The Full Story. Setting the Record straight. First Black Coast Guard cadets in Chase Hall.

I Will Fight No More Forever.

2012-01-27T14:14:00.001-08:00

America's fighting men have come in many guises, shapes and sizes. They have had to fight all of America's enemies, both foreign and domestic. Cadet Webster Smith had to fight his own senior officers, friends, and mentors. In the end he was proud. He had fought the good fight. Even TIME magazine carried the quote of the first cadet in Coast Guard history to be tried by a General Court-martial.

http://www.time.com/time/quotes/0,26174,1209244,00.html

Less than 60 days after the verdict was rendered in the Webster Smith case, I predicted that the case would make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court justices are not elected. They are appointed with the advice and consent of the Congress. The Nine Justices of the Supreme Court are the least democratic branch of the federal government. They have no constituency. They do not have to conform to the biases of the majority. They are the Court of Last Resort; so, they are infallible. With few exceptions, they have dealt with evenhandedly with all of America's citizens.

They do not have to sit for re-election. They are appointed for life. They are totally isolated from busy bodies on the Right or Left Side of the political spectrum. With one stroke of the pen, they may act to curb injustices, correct unsavory attitudes, and breathe new life into a living Constitution.

Historically we have looked to them to solve our most vexing social problems. They are America's ultimate arbiters of justice; and, that includes military justice.

Aside from the Webster Smith Case, I cannot think of any case or incident in Coast Guard history that affected more directly the hearts, minds, and daily lives of all members of the United States Coast Guard.

The U.S. Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals had to review the Webster Smith case. It had no choice. Article 66 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, requires the Coast Guard Criminal appeals Court to review all cases of trial by court-martial in which the sentence as approved by the Convening Authority extends to dismissal of a cadet from the Coast Guard, and/or a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge, unless the accused waives appellate review. Webster Smith did not waive appellate review. He appealed his conviction. Oral arguments in the Case of The Appeal of the Court-martial Conviction of Cadet Webster Smith was scheduled for January 16, 2008 in Arlington, Virginia.

A legal brief filed by his lawyers claimed the convictions should have been thrown out because the defense team was not allowed to fully cross-examine one of his accusers during Smith's court martial. They said that meant the jury didn't hear testimony that the accuser, a female cadet, Shelly Roddenbush, had once had consensual sex with a Coast Guard enlisted man and then called it sexual assault. If she lied once, she very well could have lied again.

The Coast Guard Court of of Criminal Appeals is made up of Coast Guard Officers. It has the power to decide matter of both fact and law. Decisions of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals may be appealed to the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces (CAAF). It is made up of five civilian judges, appointed to 15 year terms. It decides only issues of law. Its decisions may be appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Webster Smith Case followed this long and winding path all the way to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of Webster Smith. The justices declined to hear the case without comment.

Webster Smith was proud of his decision to fight the good fight all the way to the end of the road. See TIME magazine June 29, 2006.

http://www.time.com/time/quotes/0,26174,1209244,00.html

https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com

Crime and Punishment and Military Tribunals.

2012-01-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

Staff Sgt. Frank G. Wuterich, 31, a U. S. Marine Corps squad leader in Iraq was charged with war crimes, tried by a military court-martial, found guilty and sentenced to a maximum of 90 days in jail and a reduction in pay and rank.

He will not serve a day in jail. Because of a plea bargain with prosecutors he will avoid brig time all together. The military judge was obligated to abide by the plea bargain between prosecutors and the defense.

The bottom line is that the sentence amounts to a cut in pay and a reduction in rank to private.

As part of his guilty plea, Sgt. Wuterich accepted responsibility for giving negligent verbal instructions to the Marines under his command. He reportedly told them to "shoot first and ask questions later," which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians.

In a pre-sentencing statement, Sgt. Wuterich said when he gave that order, "the intent wasn't that they should shoot civilians. It was that they would not hesitate in the face of the enemy."

He was accused of being the ringleader in a series of November 19, 2005, shootings and grenade attacks that left two dozen civilians dead in Haditha, a city west of Baghdad.

The killings were portrayed by Iraqi witnesses and military prosecutors as a massacre of unarmed civilians -- men, women and children -- carried out by Marines in anger after a member of their unit was killed by a roadside bomb.

Defense lawyers argued the deaths resulted from a fast-moving combat situation and that the Marines believed they were under enemy fire.

Did the punishment fit the crime?

LT. William Calley was charged on September 5, 1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder for the deaths of 104 Vietnamese civilians near the village of My Lai. As many as 500 villagers, mostly women, children, infants and the elderly, had been systematically killed by American soldiers during a bloody rampage on March 16, 1968. Had he been convicted, Calley could have faced the death penalty.

It was the military prosecution's contention that Calley, in defiance of the rules of engagement, ordered his men to deliberately murder unarmed Vietnamese civilians despite the fact that his men were not under enemy fire at all.

Calley's original defense that the death of the villagers was the result of an accidental helicopter or aerial airstrike was quashed by the few prosecution witnesses. In his new defense, Calley claimed he was following the orders of his immediate superior, Captain Ernest Medina. Twenty-one other members of Charlie Company also testified on Calley's defense corroborating the orders. But Medina publicly denied giving such an order. Medina was acquitted of all charges relating to the incident at a separate trial in August 1971.

Calley was convicted on March 29, 1971, of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians. On March 31, 1971, Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Of the 26 officers and soldiers initially charged for their part in the My Lai Massacre or the subsequent cover-up, only Calley was convicted.

On April 1, 1971, only a day after Calley was sentenced, U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered him transferred from Leavenworth prison to house arrest at Fort Benning, Georgia. He served only three and a half years of house arrest.

In 1974, President Nixon tacitly issued Calley a limited Presidential Pardon. Consequently, his general court-martial conviction and dismissal from the U.S. Army were upheld, however, the prison sentence and subsequent parole obligations were commuted to time served, leaving Calley a free man.

Did the punishment fit the crime?

On June 26, 2006 Cadet Webster Smith pleaded not guilty in the first court-martial of a cadet in Coast Guard Academy history. The charges ranged from rape, sodomy, and extortion to assault of four female cadets.

With no physical evidence in the case, defense attorneys had hoped to persuade jurors that the testimony of the women was unreliable. There was no DNA evidence, no forensic evidence, no rape kit and no crime scene photos. It was a classic case of “he-said, she-said”. It was one cadet’s word against another.

On June 28, 2006 after about eight hours of deliberation, the panel found Cadet Webster Smith guilty of indecent assault, extortion in exchange for sexual favors and sodomy, which in military parlance includes oral sex. All those charges involved only one of the four female accusers.

He was acquitted of several charges that stemmed from alleged sexual encounters with the other three female cadets. The defense had argued that the sex was consensual and that the women had colluded against Webster Smith. They were all scorned lovers of one sort or another.

Before any charges had been filed against him, Cadet Smith had spent about six months at hard labor and pre-trial confinement. He was sentenced to an additional six months in jail at a Navy brig, and dismissal from the Coast Guard Academy. He served five months in jail and was released early because of good behavior as a prisoner.

Webster Smith appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals held oral argument on January 16, 2008 in Arlington, Virginia; but the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) became the final decision in the case because the U. S.Supreme Court, the nation’s court of last resort, denied the appeal without comment.

Did the punishment fit the crime?

https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com

The White House Still Stands Today Because A Black Pilot Would Not Fly His Plane Into It.

2012-01-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Luke Weathers Jr. was buried Friday January 20, 2012 at Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C..

His son, Luke Weathers III, 61, said his father and other Black Americans who fought in World War II did so to prove they were men, "and then they wanted their country to love them, but that didn't happen, either." Friday's ceremony, however, finally delivered recognition of his father as a national hero, Weathers said.

This kind of attention to the Tuskegee Airmen is what Lt. Col. Weathers wanted throughout his life, said his daughter, Trina Weathers Boyce. Lt. Col. Weathers was not vain, but he wanted to share the lessons of the airmen's courage in war, their struggles for equality and their victory over a wartime enemy and over racism, she said.

"We are still educating people on the Tuskegee history," Trina Weathers Boyce said, "because it's a big part of American history, not African American or Black history, but American history."

That is equally true of another Black American hero, Captain LeRoy W. Homer Jr.. The victorious do not always live to celebrate their victories. In some cases it is for us the living to celebrate their achievements for them. The world may little note nor long remember what the officers, crew, and passengers of United Flight 93 did for America and western civilization on September 11, 2001, but I urge all Americans to pause and thank God that he gave us a real hero like LeRoy W. Homer Junior.

But for Captain LeRoy W. Homer Jr and the other brave souls on United Flight 93, the White House could very well have been one big black hole on Pennsylvania Avenue on that fateful day. The White House is still there in large measure because Captain LeRoy Homer would not fly his United Airlines Flight 93 into this symbol at the heart of the American Dream.

United Airlines Flight 93 was en route to San Francisco from Newark, N.J., when the hijackers took over, apparently planning to crash the plane into the White House or the Capitol. Conversations from the plane's final minutes indicate the passengers had some idea of what was happening to them and, on the words "Let's roll," stormed the cockpit in an effort to wrest control shortly before the crash.

Not much has been said in the mainstream media about LeRoy W. Homer Jr.

At an early age, LeRoy W. Homer Jr knew that he wanted to be a pilot. As a child, LeRoy assembled model airplanes, collected aviation memorabilia and read books on aviation. LeRoy was 15 years old when he started flight instruction in the Cessna 152. Working part-time jobs after school to pay for flying lessons, he completed his first solo at 16 years old, and obtained his private pilot's certificate in 1983.

In the fall of 1983, LeRoy entered the Air Force Academy, and graduated with the Class of 1987, 31st Squadron. After completing pilot training in 1988, he was assigned to McGuire AFB in New Jersey, flying the C-141B Starlifter. While on active duty, LeRoy served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and later supported operations in Somalia. He received many commendations, awards and medals during his military career. In 1993, he was named the 21st Air Force Aircrew Instructor of the Year. LeRoy achieved the rank of Captain before his honorable discharge from active duty in 1995.

LeRoy continued his military career as a reservist, initially as an instructor pilot with the 356th Airlift Squadron at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, then subsequently as an Academy Liaison Officer, recruiting potential candidates for both the Air Force Academy and the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. During his time with the Reserves, he achieved the rank of Major.

LeRoy continued his flying career by joining United Airlines in May 1995. His first assignment was Second Officer on the B727. He then upgraded to First Officer on the B757/767 in 1996, where he remained until September 11, 2001.

On September 11, 2001, LeRoy was flying with Captain Jason Dahl on United Flight 93. Based on information from several sources that day, we know LeRoy and Jason were the first to fight against the terrorist threat to the airplane. LeRoy has received many awards and citations posthumously, for his actions on Flight 93, including the Congress Of Racial Equality - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - Drum Major for Justice Award and the Westchester County Trailblazer Award.

LeRoy was able to accomplish much in his short life. He was able to do so because of the support of his family and friends, and the encouragement of his teachers and mentors. We hope that LeRoy's life will continue to be an inspiration to those who also share the dream of flying.

LeRoy married Melodie Thorpe on May 24, 1998 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. From that union, their daughter Laurel Nicole was born October 25, 2000.

LeRoy was known for his kind, caring disposition. He was the type of person that truly listened when you spoke. He was an exceptional individual with a wonderful sense of humor.

CAPT LeRoy Homer, United Airlines Flt. 93 on 9/11/01.

9/11 had a huge impact on United States foreign policy, on the way the Western world views Islam and on the Islamic world.

Since the crash, a group of volunteers known now as the Flight 93 ambassadors point visitors to the crash site on a previously barren wind swept field in Pennsylvania and describe what happened aboard the plane on Sept. 11, 2001. Some months they guide more than 25,000 visitors.

On that terrible day in 2001, it didn't take first responders long to realize there would be no survivors. Combing the site, all they could find at first were small pieces of aircraft — and bits of a United Airlines in-flight magazine.

"It was a pretty scary time," says a former assistant fire chief, Rick King, whose truck was the first to arrive. "I just remember driving down the road, wondering what we were about to see."

Searchers recovered only about 8 percent of the potential human remains but were able to identify everyone from the fragments they did find, said Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller.

"Most of the material was vaporized," he says.

Cadet Used Honor Code Position To Obtain Sexual Favors.

2012-01-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

Cadet Robert M. Evenson Jr. is alleged to have forcibly raped a female cadet in the spring of 2010. He's also charged with breaking cadet regulations by having an ongoing relationship with a female freshman. He also is suspected of abusing his power position as a "cadet non-commissioned officer for honor cases" to extract sexual favors from a female fellow cadet. This is serious. He was charged with enforcing the Honor Code. He may have used it to supply gris for his mill. As one of the cadets entrusted with enforcing the Academy's Honor Code, he would have been in a very coveted position. He was expected to punish those who lie, cheat, steal or tolerate others who do. Those who violate the Honor Code face a maximum punishment of expulsion from the Academy. Allegations of corruption in the Honor Code enforcement system will likely send shock-waves through the Cadet Corps and the Academy alumni. The Honor Code is the very touchstone of the Academy's culture.

Who will watch the watchers? This exploitation of a power position was inevitable. It is as impossible to avoid detection indefinitely as it is to plan your own surprise birthday. This is probably not the first time this cadet has done this. It appears that he had momentum; that is, forward motion fueled by a series of wins.

Just what is the Honor Code. each of our military academies has an Honor Code or an Honor Concept. How do they differ? Read all about it in my book CONDUCT UNBECOMING an Officer and Lady. Read it for free in Kindle format at

https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com

The Coast Guard Academy Cadet Handbook (2010) tells the new cadet recruit that when you take the oath of office as a Cadet in the United States Coast Guard you begin your development as a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces of the United States. You will be expected to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to selflessly serve the American people.

In the Honor Concept there exists a higher standard of conduct that can neither be delineated by laws nor defined by regulations. It is the concept of Honor. Because Coast Guard cadets are called to a life of public service, and desire to attain that special trust and confidence which is placed in our nation’s commissioned officers, their actions must be straightforward and always above reproach. As future law enforcement officers, each cadet’s word and signature must be regarded as verification of the truth. The Coast Guard Academy’s Honor Concept is exemplified by a person who will neither lie, cheat, steal, nor attempt to deceive. It is epitomized by an individual who places loyalty to duty above loyalty to personal friendship or to selfish desire. While the Coast Guard Academy’s Honor Concept differs from a code, in that failure to report an honor offense is not itself an honor violation, cadets are required to report all activity that does not incriminate themselves. Moreover, the condoning of an honor violation is a Class I offense under the Cadet Regulations. Dis-enrollment is a very possible outcome. The Corps of Cadets are stewards of their Honor Concept.

At the center of their new world is adherence to a Concept or Cadet Honor Code to which they swear: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” Their whole new world is shaped around these principles. This initially shapeless reality begins to form into principles of rigid honesty, loyalty to their fellow cadets, and respect for their classmates and all with whom they associate.

What is conduct unbecoming an officer and a lady? Does it violate the Honor Concept? Does conduct that violates the UCMJ constitute a higher standard than the Honor Concept? Times are changing so rapidly, one wonders if cadets and officers of today can be held to the same standards of conduct that were intended by the drafters of the UCMJ and the MCM promulgated in 1951? Not everyone can be expected to meet ideal moral standards, but how far can the standards of behavior of cadets and officers fall below contemporary community standards without seriously compromising their standing as officers and ladies? Have the changes in ethics and values of American society been reflected in the military?

Both the United States Military Academy and the United States Air Force Academy have adopted a Cadet Honor Code as a formalized statement of the minimum standard of ethics expected of cadets. Other military schools have similar codes with their own methods of administration. The United States Naval Academy, like the Coast Guard Academy, has a related standard, known as the Honor Concept.

The Cadet Honor Code at the Air Force Academy, like that at West Point, is the cornerstone of a cadet's professional training and development — the minimum standard of ethical conduct that cadets expect of themselves and their fellow cadets. Air Force's honor code was developed and adopted by the Class of 1959, the first class to graduate from the Academy, and has been handed down to every subsequent class. The code adopted was based largely on West Point's Honor Code, but was modified slightly to its current wording:

We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.

In 1984, the Cadet Wing voted to add an "Honor Oath," which was to be taken by all cadets. The oath is administered to fourth class cadets (freshmen) when they are formally accepted into the Wing at the conclusion of Basic Cadet Training. The oath remains unchanged since its adoption in 1984, and consists of a statement of the code, followed by a resolution to live honorably:

We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.

Furthermore, I resolve to do my duty and to live honorably, so help me God.

Cadets are considered the "guardians and stewards" of the Code. Cadet honor representatives throughout the Wing oversee the honor system by conducting education classes and investigating possible honor incidents. Cadets throughout the Wing are expected to sit on Honor Boards as juries that determine whether their fellow cadets violated the code. Cadets also recommend sanctions for violations. Although the presumed sanction for a violation is di-senrollment, mitigating factors may result in the violator being placed in a probationary status for some period of time. This "honor probation" is usually only reserved for cadets in their first two years at the Academy. (Cadet Honor Code, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com

Bradley Manning and Webster Smith. Two Young Men Forced To Stand Before The Bar of Military Justice.

2012-01-13T20:43:00.000-08:00

An Army Article 32 Investigating Officer has recommended that the charges against Bradley Manning be referred to a general court-martial. An article 32 Investigation is the equivalent of a civilian grand jury. In the military it is convened under the authority of Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

So, it is official. A military tribunal will be convened in this case. This is the Friday the 13th Double Whammy for Bradley Manning. These military tribunals will probably become more common under the Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama now that he has the legal authority to detain indefinitely without trial anyone considered a terrorist.

It would be wise for most American to become acquainted with the UCMJ and its procedures. This is the same type of forum that was used to convict Cadet Webster Smith at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy for alleged sexual assault. And it is the same type of forum that will be used to try the cadets at the U. S. Air Force Academy who were charged earlier this week with alleged sex crimes.

A book about the Webster Smith case describes the UCMJ procedure from pre-trial investigation all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. It is entitled "CONDUCT UNBECOMING an Officer and Lady". It is available in Kindle format from Amazon.com and can be read for free on a Kindle reader.

(http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-ebook/dp/B006VPAADK/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_2)

The charges against Private Manning include aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing it is accessible to the enemy, theft of public property or records, transmitting defense information and computer fraud.

If convicted, Manning, an army private before the WikiLeaks furor erupted, could be sentenced to life in prison. Webster Smith was sentenced to 6 months in prison, a bad conduct discharge, and separation form the armed forces. He was also required to register as a sex offender in the State of Texas.

The recommendation followed a seven-day Article 32 Investigation to determine if there was sufficient evidence to try the 24-year-old private from Oklahoma. The IO found that there was probable cause to proceed to a trial.

Manning is accused of giving WikiLeaks a massive trove of US military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, 260,000 classified State Department cables, Guantanamo detainee assessments and videos of US air strikes.

Trained on various intelligence systems, Manning served in Iraq from November 2009 until his arrest in May 2010.

The anti-secrecy website began releasing the military documents in July 2010. It dumped the entire archive of diplomatic documents in September 2011, causing huge embarrassment to U.S. Government.

It is alleged that contact information for WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, military reports, cables and other classified material had been found on computers and storage devices used by Manning.

Our commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama, has publicly declared Manning guilty before he has had his day in court. One would have expected a former Constitutional law professor to show more respect for the presumption of innocence that an accused is afforded under the U. S. Constitution. This could sure taint any potential jury pool.

In his closing argument at the Article 32 hearing, Manning's civilian defense attorney David Coombs said the government "overcharged in this case". He begged the IO to reduce the charges to just three counts that would carry a total of 30 years in prison.

The defense portrayed Manning as suffering during his deployment near Baghdad from emotional problems stemming from his homosexuality, which his superiors did nothing to remedy.

Cadet Webster Smith was placed in pre-trial confinement and forced to work at hard labor for 6 months before he was taken to a trial. Bradley Manning was jailed for more than a year and a half. He complained of being placed in solitary confinement, of bullying by guards, and of being subjected to an ultra restrictive regime at the US military prison at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia just outside of Washington,DC.

https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com

Sexual Assault Returns To Military Academies. Boys Will Be Boys. Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

2012-01-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-ebook/dp/B006VPAADK/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_2

To start the New Year with a bang, commanders at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs on 5 January 2012 charged three Air Force Academy cadets with sexual assault in cases that occurred over the past 15 months.

The cases involve acts allegedly committed at the Academy, and involve civilian women as well as female cadets.

In November 2011, Cadet Stephan H. Claxton is alleged to have unzipped the fly of a female cadet while she was "substantially incapacitated" -- a phrase the military has used in the past to describe intoxication.

Cadet Claxton faces assault and attempted rape charges, including an allegation that he forcibly kissed one cadet and assaulted another. He is also charged concerning an incident in March 2011, where he is accused of forcing a fellow cadet to touch his genitals and indulge in underage drinking.

Cadet Kyle A. Cressy, a graduating senior and a member of the soccer team, is charged having sex with a woman at the academy who was "substantially incapacitated." It's unclear from the charge sheet whether the alleged victim was a civilian or a female cadet.

Cadet Robert M. Evenson Jr. is alleged to have forcibly raped a female cadet in the spring of 2010. He's also charged with breaking cadet regulations by having an ongoing relationship with a female freshman. He also is suspected of abusing his power position as a "cadet non-commissioned officer for honor cases" to extract sexual favors from a female fellow cadet. This is serious. He was charged with enforcing the Honor Code. he may have used it to supply gris for his mill. As one of the cadets entrusted with enforcing the Academy's Honor Code, he would have been in a very coveted position. He was expected to punish those who lie, cheat, steal or tolerate others who do. Those who violate the Honor Code face a maximum punishment of expulsion from the Academy. Allegations of corruption in the Honor Code enforcement system will likely send shockwaves through the Cadet Corps and the Academy alumni. The Honor Code is the very touchstone of the Academy's culture.

These charges come to light a week after the Pentagon reported a spike in the number of sexual assaults at the air Force Academy. There were 33 reported incidents in the 2010-2011 academic year. This is a four-fold increase in a two year span.

There are about 4,000 cadets at the Air Force Academy. A senior academy spokesman said these charges don't appear to mark a return of the level of incidents of sexual assault of 2003. In 2003 the Academy and the nation were rocked when dozens of female cadets reported incidents of alleged sexual assaults. Many of those cases were mishandled or ignored.

Several senior officers at the Academy were fired in the wake of the 2003 scandal. This resulted in congressional scrutiny to the issue of sexual assaults at all the nation's military academies. There were courts-martial at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Three were major reforms at those institutions.

The Coast Guard Academy court-martial of Cadet Webster Smith marked the first time in history that a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy was given court-martial. Some Coast Guard Academy graduates accused the Coast Guard of racial discrimination because the accused, Cadet Webster Smith, was African American and all of the accusers were white females. One of them was his girl friend who had become pregnant, and had an abortion more than six months before the Coast Guard decided to charge Cadet Smith with rape.

In the meantime it was learned that about 11 other cases of confessed rape had been resolved without resort to a court-martial. All of the other cadets were allowed to resign quietly and slip into darkness. All the other cadets were white. This is part of the reason that there were claims of bias and inappropriate command influence in the prosecution of Webster Smith.

The conviction was appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court. It is interesting to note that there were several 'Friend of the Court' or 'amicus briefs' filed with the Supreme Court by senior military lawyers from other branches of the armed forces in favor of the reversal of the Webster Smith conviction. It set a very bad precedent and there were irregularities in the prosecution and the appellate review of the conviction. The case was thoroughly critiqued in a book available on Amazon.com. (See http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-ebook/dp/B006VPAADK/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_2)

The Pentagon in a December 2011 report to Congress praised the Air Force Academy's efforts to curb sexual assault in the ranks and gave the school high marks for its programs to encourage sexual assault reporting.

"[The academy] demonstrated commendable practices that should be considered for replication by other military service academies," the Defense Department wrote in the report. The Coast Guard Academy had already implemented a new procedure for reporting and investigating sexual assaults in the wake of the Webster Smith case.

If any of these cadets get convicted, it would mark a reversal of fortunes for air Force prosecutors. Since the 2003 scandal, the academy has prosecuted a string of rape cases against cadets. But none of those cases has resulted in a conviction. Unlike the Coast Guard Academy, where one prosecution in 2006 resulted in one conviction and six months in jail for a graduating senior. (http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-ebook/dp/B006VPAADK/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_2)

Recent rape trials at the Air Force Academy have almost always centered on the issue of 'consent'. The defendant always used as a defense that the alleged victim gave her consent. He said she asked for sex. The cases were also marked by a lack of forensic evidence that could help sort out the conflicting claims. One can never be sure what a jury will decide in a case of 'he-said, she-said'.

CONDUCT UNBECOMING an Officer and Lady

2011-10-04T14:26:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

If the USA is one big book club then the American Corner and the Steverson Collection Book Club must have been hoping that this would be the week that everyone was talking about "CONDUCT UNBECOMING an Officer and Lady", Judge London Steverson's most recent revelation concerning the trial and conviction of the first Coast Guard Academy cadet in the history of this small military academy in New London, CT..(www.judgelondonsteverson.com)

This case really made news and generated a lot of changes in the way sexual assaults are reported and investigated in the military academies. Read in full, this book is a new American Tragedy. It has the virtues and limitations of Theodore Dreiser's original American Tragedy: contemporary, still unfolding history, shadows of power, teenage binge drinking, inter-racial sexual encounters of the worst kind, and immorality at the highest levels of the military. That means an all knowing, seemingly eyewitness, mind-reading author; an unbelievable dialogue of incrimination and recrimination, back and forth he-said, she-said. One is left with the unmistakable feeling that someone must be telling the truth, but who?

