No Justice for Jessica, instead a white wash!

Is Vice Admiral Charles Wurster, Pacific Area Commander correct when he says that the three senior officers assigned to the Coast Guard icebreaker CGC Healy during a fatal diving incident in the Arctic last year that resulted in the deaths of Lt. Jessica Hill and BM2 Steve Duque deserved nonjudicial punishment rather than facing criminal charges?

No, Admiral Wurster is absolutely wrong, and he knows it. He knew it months ago. That is the reason why he chose to conduct the non-judicial punishment (NJP) the day before the Final Report was released. He anticipated a public outcry. He was afraid of where it would lead if the public demanded a more appropriate punishment. There would be shouts of "white wash".

The most damning fact about the Admiral's Masts was that they were staged the day BEFORE the Final Report was released. There were three such Masts conducted. The Admiral presented us with a fait accompli; i.e., it is all over. I have taken care of it.

Vice Admiral Wurster, the flag officer responsible for Healy personnel, said there was no evidence of “criminal intent or deliberate misconduct” by the officers before, during or after the accident. If that were the case, then why did he convene a criminal proceeding to punish the three officers before the report was released?
Both an Admiral's Mast and a General Court-martial are criminal proceedings. They are not civil in nature. The major difference between an Admiral's Mast and a General Court-martial is the maximum amount of punishment that can be awarded. Admiral Wurster and I only disagree on the appropriate forum to try the charges. He has already chosen to conduct a criminal proceeding. He should have been Superintendent at the Coast Guard Academy when Webster Smith was charged with making love to his girlfriend and taking nude pictures of another cadet. Webster would be an Ensign today.
There are other differences, of course. At an NJP Admiral's Mast there is no right to have an attorney. Why would you need one? Your buddy is conducting the proceeding. Also, there is no prosecutor, no defense attorney, no jury, and no spectators. The Admiral convening the Mast acts as the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the judge, and the jury. There are no specctators because it is a closed proceeding conducted behind closed doors in complete secrecy. But, the bottom line is that it is a criminal proceeding.

Wurster held his mast for the CO, XO, and the Ops Officer from the CGC Healy on January 14, the day before the Coast Guard released the Final Report of an investigation into the death of Lt. Jessica Hill, 31, and Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Steven Duque.Wurster found the three — the commanding, executive and operations officers — guilty of dereliction of duty. That is a charge under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Captain Doug Russell, the CO, was relieved of command shortly after the accident. On January 14, his sentence was to receive a punitive letter of reprimand and a fine equal to one month’s pay.Commander Jeffrey Jackson, the XO, was sentenced to receive a punitive letter of admonition. The Operations Officer Lt. Cmmander. James Dalitsch was sentenced to receive a punitive letter of reprimand and a fine.All fines were suspended. The Admiral went through the motions, then he nullified it all. It was bad enough that he chose the lowest criminal forum available to punish these officers for their parts in the deaths of Lt. Hill and BM2 Duque, but he had the bad judgement to take back the token punishment.

Wurster said the men’s service records were “without flaw” before their poor performences of duty contributing to the deaths of Lt. Hill and BM2 Duque. He said the three suffered from leadership failures before and during the accident, but they lacked malice or criminal intent. That is great, but it is not a bar to a General Court-martial. It is only a matter in mitigation at a trial. The absence of malice may contribute to a lessening of the charges, but a jury of their peers should be allowed to weigh that against their conduct that is being judged.

“I believe that NJP was adequate,” Wurster said. “They took full responsibility.” Then they should confess and plead guilty at their court-martial. That should shorten the proceedings considerably.This Admiral's Mast conducted behind closed doors the day before a report of the facts was released to the public is a white wash.

This is an outrage. These things have gone on for years. In this age of faster communications and better trechnology when reports are published on the internet rather than being filed in the dungeons of official public records it will be harder to get the public to swallow the official party line.If any of the three officers had been caught in bed with Lt. Hill, there would have been a court-martial convened without question. We would be less likely to protect them if they had been involved in charges of a sexual nature. We have a fixation on sex crimes but not on homocides. What does that say about our sense of values?Their actions lead to the death of Lt. Hill. We are more prone to avenge her honor than her life.

Let the Dead bury the Dead.

