional Amendment against slavery behind him.

He sat up with a grin and mentally called out to Atlantis to take a letter, then began a serious letter to his father, Admiral Patrick Johnathan Sheppard of Sheppard Industries, CC to Commander David Montgomery Sheppard of JAG…….

When he finished the long descriptive but releasing no compromising information beyond the fact that he was being scapegoated, highjacked to remain the base’s scapegoat, and he had yet to receive his papers for re-enlistment since his was almost up. He had been ordered to go to a far-flung base that was for volunteers only it was so far out there and dangerous, and now he wasn’t being given the out if he wanted it by his superiors.
He was having this e-mail smuggled out as all his mail was redirected and censored. He would not be able to even know if they got this unless they rained hell down on the SecDef and President to get an unredacted letter to him. Or anything. Really.
And had it signed by the name his mother used to call him when she read to him at night.

He had her tight beam it through the gate to his father and brother when he finally unlocked the gate. Then sat back with a satisfied look on his face and answered Atlantis’ query about leaving, with a ‘nope, just wanting to shake certain complacent people up. Including Weir and her bosses.’

He thought more about what happened to him that should not have, ‘Second letter to the same two people. To be beamed at the same time. Only officially to David at JAG and CC’d to the Admiral.’

‘This is a formal letter of inquiry asking that a formal investigation into the service time and time off available to then Captain Johnathan Marshal Sheppard to take place.
Specifically, the orders and who was behind the orders that resulted in he and his team being captured by the Taliban, with Captain Sheppard being the only survivor to be rescued after watching his teammates tortured to death.

‘His official medical orders to receive mental time off to heal being retracted after he was physically able to go back to duty yet had only begun his mental healing.
Who ordered this? Why?

‘His order to report to a by the book commanding officer who thought all those under him should be able to do back-to-back-to-back missions for two years with no relief and against military regulations. To the point that the suicide rate in his unit was half the unreported deaths and every single non-enemy death in his unit. And everyone knew he thought it was better to die in combat than return a failure so the death toll in the unit ran eighty five percent most months.
Why was nothing done by his superiors about this?

‘Captain Sheppard, already suffering from being a POW of the enemy for four weeks and watching teammates die at the hands of the enemy, then this atrocity, disobeyed his CO and piloted a rescue helicopter to save his new team from being captured by the same enemy, and was only in time to save their bodies and destroy their equipment from falling into enemy hands.
This team’s deaths put that month’s death rate to ninety percent and then Major Sheppard was one of the only ones left of the command.

‘Why was he not debriefed on his actions by those behind the front? Why was a CO with these many friendly deaths to his name allowed to dismiss Major Sheppard with a permanent black mark in his file for disobeying an order? Especially when both the CO and Major Sheppard were obviously non-compos mentis? Why was Major Sheppard not given mental health help? But yet again quickly sent where there was no mental health specialist available? And ordered to “Cool his heals” there?

Why was he found to be “available” when he was getting himself better through the quiet of the McMurdo Base, only to be ordered to go on a volunteer mission without time to prepare? And with the only mental health specialist a civilian with no idea on how to treat Combat Trauma? Or trauma from being held captive by the enemy as a POW?

‘Under whose orders were all these things done? And who hid it from the current overseer of the mission base he is on? If indeed the overseer is in the dark?

‘Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard would like an investigation into these matters. Not for himself, as he is thinking of retiring his commission after his ten years are up due to all of this and more. But to see if similar things have been done to others like him. Those deemed “To Valuable” to sideline.

“Sign it with my official military name and real and acting rank and send it off as well.”