If the male cadet-accused is, then the female cadet-accuser is a woman of easy virtue times two. Also, she would have to be a pathological liar.

If the female cadet-accuser is telling the truth, then the accused male cadet is a Jim Dandy, smooth, athletic, lady's man, who finally gets hoisted on his own petard.

This book is non-fiction, and it is based on a true story. It is an analysis of the latest bomb to come out of the annals of inter-class, inter-racial, misconduct at the Coast Guard Academy.

Analysis, background, and exposition necessarily take a back seat to exaggeration. There is no need to inflate the facts; this truth is more fascinating than fiction.

After showing that the accused is not the sexual predator that he was alleged to have been by senior officials, the book demonstrates how the justice system was used to pervert justice in a case of few complicated facts. This case actually went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

In addition to exposing the trial for what it was; that is to say, a kangaroo court; the author actually paints a detailed and accurate description of the real Coast Guard Academy sexual predator.

https://www.amazon.com/author/cgachall.blogspot.com

Steverson Collection Book Club

2011-10-02T17:00:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/socialNsecurity-Confessions-Social-Security-Judge/dp/1449569757

The American Corner in Veszprém provides up-to-date, accurate, and tailor-made information on issues related to the U.S. Citizens of the region are welcome to visit the Corner to gain information about the the American educational system, arts, sciences, and economy. In addition to that, our aim is to create links and foster communication between Hungary and the U.S. The Corner focuses mainly on educational, cultural and business issues connecting the two nations. Besides providing basic services, we organize conferences, meetings, exhibitions, and performances.

Detailed Info Website:http://www.americancorner.hu
Company Overview:The American Corners (AC) program is a United States Department of State-sponsored initiative inaugurated worldwide more than 10 years ago.
American Corner Debrecen is a cultural and information center supported by the Embassy of the United States, the City Council of Debrecen and the University of Debrecen.
Mission:The basic function of the American Corner is to make information about the United States available by providing access to current and reliable information about the U. S. via book, video, and DVD collections, the Internet, and through a wide range of local programs.
We hope to bring the American culture closer to the Hungarian people and therefore foster international cooperation.
Products:Knowledge, cheerfulness, friendship... ALL FOR FREE :)

After the Opening Ceremony of the Steverson Collection on 23 April, 2009 the
American Corner Veszprem was excited to announce the start of the
Steverson Collection Book Club. The Club's aim is to give the reading public a chance to get
acquainted with the vast collection of books in the generous donation from Judge London
Steverson and his family. This Book Club is be run by booklovers, for booklovers.
The members are at the heart of all the club does.

Variety is at the heart of our Club. The Steverson Collection contains thousands of used and rare English language books on a variety of subjects of interest; such as, History, Humor, Satire, Myths & Legends, Philosophy, Poetry, Shakespeare, Religion, Reference,
Travel & Leisure, Exploration (The Silk Road, The Spice Route, The
Northwest Passage, Antarctica, The North Pole, and more..)

Steverson Collection Book Club meets every Tuesday in the American Corner.
Do you like reading? Join the unique Steverson Collection Book Club. Meet new friends. Memberhip is free, the language English. win a valuable English language book every month. Date and time: 16:30-17:30, September 27, 2011. Venue: American Corner, Eötvös Károly County Library and Cultural Institute, Veszprém, Komakút tér 3.

Join The Steverson Collection Book Club and meet new friends from 16:30-17:30 every Tuesday at the American Corner. Do you like reading? Are you interested in English language books? Memberhip is free, the language of the program is English. Date: August 30, 2011. Venue: American Corner, Eötvös Károly County Library and Cultural Institute, Veszprém, Komakút tér 3.

(Hungarian)
(Részletek) Steverson gyűjtemény könyvklub (Steverson Collection Book Club)
Minden kedden 16:30-17:30-ig az Amerikai Kuckóban.

Szeretsz olvasni? Érdekelnek az angol nyelvű könyvek? Csatlakozz az
egyedülálló Steverson-gyűjtemény könyvklubjához, és ismerkedj meg új
könyvekkel és új barátokkal! A részvétel ingyenes, a program nyelve
angol.

Időpont: 2011. Augusztus 30. 16:30-17:30.
Helyszín: Amerikai Kuckó, Eötvös Károly Megyei

Wikipedia deleted page Re: London Steverson

2011-09-26T21:53:00.001-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988 and in 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration.
Contents

1 Early life and education
2 USCG Assignments
3 USCG Minority Recruiting
4 Law
5 Awards
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Early life and education

Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.

A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948,[1] but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black student to be offered such an appointment, and when he accepted the opportunity to be part of the class of 1968, he became the second African American to enter the previously all-white military academy. On June 4, 1968 Steverson graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a BS degree in Engineering and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.

In 1974, while still a member of the Coast Guard, Steverson entered The National Law Center of The George Washington University and graduated in 1977 with a Juris Doctor of Laws Degree.
USCG Assignments

Steverson's first duty assignment out of the Academy was in Antarctic research logistical support. In July 1968 he reported aboard the Coast Guard Cutter (CGC) Glacier [2] (WAGB-4), an icebreaker operating under the control of the U.S. Navy, and served as a deck watch officer and head of the Marine Science Department. He traveled to Antarctica during two patrols from July 1968 to August 1969, supporting the research operations of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Project in and around McMurdo Station. During the 1969 patrol the CGC Glacier responded to an international distress call from the Argentine icebreaker General SanMartin, which they freed.

He received another military assignment from 1970 to 1972 in Juneau, Alaska as a Search and Rescue Officer. Before being certified as an Operations Duty Officer, it was necessary to become thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Alaskan remote sites. Along with his office mate, Ltjg Herbert Claiborne "Bertie" Pell, the son of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Steverson was sent on a familiarization tour of Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force bases. The bases visited were Base Kodiak, Base Adak Island, and Attu Island, in the Aleutian Islands.[3]

Steverson was the Duty Officer on September 4, 1971 when an emergency call was received that an Alaskan Airlines Boeing 727 airline passenger plane was overdue at Juneau airport. This was a Saturday and the weather was foggy with drizzling rain. Visibility was less than one-quarter mile. The 727 was en route to Seattle, Washington from Anchorage, Alaska with a scheduled stop in Juneau. There were 109 people on board and there were no survivors. Steverson received the initial alert message and began the coordination of the search and rescue effort. In a matter of hours the wreckage from the plane, with no survivors, was located on the side of a mountain about five miles from the airport. For several weeks the body parts were collected and reassembled in a staging area in the National Guard Armory only a few blocks from the Search and Rescue Center where Steverson first received the distress broadcast.[4]. Later a full investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was equipment failure.[5]

Another noteworthy item is Steverson's involvement as an Operations Officer during the seizure of two Russian fishing vessels, the Kolevan and the Lamut for violating an international agreement prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing in United States territorial waters. The initial attempts at seizing the Russian vessels almost precipitated an international incident when the Russian vessels refused to proceed to a U. S. port, and instead sailed toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian MIG fighter planes were scrambled, as well as American fighter planes from Elmendorf Air Force Base before the Russian vessels changed course and steamed back to Anchorage, where a U.S. Attorney was waiting to prosecute the vessels for the violations of fishing treaties.

Because of his icebreaker experience, Steverson was later made the Seventeenth District's first Ice Operations Officer. With the increased activity at Point Barrow and on the North Slope of Alaska brought on by the discovery of the vast oil reserves, more Coast Guard icebreakers were making patrols North of the Bering Sea, where icebreaking is necessary.

The Coast Guard did not have a separate Judge Advocate General's Corp (JAG). Coast Guard lawyers were called "legal specialists". These law specialists were line officers and could rotate out of the regular legal billets. Frequently these tours of duty out of specialty were in law related areas. Steverson served one such four year tour of duty as the Chief Marine Investigating Officer for the Marine Inspection Office in Battery Park, New York from 1982 to 1986. This job was similar to that of a city prosecutor. With a staff of ten investigating officers, he would investigate marine disasters for negligence and causes of action. Any marine personnel found to have violated a marine safety law would be charged and tried before a Coast Guard administrative law judge at the World Trade Center. In the case of a major marine disaster with multiple loss of life, a formal Board of Inquiry would be convened under the direction of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). These Inquiries often would result in promulgation of new marine safety regulations under Title 46 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). One such incident was the Case of The Joan LaRie III, a charter fishing vessel that sank of the coast of New Jersey on October 24, 1982. [6][7][8]
USCG Minority Recruiting
Lt. Steverson with the 20 new Black cadets in the Class of 1978, sworn in July 1974 on the steps of Chase Hall.

In July 1972 Steverson was reassigned from Alaska to Washington, D.C. to become the Chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the USCG, and was charged with working toward desegregating the nearly all-white USCG, starting with the United States Coast Guard Academy.

From 1876 until 1962 the Academy had not admitted any African-American cadets. One graduated in 1966, two graduated in 1968 (including Steverson) and one graduated in 1970. After that none were admitted until Steverson was placed in charge of the national recruiting effort. As the second minority cadet to enter and graduate from this institution, Steverson had obvious expertise in this endeavor.

He traveled the country looking for qualified minority high school students who could compete for admission. Since the Coast Guard Academy is the only one of the United States military academies that does not require a Congressional appointment, and admission is strictly on the basis of the Scholastic Aptitude Test with additional consideration of extra-curricular involvement, minority applicants stood a better chance of being admitted to the Coast Guard Academy than to Annapolis, West Point or the Air Force Academy.

His efforts were rewarded in 1973 when 28 Black cadets were sworn into the Class of 1977, and again in 1974 when 20 Black cadets were admitted as part of the Class of 1978. It was from these cadets that the Coast Guard's first African-American officers of flag rank were to come in the 1990s; officers such as Admiral Joseph Jones, Admiral Errol Brown and Admiral Manson K. Brown.

While Lieutenant Steverson was charged first and foremost with recruiting cadets for the Academy (because that is where the bulk of the career officers would come from), he was also requested to find minority college graduates who were willing receive direct commissions as lawyers and as aviators. These officers were already college graduates and had no need to attend the four year Academy, instead received a three month orientation at the Coast Guard Officer Training Center. He recruited several people from the Vanderbilt University Law School.

After serving two years in this position, he was replaced by the Academy's first graduate from Guam, Juan Tudela Salas.[9]
Law

He next worked as a Law Specialist in the 12th Coast Guard District Office, San Francisco, California and as an Assistant U. S. Attorney for the collection of Civil Penalties under the Federal Boating Safety Act from 1979 to 1982. An Assistant District Legal Officer, he was required to defend as well as prosecute military members who had been charged with violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Occasionally he was asked to represent other officers in administrative actions involving sexual harassment and discrimination. One such case was the Case of Christine D. Balboni against the Department of Transportation and the United States Coast Guard (DOT Case No. 82-177). Ensign Balboni was one of the first female graduates of the Coast Guard Academy. She graduated in the Class of 1981 and was assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter RUSH, a high endurance law enforcement vessel stationed in Alameda, California. She filed a formal complaint of sexual harassment against three senior officers on board the RUSH. She alleged that false special fitness reports had been written concerning her and that the captain of the ship had requested her immediate transfer off the ship long before her normal rotation date. After no other lawyer would take her case, Commander Ronald Mathews, Chief of The 12th District Legal Office, assigned Lieutenant Commander Steverson to represent Ensign Balboni in a formal departmental administrative hearing before a federal administrative law judge. The charges made by Ensign Balboni were determined to be valid. The relief granted was to have the false special fitness reports removed from her service record and destroyed. She was promoted to the next higher rank. Her career was saved. No disciplinary action was taken against the offending officers.[10][11]

He became the Chief of the Investigating Division at the Marine Inspection Office New York City. In 1986 he was detailed to the National Narcotics Border Interdiction System under the Office of Vice President at the time, George H. W. Bush.

When he retired in June 1988 he became the first African-American Coast Guard Academy graduate to retire as a regular line office from the service, and held the rank of Lieutenant-Commander during his last 10 years of service.

He retired to Dumont, New Jersey and practiced law in New York, with a focus on family law and defending Coast Guardsmen accused of federal crimes. He is a member of the New York State, New York City, and Tennessee Bar Associations.

In July 1990 he was appointed a federal administrative law judge by President George W. Bush. He was assigned to the Ninth Region of the Social Security Office of Hearings and Appeals in California. [12]

In April 2009 he retired from his United States Administrative Law Judge Appointment. He devoted himself to philanthropic endeavors. The Steverson Collection at www.ekmk.hu and the Steverson Collection Book Club were his major attempts to improve literacy and to spread American culture in the non-English speaking countries of Europe.
Awards

The Cultural Diplomacy Award was given to Judge Steverson in April 2009 by the United States Ambassador to Hungary for helping create "a foundation of trust" with the people, which can be built on to reach political, economic, and military agreements; and that combats the notion that Americans are shallow, violent, and godless. He helped to affirm that Americans have such values as family, faith, and the desire for education in common with others; he helped to create a relationship with the people, which will endure beyond changes in government; he helped to reach influential members of the society, who could not be reached through traditional diplomatic functions; and, he donated a large collection of new, used, and rare English books to the American Corners of Hungary.

The State Department Cultural Diplomacy Award is designed to honor distinguished representatives of American culture whose efforts and artistry advance America's goals of mutual understanding and the deepening of friendship between the United States and others.

Since his appointment by President George H. W. Bush in 1990 as federal administrative judge to the Ninth Region of the Social Security Office of Hearings and Appeals, Judge Steverson and family have resided in Downey City, CA, where he was president of the Downey Sister City Association for seven years, and an International Peace Ambassador.
See also

Black Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy

References

^ Truman Library - Executive Order 9981
^ http://www.laesser.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=38
^ Attu Homepage
^ DCA72AZ003
^ Aviation Disasters Crashes
^ http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/moa/boards/joanlerie.pdf
^ http://www.webandwire.com/coast%20guard%20casualties.htm
^ Missing Body Is Found In Jersey Boat Sinking - New York Times
^ http://www.offisland.com/armedsalas.html Info about Juan Tudela Salas
^ Transitions - The Mason Spirit - George Mason University
^ Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)
^ http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7862/2758/320/AljOmaha35630520.jpg

External links

Integration of the Armed Forces 1940-1965, chapter 20 Limited Response to Discrimination - includes info about President John F. Kennedy's personal involvement with the first attempts to desegregate the USCG Academy, which was a direct cause of London Steverson's admission into the Academy.
USCG history page - See of this page starting with caption for picture of the Lamut (about 2/3 the way down the page).
Photo of the judge in robes on the bench
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7862/2758/1600/JudgePortraitDSC03584.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7862/2758/320/AljOmaha35630520.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~uscgacademy/london.html

Categories: 1947 births | George Washington University alumni | Living people | United States Coast Guard Academy alumni

Related links
Up to date as of November 16, 2009
[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Photo of the judge in robes on the bench

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Integration of the Armed Forces 1940-1965, chapter 20 - CHAPTER 20: Limited Response to Discrimination

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Truman Library - Executive Order 9981

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Info about Juan Tudela Salas - Salas - offisland.com

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Attu Homepage

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] DCA72AZ003

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Aviation Disaters Crashes

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Homeport: Investigations

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] MISSING BODY IS FOUND IN JERSEY BOAT SINKING - New York Times

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Transitions - The Mason Spirit -- George Mason University

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Comcast

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 100% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] Cite/Cite.php - Meta

[This page is marked authoritative because it has been included for 75% of the life of the Wikipedia article.] link title - Example Web Page

Related topics
Up to date as of August 19, 2010

United States Coast Guard
United States Naval Academy
United States Military Academy
United States Navy
Black Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy
United States Air Force Academy

An American Tragedy, The Webster Smith Case Is A Coast Guard Tragedy.

2011-04-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

Why Was Webster Smith court-martialed?

The Webster Smith Story is an American tragedy. It is not just the story of a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet; it is the story of an American family. It is the story of his mother, Belinda; and his father, Cleon; his wife, Lindsey and their daughter; and of his sister and brothers. It is the story of the friends of Webster Smith. They have all been harmed by the violence directed at their son, brother, husband, father and friend.

At the Coast Guard Academy, Webster Smith was a member of the Eclipse, Track Team, Football team, Regimental Staff, and a Swab summer Staff. He represented the Coast Guard in Washington DC concerning fitness and nutrition programs. He received numerous silver stars and never received a demerit prior the incident and investigation in 2005 that led to his court-martial.

To his classmates, teachers, and coaches Webster Smith appeared to be a magnetic, charming and gifted man, who had risen above his circumstances. Yet, in a moment, as if in the twinkling of an eye, a swift series of events diminished his popularity, vilified his name, and assailed his honor. His image was converted by senior Coast Guard officers from a popular athlete and nice guy to that of a sexual predator and public enemy number one at the Coast Guard Academy.

Webster Smith had dared to dream some big dreams. Like Alex Haley he had dared to believe that he could rise in the USCG to the highest level to which his talents and initiative could take him.

His parents were middle class African Americans. His father, Cleon Smith, was a graduate of the Coast Guard Academy in the Class of 1978 along with Vice Admiral Manson K. Brown.

His mother, Belinda Ingram Smith, believed in God and a good education. After attending college at WSSU for four years she went on to become the first Black female Crime Scene Investigator in the history of the Winston-Salem police Department.

This unbelievable turn about in what had been a Black success story is a singularly American tragedy.

That a cadet so deeply respected and loved by his coaches and classmates could evoke such an outpouring of hate and anger from the senior officers at the Coast Guard Academy is a Coast Guard tragedy and an American tragedy.

All of the female cadets involved with and associated with Webster Smith escaped clean without any consequences for their actions or their behavior. Mother Nature was the only one who exacted a penalty. Natural Law resulted in a pregnancy for his girlfriend. An abortion followed.

If women are equal, they should be treated as equal. Not a single woman was disciplined under the UCMJ or the cadet regulations. All of the female cadets involved in the Webster Smith case graduated and were commissioned as Coast Guard officers. Their testimony at the court-martial painted a picture of female cadets who were untrustworthy, arrogant, and certainly not ladies. Their conduct was unbecoming an officer and a lady. (Read more at www.judgelondonsteverson.com)

These women were witnesses at a public trial yet they were accorded the equivalent of rape shield protection. This was not a rape case. Not one of the women had been raped. There was testimony of consensual sex acts. Some of the consensual sex acts were unlawful because, among other things, they occurred in Chase Hall, or at Academy functions. How could unlawful consensual sex acts result in charges against only one of the participants? It takes two to tango.

Is it wrong for Black people to ask if there is a double standard? Would that amount to paranoia on the part of Black people? Or would that be considered playing the race card simply to inquire? Is it absurd to believe that anything more than pure chance resulted in the court-martial of Webster Smith? The fact that he was court-martialed speaks to a social reality that African-Americans are acutely aware of in America. Race is not a card to be dealt, but it determines whom the dealer is and who gets dealt a losing hand.

According to a 2008 General Accounting Office Report, from 2003 to 2006 there were NO sexual-harassment complaints at the Coast Guard Academy, but there were 12 incidents of sexual assault reported to the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS), with one incident in 2003, one in 2004, “NONE” in 2005 and 10 in 2006. It is hard to conceive of the facts relied upon by, Captain Douglas Wisniewski, the Commandant Of Cadets when he asserted in 2005 that there was a climate of fear of sexual assault in Chase Hall.

The 10 incidents reported in 2006 would appear to have occurred after the Webster Smith court-martial. Webster Smith was removed from Chase Hall in 2005. Who was doing all of the sexual assaulting in 2006? Why were none of these people brought to justice? They could have been tried along with Webster Smith.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of Webster Smith. The justices declined to hear the case without comment. The decision of the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) became the final decision in the case.

Thirteen female cadets and 11 males at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (CGA) reported anonymously in an April 2008 survey that they experienced “unwanted sexual contact,” ranging from touching to forced sexual acts, during the 2007-08 school year.

More than three-quarters said that alcohol or drugs were involved and that the offender was a fellow cadet.
None of the women sought professional help and only 7 percent discussed the incident with authorities.

When Alexander Hamilton organized the Revenue Cutter Service in 1790 it was established in the Department of the Treasury. Later it became known as the Coast Guard. In 1966 it was placed in the Department of Transportation. Today it is the nucleus of the Department of Homeland Security. Webster Smith's case is currently being reviewed for clemency by the Secretary of the Department of Home Land Security, Janet Napolitano.

Webster Smith would have made an excellent military officer. It is Webster Smith and people like him that I want on the wall as our last line of defense for our American way of life protecting us from the great unwashed horde that is coming. Secretary Napolitano who do you want on that wall?
(Read more at www.judgelondonsteverson.com)

CONDUCT UNBECOMING an Officer and a Lady: A Case That Will Live In Infamy. The Conviction of Webster Smith. by Judge London Steverson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Webster Smith Story is an American tragedy. It is not just the story of a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet; it is the story of an American family. To his classmates, teachers, and coaches at the Coast Guard Academy Webster Smith appeared to be a magnetic, charming and gifted man, who had risen above his circumstances. Yet, in a moment, as if in the twinkling of an eye, a swift series of events diminished his popularity, vilified his name, and assailed his honor. His image was converted by senior Coast Guard officers from a popular athlete and nice guy to that of a sexual predator and public enemy number one at the Coast Guard Academy.The Webster Smith case was a litmus test for justice in America. Every once in a while a case comes along that puts our humanity as a people on trial. Everything that we profess to stand for as Americans was on trial. I am ashamed of our justice system. This was a tragedy and a travesty.

I wanted to know why Webster Smith was court-martialed? Now I know. This book is the full story.

http://cgreport.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/conduct-unbecoming-an-officer-and-a-lady-the-webster-smith-trial/#comment-27379

Remains Of The Day.

2010-12-29T11:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

SUPREME COURT WON'T HEAR APPEAL IN CONVICTION OF FORMER CGA CADET.

Publication: The Day. 12/28/2010.
By Lee Howard.

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal of the conviction of Webster Smith, the only Coast Guard Academy cadet ever court-martialed.

Smith's conviction in 2006 on extortion, sodomy and indecent-assault charges - while he was acquitted on a rape count - had previously been upheld by the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals and, in March, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Smith had sought a Supreme Court review based largely on the argument that he had not been able to question the credibility of one of his accusers, known only as Cadet SR.

The right to confront one's accusers is guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But the Armed Forces appeals court, in a 3-2 vote, ruled that judges have the discretion to bar testimony so long as the issue involved is not deemed necessary to the case.

"Further cross-examination of Cadet SR was not 'constitutionally required,' " according to the appeals court decision. "It was neither material nor vital."

Smith's attorneys wanted a chance to question the female cadet because, according to a legal brief, she had lied about the consensual nature of a previous sexual encounter with an enlisted man, contrary to Coast Guard rules and possibly jeopardizing her military career. The female cadet claimed Smith used knowledge of her previous dalliance to extort sexual favors from her.

"The defense maintained that the two cadets' sexual encounter was consensual and that SR was fabricating her accusations because the encounter occurred in Chase Hall, the Academy dormitory, where sexual activity is prohibited by cadet regulations," according to a brief in the case.

The court's minority, including Chief Judge C.J. Effron, agreed that Smith's attorneys should have been allowed to question the female cadet. In a dissenting opinion, they said Smith's "allegation that SR had previously lied about a sexual encounter" was relevant to the case.

Last month the Supreme Court rejected Smith's petition seeking a hearing on the case, effectively making the military appeals court's decision final.

The case had racial overtones because Smith, who is black, claimed his treatment was harsher than previously meted out to whites at the Coast Guard Academy accused of sexual impropriety. The Department of Homeland Security investigated the allegations in 2007 and denied the complaint.

"Many Supreme Court experts thought the high court might take Smith's case, but the justices declined the case without comment," according to the Law And Order blog found at http://lawandorderroybean.blogspot.com.

Efforts to speak with Smith and attorneys on both sides of the case were unsuccessful Monday. Smith, a former Coast Guard football star now living in Houston with his wife and daughter, spent nearly five months in a military prison after receiving a six-month sentence.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Lisa Novak said Monday that Smith's case is currently in the process of residual clemency, which will allow him to submit additional information before a review of his sentence by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Novak said Smith also has the right to seek a new trial before the Coast Guard appeals court, if he submits newly discovered evidence, and could also have his record cleared with a presidential pardon. According to Texas law, he will have to register as a sex offender, the National Law Journal reported.

The Smith case resulted in changes at the Coast Guard Academy, which formed a task force after the trial to look into the atmosphere on campus. The report cited a strong association between alcohol abuse and sexual assault as well as a mistrust of the Coast Guard Academy's leadership among minorities.

A subsequent study by the Government Accountability Office, issued in 2008 after a series of revelations about sexual misconduct at U.S. military academies, said the Coast Guard should be required to report on efforts to stem the tide of sexual assault and harassment cases.

The GAO noted the Coast Guard Academy was the only U.S. military school not required to report to Congress on sexual-misconduct cases.

l.howard@theday.com

The Wounded Dragon That Refuses To Die.

2010-12-08T14:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

Like a wounded dragon that refuses to die, Webster Smith is gasping for air after the latest wound from the U. S. Supreme Court in his heroic struggle for equal justice under the laws of the United States of America. But, dragons die hard.

