Jim Gant: Green Beret Forced To Resign From Army After Affair With Reporter


Jim Gant was a Green Beret and one of the top commanders in Afghanistan, but he was forced out of the war zone and out the U.S. Army entirely after having an affair with a Washington Post reporter.

The legendary Special Forces commander was removed from command in March 22, following a nearly two-year stint in one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan. Commanders said that Gant was living in a “self-created fantasy world” of alcohol and pain pills, living with journalist Ann Scott Tyson as his “wife.”

The removal was curious at the time given the results Jim Gant was getting. In an story on his removal, ABC News noted:

By the time he was yanked out of Afghanistan two years later because of his relationship with Tyson, Gant also had won over three Pashtun tribes with substantial influence throughout Kunar province. Top commanders had tasked him with turning the tide of a conflict America was losing, and in his corner of the war, Gant was winning.

The Green Beret said he fell in love with Tyson almost immediately, asking her to marry him after just a few days of meeting her in 2010. Though she laughed at the time, it was not much longer before the pair were actually engaged.

“We did fall in love, I would say over the course of about a week,” Tyson told ABC News.

Despite being kicked out of the Army and stripped of his honors, Jim Gant said he was proud of what he accomplished in Afghanistan.

“I never left the battlefield defeated. I never lost a man. Well over 20 awards for valor for the men that I fought alongside. We went after ’em every single day. I brought all my men home. That’s it,” Gant said.

The couple are now telling their story in a new book, American Spartan: The Promise, The Mission And The Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant.

In the book, Jim Gant had some very high ranking officials rise to his defense.

“He clearly had grit. He had guts. He had intelligence,” said Army Gen. David Petraeus. “He is one to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, even recognizing how things ended for him. Folks make mistakes, obviously.”

Though being kicked out of the Army was likely regrettable, the couple probably doesn’t see their relationship as a mistake. Ann Scott Tyson and Jim Gant were formally married last year.

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