the baggage is a non-thing to me,
he is not running for public office, or even an elected position within the company, the signatures from a special interest group saying they don't want him to lead the gov't agency covering there interest means nothing to me. the current nominee for Surgeon General has not thousands, but likely millions of signatures blocking his appointment as well, but were he to withdraw I doubt those signatures constitute baggage
I can't imagine that any of the target companies that Wave hopes to do business with could give a flying monkey about the interaction between Patton and a Lieutenant in a war hospital in Afghanistan, BICBW.
Similarly, in a company the size of Wave (a mere 150), people will form opinions about Patton based on reality rather than baggage in comparatively short order, its one thing to hold onto a news clipping about somebody at a company of 50,000 - but 150?
Could you perhaps come up with some sort of scenario where said baggage has any impact on anything in this situation? It seems to me this is more-or-less a prime example of the type of position and circumstance where said baggage has absolutely zero impact or potential for it. But I'm listening, your circuitous construct skills are impressive, so how does the baggage impact something? Labor Union negotiations?
The above content is my opinion.