A final judgement fom the Supreme Court has been entered in the Case of Cadet Webster Smith. He was a first Class Cadet, a graduating senior in the Academy Class of 2006. He had a brilliant future ahead of him, but his career was marked for death. He was snatched from his bed at midnight in Chase Hall, schackled with handcuffs, and lead down a chamber of horrors that continues to reverberate until this day. Tomorrow and tomorrow continues to creep in this petty pace from day to day until the last sylable of recorded time.

He made a full confession. He offered a contrite apology. He fought a good fight; he kept the faith; and, he finished the course. But, there is no crown of justification laid up for him; not yet.

Perhaps in the World Tomorrow, the Righteous Judge will see the merits of his case; or, in this world's court of public opinion the people will see what a horrendous injustice has been done to one of the best and the brightest that America has produced. The last chapter has yet to be written in this sorry saga.

Hard cases make bad law. In this case, the facts were not so hard to distinguish as the defendant was of the wrong persuasion.

Webster Smith will never again have be asked what is the mission of the United States Coast Guard Academy or 'how is the cow?'. No need to explain that she walks; she talks; she's full of chalk; the lactile fluid extracted from the female of the bovine species is highly prolific to the Nth degree. He will never again have to concern himself with swab indoc. He will never be a company officer adviser, or the Commandant of Cadets. Never again will he darken the doors of Chase Hall.

A regrettable and avoidable chapter in Coast Guard history may be over.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

No. 10-18
Title: Webster M. Smith, Petitioner
v.
United States

Docketed: June 30, 2010
Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
Case Nos.: (08-0719)
Decision Date: March 29, 2010

~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jun 28 2010 Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due July 30, 2010)

Jul 30 2010 Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed.
Jul 30 2010 Brief amicus curiae of United States Army Defense Appellate Division filed.

Oct 28 2010 Brief of respondent United States in opposition filed.
Nov 5 2010 Reply of petitioner Webster M. Smith filed. TBP
Nov 8 2010 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of November 23, 2010.
Nov 29 2010 Petition DENIED.

The only cadet court-martialed in the 130-year history of the Coast Guard Academy has run out of options to appeal his conviction.

Cadet Webster Smith already served time behind bars, but continued to fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

After more than four years, the Smith case is over. The former Coast Guard cadet hit a dead end when the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear his final appeal.

Smith was acquitted of rape charges, but served five months in a military prison after being convicted of sodomy, extortion and other charges.

He was also kicked out of the Coast Guard Academy.

Smith has claimed in multiple appeals that his constitutional rights were violated at his trial.

He said he wasn't allowed to ask one of the female cadets who accused him of rape about her past, saying he wanted to show that the woman known as Cadet S.R., had a motive to lie about what happened with Smith.

He claimed their sexual encounter was consensual.

Since the nation's high court has declined to hear Smith's case, the final judgment comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the armed forces.

In March the court ruled that his conviction should stand, saying "further cross-examination of Cadet S.R. was not 'constitutionally required.'"

Many Supreme Court experts thought the high court might take Smith's case, but the justices declined the case without comment.

Congress is deadlocked; the President is weakened; and, the Supreme Court does not appear to be in a mood to settle conflicts of law between the Circuit Courts. Since nature abhors a vacuum, this may be a good time to legislate from the bench.

This case implicates a deep circuit conflict regarding
the standard of review that applies when a trial
judge’s restriction on the cross-examination of a prosecution
witness is challenged on appeal as a violation of
the Confrontation Clause. The Court of Appeals for the
Armed Forces (CAAF) held that the standard of
review is abuse of discretion rather than de novo. Applying
the former standard, the court rejected Webster Smith’s
Confrontation Clause claim by a vote of 3-2.

The Courts Of Appeals Are Deeply Divided
Over What Standard Of Review Applies To
Confrontation Clause Claims Like Webster Smith’s.
The CAAF employed abuse-of-discretion review in resolving
Smith’s Sixth Amendment challenge to the
military judge’s restriction on the defense’s crossexamination
of Shelly. That approach conflicts with the holdings of five circuits, which consider comparable Confrontation Clause claims de novo,
reserving abuse-of-discretion review for nonconstitutional
challenges. For example, the Seventh
Circuit has stated that “[o]rdinarily, a district court’s
evidentiary rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion.
However, when the restriction [on crossexamination]
implicates the criminal defendant’s Sixth
Amendment right to confront witnesses against him, ...
the standard of review becomes de novo.”
The First, Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits
have adopted the same approach.

Six other circuits, by contrast—the Second, Third,
Fourth, Sixth, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits—
take the same approach that CAAF does, applying
abuse-of-discretion review even when a restriction
on the cross-examination of a prosecution witness is attacked
on constitutional grounds. The Sixth Circuit,
for example, stated in one case that “[defendant] argues
that his right to confrontation was violated when the
trial court ‘unfairly’ limited his cross-examination of [a]
government witness .… We review the district court’s
restriction on a defendant’s right to cross-examine witnesses
for abuse of discretion.”

In short, CAAF’s use of an abuse-of-discretion
standard in this case perpetuates a clear—and recognized—conflict in the circuits.

The Question Presented Was Recurring And
Important, And The Smith Case Was A Good Vehicle
For Deciding It. When will another perfectly tailored case such as this come along? Perhaps not in a thousand years will we see so appropriate a case for resolving this issue.
The circuit conflict at issue warranted resolution
by the Supreme Court. The constitutionality of restrictions
on cross-examination arises frequently in criminal prosecutions, and in every part of the country. Those cases also show that the conflict over the standard for appellate review of such restrictions is established;
there is no benefit to be gained by giving the lower courts additional time to consider the issue. Moreover, the question presented was important, because the standard of review can determine the outcome of an appeal. The difference between a rule of deference and the duty to exercise independent review is much more than a mere matter of degree. In even moderately close cases, the standard of review may be dispositive of an appellate court’s decision. That is particularly true when one
standard is highly deferential: CAAF, for example, has stated that “the abuse of discretion standard is a strict one,” satisfied only when “[t]he challenged action [is] arbitrary, fanciful, clearly unreasonable, or clearly erroneous".

Also, disuniformity created by the conflict directly
affects a fundamental individual right. Some defendants
in criminal cases enjoy less protection of the critical
right to confront their accusers because of the fortuity
of where their trials were held,or, as to cases decided
by CAAF, because they have chosen to wear the nation’s uniform.

The Webster Smith case presented a good vehicle to resolve the circuit
conflict. Webster Smith’s standard-of-review argument was both pressed and passed upon in the court of appeals, rendering the issue suitable for review by certiorari. In addition, CAAF’s rejection of Smith’s argument may well have determined the ultimate outcome. Even applying highly deferential review, CAAF was narrowly divided as to the constitutionality
of the military judge’s ruling in this case. If even one of the three judges who deemed that ruling not to be an abuse of discretion were to conclude, upon reviewing without deference, that it was inconsistent
with the Sixth Amendment, Webster Smith would have prevailed.

Smith now lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and daughter. He's required to register as a sex offender there for the rest of his life.

Justice truly was not served in this case. What is happening in America?
What happened to Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press? With the dumbing-down of the American educational system, most Americans now seem to know little and care less about their fundamental freedoms and civil liberties. Some believe that the police have a right to enter their homes without probable cause or a warrant. They do not believe that they have the right to "just say No".

In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave fundamental freedoms are being challenged as never before. Senators on Capitol Hill sound like a lynch mob calling for the head of the Wikileaks leader who published diplomatic cables on the internet. Many of the cables were little more than embarassing gossip. Yet, the administration that came into town riding the "transparency in government" horse are scrambling to keep its in-house chatter secret. We have not seen this much ado about release of tapes and documents since Richard Nixon and Alexander Butterfield let the cat out of the bag with the Watergate Tapes brew-ha-ha.

Coast Guard Academy to Congress, "Mind Your Own Business".

2010-09-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers upset over how few Blacks attend the U.S. Coast Guard Academy have backed off their proposal to shift for the first time to congressional nominations of cadets, which have been required at the nation's other service academies for decades.

On a voice vote, the House approved a compromise Coast Guard measure late Tuesday that includes $10 billion in authorized spending, and various management reforms, but nothing intended to boost black enrollment at the New London, Conn.-based academy. Black enrollment has been at 5 percent or less in recent years.

The academy provision was in a bill that won overwhelming bipartisan approval in a House vote last year. But it was left out of last spring's Senate-approved version. The compromise bill is expected to receive Senate approval as early as this week.

House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., and the chairman of its Coast Guard subcommittee, Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, had been outspoken advocates for congressional nominations during hearings.

"Though it is critical that the authorization passes, I am certainly disappointed that there were a number of provisions we had to drop from the House-passed bill in the final revisions," Cummings said in a statement after Tuesday's vote. "Included among the dropped legislation were provisions I authored ... that would have encouraged efforts to support diversity at the Coast Guard Academy."

Advocates of congressional involvement in admissions have argued that with some 40 members of Congress typically in the Congressional Black Caucus, it would be likely that the Coast Guard Academy would have more blacks enrolled if Congress members and senators had a say in nominating qualified candidates.

But even among Black academy graduates, there has been disagreement over whether to take that route.

"I'm starting to see the critical masses that our system needs for us to have a bright future," said Vice Admiral Manson K. Brown, the highest ranking Black in Coast Guard history, who won his latest promotion last May. "I'm using my bully pulpit to help the system."
(DENNIS CONRAD,AP)

A Time For Change. USCG Gets First 3-star Black Admiral.

2008-05-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

Admiral Brown takes over as 14th District Commander 22 May 2008.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown and Wilkie Rasmussmen, Cook Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs, signed a bilateral shiprider agreement in Samoa on July 25, 2008. Photo by Carolyn Ridderman, U.S. Coast Guard

On 8 May 2008 at the Coast Guard Maintenance and Logistics Command Pacific, Alameda, California, RADM Manson K. Brown was relieved by CAPT Robert E. Day. RADM Brown will take command of the 14th Coast Guard District on 22 May 2008.

The Change of Command ceremony is a time-honored tradition which formally symbolizes the continuity of authority as the command is passed from one individual to another. It is a formal ceremony which is conducted before the assembled company of the Command. The Change of Command as traditionally practiced within the Coast Guard is unique in the world today; it is a transfer of total responsibility, authority, and accountability from one individual to another.

The Change of Command is a big event in any service. It is an opportunity for the unit to look sharp to all the visitors and to put out the welcome mat to the incoming administration. It is hard to not be inspired by the pomp and circumstance of such an event. It is inspiring to watch a Change of Command ceremony.

The colors have been posted.

The Honor Guard is ready for inspection.

All present and accounted for, Sir.

Sempter Peratus. Always ready. Ready; Willing; and Able.

Reading of Citation to accompany The Legion of Merit.

Admiral Brown awarded the Legion of Merit.

Admiral Brown recieves his personal flag.

Sir, I stand relieved.

A 2-star promotion.

Admiral and Mrs. Manson K. Brown ready for duty, Sir.

The Maintenance & Logistics crew thanks you.

From the CPO Association a hat box for your Honorary CPO cap.

The National Naval Officers' Association thanks you.

The Navy League thanks you.

The Change of Command ceremony for RADM Manson K. Brown signaled a PROMISE of what can be, or what might be, and how great the Coast Guard can be. I experienced a sense of promise and a sense of hope in the future of the Coast Guard. My hope is inspired by RADM Brown's promotion, transfer, and the fact that he is on track to become the Coast Guard's first African American Commandant.

As I sat in the audience at the Change of Command ceremony I saw what had become of the braniac high school senior that I had recruited out of Saint John's Prep School in Washington, DC in 1973. What I saw surpassed my wildest expectations. I saw a Coast Guard admiral of cosmopolitan intellectualism and oratorical eloquence. With his image and the power of his words, he embodies the type of leader that the Coast Guard will need in the next few years. RADM Brown projected a youthful vigor and indescribable charisma. There was an inherent decency and sincerity in his pleasant face and smile.

I like to read Alexis de Tocqueville. He was a 19th Century French statesman and writer who liked to travel around America and make comments about what he observed in the American body politic. On one occasion he noted a characteristic in the American spirit that he felt boded well for America; that is, America's "capacity for self-correction".

I believe that the Coast Guard also has a capacity for self-correction. It is time for a change. Change is in the air. It is time to move on. It is time for healing. It is time to embrace change. I pray that the Americans occupying the most senior positions in the United States Coast Guard will exhibit that sense of self-correction and get back on course.

A mid-course correction could be accomplished by a change at the top, by a single act of bold and daring leadership. Selecting Manson K. Brown as the next Coast Guard Commandant would be such an act of bold and daring leadership.

Admiral Brown presents Maintenance & Logistics Command Pacific Domain's Enlisted Person of the Year Award (CAPT Belmondo, YN2 Rocklage, RDML Brown, CMC Cale-Jones).

NOW HEAR THIS! NOW HEAR THIS!! Change is inevitable no matter who is selected to be the next Commandant. Thad Allen came in with such high expectations, but he has not delivered. His superb job during and after Hurricane Katrina led many to expect more from ADM Allen, but his tenure has been marked by a series of blunders and missteps. He has not provided the moral leadership the Coast Guard has needed at one of its darkest hours. As the supreme leader of the Nation's only humanitarian service, he has abandoned the moral high ground. In retrospect his performance during Hurricane Katrina appears to have been motivated more by a desire to upstage, Michael Brown, the former Director of FEMA than to render aid and comfort to the tragic victums of a natural disaster.

From the Cadet Webster Smith court-martial to the Deepwater fiasco and his failure to provide proper supervision of the Coast Guard Office of Civil Rights, ADM Allen's performance has earned him unflattering comments from the Congressmen and Senators who oversee his areas of responsibility.

The "noose incidents" occurred on his watch. He appears to have done nothing about them. The investigations were ineffectual. It was left to the Governor of Connecticut to take decisive action. The Connecticut State General Assembly was taking the lead in an area where initiative and strong leadership are drastically needed.
On 25 March 2008, the Legislature's Judiciary Committee voted 43-0 in favor of a bill that makes it a hate crime to hang a noose on public or private property, without permission of the property owner, and with the intent to harass or intimidate.

GOOD EVENING, MR AND MRS AMERICA AND ALL THE SHIPS AT SEA. THIS JUST IN FROM HARTFORD, Conn. (9/29/08) If a person tries to intimidate
someone by hanging a noose, he or she could face
criminal penalties in Connecticut. A law making it a
crime to display nooses will takes effect Wednesday, 1 October.

The law was passed after five nooses were discovered
in the state last year. In summer 2007, someone left
nooses for a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an
officer conducting race relations training at the United States Coast Guard Academy, New London,Connecticut.

The cadet in question was not Cadet Webster Smith, a Black cadet, who was the first Coast Guard Academy cadet ever to receive the Draconian punishment of a General Court-martial under circumstances that indicated racism was the motivating fator.

Three nooses were found in West Hartford last fall. In
July, a Bridgeport judge presiding over a murder trial
dismissed an entire jury after the drawing of a noose
was found in the deliberation room.

Govovernor M. Jodi Rell said they are symbols of racism. The
state's hate crimes law already includes similar
language for cross burnings.

(Halloween or theatrical displays are allowed under the
law but people caught using a noose to threaten or
intimidate could face up to five years in prison).

As Thomas Jackson said at the time, "The noose story is not the epicenter of Coast Guard Civil Rights issues. Equal Civil Rights are the story. The Coast Guard must and we think they will come to terms with this issue and others confronting the service. Leadership is the key to unlocking binds that hold progress in Equal Civil Rights back. Admiral Thad Allen is searching for the key with all his energy, but his staff expends ten times the energy hiding the key in a new location each time he gets close.

When asked about the Webster Smith court-martial, ADM Allen replied that the "process" had worked just as it was supposed to and just as he expected. On the otherhand, in an attempt to remove the albatross from the neck of the Coast Guard, it was ADM Robert Papp who took steps to remove ADM James Van Sice from office. ADM Van Sice and CAPT Doug Wisniewski were the architects of the Webster Smith travesty. It would appear that while ADM Thad Allen has his head in the clouds, it is ADM Robert Papp who has his feet on the ground. It kind of reminds one of the differences between George Patton and Omar Bradley. One was all talk and the other was mostly silent action.

With his new job as Atlantic Area Commander, VADM Papp is a step closer to the top job, but Manson Brown would be a better choice. His experience is broader, and he preceeded Barack Obama to Iraq by several years. The details of that duty are classified. There was a time when he was the special envoy of SEC-DOT Norman Mineta. The Selection Board for Commandant will have all of the relevant facts. While either Brown or Papp would be a better Commandant than Allen, VADM Manson K. Brown would be the wiser choice. History would smile on such a choice.

Admiral Brown at Lei-cutting ceremony to celebrate opening of the CG Clinic at Tripler Army Medical Facility in Hawaii; at right with Major General Hawley-Bowland (Commanding General, Tripler Army Medical Center), and RADM Brice-O'Hara (CG D14 Commander).

RDML Brown meets major league catcher, Travis Buck, before throwing out the first pitch at the Oakland Athletics' annual Coast Guard Day game.

Admiral Brown, 14th CG District Commander answered questions about its downed HH-65C Dolphin helicopter. "The work the Coast Guard does is hazardous," said Brown. "We do dangerous jobs in dangerous environments. We employ training and standard operating procedures to minimize the risk to our people. Losing a fellow 'Coastie' is like losing a child; it is an indescribable feeling," said Brown, who has been in the service for 30 years. He said he met with the three spouses at the hospital earlier. "We have thrown our cloak of comfort and concern around these families as if they were our own. We are going to take care of them in the absence of their loved ones."

The U.S. Coast Guard’s fight against minor maritime law violations may be a precursor to terrorism activities, according to one of its district commanders. Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown, USCG, commander, 14th Coast Guard District, described how fishing violations in U.S. exclusive economic zones may be laying the groundwork for terrorist actions in the same manner that piracy and terrorism have become linked.

Solving the problem of illegal fishing in the 14th Coast Guard District—which spans vast areas of the Pacific near many small island nations—may also position the Coast Guard to deal with emerging terrorist threats in the region. Tight federal budgets preclude the possibility of the Coast Guard adding large numbers of ships and crews, the admiral said. Instead, the Coast Guard must rely on technologies to fill the gap.

And, just as with conventional military operations, international collaboration is another key to success. Fish poachers can flee into waters of another sovereign island nation and grab fish there, which effectively defeats U.S. efforts to curb illegal fishing that threatens to deplete stocks. Adm. Brown described how the U.S. Coast Guard has a cooperative agreement with the Cook Islands that allows that country’s officials to use U.S. vessels as platforms for chasing poachers in their own waters. The admiral is pursuing similar agreements with other small island nations, and this collaboration can serve to help combat terrorism if it emerges in the region.

Feburary 2009 , the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) honored Coast Guard District Fourteen Commander Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown for his leadership and commitment to service with a Thurgood Marshall Flag Officers Award.

(In Picture) Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle and Rear Adm. Manson Brown at the Coast Guard District Fourteen Ball last year.
"I am pleased and privileged to be linked with a statesman such as Thurgood Marshall," said Brown, a civil engineer who has risen through the ranks of the U.S. Coast Guard to command the service's largest geographic district. "This is truly a humbling experience and I am honored to build upon Justice Marshall's legacy by furthering his commitment to leadership."

"I have thoroughly enjoyed my years in the United States Coast Guard and I recommend a career in our service to any young person looking for adventure and opportunities for professional growth," said Brown, a 1978 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy. "Officer or enlisted, the Coast Guard offers opportunities to grow and learn in a dynamic environment

Governor Linda Lingle is the sixth elected Governor of Hawai‘i. She is the first mayor, first woman and first person of Jewish ancestry to be Governor. She is also the first Republican to lead the Aloha State in more than 40 years. In November 2005, she was awarded the Diversity Best Practices Award for Leadership in Government – the first such award for a state’s chief executive.

Rear Adm. Manson Brown, at podium, commander of the 14th Coast Guard District, officiated at a change of command ceremony in which Lt. Cmdr. Bob Little, second from right on stage, took command of the cutter Kukui from Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Matadobra, third from right on stage. (Apr2009)

(Galveston, TX June 20, 2009)
Free At Last; Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, We are Free At Last.

Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown painted a picture of the African-Americans who stood in the yard of Ashton Villa on June 19, 1865, to hear the news that they were free.

Admiral Brown, the third African-American to reach the rank of admiral in the U.S. Coast Guard, invited the audience at the annual reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to think about those who first heard the proclamation read, informing them that they were free.

Their thoughts might have focused on working their own land, rather than some else’s, Admiral Brown said. Perhaps they were thinking about the ability to raise a family without fear of violence or of separation, he said.

Admiral Brown invited the audience to wonder whether any of those who heard that first reading of the proclamation in Texas could envision a day when the U.S. Armed Forces would be led by African-American generals and admirals — and when the nation would be led by an African-American president, Barack H. Obama.

“This is hallowed ground, not just for this community, but for the nation,” Brown said.

For the 30th year, Al Edwards, the Texas state representative who wrote the legislation to make Juneteenth a state holiday, organized the reading of the proclamation at Ashton Villa.

Doug Mathews, assistant vice president at the University of Texas Medical Branch, led the audience through an event that included music, prayers and comments from Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, council members Tarris Woods, Dr. Linda Colbert and Danny Weber, County Commissioner Stephen Holmes and State Rep. Craig Eiland.

Later Friday, crowds watched the Juneteenth Parade, joined in a picnic at Wright Cuney Park and heard gospel music at Mount Olive Baptist Church.

On the Texas mainland, residents marked the day with gospel music, dominoes and softball tournaments, concerts, beauty pageants and the readings of the Emancipation Proclamation. Some of the festivals stretched on into the evening.

At Texas City’s festival, organizers honored Jasper Victoria, one of the founders of the Southside Juneteenth Celebration.

Mr. Victoria, a deacon at New Macedonia Church in Hitchcock, grew up in south Texas City, said Lynn Ray Ellison, one of the festival organizers.

“He’s always been a good civic and community worker,” Ellison said.

In Hitchcock, the Stringfellow Orchard House displayed artwork by League City artist Ted Ellis. The exhibit, “American Slavery: The Reason Why We’re Here,” depicts the transportation of slaves, the industry of slavery and crop production and the abolition of slavery.

KAPOLEI, Hawaii — In a ceremony scheduled for 10 a.m., Thursday, July 16, 2009 command of U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point will be transferred from Capt. Bradley Bean to Capt. Anthony “Jack” Vogt.

The 14th Coast Guard District Commander, Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown, will preside over the ceremony, which celebrates time-honored traditions associated with the transfer of command. Guests invited include Coast Guardsmen stationed on Oahu and in Hawaii, service members from other branches, government and industry partners and community members.

Coast Guard Day, 4 August 2009.
With this week's 219th birthday of the U.S. Coast Guard, I'd like to share with Honolulu Star-Bulletin readers the commitment of America's fifth armed service to provide maritime safety, security and stewardship in and around Hawaii.

As America's maritime shield of freedom, the men and women of the Coast Guard in Hawaii stand the watch every day, ready to respond at a moment's notice to those in peril on the sea and perform our multiple missions. Our air, cutter and small boat crews collaborate with other federal, state, and local maritime partners, as well as the maritime industry, to accomplish these missions.

In the past year, we've partnered many times with NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on marine debris recovery and marine mammal relocation missions in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. While patrolling the pristine waters of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, we've documented several boats fishing illegally and worked with the U.S. Attorney's office to ensure those fishermen were held accountable. Earlier this summer, Coast Guard law enforcement personnel embarked aboard a U.S. Navy frigate and extended our service's ability to curb illegal fishing in the Pacific - a first for both services.

For many of our "guardians," service in the U.S. Coast Guard has provided a way forward to achieve America's dream. Whether military or civilian, active duty or reserve, or selfless volunteers in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, we are proud to serve as members of "Team Coast Guard." Being a part of Hawaii's ohana makes our service here all the more special.

Mahalo, Hawaii, for your support.
Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown is the 14th Coast Guard District commander in Honolulu

Obama Administration Officials to Hold Ocean Policy Task Force Public Meeting in the Pacific Islands on September 29, 2009

HONOLULU, HI - Obama Administration officials will hold an Ocean Policy Task Force Public Meeting in the Pacific Islands on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, and Rear Admiral Manson Brown, Commander 14th Coast Guard District, consists of senior-level officials from Administration agencies, departments, and offices.

The Task Force, established by President Obama via presidential memorandum on June 12, is charged with developing a recommendation for a national policy that ensures protection, maintenance, and restoration of oceans, our coasts and the Great Lakes. It will also recommend a framework for improved stewardship, and effective coastal and marine spatial planning. The meeting in the Pacific Islands will be the fourth regional public meeting held since the Task Force was created.

STOP THE PRESSES. WE INTERRUPT FOR AN EMERGENCY MESSAGE.

(Sept 29) PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — A powerful Pacific Ocean earthquake spawned towering tsunami waves that swept ashore on Samoa and American Samoa early Tuesday 29 Sept, flattening villages, killing at least 39 people and leaving dozens of workers missing at devastated National Park Service facilities.

Cars and people were swept out to sea by the fast-churning water as survivors fled to high ground, where they remained huddled hours later. Signs of devastation were everywhere, with a giant boat getting washed ashore and coming to rest on the edge of a highway and floodwaters swallowing up cars and homes.