It has been often said that one should not speak ill of the dead. This Final Report into the deaths of Lieutenant Jessica Hill and BM2 Steven Duque does not speak ill of Lt. Hill, but it points the finger at her.
It does not accuse her of being derelict in her duty, but it appears to place the blame on her for everything that went wrong while at the same time never accusing her of any wrongdoing. The three most senior officers on the ship are squarely charged with dereliction of duty. Instances of lax performance by Lt. Hill are mentioned, but she is not accused of misrepresentation or poor performance. This is as it should be, because her actions and recommendations were filtered upward through three levels of senior officers before they were implemented. Even when she gave erroneous advice, the decision to go ahead was ratified by the Operations Officer, and the Executive Officer and the Commanding Officer. So, the ultimate responsibility and accountability for the cold water dive operations are placed where they belong; at the top, not at the bottom of the chain of command.
The Report lays out a prima facie case of negligence. There was duty, breach of duty, foreseeable consequences, and resultant harm. The CO, XO, and the Ops Officer are blamed; and they are charged. They are tried at an Admiral’s Mast, a form of non-judicial punishment, and they are given token slaps on the wrist, but they are not really punished. The forfeiture of one months pay is suspended. A Letter of Reprimand is little more than a footnote in their service records. They dodged a bullet. Granted, no homicide was committed, but to some it will appear that they literally got away with murder.
There are several red flags about this Final Report. The first thing that you notice about the Report is that it was released at the close of business on Friday, January 12, 2007 at the start of a three day weekend, a federal holiday. Apparently it was hoped that no one would notice it until it was old. Four days is a long time when you are trying to distance yourself from a bad situation.
In the movie “SCHINDLER’S LIST” there is a scene that typifies what this report is trying to do. Some one has stolen a chicken and the Nazi guards are interrogating a group of prisoners. No one will confess. So, the camp Commandant orders the guard to start shooting the prisoners. After the first prisoner is shot dead, a young prisoner raises his hand and confesses that he knows who stole the chicken. When the Commandant asked who it was, the prisoner pointed to the dead man. Why not blame it on the dead man? He has nothing more to loose.
Why not blame this tragedy on Lt. Jessica Hill? She is dead. She has nothing more to loose, relatively speaking. She does not have a career to protect, or a family to feed, or a professional service record to keep clean, or a reputation to protect. She will no longer compete with her peers for choice of assignment. So, why not blame it on the dead?
This case highlights another problem that male officers will always have working with female officers. It is hard to stop treating the women as their daughters, or mothers, or wives, or girlfriends, or muses, or secret love interests. It is more difficult to give them an order than another man. Men are unable to hold the women to the same standard as they do the other men. When the men have a difference of opinion from the women, they are less forceful in asserting that opinion. Men relent more easily and let the women have their way. That appeared to be the case when the Operations Officer told Lt Hill that her dive plan had been approved by the Captain. He then asked Lt. Hill if all three divers, including the Supervising Diver, could be in the water at the same time under the regulations. Lt Hill replied in the affirmative and indicated that she would brief the Captain. The Ops Officer told her that he was not sure that she was correct, but that he would take her word for it. He never did verify the accuracy of Lt Hill’s statement. Even though he suspected she was not correct, he acquiesced and let her have it her way. Most male officers would rather be liked than respected. They want to impress, or they acquiesce.
Nowhere in the Final Report does it say that Lt. Hill was unqualified. Nowhere does it say that she was derelict in the performance of her duties as Dive Officer. It just hints that if she died, it was her own fault; it was due to her own negligence. Was she unqualified for he role and the duties that were forced upon her?
If the CO, XO, and Ops Officers were truly derelict, and that dereliction led to the loss of two people’s lives, then they deserve more than a gentle slap on the wrist. Someone is reluctant to spell it out. They should be court-martialed. We convene General Court-martials for less. The Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy court-martialed a cadet for making love to his girlfriend, and taking nude pictures of another female cadet. No one was killed. There was no loss of life. No Artic Operational deployment was curtailed. Someone’s value system is seriously malfunctioning. If the Coast Guard wanted to send Webster Smith to jail for 20 years to life by convening a General Court-martial, then how on earth can three people be accused of causing the deaths of two innocent people and walk away with only a gentle slap on the wrist. Who was liable for the death of Lt Jessica Hill and BM2 Steve Duque? Was it the CO, XO, or the Ops Officer? Or was it Lt Hill? But she is dead; then let the dead bury the dead!

CADETS BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF. Van Sice is gone.

Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy can breath easier now. Admiral James Van Sice is gone. The specter of possibly facing a court-martial is gone. As the first and only Superintendent ever to court-martial a cadet, he blazed a new trail going where none had ever gone before. With his faithful companion Douglas Wisniewski, they ruined the lives of a number of impressionable cadets who only wanted to please them. As he was a beer brewer of some renowned that, no doubt, added to the fever of the cadet corps to drink heartily. Once you double your pleasure, and then double your fun, what else can one expect from a bunch of drunken future officers and gentlepersons but some friendly repartee with the opposite sex? Right?
The jury is still out on Van Sice and Wisniewski. I am still waiting to see which Wonder Boy came up with the bright idea that it would be a good thing to court-martial a cadet. Court-martialing a cadet is similar to sending your own son to jail rather than to his room for an infraction of some family rule. No one calls the police when they need to discipline a family member. There is a paternal relationship between the Superintendent and the corps of cadets. The man who did this was devoid of character. He had a character flaw.
It takes a strong hand to turn a page of history. Van Sice turned a page of Coast Guard history. At the same time, he set back human relations almost 300 years. When the Forensic Experts of history finish analyzing this page of Coast Guard history whose finger prints will be found? Will they belong to Van Sice, or will they belong to Wisniewski? Or, is there another major player hiding in the woodpile?
Regardless, it will be Van Sice who will be remembered as the man who first court-martialed a cadet. He was in charge. He was getting paid the big bucks to make the big decisions. His name belongs in the Coast Guard Hall of Shame. As they sit on the forecastle of the Eagle and other Coast Guard cutters and sit around camp fires at remote duty stations, discussing common memories and shared experiences, they will remember Van Sice as the man who shattered the shibboleth.
So, it is a good thing that Van Sice is history. Rather than being required to fall on his sword in front of the entire Regiment, Van Sice was granted permission to retire after a six month cooling off period in Washington, DC. Like Richard Nixon who reportedly moved crime into the White House so he could keep a closer eye on it, Admiral Robert J. Papp, has moved Van Sice to Coast Guard Headquarters so he will know where he is at all times. This is just in case he has a few questions for the former Superintendent after the Task Force Report has been approved.