American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono said at least 50 were injured, in addition to the deaths.

The U.S. Coast Guard planned sent a C-130 plane to American Samoa to deliver aid and assess damage after the powerful earthquake and tsunami hit the U.S. territory.
Rear Adm. Manson Brown, Coast Guard commander for the Pacific region, said the Coast Guard is in the early stages of assessing what resources to send to American Samoa.

“We’re going to assume, because a tsunami of this sort is probably going to wreak havoc in the port, we’re going to have to get additional personnel and supplies down through the airport,” Brown told reporters.

A tsunami creates the risk of pollution if the waves damaged port refueling facilities, Brown said.

“We need to make sure we mitigate any hazard to human beings or hazards to the environment,” he said.

The U.S. Pacific Command, which is responsible for all U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region, hadn’t received any requests for help and wasn’t considering sending, spokesman Maj. Brad Gordon said.

Quote of the Day:
“There is no warfare area more important than cyber.”—Vice Adm. Richard W. Hunt, USN, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet

The challenges of the Pacific region and cyberwarfare issues dominated discussion on the second day of TechNet Asia-Pacific 2009 in Honolulu, Hawaii November 2-5. The new J-6 of the Pacific Command (PACOM), Brig. Gen. Brett T. Williams, USAF, began the day by calling for a new relationship between communicators and operators.

“What happens in cyberspace doesn’t stay in cyberspace; it affects the real world,” he declared. The U.S. military doesn’t need a cyber planning tool; it needs an integrated warfare planning tool. Information as a weapon and as a tool to further the commander’s capabilities will be much more powerful as a result, he said.

The Pacific theater of operations is providing new challenges to the U.S. Coast Guard, said the commander of the 14th Coast Guard District. Rear Adm. Manson Brown, USCG, told a luncheon audience that the Coast Guard increasingly is dealing with national security aspects as it carries out traditional missions deep into the Pacific.

Protecting precious fisheries are a national security issue, particularly as small island nations depend on fishing for food and commerce, he noted. If commercial concerns brazenly break rules and overfish, the well-being of these nations is threatened. Food security is a top issue with each of these countries.

Because it can be hard to get multiple nations to agree on something, the Coast Guard is entering into bilateral agreements to pursue joint interests in the vast region. Adm. Brown cited as an example how U.S. Coast Guard surveillance and reconnaissance information passed to its counterpart in Kiribati helped that small island nation catch illegal fishing in its waters. Apprehending the illegal fishers both stopped them and generated $4.7 million in fines’ revenue for Kiribati.

(Rear Adm. Manson Brown, commander, 14th U.S. Coast Guard District, thanks the crew of the guided-missile frigate USS Crommelin (FFG 37) for supporting the Coast Guard in locating and investigating vessels suspected of illegal fishing in June.)
SANTA RITA, Guam.- The commander of 14th U.S. Coast Guard District awarded special operations ribbons to USS Crommelin (FFG 37) Sailors while in Guam Dec. 4.

Rear Adm. Manson Brown, commander, 14th U.S. Coast Guard District, presented the award in honor of Crommelin's support of a Coast Guard mission to protect natural resources from June 15-29.

Crommelin, along with law enforcement officers from 14th U.S. Coast Guard District, searched for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing vessels operating along 16 million square miles of ocean near Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and other areas in the Western Pacific.

The fight-for-fish mission and the improvement of a persistent presence with respect to fisheries enforcement were the main objectives of the operation.

"The importance of the fish there is not only in terms of economy, but also for feeding the people of the islands," said Brown, who was in Guam to visit U.S. Coast Guard Sector Guam. "It's truly a national security issue for the United States."

Brown said the mission proves that partnerships between the Navy and Coast Guard can provide positive results as the nation promotes a Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. Also known as the nation's Maritime Strategy, the concept aims to protect and sustain the United States and its allies' interests and assets around the world.

Cmdr. Kevin Parker, commanding officer of Crommelin, said the mission was a win-win situation for everyone involved. He said the mission exercised and refreshed his crew's skills. The training and detection equipment used throughout the mission was similar to the training and equipment used to locate pirates, warships and other hostile forces. During this mission, they investigated eight vessels, one of which did not have proper licensing.

Parker said the mission was successful in areas other than strengthening operability with the Coast Guard.

In Pohnpei, one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia, Crommelin's crew hosted a luncheon for the island's dignitaries and sent Navy volunteers to paint bleachers at a baseball field.

"The people from town poured out, and it became a cooperative effort with the people and the Sailors," said Parker.

OH, NO; SAY IT ISN'T SO:

Nomination: PN1324-111
Date Received: December 22, 2009 (111th Congress)
Nominee: One nomination, beginning with Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., and ending with Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr.
Referred to: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Legislative Actions
Floor Action: December 22, 2009 – Received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Organization: Coast Guard

List of Nominees:
The following named individual for appointment as Commandant of the United States Coast Guard and to the grade indicated under title 14, U.S.C., Section 44:

To be Admiral

Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp , Jr.

Control Number: 111PN0132400

December 22, 2009

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today applauded President Obama’s intent to nominate Vice Admiral Robert J. Papp, Jr., as Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Vice Admiral Papp would relieve Admiral Thad Allen in May 2010.

“The Coast Guard plays a vital role in protecting our nation—securing America’s borders, protecting our ports, and providing critical aid during disasters,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Vice Admiral Papp’s extensive knowledge of the Coast Guard’s operations and broad mission will strengthen our efforts to ensure the nation’s maritime security.”

As Coast Guard Commandant, Papp will lead one of the Department’s largest components-comprised of approximately 42,000 Active Duty men and women and more than 7,000 civilian employees-and oversee Coast Guard functions as a branch of the armed services and a federal law enforcement agency.

Biography.

Papp currently serves as Commander of the Coast Guard Atlantic Area (LANTAREA) and Defense Force East—functioning as the operational commander for all Coast Guard missions within the eastern half of the world. Prior to assuming command of LANTAREA, he served as the Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard in Washington.

Papp served as Ninth Coast Guard District Commander from 2004-2006, and was previously promoted to Flag rank in October 2002 and appointed Director of Reserve and Training. His Coast Guard career includes extensive tours on both land and sea including service on six Coast Guard Cutters and posts such as Chief of the Capabilities Branch in the Defense Operations Division; Chief of the Fleet Development Team; and Chief of the Coast Guard’s Office of Congressional Affairs.

Papp graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Class of 1975, three years ahead of ADM Manson K Brown. He holds a master’s in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College and a master’s in management from Salve Regina College.

Vice Admiral Papp concurrently serves as Commander, Defense Force East and provides Coast Guard mission support to the Department of Defense and Combatant Commanders.

Before assuming command of LANTAREA Vice Admiral Papp served as the Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard in Washington, DC, overseeing all management functions of the Coast Guard. From 2004 to 2006 he served as Commander, Ninth Coast Guard

District, with responsibilities for Coast Guard missions on the Great Lakes and Northern Border.

Vice Admiral Papp was promoted to Flag rank in October 2002 and appointed the Director of Reserve and Training. He was responsible for managing and supporting 13,000 Coast Guard Ready Reservists and all Coast Guard Training Centers.

He served in six Coast Guard Cutters and commanded the Cutters RED BEECH, PAPAW, FORWARD, and the Coast Guard’s training barque, EAGLE. He has also served as commander of a task unit during Operation ABLE MANNER off the coast of Haiti in 1994, enforcing United Nations sanctions. Additionally, his task unit augmented U.S. Naval Forces during Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY.

Vice Admiral Papp’s assignments ashore have included the Commandant of Cadets staff at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy; Aids to Navigation staff in the Third Coast Guard District; Chief of the Capabilities Branch in the Defense Operations Division; Chief of the Fleet Development Team; Director of the Leadership Development Center; Chief of the Coast Guard’s Office of Congressional Affairs; and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard.

He is a 1975 graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy. Additionally, he holds a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States Naval War College and a Master of Science in Management from Salve Regina College.

Vice Admiral Papp is the 13th Gold Ancient Mariner of the Coast Guard which is an honorary position held by an officer with over ten years of cumulative sea duty who is charged with keeping a close watch to ensure sea-service traditions are continued and the time-honored reputation of the Coast Guard is maintained.

WASHINGTON(AP)- President Obama's pick to lead the Coast Guard wants to make major cuts to the agency's counterterrorism mission over the next five years.

An internal memo from Vice Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr., Obama's nominee to become Coast Guard commandant, says that starting in 2012, he would slash funding for programs in the agency's homeland security plan, including patrols and training exercises.

The memo, marked "sensitive --- for internal Coast Guard use only," was obtained by The Associated Press.

Papp's outline is significant because it could mean major changes for the more than 200-year-old agency that took on substantial homeland security duties after Sept. 11, 2001. Obama's 2011 proposed budget cuts for the Coast Guard have already caused outrage from some lawmakers.

According to Papp's memo, he would scale back the Coast Guard's counterterrorism priorities in favor of running traditional search-and-rescue operations that save people in imminent danger on the water and maintaining the maritime transportation system.

In the memo, Papp said he wants to eliminate teams that are trained to respond to and prevent terror attacks. These teams also train other Coast Guard forces on counterterrorism operations.

Papp said the strike teams were created after Sept. 11 "to fill a perceived void in national counterterrorism response capability." He says in the memo that other federal agencies are better at this type of mission.

He also calls for cuts to the Coast Guard's largest homeland security operation, which patrols critical infrastructure and other sensitive security structures on or near waterways. And he would decrease the number of specialized units stationed in key coastal areas where an attack could be devastating.

Obama has already proposed closing five of the 12 specialized units in 2011.

"In view of the fiscal horizon, we must make bold and systematic strategic decisions," Papp wrote in the memo, dated Nov. 10, 2009. Obama announced his intention to nominate Papp on Dec. 22.

Coast Guard spokesman Ron LaBrec said the memo was written in response to a Coast Guard headquarters request to identify potential areas for budget cuts down the road. LaBrec said it is part of a department-wide review of homeland security missions leading to spending proposals for 2012. But he said the memo does not represent Papp's own preferences or priorities.

Tom Gavin, the spokesman for the administration's Office of Management and Budget, said the White House is not involved in the internal budget considerations for 2012.

Papp also wants to cut back on the number of ships doing daily counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean. Currently, about six ships carry out that mission daily, according to Papp's memo.

He wants to trim the number back to an average of 4 1/2 ships a day, while keeping the Coast Guard cutters that perform anti-narcotics operations in transit zones to respond to specific intelligence about drug trafficking.

"What I offered above is just a fraction of what is needed, and I'm prepared to go further," Papp wrote in the memo.

After reading the memo, Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, said Papp's proposals would gut an agency critical to national security. Olson said he is "pretty scared" that Papp is the administration's pick to run the Coast Guard.

Obama himself proposed cutting 1,100 active duty personnel this year - a move that is meeting resistance from some Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. Congress ultimately decides how federal agencies are funded.

"It's up to the Coast Guard to help protect our ports and our maritime industry, and it cannot do that without adequate funding," Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said in a statement.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said Obama's homeland security proposal is "dead on arrival." Rogers is the top Republican on the appropriations committee that overseas homeland security spending.

Responding to criticism about the proposed Coast Guard cuts in the 2011 budget, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, "I think the Coast Guard is one of the most under-appreciated assets of this country."

The Coast Guard was transferred from the Transportation Department to the newly created Homeland Security Department in 2003. In times of war, the Coast Guard may be transferred to the Department of the Navy. It has 42,000 active-duty volunteers.

Washington (03 Feb 2010)– Coast Guard Commandant Thad W. Allen announced today the members of the services leadership team that will take over when he is relieved as Commandant by Vice Admiral Robert Papp on May 25.
Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano has forwarded and President Obama has approved the new leaders. The President has forwarded the nominations to the Senate for its consideration.

The new leadership team will consist of:

■Rear Admiral Sally Brice-O’Hara – promoted to Vice Admiral and assignment as Vice Commandant;
■Rear Admiral Robert C. Parker – promoted to Vice Admiral and assignment as Commander, Atlantic Area;
■Rear Admiral Manson K. Brown – promoted to Vice Admiral and assignment as Commander, Pacific Area.
■Vice Admiral John P. Currier will continue to serve as the Chief of Staff.
■Rear Admiral Brian M. Salerno will be assigned as the Deputy Commandant for Operations, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

(8 Feb 2010)

U.S. Coast Guard admiral named chair of Federal Executive Board for 2010 HONOLULU-- The incoming chair of the Honolulu-Pacific Federal Executive Board, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown (right), congratulates outgoing chair U.S. Marine Corps Col. Kirk Bruno in an official hand-off of duties, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010. The Federal Executive Board (FEB) was an initiative in 1961 by President Kennedy to improve inter-agency coordination and communication among federal departments outside of Washington, D.C. The Honolulu-Pacific FEB is comprised of more than 120 senior officials on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. Federal workers in Hawaii include more than 40,375 Department of Defense employees, more than 30,000 non-DoD employees and more than 302,780 military members. Under Bruno's leadership, the FEB policy committee assisted the FEB on several important training exercises (one in November for the stockpile of medicine, another simulating a hurricane in June and another concerning a chemical or biological incident in June). The committee also helped in the planning for an annual FEB luncheon in May and the planning for a "continuity of operations" training session in May, when federal agencies reviewed emergency preparedness issues. Brown will chair the FEB for 2010 and Daryl Ishizaki of the U.S. Postal Service will serve as vice chair.

Coast Guard selects new three star admirals.
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, has announced the selection of new three star admirals who will serve under Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp, when he becomes the Coast Guard's twenty-fourtth commandant May 25, upon Senate confirmation.

Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano and President Obama approved the nominations of Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara for promotion to vice admiral and assignment as Vice Commandant; Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown for promotion to vice admiral and assignment as commander of the Coast Guard's Pacific Area and Rear Adm. Robert C. Parker for promotion to vice admiral and assignment as commander of the Coast Guard's Atlantic Area. Vice Adm. John P. Currier will continue to serve as the chief of staff. Appointment to these billets and promotion as appropriate will occur following confirmation by the Senate.

Brice-O'Hara graduated from Goucher College where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology in 1974. She received her Coast Guard commission from Officer Candidate School (OCS) in the Class of 1975 She is a native of Annapolis, Md., is currently deputy commandant for operations in Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington, where she is responsible for the strategic integration of operational missions. As the service's second in command, Brice-O'Hara will be in charge of executing the commandant's strategic intent, managing internal organizational governance and also serving as the Coast Guard's acquisition executive.

Manson K. Brown, U.S. Coast Guard Academy Class of 1978, is a native of the District of Columbia, serves as commander for the Fourteenth Coast Guard District in Honolulu, where he is responsible for the safety and security of nearly 12.2 million square miles of the Central Pacific Ocean, an area more than two and a half times larger than the Continental United States. Brown will be the Coast Guard's first African American three star admiral. At Pacific Area, Brown will command all Coast Guard missions in a 74 million square mile area ranging from South America, north to the Arctic Circle and west to the Far East.

Rear Adm. Manson K. Brown was recognized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a ceremony at the PJKK Federal Building, Feb. 10, 2010. Brown is the 14th Coast Guard district commander and was recognized for the Coast Guard's contributions in marine mammal response, conservation, and assistance provided on such missions as Hawaiian monk seal relocations and whale disentanglements and strandings. NOAA and the Coast Guard routinely work on such missions throughout the main Hawaiian Islands. Presenting the award was Bill Robinson, director of NOAA's Pacific Islands Regional Office.

The Coast Guard Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to the education, welfare and morale of all Coast Guard members and their families, announced today that its 8th Annual Tribute to the United States Coast Guard’s Fourteenth District will take place on Thursday, March 11, 2010 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Honoring local Coast Guard members who protect coastline shores from the Hawaiian Islands to Guam, the gala’s Chairman is Mr. Vic Angoco, vice president—Pacific of Matson Navigation and the Keynote Speaker is ADM Thad Allen, United States Coast Guard Commandant. Remarks will also be given by RADM Manson Brown, commander of the Fourteenth Coast Guard District, and Anne B. Brengle, president of the Coast Guard Foundation.

At this year’s tribute, the United States Coast Guard will honor two award recipients. Governor Linda Lingle will be presented with the Distinguished Public Service Award for her unwavering support of the Hawaii-based Coast Guard heroes.

(In Picture) Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle and Rear Adm. Manson Brown at the Coast Guard District Fourteen Ball 2009.

Petty Officer William Horne will receive the Coast Guard Medal for the heroism he demonstrated while off duty with his family by rescuing five people from a pickup truck involved in an automobile accident in Guam on February 8, 2009.

(Left to right,Rear Admiral Manson K. Brown, COMCOGARD Dist 14, with Lt. David Shook, an Air Station Barbers Point pilot, and with his wife, after receiving the Air Medal, March 22, 2010.)

Shook was awarded the high honor for his performance of duty during a rescue mission off the French Frigate Shoals, an atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Oct. 20, 2009.

The Air Medal is awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces of the United States, distinguishes him or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.

(Rear Admiral Robert Parker, U.S. Coast Guard Academy Class of 1979, is a native of Portland, Ore., serves as the U.S. Southern Command's first director of security and intelligence in Miami, where he directs U.S. military operations and intelligence efforts, and coordinates interagency operations in Southern Command's area of responsibility. He is the first Coast Guard officer to serve as a director in a Department of Defense command. In his new position at Atlantic Area, Parker will command an area of responsibility that ranges from the Rocky Mountains to the Arabian Gulf and includes five Coast Guard Districts, 42 states and over 14 million square miles.

A Vice Admiral must be an Academy graduate in order to become Commandant.

Judge London Steverson
London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988 and in 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration.

Early Life and Education
Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.
A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948,[1] but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black student to be offered such an appointment, and when he accepted the opportunity to be part of the class of 1968, he became the second African American to enter the previously all-white military academy. On June 4, 1968 Steverson graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a BS degree in Engineering and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1974, while still a member of the Coast Guard, Steverson entered The National Law Center of The George Washington University and graduated in 1977 with a Juris Doctor of Laws Degree.

USCG Assignments.
Steverson's first duty assignment out of the Academy was in Antarctic research logistical support. In July 1968 he reported aboard the Coast Guard Cutter (CGC) Glacier [2] (WAGB-4), an icebreaker operating under the control of the U.S. Navy, and served as a deck watch officer and head of the Marine Science Department. He traveled to Antarctica during two patrols from July 1968 to August 1969, supporting the research operations of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Project in and around McMurdo Station. During the 1969 patrol the CGC Glacier responded to an international distress call from the Argentine icebreaker General SanMartin, which they freed.
He received another military assignment from 1970 to 1972 in Juneau, Alaska as a Search and Rescue Officer. Before being certified as an Operations Duty Officer, it was necessary to become thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Alaskan remote sites. Along with his office mate, Ltjg Herbert Claiborne "Bertie" Pell, the son of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Steverson was sent on a familiarization tour of Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force bases. The bases visited were Base Kodiak, Base Adak Island, and Attu Island, in the Aleutian Islands.[3]
Steverson was the Duty Officer on September 4, 1971 when an emergency call was received that an Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 airline passenger plane was overdue at Juneau airport. This was a Saturday and the weather was foggy with drizzling rain. Visibility was less than one-quarter mile. The 727 was en route to Seattle, Washington from Anchorage, Alaska with a scheduled stop in Juneau. There were 109 people on board and there were no survivors. Steverson received the initial alert message and began the coordination of the search and rescue effort. In a matter of hours the wreckage from the plane, with no survivors, was located on the side of a mountain about five miles from the airport. For several weeks the body parts were collected and reassembled in a staging area in the National Guard Armory only a few blocks from the Search and Rescue Center where Steverson first received the distress broadcast.[4]. Later a full investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was equipment failure.[5]
Another noteworthy item is Steverson's involvement as an Operations Officer during the seizure of two Russian fishing vessels, the Kolevan and the Lamut for violating an international agreement prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing in United States territorial waters. The initial attempts at seizing the Russian vessels almost precipitated an international incident when the Russian vessels refused to proceed to a U. S. port, and instead sailed toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian MIG fighter planes were scrambled, as well as American fighter planes from Elmendorf Air Force Base before the Russian vessels changed course and steamed back

(WEST POINT, 12/21/2010) And speaking of change, the Coast Guard will have the first woman superintendent of a military service academy at the helm of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy when classes convene next summer. The commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Bob Papp, has selected Rear Adm. Sandra L. Stosz, Coast Guard director of reserve and leadership, for the superintendent position. Rear Admiral Stosz graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1982 with a bachelor of science degree in Government.

"Rear Adm. Stosz has dedicated her career to developing professional Coast Guard men and women," said U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Robert J. Papp. "We are also extremely proud to be the first service with a woman at the helm of our academy.

The Coast Guard has always led by allowing men and women equal access to all career fields and assignments."

In her current position, Stosz is responsible for policy affecting the recruitment and training of more than 8,000 Coast Guard reserve members. She has also commanded the Coast Guard's only recruit training center in Cape May, N.J. She will be the first and only female commander to head any of the nation's five military academies.

"I am humbled by the prospect of taking over such an important position in our service and honored to be following Rear Adm. Burhoe," said Stosz. "The school and officer corps have benefited in so many ways from Scott's outstanding leadership and vision."

Under the command of the current superintendent, Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe, the school was ranked as a top college by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and listed as the number one college in the northeast by U.S. News and World Report. The school had five Fulbright and three Truman scholars during his tenure. Burhoe also improved the school's diversity record, doubling the percentage of minority admissions from 12 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010.

"Rear Adm. Stosz is an excellent choice to succeed me as superintendent," said Burhoe, "She has a distinguished record of service, and as a member of the board of trustees understands the importance of continuing to move the academy forward on its current track."

Burhoe is scheduled to retire July 1.

The Coast Guard Academy was established in 1876. The oldest service academy is West Point which was established in 1802.

Appeals Court Judge Finds In Favor of Webster Smith

2008-04-13T20:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

A Judge on the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals found that former cadet Webster Smith was denied a fair trial and that the case should be sent back to the trial court for a new trial. He found that the Case of United States vs Webster Smith should be returned to the Convening Authority for a new trial.

Until and unless there is a reversal, this Dissent will continue to loom large. It is more properly an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, and to the intelligence of a future day. When that day comes and this travesty of justice is reversed, then all people of goodwill can celebrate the promise of America, one nation under God, with liberty and JUSTICE for all!

The Judge found so many discretionary errors in the court-martial proceedings that he had no choice but to rule that Webster Smith had been denied a fair trial.

It was a classic case of "he-said she-said". The trial came down to simply a credibility issue. The big question was who was telling the truth and who was not.

This was a quetion for the jury to decide. It was a fact question. The jury is the trier of facts. The court-martial judge went to extraordinary lengths to keep the question out of the hands of the jury. He took it upon himself to decide the issue of credibility. That is why Webster Smith was convicted.

The jury had no idea what the real issue was. They were kept in the dark. They were not given proper instructions. The judge decided who was the more credible witness. The judge abused his discretion.

The judge went beyond the authority and power delegated to him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Federal Rules of Evidence. Webster Smith was denied his Sixth Amendment Rights.

One does not have to read the Appeals Court decision to know that an accused at a court-martial has a right to cross-examine the witnesses against him. Anyone who has watched Perry Mason or Tom Cruise in the movie "A Few Good Men", would come away with an appreciation for the fact that the jury has the responsibility to decide what the facts are and who is not telling the truth.

When a judge does not allow the jury to do its job, he commits reversible error. When a judge confuses his duties with the duties assigned to the jury, then he has abused his discretion and that constitutes reversible error.

The prosecution was allowed to ask Webster Smith questions that were like bombshells that would cave in the sides of a Sherman Tank, but on cross-examination of the principal witness, the Defense lawyers were reduced to tip-toeing through the tulips. The uncorroborated testimony of the principal witness was a roadside bomb to Webster Smith's defense.

If the jury had only been allowed to follow the Yellow Brick Road and to resolve the credibility issue itself, then, at least, the trial of Webster Smith would have had some semblance of a fair trial. The trial judge was not taking any chances. He took matters into his own hands. He jumped onto the Scales of Justice and pulled them way down on the side of the Prosecution.

In a case where the principal witness was allowed to hide behind the military judge for protection from thorough cross-examination; and where facts and perceptions may have been dispositive of the ultimate issue, Truth can be elusive. In a case where a convincing and charming fabricator of facts can sway a jury that has not been fully informed, and where the jury has only been given some of the relevant facts, the judge left a lot of room for mischief on the part of a sneaky prosecutor. The judge left a lot of room for the imagination of the jury to run wild when he allowed the Prosecutor to introduce just enough evidence to put Webster Smith in a compromising position; but he denied the Defense lawyers an opportunity to explain the contradictions by cross-examining the principal witness. Then the judge left it to the jury to "connect the dots". This was terribly unfair to the accused, Webster Smith.

Webster Smith was reduced to "a bug under a glass jar" for inspection, and the principal witnesswas kept as snug as a bug in a rug. Eventually all of this discretionary "hokus-pokus" became so egregious as to eliminate any possibility of a fair trial for Webster Smith. Finding the Truth became next to impossible.

I see no reason to waste time reciting the strained, biased, and contorted illogic of the Majority Opinion. Chief Judge Lane I McClleland was determined to bring one home for the Ole Girls' Network, no matter how rediculous the decision read. It will forever stand as one more piece of evidence to history and to the majority of reasonable people as to just how institutionally biased the Coast Guard Military Justice apparatus really is.

In the same way that cases in United States Courts of Appeals are heard by a three-judge panel, this case was heard by only 3 of the Coast Guard's Criminal Appeals judges. A majority of the active judges may decide to hear or rehear a case en banc. Parties may suggest an en banc hearing to the judges, but have no right to it. Federal law states en banc proceedings are disfavored but may be ordered in order to maintain uniformity of decisions within a circuit or if the issue is exceptionally important, as in the case of Webster Smith. Each court of appeals also has particular rules regarding en banc proceedings. Only an en banc court or a Supreme Court decision can overrule a prior decision in that circuit; in other words, one panel cannot overrule another panel.

The Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals is currently constituted as follows:
Acting Chief Judge Lane I. McClelland
Judge David J. Kantor
Judge Thomas R. Cahill
Judge Gary E. Felicetti
Judge Frederick W. Tucher
Judge Michael J. Lodge
Clerk of the Court: Jane R. Lim

If there is no en banc hearing and decision, this case could be remanded for a new trial. To send the case back to the Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy for a new trial would the only fair way and the last clear chance for the Coast Guard to remedy the errors that were committed in the court-martial of Webster Smith.

The Founding Fathers and the framers of the U S Constitution provided procedural safeguards for criminal defendents facing the awesome powers on the Federal Government with a bottomless pocket and a legion of attack dog prosecutors. They gave him; among other rights, the right to remain silent, the right to trial by jury, and the right to confront and to cross-examine the witnesses against him. These rights are inalienable. These rights cannot be taken away; not by the Government, and certainly not by a part-time trial judge.

One judge on the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals saw clearly how the legal system, the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Military Rules of Evidence were misused to deny Webster Smith a fair trial.

It was due process without all of the process that was due.
It was military justice without fairness and very little justice.
It was a kangaroo court-martial.
It was (to quote Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) a high tech lynching.
It is a stain on the Red, White and Blue.
It is a stench in the nostrils of a just God.
It will live in infamy.

Attorneys for former Coast Guard Academy cadet Webster Smith have filed a brief and a petition for review and appeal of his court-martial with the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. (Aug 2008). This is the last level of appeal before the U S Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) will hear the WEBSTER SMITH case. Oral Argument has been scheduled for September 2009!

Former cadet Webster Smith had this to say:
""Often times, I lose sight of what I am fighting for. I forget why there are D.C. lawyers calling my phone or why some people go out of their way to bring up the very issues that spawned this web site. It is only when I sit back and read the most recent 41 page brief to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces that everything comes back to me. United States v. Webster Smith was supposed to have been an open and shut case that ended with a guilty plea about three years ago; but the case still has life. By all indication, the case has more life now than it did when many first heard about it. LT Stuart Kirkby, bless his soul, had about 100 men and women on his JAG docket. Merle Smith had a line to toe and he toed it well, with diplomatic and political savvy. The content of the brief to CAAF couldn’t have been raised as issues to the court, back when. They would have had Kirkby sanctioned and Smith barred from ever pursuing employment within the community that has defined his life, supplanted his purpose and provided for his family.

As much as this case is about people, it is also about a system. Never should a person be defeated by the investigation, itself. A person should never be influenced to make a decision about the sanctity of their freedom based on what they read about themselves in the print media or hear from nationally prominent politicians. Facts of the case, media scrutiny and the intensity of the investigation can break the best of men. Yet in still, facts-despite the media scrutiny and investigation-are often enough to get a man through it all. The latter is where I stand. Some people preferred it when negative media scrutiny over-shadowed logic or facts. To them, U.S. v. W.S. was more reasonable, more tolerable, when I didn’t say a word. It was more reasonable when most of the facts had yet to speak for me. If you believe that there is finality where I currently stand, I ask you not to insult the CAAF judges. They have already positively changed the lives of several men that I once knew.

Some of the anonymous messages to this site have ramped up recently. There are people that are infuriated that this fight continues; it was supposed to end with me breaking down in a room before anything ever went public or something, I suppose. It was supposed to be over before any testimony was scrutinized.

EXPECTATIONS

As odd as it may sound, I have embraced this whole (long) process; that includes the good and the bad. No one has to remind me of the shame, dishonor and regret because I have already coped and moved on. I have a daughter who I hope to raise as a moral and compassionate person but believe me; I first had to reconcile fatherhood with my own flaws. I wouldn’t have grown, gotten married nor had a daughter, so soon, if I remained the person that I was. That was the good that came of it and it makes me feel safe and secure. The bad, however, keeps me moving forward. It is an engine for progress; I enjoy it. Every time that I get one of those messages or hear some discouraging news, it reminds me of what I set out to fight for. No person veiled with my transgressions, would ever give up on themselves when they know that they are right. Yesterday, the Easter message at our church was about expectations. About never lowering one’s expectations, no matter what realities we face. Pastor Fleming also talked about the many ways that God turns curses into blessings. Personally, without all of the negativity and doubt, I would lose my way. I don’t remember life without it. The harsher the bite, the closer I feel I am. No matter the amount of discouragement, I have never lowered my expectations. The line of demarcation, guilty or not guilty, has long since been forgotten.

Whatever the outcome of this next stage, it will impact me and I will move on. I am simply trying to continue on with a pure and obedient heart, everything else will take care of itself. I have put all of this in God’s hands and I am watching it unfold. Don’t ask me to accept my current situation as reality, that would be lowering my expectations.""

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

450 E Street, Northwest

Washington, D.C. 20442-0001

SCHEDULED HEARINGS

United States v. Webster M. Smith, No. 08-0719/CG

(Appellee) (Appellant)

Counsel for Appellant: Ronald C. Machen, Esq.

Counsel for Appellee: LT Emily P. Reuter, USCG

Case Summary: GCM conviction of going from place of duty, attempting to disobey an order, sodomy, extortion, and indecent assault. Granted issue questions whether the military judge violated Appellant’s constitutional right to confront his accusers by limiting his cross-examination of [SR], the government’s only witness, on three of the five charges.

NOTE: Counsel for each side will be allotted 20 minutes to present oral argument in this case.

DAY OF JUDGEMENT FOR WEBSTER SMITH.

Those who were not present on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at the

United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (USCAAF)

450 E Street, Northwest

Washington, D.C. 20442-0001

for the oral arguments in the case of United States v. Webster M. Smith, Case No. 08-0719/CG, missed a real burn burner.

The judges of the USCAAF are civilian judges and sit as a single panel on all cases. Typically, all five judges participate in each case. The judges came out firing questions fast and furious to the two Appellate Attorneys. The first one up was Counsel for Webster Smith: Ronald C. Machen, Esquire. He was prepared and completely unflappable. He responded to every question put to him. When he was interrupted in mid sentence, he did not forge on and try to finish his thought; he immediately responded to the Judge's question. He gave reasoned responsive answers to every question. Some judges fired hard ball questions, and one judge even offer up a soft-ball question which was answered in the same serious manner.

Then came Counsel for U S Coast Guard: LT Emily P. Reuter, USCG. She had a cold or was recovering from the Swine Flu and began by pleading for leniency because of her weakened voice. It was downhill from there for her. She did not appear to give responsive answers to most of the questions put to her. She may have not even clearly understood some of the question before she attempted to respond to them. Frequently she appeared to retreat to her notes or her brief and read the holdings from cases that she had cited in her brief. Perhaps this was her first time arguing before the court or maybe this was a case that no one else wanted to argue, but there surely was not her finest hour.

This was an appeal from a General Court-Martial (GCM) conviction for going from place of duty, attempting to disobey an order, sodomy, extortion, and indecent assault. The ISSUE on Appeal was whether the military judge at the court-martial at the Coast Guard Academy violated Webster Smith’s constitutional right to confront his accusers by limiting his cross-examination of Shelley Roddenbush [SR], the government’s only witness, on three of the five charges.

Counsel for each side was allowed 20 minutes to present oral argument in the case.

The judges of the USCAAF are Judge Andrew S. Effron is the Chief Judge. The other four judges are Judge James E. Baker, Judge Charles E. “Chip” Erdmann, Judge Scott W. Stucky, and Judge Margaret A. Ryan, the most recent appointee.

The first issue that they tackled was the jurisdictional issue. The Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals had denied a request for reconsideration on 14 May 2008. It was not clear whether this was in the Appellate Record. There was a question of how many days had elapsed from the notification of the denial to Webster Smith's attorney and the date that Attorney Machen filed his appeal to the USCAAF. The Coast Guard had sent the Notice of Denial via DHL, a German company, rather than simply using the U. S. Mail as required by the Rules of Court. Apparently there are two time periods that may be relevant under Article 67(B) of the USCAAF's Rules. One is a 61 day rule and the other is a 95 day rule.

They kept coming back to this jurisdictional issue again and again. I do not think they hammered it out definitively during the hearing. Webster Smith's attorney said that it is not in the Record that he was notified on 14 May. LT Emily P. Reuter for the USCG said that it was in the Record. I am sure the USCAAF judges will settled the issue before they issue a decision.

This is troubling because I would hate for the judges to dodge the ISSUE on Appeal because of a technicality like jurisdiction. I could hear a couple of the judges contemplating doing just that. The tone and the tenor of the questions leads me to just that conclusion. It would be a shame after all this time and effort to be cheated out of a hard and definitive decision on the ultimate ISSUE.

That being said, it is my reasoned opinion that the judges of the USCAAF are poised to reverse the conviction of Webster Smith. I feel there is better than a 60-40% chance that they will reverse the conviction by a majority vote. also, there is a 51-49% chance of a unanimous decision.

I think Judge Ryan is a swing vote. She gave Attorney Machen the hardest time. If at all possible she might do like Judge Lane I. McClelland of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals and uphold the status quo. However, I do not think she would go out on a limb and write a dissenting opinion. If the other four judges split 2-2, I think she might side with the judges who determine that a reversal is warranted because the Trial Judge abused his discretion and committed reversible error.

Judge Baker appears most eager to reverse this conviction because Webster Smith was denied his right to a fair trial. He sees this as a fair trial issue. He believes that the trial court members had a right to know what the secret was that SR wanted Webster Smith to keep, that it was of a sexual nature, that she had recently lied about it being nonconsensual when it was really consensual oral sex with an enlisted man in Norfolf, Virginia. Also, SR wanted Webster Smith to go out and lie for her so badly that she was willing to pay him with sexual favors.

Judge Baker feels this was crucial evidence that the members were entitled to know. The exact nature of the secret was crucial to Webster Smith's defense. The Trial Judge relied upon Rule 412 of the Military Rules of Evidence and allowed into evidence only the fact that Webster Smith was privy to a secret that SR wanted him to keep; and that secret concerned something that could ruin her cadet and officer career in the Coast Guard.

Even though Judge Baker is a civilian, he might have served in the military. He pointed out that there are lots of secrets that can harm one's career. It could be a secret concerning having failed a physical training exercise; or, it could be a secret involving a wardrobe or a uniform violation. The members had no way of knowing the precise nature of the secret since the trial judge protected SR from more rigorous cross-examination. They did not know that when SR was faced with rumors she lied to limit her own culpability. Giving a limiting instruction to the members was not sufficient to cure the error. It was more than harmless error. It was big, earth shaking, reversible error. It violated the Sixth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.

As Attorney Machen so eloquently stated, SR had used the secret as a sword and a shield. It shielded her from testifying at the Article 32 investigation, and it was the sword that she used at trial to stab Webster Smith through the heart. It killed him and his career in the Coast Guard. It is what the judges referred to as the Theory of Innoculation. The secret had innoculated SR from two investigations. It saved her from testifying at the Article 32 Investigation.

LT Emily P. Reuter wanted to argue that this was not a Fair Trial issue, but it was a pattern or practice issue. As such the Trial Judge was correct to limit cross-examination of SR to stop any evidence from coming in concerning her prior sexual history or her propensity to tell lies. She argued that the Defense's Theory of the case at trial was wrong for the evidence that they were trying to elicit, and that the Trial Judge correctly used Rule 412. If he erred, it was no more than harmless error. It was not Reversible Error. She was not persuasive.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. The essence of truth in this case is finally coming to the surface. From where I sit, the USCAAF stands ready to right a gigantic wrong. It wants to reconsecrate the Temple of Justice in the Coast Guard. It wants to heal the wound that was inflicted on the Sixth Amendment by the trial court and the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals.

Sixth Amendment Wounded By Coast Guard Court.

2008-04-10T01:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

Good news travels fast, bad news even faster. Webster Smith is one step closer to the Supreme Court. That is the good news. He lost his appeal to the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals. That is the bad news.

There is no joy in Mudville; Webster Smith has struck out. As far as the Coast Guard and its ability to right a terrible wrong is concerned, all men of goodwill are left bewildered. The Coast Guard no longer has the power to correct its own mistake.

The Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals by a narrow margin has made the wrong decision for the wrong reason. They have left the Sixth Amendment to the U S Constitution in shreds. {Footnote.(1)} By a majority of 2-1, they voted against Webster Smith.

The Decision was not unanimous. It was a majority opinion. Only one member of the Appellate Court was able to see clearly the errors made by the Trial Court and to vote his conscious.

I see no reason to waste m time reciting the strained, biased, and contorted illogic of the Majority Opinion. Chief Judge Lane I McClleland was determined to bring one home for the Ole Girls' Network, no matter how rediculous the decision read. It will forever stand as one more piece of evidence to history and to the majority of reasonable people as to just how institutionally biased the Coast Guard Military Justice apparatus really is.

The dissenting opinion was more persuasive. In a clear, cogent and convincing analysis that flowed logically, the dissent appears to has fashioned a minority opinion that could easily become the majority opinion if the Supreme Court grants Certiorari. It was a masterpiece of scholarly legal reasoning that is sure to take its place with the likes of Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Thurgood Marshall.

The 2 judge Majority opinion assumed such a contorted illogical path that it resembled a pretzel draped out in a straight-jacket; whereas, the Minority opinion is so straight and logical, it could show the way to San Jose. It should be christened "stare decisis".

The judge who wrote the Minority opinion should be commended. He not only has courage but also a brilliant legal mind. His only fault is that he could not convince at least one of the other two judges on the three judge panel to see the error of their ways.

The Writ of Ccertiorari is the writ that an appellate court issues to a lower court in order to review its judgment for legal error and review, where no appeal is available as a matter of right. Since the Judiciary Act of 1925, most cases cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court as a matter of right; therefore, a party who wants that court to review a decision of a federal or state court files a "petition for writ of certiorari" in the Supreme Court. If the court grants the petition, the case is scheduled for the filing of briefs and for oral argument.

Several pieces of the puzzle were missing at the Trial and the Appellate level. For the moment, let us provide just one missing link.

The Missing Link In the Webster Smith Case: Katie Collela

Most people know the basic premise of the story, the collusion of several young women that resulted in the court-martial of the first cadet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Shelly Raudenbush Wyman was the lone victor of the several women that accounted for the 22 charges against Webster Smith. Why did she come forward over two months after Webster Smith was removed from classes, following the allegations by then Regimental Commander-Kristen Nicholson, her two best friends Shannon Frobel, Kristin Strizki and Nicholson's subordinates: Stacy Chmielecki, Keri McCormack, and Katie Collela?

During the Court-Martial, Webster was represented by LT Stuart Kirkby and Merle J. Smith. Neither believed that the charges would prevail for the government. They did not pursue details of Shelly's relationship with the other female cadets. They could not mention Katie Collela or call her to the stand, Captain Judge denied her as a defense witness. Besides Kristen Nicholson, she was the only person who could detail how and why she came forward. Her father had just been appointed the Dean of Students and wanted no part of it. This was not the only reason that Smith's attroneys did not further pursue Shelly. Shelly Raudenbush Wyman was charged with two UCMJ violations--including disobeying an order--by the Coast Guard Academy, to push her to cooperate. She consulted with an attorney before the Smith trial and would not testify in the May pre-trial hearing so that she would not incriminate herself. The academy did not give her prosecutorial or testimonial immunity until the day she testified.

Why did she come forward?

The only cadet that knew about Webster and Shelly's sexual relationship was then-cadet Katie Collela.
Katie Colella and Webster went out several times in November of 2005. Over Thanksgiving break when Webster decided to stay at the academy, he picked her up from Captain Collela's home in Ledyard, CT. They went out on the first of two or three dates, with the blessing of the Captain. The first night, they went to a club called Complex and outside of the Complex Webster told Katie about Shelly. Katie asked Webster to end it if he wanted to hang out with her.
Before the investigation, as the evidence revealed, Katie had not told the Regimental Commander about Shelly.
Katie played as integral of a role as Kristen Nicholson did in pushing the charges but when it came time to end Webster's career, she was nowhere on the charge sheet.
The circumstances around their relationship could not be crafted for a charge sheet and maybe she had a little more integrity than the others.
In February of 2006 when CAPT Wisniewski realized that Webster was not going to plead guilty to the original charges, he stood before the Corps of Cadets in the Chase Hall wardroom and asked for any additional female cadets to testify against Webster Smith.
Katie Collela, Shelly's track teammate, told Kristen of the conversation about Shelly. Kristen, the acting Regimental Commander, approached Shelly (Shelly admitted in trial) and several days later, she was interviewed by CGIS
Not only was there a question of criminal prosecution for Shelly, she squelched rumors to save her engagement to Grant Wyman by agreeing to help the girls with Webster Smith.
Shelly's fiance was not there to support her during any of the hearings or the trial
Shelly did not attend or testify against Webster at the sentencing hearing
Katie Collela was later kicked out on an Honor Violation.
Webster's continued relationship with Shelly was never allowed into evidence in court. Breakfast and physical therapy in CDR Richard Shumway's office the next day, her lobbying Webster to join the track team, and her frequent trips to Webster's dorm room to comfort him after several issues that Webster had with his ex-girlfriend Kristen Nicholson in early November were never allowed into evidence.
The court of appeals majority ruling stated that there was no reason for Shelly to misrepresent the truth in trial.

Footnote.(1)
U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment
Sixth Amendment - Rights of Accused in Criminal Prosecutions

Amendment Text | Annotations
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) will hear the WEBSTER SMITH case. Oral Argument has been scheduled for September 2009!

After savoring the good news, Webster Smith had this to say: "Often times, I lose sight of what I am fighting for. I forget why there are D.C. lawyers calling my phone or why some people go out of their way to bring up the very issues that spawned this web site. It is only when I sit back and read the most recent 41 page brief to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces that everything comes back to me. United States v. Webster Smith was supposed to have been an open and shut case that ended with a guilty plea about three years ago; but the case still has life. By all indication, the case has more life now than it did when many first heard about it. LT Stuart Kirkby, bless his soul, had about 100 men and women on his JAG docket. Merle Smith had a line to toe and he toed it well, with diplomatic and political savvy. The content of the brief to CAAF couldn’t have been raised as issues to the court, back when. They would have had Kirkby sanctioned and Smith barred from ever pursuing employment within the community that has defined his life, supplanted his purpose and provided for his family.

As much as this case is about people, it is also about a system. Never should a person be defeated by the investigation, itself. A person should never be influenced to make a decision about the sanctity of their freedom based on what they read about themselves in the print media or hear from nationally prominent politicians. Facts of the case, media scrutiny and the intensity of the investigation can break the best of men. Yet in still, facts-despite the media scrutiny and investigation-are often enough to get a man through it all. The latter is where I stand. Some people preferred it when negative media scrutiny over-shadowed logic or facts. To them, U.S. v. W.S. was more reasonable, more tolerable, when I didn’t say a word. It was more reasonable when most of the facts had yet to speak for me. If you believe that there is finality where I currently stand, I ask you not to insult the CAAF judges. They have already positively changed the lives of several men that I once knew.

Some of the anonymous messages to this site have ramped up recently. There are people that are infuriated that this fight continues; it was supposed to end with me breaking down in a room before anything ever went public or something, I suppose. It was supposed to be over before any testimony was scrutinized.

EXPECTATIONS

As odd as it may sound, I have embraced this whole (long) process; that includes the good and the bad. No one has to remind me of the shame, dishonor and regret because I have already coped and moved on. I have a daughter who I hope to raise as a moral and compassionate person but believe me; I first had to reconcile fatherhood with my own flaws. I wouldn’t have grown, gotten married nor had a daughter, so soon, if I remained the person that I was. That was the good that came of it and it makes me feel safe and secure. The bad, however, keeps me moving forward. It is an engine for progress; I enjoy it. Every time that I get one of those messages or hear some discouraging news, it reminds me of what I set out to fight for. No person veiled with my transgressions, would ever give up on themselves when they know that they are right. Yesterday, the Easter message at our church was about expectations. About never lowering one’s expectations, no matter what realities we face. Pastor Fleming also talked about the many ways that God turns curses into blessings. Personally, without all of the negativity and doubt, I would lose my way. I don’t remember life without it. The harsher the bite, the closer I feel I am. No matter the amount of discouragement, I have never lowered my expectations. The line of demarcation, guilty or not guilty, has long since been forgotten.

Whatever the outcome of this next stage, it will impact me and I will move on. I am simply trying to continue on with a pure and obedient heart, everything else will take care of itself. I have put all of this in God’s hands and I am watching it unfold. Don’t ask me to accept my current situation as reality, that would be lowering my expectations."

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

450 E Street, Northwest

Washington, D.C. 20442-0001

SCHEDULED HEARINGS

United States v. Webster M. Smith, No. 08-0719/CG

(Appellee) (Appellant)

Counsel for Appellant: Ronald C. Machen, Esq.

Counsel for Appellee: LT Emily P. Reuter, USCG

Case Summary: GCM conviction of going from place of duty, attempting to disobey an order, sodomy, extortion, and indecent assault. Granted issue questions whether the military judge violated Appellant’s constitutional right to confront his accusers by limiting his cross-examination of [SR], the government’s only witness, on three of the five charges.

NOTE: Counsel for each side will be allotted 20 minutes to present oral argument in this case.

DAY OF JUDGEMENT FOR WEBSTER SMITH.

Those who were not present on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at the

United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (USCAAF)

450 E Street, Northwest

Washington, D.C. 20442-0001

for the oral arguments in the case of United States v. Webster M. Smith, Case No. 08-0719/CG, missed a real burn burner.

The judges of the USCAAF are civilian judges and sit as a single panel on all cases. Typically, all five judges participate in each case. The judges came out firing questions fast and furious to the two Appellate Attorneys. The first one up was Counsel for Webster Smith: Ronald C. Machen, Esquire. He was prepared and completely unflappable. He responded to every question put to him. When he was interrupted in mid sentence, he did not forge on and try to finish his thought; he immediately responded to the Judge's question. He gave reasoned responsive answers to every question. Some judges fired hard ball questions, and one judge even offer up a soft-ball question which was answered in the same serious manner.

Then came Counsel for U S Coast Guard: LT Emily P. Reuter, USCG. She had a cold or was recovering from the Swine Flu and began by pleading for leniency because of her weakened voice. It was downhill from there for her. She did not appear to give responsive answers to most of the questions put to her. She may have not even clearly understood some of the question before she attempted to respond to them. Frequently she appeared to retreat to her notes or her brief and read the holdings from cases that she had cited in her brief. Perhaps this was her first time arguing before the court or maybe this was a case that no one else wanted to argue, but there surely was not her finest hour.

This was an appeal from a General Court-Martial (GCM) conviction for going from place of duty, attempting to disobey an order, sodomy, extortion, and indecent assault. The ISSUE on Appeal was whether the military judge at the court-martial at the Coast Guard Academy violated Webster Smith’s constitutional right to confront his accusers by limiting his cross-examination of Shelley Roddenbush [SR], the government’s only witness, on three of the five charges.

Counsel for each side was allowed 20 minutes to present oral argument in the case.

The judges of the USCAAF are Judge Andrew S. Effron is the Chief Judge. The other four judges are Judge James E. Baker, Judge Charles E. “Chip” Erdmann, Judge Scott W. Stucky, and Judge Margaret A. Ryan, the most recent appointee.

The first issue that they tackled was the jurisdictional issue. The Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals had denied a request for reconsideration on 14 May 2008. It was not clear whether this was in the Appellate Record. There was a question of how many days had elapsed from the notification of the denial to Webster Smith's attorney and the date that Attorney Machen filed his appeal to the USCAAF. The Coast Guard had sent the Notice of Denial via DHL, a German company, rather than simply using the U. S. Mail as required by the Rules of Court. Apparently there are two time periods that may be relevant under Article 67(B) of the USCAAF's Rules. One is a 61 day rule and the other is a 95 day rule.

They kept coming back to this jurisdictional issue again and again. I do not think they hammered it out definitively during the hearing. Webster Smith's attorney said that it is not in the Record that he was notified on 14 May. LT Emily P. Reuter for the USCG said that it was in the Record. I am sure the USCAAF judges will settled the issue before they issue a decision.

This is troubling because I would hate for the judges to dodge the ISSUE on Appeal because of a technicality like jurisdiction. I could hear a couple of the judges contemplating doing just that. The tone and the tenor of the questions leads me to just that conclusion. It would be a shame after all this time and effort to be cheated out of a hard and definitive decision on the ultimate ISSUE.

That being said, it is my reasoned opinion that the judges of the USCAAF are poised to reverse the conviction of Webster Smith. I feel there is better than a 60-40% chance that they will reverse the conviction by a majority vote. also, there is a 51-49% chance of a unanimous decision.

I think Judge Ryan is a swing vote. She gave Attorney Machen the hardest time. If at all possible she might do like Judge Lane I. McClelland of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals and uphold the status quo. However, I do not think she would go out on a limb and write a dissenting opinion. If the other four judges split 2-2, I think she might side with the judges who determine that a reversal is warranted because the Trial Judge abused his discretion and committed reversible error.

Judge Baker appears most eager to reverse this conviction because Webster Smith was denied his right to a fair trial. He sees this as a fair trial issue. He believes that the trial court members had a right to know what the secret was that SR wanted Webster Smith to keep, that it was of a sexual nature, that she had recently lied about it being nonconsensual when it was really consensual oral sex with an enlisted man in Norfolf, Virginia. Also, SR wanted Webster Smith to go out and lie for her so badly that she was willing to pay him with sexual favors.

Judge Baker feels this was crucial evidence that the members were entitled to know. The exact nature of the secret was crucial to Webster Smith's defense. The Trial Judge relied upon Rule 412 of the Military Rules of Evidence and allowed into evidence only the fact that Webster Smith was privy to a secret that SR wanted him to keep; and that secret concerned something that could ruin her cadet and officer career in the Coast Guard.

Even though Judge Baker is a civilian, he might have served in the military. He pointed out that there are lots of secrets that can harm one's career. It could be a secret concerning having failed a physical training exercise; or, it could be a secret involving a wardrobe or a uniform violation. The members had no way of knowing the precise nature of the secret since the trial judge protected SR from more rigorous cross-examination. They did not know that when SR was faced with rumors she lied to limit her own culpability. Giving a limiting instruction to the members was not sufficient to cure the error. It was more than harmless error. It was big, earth shaking, reversible error. It violated the Sixth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.

As Attorney Machen so eloquently stated, SR had used the secret as a sword and a shield. It shielded her from testifying at the Article 32 investigation, and it was the sword that she used at trial to stab Webster Smith through the heart. It killed him and his career in the Coast Guard. It is what the judges referred to as the Theory of Innoculation. The secret had innoculated SR from two investigations. It saved her from testifying at the Article 32 Investigation.

LT Emily P. Reuter wanted to argue that this was not a Fair Trial issue, but it was a pattern or practice issue. As such the Trial Judge was correct to limit cross-examination of SR to stop any evidence from coming in concerning her prior sexual history or her propensity to tell lies. She argued that the Defense's Theory of the case at trial was wrong for the evidence that they were trying to elicit, and that the Trial Judge correctly used Rule 412. If he erred, it was no more than harmless error. It was not Reversible Error. She was not persuasive.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. The essence of truth in this case is finally coming to the surface. From where I sit, the USCAAF stands ready to right a gigantic wrong. It wants to reconsecrate the Temple of Justice in the Coast Guard. It wants to heal the wound that was inflicted on the Sixth Amendment by the trial court and the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals.

Another Day; Another Noose.

2008-04-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

The Coast Guard is investigating the March 27, 2008 discovery of a noose aboard a 110-foot patrol boat CGC Nantucket, in South Florida. This small cutter carries a 15 man complement. This is the latest in a series of such incidents to plague the Coast Guard, a small military service about the size of the New York police department.

The crew of the CGC Nantucket found the noose tied into the end of a line attached to a Stokes Litter — a basket used to lift injured people into helicopters — while the litter was stowed, said Coast Guard spokesman CMDR Jeff Carter. He said officials don’t know yet whether the noose represented a threat or if it was just someone practicing knots.

That is a bit hard to believe considering the attention nooses have received in the media recently. One state, Connecticut, the home of the Coast Guard Academy, has taken legislative action to declare the placing of a noose a hate crime.

It is a bit ironic that the Stokes Litter used to rescue the physically impaired, is in the care and custody of someone so mentally impaired that they would spend their spare time fashioning the most reviled hate symbol of the modern era, and then put it in a conspicuous place where it would eventually be found. It is not reassuring to think that some mentally deranged social psychopath who has committed the equivalent of a hate crime in Connecticut, is a member in good standing of an elite Coast Guard Search and Rescue Unit.

This particular knot, the noose, has quickly become the favorite practice knot of Coast Guard seamen in the 21st Century. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that so many Coast Guardsmen come from the Deep South. This is a sad commentary on not only the Coast Guard but the whole human race at this point in human history. We have split the atom, mapped the human gnome, cracked the DNA mystery, and miniaturized the micro-processor chip; but, we have yet to tame the tongue or change the human heart.

After the failure of the CGIS, NCIS and the FBI to find any suspects in the noose incidents onboard the CGC Eagle and at the Coast Guard Academy in the summer of 2007CMDR Carter was quick to point out that the Coast Guard “takes this very seriously.”

This will surely be a slam-dunk. The ship has only a 15 man crew. They should crack this case and be home in time for dinner. No future officers are involved, and we normally crucify the small fry, anyway.

An outside investigator has joined with 7th Coast Guard District Commander in looking into the incident, CMDR Carter said. Perhaps this outside investigator has more to bring to the table than the platoon of CGIS, NCIS, and FBI that labored so valiantly but to no avail at the Academy until March 2008. Perhaps he is a former Northwest Canadian Mountie. They always get their man. Or, hopefully some one like P. D. James’ Inspector Adam Dalgleish, or Hercule Perot or Inspector Cluseau could crack this caper. My all time favorites are Sherlock Holmes, Sergeant Joe Friday, and Sam Spade; followed closely by Charlie Chan, Bulldog Drummond, and Boston Blackie. Alas, these Baby Boomer crime fighters may be a little over the hill. This new breed of Coast Guard noose knotter is too smart and has too much backup. All of his peers are watching his back. The good guys are in retreat.

This noose was discovered only two weeks after CGIS, NCIS and FBI at the Coast Guard Academy, had conducted the most extensive investigation in the history of the Coast Guard trying to find another noose-man. They said they could not determine who had left a noose in a Black cadet’s seabag aboard the Coast Guard Academy training ship, CGC Eagle in July. They also could not determined who left one in August 2007 on the office floor of a white female Coast Guard Academy instructor who conducted race relations training.

The Coast Guard Academy should hire the same Private Investigating firm that investigated the Formal Complaint of Discrimination filed by Webster Smith. They did an excellent job. It is too bad the Coast Guard's Dept of Homeland Security Civil Rights staff was not educated enough in the law and regulations of Civil Rights to put the Findings of Fact to good use. It was almost as tragic as giving a loaded gun to a three year old child to play with. It was a very dangerous situation. Someone is going to kill someone or himself. In the Case of Webster Smith, it was Webster Smith who was killed. Then the Civil Rights staff pleaded ignorance of the law.

CMDR Carter said the incidents have given the Coast Guard a “heightened awareness” that led to the reporting of the noose aboard the CGC Nantucket. Apparently, without that heightened awareness, this incident would have been kept a tightly held Coast Guard secret.

Those who have been on the receiving end of nooses for years do not need to have their awareness heightened or their sensitivity raised. They don’t need to go to Civil rights Training. Their basic human nature and ordinary sense of civic decency would lead them to report such incidents and to join in the search for the malefactor.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen visited the Coast Guard Academy in October 2007 and told the cadets that he wouldn’t stand for “symbols of racism” in the Coast Guard.

(Feb 24, 2009)Independent Audit Finds USCG Office of Civil Rights Incompetent.

Employees in the Coast Guard’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) do not have the skills or up-to-date training to handle many of the service’s cases and formal discrimination complaints are not adequately handled, according to an independent report presented to the Coast Guard on February 5.

Terri Dickerson, the office’s director, requested an independent review April 25, 2008, less than one month after an investigation by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI failed to determine who left nooses for a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an officer conducting race-relations training in the summer of 2007.

At the same time, an unofficial Coast Guard blog was posting regularly about the office and the director’s alleged inefficiencies, reducing morale among employees and casting OCR in a negative light, according to the report.

The findings are “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Cummings, D-Md., wrote in a letter to Commandant ADM Thad Allen. Cummings, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said he plans to call a hearing in April to further discuss the report.

“The findings of this report demand decisive and comprehensive action to correct what appear to be a number of significant shortfalls in the administration,” he wrote.

The Coast Guard retained Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with offices throughout the country, to review the entire civil rights program in September 2008, according to a letter from Dickerson to the Department of Homeland Security’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs.

Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Ron LaBrec said the service is thankful for the feedback and is conducting a thorough review of the report and its recommendations.

“The [DHS] Office of Civil Rights and Liberties periodically conducts assessments on its civil rights components and the [OCR] director wanted to do this report now with the ongoing modernization initiative to look across the board and improve the practices in the office and address any allegations that were coming out of blogs or even internal discussions. We take allegations of mistreating [privacy issues] seriously,” LaBrec said.

According to the report, the Coast Guardsmen assigned to ORC often come in with little civil rights experience and serve two-year tours, and “often they leave their post just as they are becoming oriented to the position.” The other Coast Guardsmen in the office are on collateral duty, with the same limited backgrounds, according to the report.

Although training is available, the report said, many employees have not completed the legislatively mandated initial or refresher training. In some instances training was behind up to five years.

“Some staff members lack the requisite skills, abilities, and training to effectively perform the duties of their positions, thereby diminishing effectiveness of the divisions/teams,” according to the report.

LaBrec said the “decentralized” structure led to the delinquency in training and the Coast Guard is looking to “standardize” and “improve” its training program. There are 22 full-time positions within OCR, five of which are military, but that likely is not enough to sufficiently handle the additional responsibilities related to the increased caseload, according to the report.

Although Booz Allen acknowledges that some of the recommendations listed in the report cannot be accomplished with the office’s $788,459 budget, OCR’s Web site says the recommendations are under review and lists some that have either already been completed or can be accomplished in the near future.

Those include:

• Restructuring the office to “optimize the use of our military personnel” and take advantage of existing training and resources.

• Analyze the workload to ensure statutory and non-statutory obligations are being met.

LaBrec said it is too early to determine what recommendations would require additional funding or how much additional money would be needed to accomplish those goals.

“The review reaffirmed many positive aspects of the Coast Guard civil rights program. The report also makes clear there is work ahead,” Dickerson wrote in Thursday’s Alcoast. “Foremost, consistent with past similar studies, the BAH team found we must restructure the [equal employment opportunity] function, and secondarily, shore up our equal employment opportunity/equal opportunity product lines so that they more optimally support our civil rights service providers and work force.”

LaBrec also said the 58 formal civil rights complains OCR received in fiscal year 2007, roughly one per 1,000 people, shows the office is doing some things right, since several of the other DHS departments have a much higher number of civil rights complaints per capita.

Allen told Coast Guard Academy cadets and faculty in October 2007 that racial bigotry will not be accepted and goes against the service’s ethos and humanitarian mission. In August 2008, he released a service-wide message outlining plans to improve diversity throughout the service.

As part of the new initiative, every flag officer and senior executive service member is required to attend one diversity conference a year and they are expected to build relationships with minority-based “institutions of higher education.”

The first noose, which garnered national attention, was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July 2007 onboard the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training.

(Meanwhile, Back on the Reservation, The Justice Department Reports:)
ALEXANDRIA, La., Aug 15, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and Donald W. Washington, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, today announced that Jeremiah Munsen, 19, of Pineville, La., was sentenced to four months in prison for his role in using nooses to threaten marchers who participated in the "Jena Six" civil rights rally. In addition to the four-month prison term, Munsen received one year of supervised release and 125 hours of community service.
On Sept. 20, 2007, in an incident that garnered national media attention, Munsen and another person allegedly attached the nooses to the back of a pickup truck and repeatedly drove slowly and menacingly past a large group of African American individuals who had gathered at a bus depot in Alexandria, La., after attending the civil rights rally in Jena.
The defendant pleaded guilty April 25, 2008, admitting that he displayed two large, life-sized nooses from the back of his pickup truck with the intent to frighten and intimidate the demonstrators. He and the other person with him hung the nooses in a manner so as to be clearly visible to the gathered demonstrators, and Munsen then drove past the group two or three times while the other person glared out the window at the demonstrators. Munsen further admitted that he and the other person had previously discussed the Ku Klux Klan and how they thought the Klan would have responded to the rally in Jena, and he acknowledged that the Jena Six rally followed extensive public discussion regarding, among other things, the history of racial lynchings in the United States and the perception that a noose, when displayed in a racial context, constituted a symbol of racial violence.
"The defendant used a threatening and offensive tactic to intimidate peaceful civil rights marchers who were in Louisiana to rally against racial intolerance," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Grace Chung Becker. "The Civil Rights Division will continue to vigorously pursue racially motivated threats that violate federal law."
"The defendant committed a federal hate crime by using a powerful symbol of hate to intimidate a group of interstate travelers because of their race," said U.S Attorney Donald W. Washington. "It is a violation of federal law to intimidate, oppress, injure or threaten people because of their race and because those people are exercising and enjoying rights guaranteed and protected by the laws and Constitution of the United States. Our civil rights laws protect the civil rights of all Americans, and they emphasize the reality that we are all members of one particular race -- the human race."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Alexandria Police Department investigated this case, which was prosecuted jointly by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

--

A Louisiana teenager who used nooses to intimidate black civil rights demonstrators was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison.

Jeremiah Munsen, 19, of Colfax, had nooses hanging from the back of his pickup truck when he drove past people who had attended a massive civil rights march in Jena last September, according to federal prosecutors.

Munsen had faced up to a year in prison after he pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge of interfering with the marchers’ federally protected right to travel.

U.S. District Judge Dee Drell in Alexandria also sentenced Munsen to 125 hours of community service and one year of supervised release following his prison term, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney William Flanagan.

Munsen was sentenced on the same day that an anti-noose law took effect in Louisiana. The new law makes it a state crime, punishable by up to one year in prison, to try to intimidate someone with a hangman’s noose, a Deep South symbol of racial hatred.

The marchers were waiting in Alexandria for a bus home to Tennessee after protesting the criminal cases against six black teenagers charged with beating a white student at Jena High School in 2006.

A 16-year-old passenger in Munsen’s truck also was arrested, but Flanagan said he couldn’t comment on juvenile proceedings.

In a court filing last month, prosecutors said Munsen cooperated with investigators and asked Drell to impose a sentence that reflected his “substantial assistance.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the march in Jena, said in a statement earlier this year that he applauded federal prosecutors for charging Munsen with a hate crime.

Munsen’s attorney, Billy Guin Jr, had no comment.

Thurgood Marshall did more to improve the life of the damned, the dispossessed, and the downtroddened tha any other attorney in the 20th century. He fought for the underdog in American society as an attorney and as a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.

As chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund for over 25 years, he fought Jim Crow segregation in the snake pits and hell holes of the solid South. He won 29 of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court; and, he should have won all of them. In a perfect and just world, he would have. His record of successful cases before the high court stands today unparalleled in American judicial history. President Lyndon baines Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1967 where he served for 34 years.

When he traveled in the South, Thurgood Marshall never confronted "Jim Crow" headon; that is, he never sat in railway stations or lunch counters reserved "for whites only". However, in forays down South he could not always avoid person danger. In 1946 in Columbia, Tennessee, along with other defense counsels, he drove 200 miles round-trip daily from Nashville,TN to the trial in Colunbia,TN. There was no safe place for a Black lawyer to stay in Columbia, TN. At one point police officers picked him up and took him alone in their car, and charged him with drunk driving. Carl Rowan wrote a detailed newspaper article about how the police tried to lead Attorney Thurgood Marshall to the banks of a nearby river where a lynch mob had a noose hanging from a tree, ready to lynch him. Brave armed Black citizens came to his rescue. A courageous white magistrate smelled his breath and proclaimed him sober and he was able to return to Nashvill. (Crusaders in the Courts, by Jack Greenberg, 1994, Basic Books, Harper Collins, p. 31,32)

In the Jim Crow segregated South, he was so revered in Black America that people mostly spoke of him in whispered tones. He is easily the most important American of this century. He rose from an humble birth to a position higher than any Black American before him. He built his reputation slowly in jerkwater southern towns where he was outnumbered but never outmatched and never outgunned in the legal arena. In virtually every case he was fighting for the right against a twisted white justice system administered by southern judges and sheriffs who had few second thoughts about beating in black heads.

Thurgood Marshall was the only Black leader in America during the Civil Rights era who could say that he defeated segregation where it really counted; that was, in the courts. He legal strategy was based on the U. S. Constitution. He forced civil and constitutional rights to be extended equally to the poorest and blackest American citizens as well as poor whites. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King would never have won his first victory, the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, if Thurgood Marshall and his legal team had not first won a Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation on the city buses. Battles were fought in the streets, but the victories were won in the courts.

Also, it was Thurgood Marshall who argued the case of Brown v. Bd of Education before the Supreme Court. This case ended segregation in public schools.

Thomas G. Krattenmaker, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said it best. He said, "when I think of great American lawyers, I think of Thurgood Marshall,, Abe Lincoln and Daniel Webster. In the 20th Century only Earl Warren approaches Thurgood Marshall. Marshall is certainly the most important American lawyer of the 20th Century."

Drew Days, a former law professor at Yale University Law School, said that "Thurgood Marshall was the living embodiment of how far we as Americans have come on the major concern in our history-race- and how far we still have to go. He was the conscience of this nation. In the law, he remains our supreme conscience."
(Thurgood Marshall, Justice For All, by R. Goldman and D. Gallen, 1992 bt Caroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, Ny,Ny, 141,142.)

Academy Abandons Investigation. No Culprits Found.

2008-03-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions, says an old American proverb. Fortunately for all Americans of goodwill, while the CGA and the CGIS were doing a shadow dance, the Connecticut State General Assembly was taking the lead in an area where initiative and strong leadership are drastically needed.
On 25 March 2008, the Legislature's Judiciary Committee voted 43-0 in favor of a bill that makes it a hate crime to hang a noose on public or private property, without permission of the property owner, and with the intent to harass or intimidate.

A probe to find who left hangman's nooses on the CGC Eagle and at USCGA has been abandoned without finding any of those responsible.

This should have been a slam dunk. The perpetrators were hiding in plain sight. In August of 2007 just after the CGC Eagle returned to New London, Ct., An Informed Party from Houston, Texas wrote:
"Funny. The Academy went on an all out man hunt to find who wrote the name "Webster Smith" on the Admiral's(Van Sice) farewell flag when he "resigned" his post(as Superintendent of the Academy), last year, but they can't find out who put a noose in a bag on a ship with less than a quarter of the amount of eligible suspects and nowhere for that suspect to hide? Quickly, I can narrow it down some more. It was a male victim, no female is likely to walk unwelcomed into a male birthing area. The victim was a cadet, no enlisted crew member will walk into the cadets birthing area...there is separate birthing on the Barque Eagle. We can even bet that the person knew the watch rotation and when the black cadet wouldn't be in the room. Despite what happened in other Coast Guard incidents, I'd be surprised if an actual officer would stoop so low as to perform a racist act. Yep, the young white future officer is smiling in exasperation right now. He is off the hook."
Informed Party

This clearly was an informed party. This should have been considered nothing less than a potential "confidential informant". He/she had to be an officer, cadet, or former cadet. It would appear that he/she had been onboard the Eagle, and perhaps had even trained on the Eagle. This would have been a good place to start an investigation. How could a competent agency start an important investigation with this level of apparent insight and wind up with a failed investigation? This is incredible; and it is a big disappointment. I wonder if this person was even consulted by the CGIS, NCIS, or the FBI.

The Investigators should have started by "weeding out" and then focusing in on any cadet, civilian, enlisted person, or officer who was onboard the CGC Eagle while it was at sea when the first noose incident occurred. If a trained investigator had kept an eye peeled for any body language indicating that someone was fabricating or wanted to talk, that might have narrowed the focus of the investigation. Or if they had identified any cadet willing to talk "off the record", or someone willing to trade information for a "perk", that could have led to rumors and gossip in the ranks. The Law of Probabilities says that there was, at least, one person interviewed who wanted to talk, or to give an indication of where to look. The investigators must have missed the cue.

At this point, I believe the perpetrators have "gone to ground" in Chase Hall. I had hoped for the best but expected the worst from this investigation. From the time the Academy finally admitted to the truth of the noose incidents, a ghostly calm (the kind that exists at the eye of a hurricane) has set in. Now that calm has been shattered by the pathetic platitudes that we tried our best and we could not find a culprit.

That is a shame and a tragedy. In a tragedy or a novel, the most difficult part, I am told, is how to invent The END. Contrary to the ending that the Academy Superintendent, RADM Scott Burhoe, has tried to write to this tragedy, this is not the end. Doug Wisniewski had another ending in mind when he decided to court-martial Webster Smith. That was not the end. Wisniewski wrote a tragedy, and he has moved on to the City by the Bay. The Moving Finger writes, and having writ moves on. Man proposes, but God disposes. We have yet to see the last shoe drop.

I had hoped that these incidents would have been solved and that that would signal the start of a new epoch in the Coast Guard after the Webster Smith Affair. I had hoped it would signal the start of a healing period, a time when the Academy's reputation would be repaired. It certainly has been damaged. I should have been more realistic and less optimistic. Now I see there is no way that the Academy is ever going to sacrifice one of its "fair-haired boys" for a crime of this nature. The way the Case of John K. Miller was handled proof enough of that. There is a standard of justice for Webster Smith and his kind; and, there is a standard of justice for John K. Miller and everybody else.

Someone obviously knows something, but no one is talking. In the old days, before the Class of 1976, cadets treasured their collective reputation and their individual honor. There would have been no Code of Silence, or Conspiracy of Silence. The Blue Flu was unheard of and would not have been tolerated. If necessary a "Blanket Party" initiated by upperclass cadets would have persuaded the guilty party to confess. I remember a certain Mr. D. L. Wegenar in the Class of 1968 who finally with a little help from some of his concerned Classmates decided that it would be in the best interests of the Coast Guard and all future Coast Guard officers for him to resign his appointment as a cadet. That was after he was released from sick-bay. In those days the loyalty of cadets went up towards lofty goals, not outwards to tragically flawed classmates who would never amout to much.

A proper sense of values has not been instilled in these cadets. They have misplaced values. They give their greatest loyalty to their classmates, over and above the institution. They would rather protect a flawed classmate than preserve the moral integrity of the cadet corps and the officer corps. They would rather not be seen as a stoolpigeon or as a rat than be worthy of the traditions of the commissioned officers before them who served with honor and distinction. Honor to them is just a hollow word. It is not a concept, certainly not one that they embrace. They have not fully comprehended the oath that they took as cadets. Many of them will not be worthy of the oath that they intend to take as commissioned officers. Cadets today have no sense of loyalty to the institution or to the Constitution.

This aborted investigation should give all American less confidence in the ability of the Department of Homeland Security and its lead agencies to find a dirty bomb or an improvised explosive device (IED) hidden in one of the thousands of cargo containers that come into American ports every day of the week. Perhaps it is harder to find one of your own than it is to find a total stranger. Strangers just tend to stand out. In point of fact, the only cargo loads of contraband; that being, illegal aliens, found being smuggled into the USA have been those whose ships ran aground just off the coast and the cargo containers were accidentally damaged and came open. Many Chinese illegal aliens have been found in sealed containers with enough rice and water for a six month voyage in a sealed container. When RADM Dick Clark, CGA Class of 1968, was the 11th Coast Guard District Commander, Long Beach, California, that is exactly what happened several times. He was a guest speaker at the Los Angeles Adventurers Club when he commented on the fortuitious sequence of events that lead to the discovery of the contraband human cargo.

What happened in this noose investigation, if it can be called that? Did they fail to get any cooperation from any of the officers or cadets who were onboard the CGC Eagle during the last cruise? That is where this all stated, in the aftermath of the Webster Smith court-martial. That was a controlled environment with a finite and identifiable number of suspects. These investigators couldn't find a Russian at Rockaway Beach or in Little Odessa.

Only in basketball or some other great American sport can it be said that it matters not whether you win or lose, but only how you played the game. This is not a game; this is the real world. Good intentions count for very little. We need results. The American public should expect no less. I cannot help but feel that if the victims of these incidents had not been expendable, then the culprits would have been caught, and we would have had signed confessions. And waterboarding techniques would not have been necessary to extract the confessions. no one would have been subjected to "persuasive interrogation".

Where there is a will there is a way. Since the Webster Smith court-martial, the Academy has shown very little will, and has lost its way in matters of equal protection of the law. We have found the enemy, and he am us, as Togo would say.

Fifty agents from the Coast Guard Criminal Investigation Service (CGIS), the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the FBI spent more than 2,500 hours conducting 226 interviews and reviewing more than 13,000 e-mails. Officials said it was one of the most extensive Coast Guard investigations ever. This was certainly not their finest hour. The investigation was conducted, no doubt, with kid gloves. No one's rights were imfringed. And no results were obtained.

In the Webster Smith case, they appear to have used far fewer resources and achieved much greater results. They managed to find their man, and they came up with a host of disgruntled female cadets willing to perjure themselves at a General Court-martial, all in the interest of stopping an alleged sexual predator. At least, Doug Wisniewski said that he was a sexual predator; and Doug Wisniewski is an honorable man, by an Act of Congress.

No one confessed to or reported witnessing the incidents. That is the hardest part of all of this for me to swallow. Those who tolerate evil are just as guilty as those who perpetrate evil. This has become a matter of honor. The honor of the entire Corps of Cadets has been tarnished, not just those in the Class of 2010.

In the old days, before the Class of 1976, there was group punishment for individual infractions. I remember when Dick Peyser and his classmates in the Class of 1966 punished my entire platoon in the Class of 1968 with forced exercises doing "Butt-Mussles", and "Sweeps" using out 10.2 pound M-1 rifles until one man collapsed from exhaustion or a heat stroke. The reason we were ALL punished was because someone had gone into the latrine and had spit on the toilette seat. No one would confess to having done it, so the entire platoon was punished. We never did find out who had spit on the toilette seat. It was then that we learned what the limits of our torture would be. We would be punished indefinitely until the first man callapsed. In those days Glenn Pruiskma was the designated the duty "fall guy". When he callapsed, we knew the group punishment would end.

“Even though this investigation is now closed, we will continue our work to further diversify and educate our faculty, staff and corps of cadets,” RADM J. Scott Burhoe, the academy’s superintendent said. “I believe that the sheer depth and scope of these investigations sends a clear signal of the Coast Guard’s commitment to provide all of our people with a safe, professional working environment.

"If that person is still around here, my expectation is that they've clearly learned the inappropriateness of their actions and wouldn't repeat them,” said RADM Burhoe.

That is really nice. If Webster Smith had been given that option, then he would not be a registered sex offender today.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said that it is “not a comforting thought” that someone with such “a bigoted, hateful mindset” could still be affiliated with the Coast Guard, an organization with a mission to serve a diverse public.

The first noose was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July on board the CGC Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training in response to the first incident.

ADM Burhoe said the nooses were not necessarily left by a cadet, noting that others were on the ship and at the academy, including faculty, staff and civilian guests.
He did not explain why that distinction made any difference. The purpose of the investigation was to find out who was responsible, cadets or otherwise.

“It is so inconsistent with the values we stand for,” Burhoe said.

The Justice Department has said it is investigating noose incidents at schools, workplaces and neighborhoods around the country. It has called a noose “a powerful symbol of hate and racially motivated violence” recalling the days of lynchings of Blacks. Officials say leaving a noose can constitute a federal civil rights offense under some circumstances.

Earlier this year, a white man in Alexandria, La., was indicted on federal hate crime and conspiracy charges after he was accused of driving past a group of Black civil rights activists with two nooses dangling from the back of his pickup truck. The activists had attended a civil rights march in Jena, La.

The noose incidents in Connecticut prompted the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Commandant ADM Thad W. Allen, to visit the Coast Guard Academy last year during Homecoming Week and to give the cadets, faculty and staff an unprecedented and powerful speech concerning racial hatred and intolerance.

ADM Allen was joined by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, who called for a thorough investigation and decried the incidents as “an act of terrorism.”
Congressman Cummings said Tuesday, 18 March 2008 that he was disappointed the investigators were unable to determine who left the nooses.

“While I wish they had been able to bring someone to justice, I believe once they got the investigation under way, I think they did the best they could,” Cummings said. “I just wish they had started the investigation earlier.”

The academy has launched a series of discussions about teamwork, hate crimes, symbols of hate, diversity and the importance of respect, officials said. Staff is working on a hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents policy for inclusion in the cadet code of regulations.

The academy created a task force in 2006 to examine the culture after Cadet Webster Smith was court-martialed.

Webster Smith filed a discrimination complaint alleging he was treated differently than any other cadets involved in the 9 or more other incidents of sexual improprieties because he was Black. All of the other cadets were given non-judicial punishment or allowed to voluntarily resign from the Academy. Only Webster Smith was given a General Court-martial. He too was deemed expendable.

(Feb 24, 2009)Independent Audit Finds USCG Office of Civil Rights Incompetent.

Employees in the Coast Guard’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) do not have the skills or up-to-date training to handle many of the service’s cases and formal discrimination complaints are not adequately handled, according to an independent report presented to the Coast Guard on February 5.

Terri Dickerson, the office’s director, requested an independent review April 25, 2008, less than one month after an investigation by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI failed to determine who left nooses for a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an officer conducting race-relations training in the summer of 2007.

At the same time, an unofficial Coast Guard blog was posting regularly about the office and the director’s alleged inefficiencies, reducing morale among employees and casting OCR in a negative light, according to the report.

The findings are “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Cummings, D-Md., wrote in a letter to Commandant ADM Thad Allen. Cummings, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said he plans to call a hearing in April to further discuss the report.

“The findings of this report demand decisive and comprehensive action to correct what appear to be a number of significant shortfalls in the administration,” he wrote.

The Coast Guard retained Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with offices throughout the country, to review the entire civil rights program in September 2008, according to a letter from Dickerson to the Department of Homeland Security’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs.

Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Ron LaBrec said the service is thankful for the feedback and is conducting a thorough review of the report and its recommendations.

“The [DHS] Office of Civil Rights and Liberties periodically conducts assessments on its civil rights components and the [OCR] director wanted to do this report now with the ongoing modernization initiative to look across the board and improve the practices in the office and address any allegations that were coming out of blogs or even internal discussions. We take allegations of mistreating [privacy issues] seriously,” LaBrec said.

According to the report, the Coast Guardsmen assigned to ORC often come in with little civil rights experience and serve two-year tours, and “often they leave their post just as they are becoming oriented to the position.” The other Coast Guardsmen in the office are on collateral duty, with the same limited backgrounds, according to the report.

Although training is available, the report said, many employees have not completed the legislatively mandated initial or refresher training. In some instances training was behind up to five years.

“Some staff members lack the requisite skills, abilities, and training to effectively perform the duties of their positions, thereby diminishing effectiveness of the divisions/teams,” according to the report.

LaBrec said the “decentralized” structure led to the delinquency in training and the Coast Guard is looking to “standardize” and “improve” its training program. There are 22 full-time positions within OCR, five of which are military, but that likely is not enough to sufficiently handle the additional responsibilities related to the increased caseload, according to the report.

Although Booz Allen acknowledges that some of the recommendations listed in the report cannot be accomplished with the office’s $788,459 budget, OCR’s Web site says the recommendations are under review and lists some that have either already been completed or can be accomplished in the near future.

Those include:

• Restructuring the office to “optimize the use of our military personnel” and take advantage of existing training and resources.

• Analyze the workload to ensure statutory and non-statutory obligations are being met.

LaBrec said it is too early to determine what recommendations would require additional funding or how much additional money would be needed to accomplish those goals.

“The review reaffirmed many positive aspects of the Coast Guard civil rights program. The report also makes clear there is work ahead,” Dickerson wrote in Thursday’s Alcoast. “Foremost, consistent with past similar studies, the BAH team found we must restructure the [equal employment opportunity] function, and secondarily, shore up our equal employment opportunity/equal opportunity product lines so that they more optimally support our civil rights service providers and work force.”

LaBrec also said the 58 formal civil rights complains OCR received in fiscal year 2007, roughly one per 1,000 people, shows the office is doing some things right, since several of the other DHS departments have a much higher number of civil rights complaints per capita.

Allen told Coast Guard Academy cadets and faculty in October 2007 that racial bigotry will not be accepted and goes against the service’s ethos and humanitarian mission. In August 2008, he released a service-wide message outlining plans to improve diversity throughout the service.

As part of the new initiative, every flag officer and senior executive service member is required to attend one diversity conference a year and they are expected to build relationships with minority-based “institutions of higher education.”

The first noose, which garnered national attention, was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July 2007 onboard the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training.

Thurgood Marshall did more to improve the life of the damned, the dispossessed, and the downtroddened tha any other attorney in the 20th century. He fought for the underdog in American society as an attorney and as a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund for over 25 years, he fought Jim Crow segregation in the snake pits and hell holes of the solid South. He won 29 of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court; and, he should have won all of them. In a perfect and just world, he would have. His record of successful cases before the high court stands today unparalleled in American judicial history. President Lyndon baines Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1967 where he served for 34 years.

When he traveled in the South, Thurgood Marshall never confronted "Jim Crow" headon; that is, he never sat in railway stations or lunch counters reserved "for whites only". However, in forays down South he could not always avoid person danger. In 1946 in Columbia, Tennessee, along with other defense counsels, he drove 200 miles round-trip daily from Nashville,TN to the trial in Colunbia,TN. There was no safe place for a Black lawyer to stay in Columbia, TN. At one point police officers picked him up and took him alone in their car, and charged him with drunk driving. Carl Rowan wrote a detailed newspaper article about how the police tried to lead Attorney Thurgood Marshall to the banks of a nearby river where a lynch mob had a noose hanging from a tree, ready to lynch him. Brave armed Black citizens came to his rescue. A courageous white magistrate smelled his breath and proclaimed him sober and he was able to return to Nashvill. (Crusaders in the Courts, by Jack Greenberg, 1994, Basic Books, Harper Collins, p. 31,32)

In the Jim Crow segregated South, he was so revered in Black America that people mostly spoke of him in whispered tones. He is easily the most important American of this century. He rose from an humble birth to a position higher than any Black American before him. He built his reputation slowly in jerkwater southern towns where he was outnumbered but never outmatched and never outgunned in the legal arena. In virtually every case he was fighting for the right against a twisted white justice system administered by southern judges and sheriffs who had few second thoughts about beating in black heads.

Thurgood Marshall was the only Black leader in America during the Civil Rights era who could say that he defeated segregation where it really counted; that was, in the courts. He legal strategy was based on the U. S. Constitution. He forced civil and constitutional rights to be extended equally to the poorest and blackest American citizens as well as poor whites. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King would never have won his first victory, the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, if Thurgood Marshall and his legal team had not first won a Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation on the city buses. Battles were fought in the streets, but the victories were won in the courts.

Also, it was Thurgood Marshall who argued the case of Brown v. Bd of Education before the Supreme Court. This case ended segregation in public schools.

Thomas G. Krattenmaker, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said it best. He said, "when I think of great American lawyers, I think of Thurgood Marshall,, Abe Lincoln and Daniel Webster. In the 20th Century only Earl Warren approaches Thurgood Marshall. Marshall is certainly the most important American lawyer of the 20th Century."

Drew Days, a former law professor at Yale University Law School, said that "Thurgood Marshall was the living embodiment of how far we as Americans have come on the major concern in our history-race- and how far we still have to go. He was the conscience of this nation. In the law, he remains our supreme conscience."
(Thurgood Marshall, Justice For All, by R. Goldman and D. Gallen, 1992 bt Caroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, Ny,Ny, 141,142.)

They Rose To The Top of Their Game; Became Weak In Fundamentals.

2008-02-08T21:39:00.000-08:00

(L-R:Capt Mike Sullivan,Capt Bruce Baffer,Capt Brian Perkins)
USCG CAPT Mike Sullivan Has Been Charged With Use of Cocaine.

ALAMEDA, Calif.(8/20/08) - CAPT Sullivan, a senior officer on the Coast
Guard's Pacific Area staff has been charged with
wrongfully using cocaine and has been temporarily
reassigned to a non-supervisory position.

CAPT Michael Sullivan, who had been serving as
Pacific Area's Chief of Response, was charged with one
specification of wrongful use of cocaine under Article
112(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and one
charge of obstruction of justice under Article 133 of
the UCMJ.

Vice Adm. David Pekoske, the Coast Guard Pacific Area
Commander, has directed that the charges against
Sullivan be investigated in accordance with Article 32
of the UCMJ. Such an investigation is required before
charges could be referred for trial to a general
court-martial.

An Article 32 hearing is a preliminary hearing in
which an investigating officer inquires into the truth
of the matters set forth in the charges and recommends
disposition of the charges. The accused member and his
counsel are present and have the right to question
witnesses at such a proceeding. A date has not yet
been set for the Article 32 hearing.

If found guilty of both charges, Sullivan faces a
potential maximum sentence of a dismissal from the
Coast Guard, 10 years confinement and forfeiture of
all pay and allowances.

Capt. Michael Sullivan, formerly commanding officer of the USCGC Morgenthau (WHEC), has 26 years of service in the Coast Guard.

CAPT Sullivan, the Pacific area's Chief of Response since May 2007, supervised the operation of 20 major Coast Guard cutters and directed law enforcement units that protect ports and fisheries and fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

CAPT Sullivan earlier commanded three cutters, and his assignments have included acting as the Coast Guard's liaison to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

The Coast Guard's Pacific area, based in Alameda, extends from South America to the Arctic Circle and west to the Far East.
CG Demotes, Retires Ex-Commander
April 10, 2010
Knight Ridder/Tribune

The Coast Guard is demoting and retiring a former commander of its Anchorage office who was charged with having inappropriate relationships with staff members over a more than 13-year period. The Coast Guard said Herbert M. Hamilton III will retire July 1 as a lieutenant with a general discharge instead of undergoing a court-martial.

Hamilton was a captain when he was relieved of his Anchorage command last May.

The Coast Guard said the deal with Hamilton "is the result of a pretrial agreement and Hamilton's unsatisfactory service in the grades of captain, commander, and lieutenant commander."

"Interoffice senior-junior sexual relationships result in unfair advantages and are contrary to good order and discipline," said Rear Adm Colvin. "The resolution to this case should send a strong message that conduct unbecoming an officer and violations of the Coast Guard's interpersonal relationships policy will not be tolerated and may have significant repercussions, especially at the senior officer level."

Hamilton was accused of adultery, fraternizing with enlisted staff, and fraud. Coast Guard lawyers said he had extramarital affairs with three enlisted woman and a junior officer.

Until last May, he was commander of Sector Anchorage and oversaw 200 Coast Guardsmen in Western Alaska.

CAPT Elmo Alexander, the CO of the CGC Midgett, a Seattle-based 378-foot Coast Guard cutter has admitted in an official inquiry that he berated and struck an enlisted man when the ship was in Mexico.

CAPT Alexander, a 31-year Coast Guard veteran, acknowledged at a Flag Mast that he struck a subordinate during a port call in Mexico and also announced plans to retire from the service, according to agency spokesman Lt. Dave Oney.

CAPT Alexander stated after the hearing that he wanted to leave the Coast Guard.

Vice Adm. Charles Wurster of the Coast Guard's Pacific Area command issued a Letter of Reprimand and a fine that amounts to half his base pay for a two-month period. This was the final action of the NJP, a "nonjudicial punishment," an action typically taken for minor disciplinary offenses. LT. Oney said Alexander "struck an enlisted crewmember in the head while counseling him on his performance as a security watchstander."

CAPT Lance Bardo assumed command of the Midgett until a change of command ceremony could be held.

Last year, CAPT Bardo became the commander of the San Diego-based cutter Hamilton. Coast Guard officials had lost confidence in the Hamilton's previous commander, LT Oney said.

Prior to the incident in Mexico, CAPT Alexander had an "unblemished" record, officials reported.

In 2006, he led CGC Midgett on a scheduled seven-month tour to the Persian Gulf, marking the first time a Seattle-based cutter was deployed to the Iraq war.

In addition to the Midgett, CAPT Alexander has commanded the cutters Tampa, Sturgeon Bay and Cape Jellison.

CAPT Alexander also is a former commanding officer of the Coast Guard's special missions training center in North Carolina. He was responsible for training Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps personnel, according to his official biography.

He decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, Coast Guard Commendation Medal, the Commandant's Letter of Commendation Ribbon, the National Defense Medal and one for humanitarian service.

CGC Midgett is one of ten "high endurance" cutters on the West Coast. Its crew is responsible for homeland security, search-and-rescue missions, law enforcement and migrant interdiction operations.

The CGC Midgett usually patrols the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and waters in Central America. It typically has a crew of 24 officers and 160 enlisted personnel, according to the Coast Guard's Web site.

The ship is named after Chief Warrant Officer John Allen Midgett Jr., a recipient of the Gold Lifesaving Medal

Lt. Kerry D. McKeever, CO CGC Monomoy, a 110-foot patrol boat, stationed in the Persian Gulf has been “temporarily relieved for cause,” the Coast Guard announced in February 2008.

Lt. McKeever was reassigned to the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area command in Portsmouth, Va., said Atlantic Area spokesman Lt. Rob Wyman.

The Woods Hole, Mass.-based CGC Monomoy has been assigned a temporary commanding officer. The Coast Guard did not disclose more information on the cause of McKeever’s relief.

“The Coast Guard takes the responsibility of command very seriously, and we’re following the established administrative processes to determine the most appropriate course of action from here,” said Atlantic Area commander Adm. Brian Peterman.

The CGC Monomoy is attached to Coalition Task Force 158, a multinational naval force that conducts maritime security operations and specifically protects the oil terminals of the Persian Gulf.

Rear Adm. Timothy Sullivan, Commander of the First Coast Guard District, on 1 February 2008 relieved CDR Jeffrey Dow, as CO of the 225 foot CGC Willow, a Newport, Rhode Island-based cutter following reports of an improper relationship.

(left to right) CDR Jeffrey Dow, LT Grant Thomas, and CAPT Roy Nash.navytimesfilephoto

Commander Dow was relieved of his command following allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and subsequent loss of confidence by the operational commander. The executive officer or second in command of the Willow, Coast Guard Lt. Mark Crysler, has assumed command of the CGC Willow.
The case remains under investigation.
"We take these types of allegations very seriously, and we will investigate this case fully," said Capt. Timothy Skuby, the chief of staff of the First Coast Guard District.
Commander Jeffrey Dow graduated from the U S Coast Guard Academy in the Class of 1991.
His first duty station was onboard the USCGC Laurel in Mayport, FL. In 1993 he was assigned as XO of the USCGC Asateague in Honolulu, Hi. In 1995 he became an instructor in the Leadership and Management School at the Coast Guard Training center at Petaluma, Ca.
In 1998 he reported aboard the CGC Grand Isle out of Gloucester, Massachusetts as Commanding Officer.
In 2001 he was sent to Post Graduate School at the University of San Diego where he earned a Masters Degree in Leadership Studies. In January 2002 he reported to Coast Guard Headquarters as Chief, Administration and Coordination Staff for the Assistant Commandant for Operations. In 2003 he became the Headquarters Quality Performance Consultant for the Office of Personnel Management.

CDR Dow is a native of Plaistow, New Hampshire and is married to the former Rebecca Brechler of Wausau, Wisconsin.

This is not the first time a Coast Guard Commanding Officer of a seagoing vessel has been relieved of duty for fraternization in the last year.
Commander Karl Gabrielsen,the CO of the USCGC Alex Haley, a 282 foot medium endurance law enforcement vessel stationed in Kodiak, Alaska, was permanently relieved of command following nonjudicial punishment June 13, 2007 for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and other charges.
Cmdr. Gabrielsen received a punitive letter of reprimand and fines worth up to $5,000during an NJP (non-judicial punishment) conducted by Pacific Area Commander Vice Admiral Charles Wurster.

Few details were released concerning the specifics of Commander Gabrielsen’s relationships. It was not revealed whether these relationships were while Commander Gabrielson was acting in an official capacity or while he was in a leave status unrelated to his official duties. Nor was it stated whether these were social relationships that only amounted to a possible embarrassment to his wife and the officer corps. However, he was relieved of duty April 24, 2007 for “loss of confidence.”

An administrative investigation confirmed that CDR Gabrielsen had several “inappropriate relationships” which “compromised his leadership ability,” according to Public Affairs Senior Chief Keith Alholm on June 18, 2007. All available information indicates that none of the relationships were with male or female members of his ship's officers or crew.

Did Someone Forget To Put The Salt-Peter In The Chow At The Coast Guard Academy?
What's Going On With The Coast Guard's New Breed Of Officers?

M. J. Smith Relieved of Command.
The captain of the CGC Mobile Bay, an icebreaking tug, was temporarily relieved of command 4 April 2008 by RADM John E. Crowley, commander of the Coast Guard’s 9th District.

RADM Crowley relieved LCDR Matthew J. Smith after “a series of discussions” led RADM Crowley to decide that “a change of leadership was in order” aboard the 140-foot Mobile Bay, based in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, said Chief Public Affairs Specialist Robert Lanier, 9th District spokesman.

The relief from command allegedly was not the result of wrongdoing or misconduct of any nature. LCDR Smith is not currently under any kind of investigation, Lanier said.
All prelimiary inquiries are over.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Wirth, captain of the buoy tender CGC Alder, a buoy tender, homeported in Duluth, Minn., will take over as captain of the Mobile Bay, Lanier said.

File Photo of Ensign Jason Frank in rabbit fur cap.

LT Jason Frank, a 36-year-old Coast Guard officer, assigned to the Command Center Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington DC was arrested 10 August 2007 after being caught "in flagrante delicto" in the Stafford, Va., in the bedroom of a 14-year-old girl by her mother.

Lt. Jason Frank, of Gaithersburg, Md., allegedly visited the girl’s home on three different occasions and had sex with her at least twice, according to a 15 August Stafford County Sheriff’s Office announcement.

The girl’s mother allegedly found Frank in her daughter’s bedroom in the early hours of August 1. The mother told deputies that after she told the Coast Guard officer her daughter was only 14, he jumped out the window and fled.Informed sources said that Lieutenant Frank met the 14 year old girl in an Internet chat room. He was posing as a 28-year-old.

Frank has been charged with two counts of carnal knowledge of a child (statutory rape), taking indecent liberties with a child, soliciting a juvenile with an electronic device, breaking and entering, vandalism, and misdemeanor assault and battery.

Vice Adm. John “Boomer” Stufflebeem was relieved by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead because , the CNO lost confidence in Admiral Stufflebeem’s judgment and his continuing ability to lead in the office of the CNO,” said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp, the Navy’s chief of information. It appears that he also lied about having sex in the White House with a State Department staffer.

A DoD IG investigation began after officials received an anonymous letter in January this year accusing VADM Stufflebeem of having an inappropriate relationship while serving as President George H.W. Bush’s military aide in 1990. Thorp was careful to point out that VADM Stufflebeem was relieved directly due to the misleading testimony, not because of the allegations in the letter. The letter accused Stufflebeem of carrying on an eight-month affair with a female State Department staffer while the two were assigned to the White House in 1990. Stufflebeem, then a 37-year-old commander, pretended to be a widower. He is alleged to have told the woman that his wife had died of breast cancer and that he was raising his two children on his own. The Admiral allegedly had sex with the State Department staffer in sleeping quarters in the White House basement and when the two traveled abroad with the White House travel team. it is also alleged that the two engaged in “passionate kissing” in a car parked near the White House grounds, and he even sexually propositioned the woman’s close friend on a trip to London.

An earlier anonymous letter regarding VADM Stufflebeem was sent in 1999, but at the time, the Navy and DoD deemed there was “insufficient evidence to pursue the matter,” Thorp said.

At an admiral’s mast, NJP, April 18, 2008 he received a punitive letter of reprimand. A 39-year Navy career was in ruins. At mast, Stufflebeem was found guilty of Article 107 — making a false official statement — by Adm. Kirkland Donald, director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion, who read the IG investigation and endorsed the full report.

On May 7, in a letter he said that he never intentionally misled anybody about the affair. In letters he sent to the IG, he said he had “spent a lot of time trying to forget who she was.”

In another statement to Navy Times, he wrote: “It is regrettable that an investigation into an 18-year-old accusation has caused embarrassment to the Navy and my family. It was never my intent to harm or deceive either of them.”
Stufflebeem has put in paperwork requesting retirement.

The woman told investigators that Stufflebeem apologized for lying to her.
“‘I’m very sorry,’” the woman quoted him as saying. “‘I’m married. I didn’t know how long this charade could go on.

If Stufflebeem had told the IG the truth about the affair, he probably would not have advanced but would have avoided nonjudicial punishment and been able to stay in the Navy. That’s because the five-year statute of limitations on adultery has long since expired.

When investigators asked whether he had been held accountable by military authorities for his relationship with the woman, Stufflebeem said he had not been by military superiors, but had been in his personal life.
“My wife held me accountable,” he told investigators, adding that he and his wife had undergone marital counseling for the strain caused by the White House relationship. The two are still married, he said. “I held myself accountable. And it took me a long time to come around to beg God for forgiveness for what had been going on in my life, and this just contributed to it.
“So I have had a great 18-year career since I left the White House,” he said in a letter in response to the report. “If this is the end of it, then I still leave a rewarded individual, thankful for the blessings that I have had.”

VADM Stufflebeem’s rank has reverted to rear admiral, which is typically done when an officer is not serving in a three-star billet. Officers need congressional approval to serve as vice admiral or above, and can only maintain that rank when actually serving in those jobs.

RADM Stufflebeem, a career naval aviator, rose to prominence in the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, frequently briefing reporters as the deputy director for global operations on the Joint Staff. After graduating from the Naval Academy Class of 1975, RADM Stufflebeem was a practice-squad punter for the Detroit Lions under a special program that allowed the NFL to carry military players in a reserve status while they are on active duty. The Lions asked Stufflebeem to join them full time, but the aviator opted to fly jets.

CMDR Michael Sabellico, the commanding officer of the CGC Escanaba, a Boston-based Coast Guard cutter was arrested and charged with assault Tuesday following a scuffle during a port call in Key West, Fla.

CMDR Sabellico, 42, of Scituate, Mass., the skipper of the 270-foot cutter, was arrested May 15 by Key West police around 1:15 a.m. The Coast Guard temporarily reassigned him.

According to the police report, CMDR Sabellico and several crew members were drinking at establishments along the island’s famed Duval Street when they argued with a bartender at an Irish pub.

CMDR Sabellico and the crew members allegedly were loitering in an alley when the bartender at Irish Kevin’s asked them to leave. They left as requested, but according to the report, CMDR Sabellico returned and scuffled with the man. He then left the scene. CMDR Sabellico was apprehended later and charged with simple assault.

The Coast Guard conducted an administrative investigation into the incident. According to Atlantic Area spokesman Lt. Rob Wyman, CMDR Sabellico was reassigned temporarily to the Coast Guard’s 1st District.

CMDR Chris Austin, the CO of the Portsmouth, Va.-based CGC Northland, assumed temporary command of the CGC Escanaba.
(POST SCRIPT) Here was a real MAN, a ship's captain who is a throwback to the days of the "rocks and shoals". This is the kind of a ship's captain that anyone would want to sail with. He is no wimp or wuss.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

And, we all know that You can't keep a good man down.
"This is me...CDR Mike Sabellico, now retired. I was formally releived for cause as a result of my
arrest in Key West that unfortunate evening. These types of events are never easy for anyone but
I've moved on and the ship has done well despite the circumstances of the summer. I remain extremely
proud of the Coast Guard and of my service for over 20 years. I made a serious mistake in judgement
and was held fully accountable.

I'm working for a company in San Diego and love it. I'm home every night which makes life a little bit better.

Everyone makes mistakes some just gain more noteriety than others. I've learned from it and now it's in my wake.

All my best
Mike"

Capt. Jeffrey S. Lee, CO of the 378-foot USCGC Hamilton, was relieved of command on 23 Septtember 2007 by Pacific Area commander Vice Adm. Charles Wurster.

Wurster cited “loss of confidence” in Lee’s ability to command as reason for the relief, Lt. Dave Oney said. He was flown back to the United States from the CGC Hamilton.

An investigation was conducted by the command and Coast Guard Investigative Service. No further details were forthcoming.

The San Diego-based CGC Hamilton was in the middle of a scheduled deployment to the eastern Pacific. CAPT Lee was removed from the ship as it made a stop in Central America.

CGC Hamilton was Lee’s fourth cutter command. He has been cited for outstanding leadership on numerous occasions and, from 2003 to 2005, served as school chief at the Coast Guard’s Command and Operations School where he instructed future cutter commanders and executive officers for duty afloat.

He has been in the Coast Guard since 1983.

CAPT Lance Bardo, prospective CO of the national security cutter Waesche, temporarily assumed command of CGC Hamilton.

CAPT Douglas G. Russell, the CO of the Seattle-based Coast Guard icebreaker CGC Healy lost command of the ship, two weeks after two of the ship's divers died on a research expedition in the Arctic Ocean.

CAPT Russell was temporarily relieved of his post after the Coast Guard's chief in the Pacific, Vice Adm. Charles D. Wurster, had a "loss of confidence in the officer's ability to command," the Coast Guard announced.

Coast Guard officials wouldn't say specifically what led to that conclusion, but it's not a routine step after a fatal accident, said Lt. Cmdr. Glynn Smith, a spokesman for the Coast Guard's Pacific Area.

"It depends on the facts of the case," he said.

CAPT Russell had been in charge of the ship since June. He is being replaced by Capt. Daniel K. Oliver, the Healy's previous commanding officer.

The Coast Guard has disclosed little about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of LT Jessica Hill, 31, of St. Augustine, Fla., and BM2 Steven Duque, 22, of Miami.

The two died Aug. 17 during a routine dive about 60 feet off the bow of the Healy as it floated 500 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, Smith said. The pair were diving to check equipment and become familiar with diving in the frigid water, according to the Coast Guard.

Not to be outdone by the Coast Guard, the Navy has its share of senior officers stepping knee-deep in ca-ca.

Commander Robert Schetky, 54 years old, should know discipline and should have been able to control his impulses toward the 12 year old girl, Juneau Superior Judge Larry Weeks said on 21 June2007 as he handed down the sentence, which includes two more years that were suspended.

"No one will ever know the damage done to her," Judge Weeks said. Prosecutors said Schetky touched the girl's breasts multiple times last year.

He was arrested and pleaded guilty in January. As part of the plea deal, he spent time at a treatment facility in Arizona that specializes in substance and sexual addictions.

Following his release from prison, Schetky will be required to register as a sex offender for 15 years. He is prohibited from contact with his victim without prior approval and from contact with girls under 17 and must submit a DNA sample.

Before his arrest, Schetky was the Navy's liaison to the Coast Guard as head of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Maritime Homeland Defense Detachment. It was not clear from the evidence whether his close association with some Coast Guard officers led to the decline in his moral character. Bad company corrupts good morals.

Admiral Peter J. Williams,USN fired over improper relationship.

Rear Adm. Peter J. Williams was fired from his position and reassigned 21 June 2007 for having an inappropriate relationship and misusing government property, according to the Navy.

RADM Williams, the program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs, was sent to another position within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, following an NJP, admiral’s mast, before ADM Patrick Walsh, vice chief of naval operations.

Delores M. Etter, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, reassigned Williams.

Lt. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, said that during the mast proceeding, “it was determined that Williams had engaged in an inappropriate relationship and misused government property.” Perry said the government property was a cellular phone. He would not characterize the improper relationship. RADM Williams is married.

LT Perry would not disclose the details of the inappropriate relationship. ADM Walsh convened the Admiral's Mast under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That gives a commanding officer authority to conduct an immediate non-judicial proceeding for misconduct.

“Adm. Walsh believed he had sufficient information to conduct an Article 15 hearing,” LT Perry said. “An individual notified the chain of command with credible concerns about an inappropriate relationship. The Navy takes such allegations seriously and began the investigation.”

SAN DIEGO, CA (1 march 2008) — CMDR Steven R. Rasmussen the skipper of the frigate Thach was fired this week for a “loss of confidence” in his ability to lead his crew, a Navy official said Friday, 29 February.

CMDR Rasmussen, a 1988 graduate of the Naval Academy who took command of the ship Oct. 6, 2006, was relieved of command by CAPT Michael Gilday, according to CMDR Jane Campbell, a Naval Surface Forces spokeswoman. CAPT Gilday is commodore of San Diego-based Destroyer Squadron 7.

“Loss of confidence is the reason behind it,” Campbell said, declining to provide details. CMDR Rasmussen did not go to flag mast, and his firing “is administrative, at this point,” she added.

Rasmussen was scheduled to hand over command in about a month, Campbell said. He was temporarily reassigned, but no other details were available.

CMDR Dave Haas, who was slated to replace Rasmussen this spring, took command of the ship Thursday, 28 February.

Haas most recently commanded the littoral combat ship Independence “gold crew” in San Diego.

Rasmussen’s assignments include serving as XO of the destroyer O’Kane and flag secretary for Cruiser-Destroyer Group 5 aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz.

His firing came about a week after he and Thach’s crew were recognized by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for interdiction missions during their six-month deployment in 2006 to Central and South America.

During a Feb. 19 ceremony aboard the ship, Patrick M. Ward, the acting director for supply reduction, cited Thach’s crew for interdicting 29 tons of cocaine, the most of any Navy asset that year, and presented the United States Interdiction Coordinator Award and special coins to 50 crew members.

“We were extremely fortunate to be part of such a robust and capable team. Everyone in the process worked tirelessly to complete these operations in a safe and effective manner,” CMDR Rasmussen said, according to a Feb. 27 Navy News article about the ceremony.

Naval Academy Female Officer Had To Work As A Prostitute To Make Ends Meet.

LCDR Rebecca Dickinson, a former Naval Academy instructor moonlighted as a prostitute for the D.C. Madam, a California woman accused of running an escort service.

LCDR Dickinson said that she had sex with nearly every client she met while working for Deborah Jeane Palfrey from October 2005 until April 2006.

She was paid between $250 and $300 for 90-minute appointments at Washington-area homes, hotels and offices.

Navy spokesman CAPT Jack Hanzlik said that LCDR Dickinson, 38, was fired from her position as an instructor at Naval Supply Corps School in Athens, Georgia in April 2008.

LCDR Dickinson received nonjudicial punishment (NJP) and was given a punitive letter of reprimand. Hanzlik said she could face additional punishment in the future and has been placed on leave.

“We expect the men and women who serve in our nation’s Navy to adhere to a standard of conduct that reflects our core values of honor, courage and commitment,” Hanzlik said. “LCDR Dickinson’s conduct will prevent her from wearing this uniform again in the service of our country.”

While at the Naval Academy, Navy officials say, Dickinson worked as food services officer, responsible for feeding more than 4,000 midshipmen each day, from 2004 until 2007. She also taught one class — Naval Leadership — for a semester.

LCDR Dickinson’s decision might have been motivated by financial issues — she had filed for bankruptcy in the months before she responded to an advertisement placed by Palfrey in a local newspaper.

LCDR Dickinson joined the Navy in 1986 and served as an aviation electronics technician for three years before attending Auburn University. After she was commissioned in 2003, Dickinson attended Naval Supply Corps School and then served aboard the cruiser Bunker Hill, the fast combat support ship Camden and the ammunition supply ship Santa Barbara.

LCDR Dickinson has 19 years of service time. Hanzlik said no decision has been made on whether she will be allowed to retire, but said if she is, it could be at a lower rank because a retirement grade determination might find that her service as a lieutenant commander was not honorable.

(POST SCRIPT)The woman who hires LCDR Dickinson, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the Washington D C Madam, was convicted 15 April 2008 on all counts of money laundering, racketeering, and using the mail for illegal purposes by a federal jury in Washington DC. She was convicted of running a prostituton service that catered to members of Washington's political elite. Ms. Palfrey caused a minor sensation in 2007 when she announced that she was going to sell her client list in order to raise money to pay her attorneys' fees. She alleged that her defunct business, Pamela Martin & Associates, was a legal, high-end erotic fantasy service.

The trial concluded without revealing many new details about the service or its clients. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., was among possible witnesses, but did not take the stand.
Vitter has acknowledged being involved with Palfrey’s escort service. But after issuing brief statements apologizing for “a very serious sin,” he has avoided follow-up questions.
Harlan Ullman, a military strategist who created the concept of “shock and awe” that the United States used to open hostilities against Iraq, also did not testify. Palfrey says Ullman was a regular client; Ullman has declined to discuss what he has called “outrageous allegations.”
Randall L. Tobias, who resigned as a deputy secretary of state after acknowledging to ABC News that he used Palfrey’s service for massages, also did not testify.
Defense attorney Preston Burton argued that what went on during appointments was between the client and the escort. He compared Palfrey to a taxi dispatcher, who shouldn’t be penalized for “the route the cab driver took.”
Palfrey was freed pending her sentencing July 24, 2008.
Prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge James Robertson to lock Palfrey up immediately, arguing that the verdict gives her a motive to flee. But the judge noted that Palfrey has never missed a court appearance.

However, the so-called “D.C. Madam” was found dead on 2 May in Tarpon Springa, Florida. In suicide notes she said that she couldn’t bear to go to prison, and apologized to her mother and sister.
Florida police released the two notes Deborah Jean Palfrey wrote before she hanged herself in a shed outside her mother’s mobile home.
Palfrey was convicted April 15 of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington’s political elite — including Sen. David Vitter, R-La. — and employed a Naval Academy instructor, LCDR Rebecca Dickinson, as a call girl.
Another of the escort service employees was former University of Maryland, Baltimore County, professor Brandy Britton, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. She committed suicide in January before she was scheduled to go to trial.
Last year, Palfrey said she, too, was humiliated by her prostitution charges, but said: “I guess I’m made of something that Brandy Britton wasn’t made of.”
Palfrey faced a maximum of 55 years in prison. Sentencing was scheduled for July 24.
She said in a note to her mother that the case was a “modern-day lynching.” She said she didn’t want to come out of prison “broken, penniless and very much alone.”

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS OF AN ASEXUAL NATURE.
Not all crimes commited by senior military officers and Senior Executive Service members are of a sexual nature. Some are more serious. "There is nothing more important than the security of nuclear weapons" said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne were forced to resign Thursday 5 June 2008because of problems stemming from the Air Force’s mishandling nuclear weapons. A report, by Navy ADM Kirkland Donald, director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion, revealed widespread problems in the mishandling of nuclear weapons and convinced Defense Secretary Robert Gates that General Moseley and Secretary Wynne must be held accountable. Both men have tendered their resignations.

Defense Secretary Gates started his career as an Air Force missile officer in the 1960s. He said that a “substantial” number of Air Force general officers and colonels more immediately responsible for recent lapses could still be reprimanded or fired in the wake of the report.

It is not clear how quickly Secretary Wynne and General Moseley will leave their positions. General Moseley has requested retirement effective August 1 and will take terminal leave before that.

“I think the honorable thing to do is to step aside,” General Moseley said in a statement released to the press. “After consulting with my family, I intend to submit my request for retirement to Secretary Gates.

Female Officer Fraternization Cases A Serious Problem.

2008-01-27T21:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

On March 16, 1997 Lt. Col. Karen Tew found her 19-year career as an Air Force officer over. It was destroyed by her admission that she had an improper relationship with an enlisted man.

As soon as her guilty plea and dismissal were upheld on automatic appeal Colonel Karen Tew would lose her rank and all her benefits, including her military life insurance and death benefits for her survivors.

Her two teen-age daughters would get nothing from the Air Force unless Tew died before her discharge was final.
That Sunday, as Tew sat alone in her parents’ St. Charles, Mo., home, she didn't reach for the phone to call the mental health counselor she had been seeing since early December.

She reached for a shotgun and put it to her head. She was dead at age 41.

Tew is at least the third military member in 1997 to commit suicide after being charged with sexual misconduct. Her case was among those cited in a Time magazine article. But unlike the two others — an Army private charged with rape and an Army staff sergeant accused of indecent assault on a female soldier — Tew’s crime is not even illegal in the civilian world.

She's not alone — the Air Force's first female bomber pilot, 1st Lt. Kelly Flinn, was charged with fraternizing with an enlisted airman, adultery with the civilian husband of an enlisted woman, and disobeying orders to stay away from the men.

The Air Force has seen an almost yearly increase in adultery cases since 1990 and cases of fraternization — an officer having an improper relationship with a subordinate — shot up in 1994.

Both charges can get the offender kicked out of the service, but fraternization is considered the worst — it can bring up to two years in prison, while adultery has a maximum of one year.

With more women in the military, and units spending more time away from home, more opportunity exists for improper actions.

At the same time, Air Force leaders have been cracking down on such relationships, which then chief of staff, Gen. Ronald Fogleman, has described as part of the “climate of corrosion” and “culture of compromise” that threatens the service unless it returns to core values of integrity and honesty.

Capt. Bill Barksdale, a spokesman for Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, said fraternization especially can destroy a unit’s ability to work together.

“It’s tough, when you’re not in the military, to understand just what it can do to a unit,” he said. “It’s about fairness and equity in your workplace. It’s about professional working relationships — that’s what you want to maintain.”

It’s not clear why Tew would have jeopardized a career she had pursued her entire adult life.

Initially, Scott Air Force Base officials did not publicize the fact that a senior officer was charged with two counts of adultery, sodomy and fraternization. Barksdale said his office was not notified until after Tew committed suicide.

The Air Force has not released the record of Tew’s court-martial and the investigation that preceded it.

One supposition is that Tew, who was under counseling because she was considered suicidal, wanted to preserve benefits for her daughters, ages 15 and 16.
If she died before being kicked out, survivors would receive her military life insurance, a death payment and keep other benefits, such as health care.
“She understood that,” Barksdale said. “I know she knew exactly what would happen if she committed suicide.”
Until a year ago, Tew was what the Air Force calls a “fast burner,” especially considering she was not a pilot but a finance officer.

She was commissioned as a second lieutenant in May 1978, through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at Southeast Missouri State University..
Tew held a variety of Air Force finance jobs with increasing responsibility, earning two Air Force Achievement medals, two Air Force Commendation medals and two Meritorious Service medals.
On March 2, 1994, Tew reported to Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott, where she became chief of the resource section for the command’s inspector general — a high-profile job that required frequent travel to inspect subordinate units all over the world.
Such an assignment, and the master’s degree she had completed, made her a likely candidate for promotion to full colonel.
Before coming to Scott, Tew served as a comptroller with an Air Force wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Her husband and their daughters, Mary and Lisa, remained in Florida when she moved there.

On April 15, 1996, the judge advocate general’s (JAG) office of Scott’s 375th Airlift Wing received a call from someone — the Air Force has not said who — accusing Tew of adultery with a major in the Marine Corps Reserve.
The JAG is the military’s lawyers. It passed the information on to the regional Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the Air Force’s detectives.
On April 25, investigators contacted Master Sgt. Craig Collier, another member of the inspector general’s team, who rented Tew an apartment in the basement of his house.

According to Barksdale, the investigators wanted to know whether Tew’s landlord knew anything about the Marine but got a surprise: When they asked Collier whether he knew why they were there, he told them he assumed it was because he had an affair with Tew.
Collier was given immunity from prosecution and ordered to tell the truth about his relationship with Tew.

Collier told investigators that between March and November 1994, he and Tew had sex at various temporary duty stations, including after he got married.
The relationship was dormant until August 1995, when it resumed and ended again within the same week.
Collier since has been transferred to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

The Air Force ordered an Article 32 investtigation, roughly the equivalent of a civilian grand jury investigation. Because of scheduling conflicts, it was not held until Nov. 25. Tew did not present a defense.

Tew’s defense counsel expressed concern that Tew was suicidal — she already had met with a chaplain a dozen times — and persuaded commanders to appoint a mental health professional who could meet with Tew in a confidential manner.
Between Dec. 4, when the Article 32 officer recommended the case be sent to trial, and her March 11 court martial, Tew met with the mental health professional 30 times as well as talking to him on the phone 40 to 50 times, an average of four contacts a week.
On March 11, Tew pleaded guilty to fraternization — the most serious charge — under a pretrial agreement, and two charges of adultery and a charge of sodomy were dropped.

Tew was sentenced to dismissal from the service and loss of benefits. Immediately after the sentencing, the mental health counselor spent between 90 minutes and two hours talking to Tew. They spoke for a similar amount of time on Thursday, March 13, and Tew confirmed an appointment for the following Monday.
She never kept it.
Viola Dwyer, Tew’s mother, said she knew her daughter was in trouble, but Tew told her little.
“I didn't even discuss that with her when she came home,” Dwyer said. “I asked her what her chances were (with the appeal), and she said she didn't think it would make a bit of difference.
“I know why she didn't want us there — she didn't want us to hear all of it.”

Witnesses For The Prosecutio Against Webster Smith.

2008-01-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

“All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as self evident.”
(ARLINGTON, Va., 16 January 2008) Former cadet Webster Smith, the first cadet ever court-martialed at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, sought to have his conviction overturned on Wednesday, 16 January 2008.The former cadet appeared before the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals in Arlington, Virginia, outside Washington DC.

The newspapers reported that the Coast Guard Investigating Service (CGIS) at the request of Captain Douglas Wisniewski started investigating allegations in 2006 concerning a rumor that Cadet Smith had raped his girlfriend, Kristen Nicholson (KN), a fellow cadet and the Coast Guard Academy's first female Regimental Commander. This allegedly occurred after she had gotten drunk at a party in Annapolis, Maryland. It is more accurate to say that Commander Sean Gill, the Academy Staff Legal Advisor, had been investigating Cadet Webster Smith's personal social life since 2005. In fact, CDR Gill had a personal grudge against Cadet Smith. He felt that Webster Smith was too big for his britches. In downhome parlance, CDR Gill felt that "Webster Smith had had a good ride."

The Article 32 Investigating Officer, Commander Steven Andersen, found that there was not sufficient evidence to charge Cadet Smith with rape, but the convening authority, Admiral James Van Sice ignored that advice and followed the advice of his own Staff Attorney advisor, Commander Sean Gill, who recommended that he charge Cadet Smith with rape anyway. The Article 32 Officer even recommended that Admiral Van Sice dispose of the charges at an Article 15, Captain's Mast, a form of non-judicial punishment.

CDR Gill's advice was rather bizarre because the Article 32 Officer was also a Military Judge as a collateral duty. He was emminently qualified to give sound advice on this issue. He made an independent and fair assessment. Even CDR Gill agreed that CDR Andersen's advice was sound and fair. However, he felt the girls were "up for the court-martial". The Witnesses for The Prosecution were ready to testify against Webster Smith. They gathered together and compared stories.
(The Witnesses for the Prosecution were; Shannon Frobel (SF), Stacy Chmieleski (SC), Keri McCormack (KM), Natalie Moyer (NM), Shelly Rodenbush (SR), and Kristen Nicholson (KN).)

(THIS POST TEMPORARILY REMOVED FOR REVIEW by the Author.)

SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION AND RESPONSE PROGRAM (SAPRP) COMDTINST 1754.10C

2008-01-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

On 9 Jan 2009, Jennifer Grogan writing in the Day, reported the following:
Thirteen female cadets and 11 males at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (CGA) reported anonymously in an April 2008 survey that they experienced “unwanted sexual contact,” ranging from touching to forced sexual acts, during the 2007-08 school year.

More than three-quarters said that alcohol or drugs were involved and that the offender was a fellow cadet.
None of the women sought professional help and only 7 percent discussed the incident with authorities. Not enough of the male respondents answered follow-up questions to provide data, according to the Defense Department survey.
”The fact that we have cadets who are being predators on cadets bothers me because I'm committed to giving cadets a safe living and working environment,” said Capt. John Fitzgerald, the new Commandant of Cadets.

“I'm not going to rest until the day I leave here, working to eradicate that.”
The last survey of cadets, done by CGA in October 2006, found that there were 23 incidents of sexual assault involving 14 women and nine men. Cadet focus groups revealed acceptance, and even encouragement, of alcohol use.
A few months before that survey was taken, Senior cadet Webster Smith was court-martialed on charges of sexual assault, among other things.

The Defense Department conducts a congressionally mandated “service academy gender relations survey” every two years at the West Point, Annapolis and the U.S. Air Force Academy. CGA, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, voluntarily participated last year instead of doing its own survey of cadets.
Participating is a way to make CGA more transparent and to give Coast Guard officials an unbiased look at the state of gender relations at the school, Fitzgerald said.
Cadets are told about the survey at a meeting and can choose whether or not to complete it.
It is difficult to draw comparisons between past CGA surveys and the DOD version because the surveys use different terminology, like “sexual assault” versus “unwanted sexual contact,” and ask about different timeframes, such as a cadet's entire time at the academy versus one school year.

At the DOD academies, 9 percent of women and 1 percent of men reported experiencing some form of unwanted sexual contact last year, while 52 percent of women and 11 percent of men said they were sexually harassed.
At CGA, 44 percent of women and 14 percent of men reported being sexually harassed. More than three-quarters said the offender was a fellow cadet.

”We can't have sexual harassment here, because you can't be a leader and have people look at you in two different lights,” Fitzgerald said. “We have to get to a point where if that happens, another cadet will turn around and say, 'Stop. You are a Coast Guard cadet who will be a Coast Guard officer and you're supposed to be the epitome of a leader and a professional and you can't behave in this manner.' “

Is John Fitzgerald casted from the same mold as Doug Wisniewski? Will he court-martial another cadet?

It appears that the message that the court-martial of Webster Smith was supposed to send was not received "loud and clear" by the intended parties. Or perhaps the cadets just cannot help themselves. They continue doing what normal, healthy, red-blooded Americans have been doing since the dawn of time.

Could it be that the fault is not with the cadets but with the Administration? If you continue to place these attractive physical specimens in close proximity with each other, and force them to come together as a team, can you really expect them to act any differently? One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Civilian colleges do not appear to have the same problems, at least, not to the same degree. At civilian colleges students can inhabit the same physical environment and never really interact. They can remain individuals without developing a group identity. They do not live together, even in a dormitory. No one forces them to take group responsibility for the acts of any individual.

Things are different at a military academy. Strangers are forced to become intimately aware of each other and to work together for a common goal. They bond and they develop a group identity. When one catches a cold, they all sneeze. They begin to take responsibility for each other; they become like family. A little touchie-feelie is inevetable.

The only solution is to separate the genders. Put them on different floors or in different buildings. It might even be necessary to put them at separate training facilities. That is the only way to eliminate any possibility of unwanted touching. However, eventually they will have to come together for training and for work. That is when the temptations and the infatuations will begin. One person's unwanted sexual contact (sexual assault) is another person's wet dream. You never know until after the fact.

U. S. Coast Guard COMMANDANT INSTRUCTION 1754.10C has been promulgated:

PURPOSE: To establish policy and prescribe procedures for the Coast Guard Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program (SAPRP). The ultimate purpose of this program is to build a culture of prevention, sensitive response and accountability in keeping with the Coast Guard’s values of honor, respect, and devotion to duty.

ACTION: Area, district, and sector commanders, commanders of maintenance and logistics commands, commanding officers of integrated support commands, commanding officers of headquarters units, assistant commandants for directorates, Judge Advocate General and special staff elements at Headquarters shall ensure compliance with the provisions of this Instruction. Internet release authorized.

a. This Instruction applies when sexual assault is reported or alleged and a Coast Guard active duty member, Coast Guard Reserve member on active duty or in a drill status, civilian employee, or dependent is the victim or accused and the incident occurs on Coast Guard controlled property. It also applies when sexual assault is reported or alleged and a Coast Guard active duty member or Coast Guard Reserve member on active duty or in a drill status is the victim or accused and the incident occurs off Coast Guard controlled property.

b. Total compliance with the requirements of this instruction will be challenging and, in some cases impossible, as circumstances beyond Coast Guard control will limit what can be done. Nonetheless, reasonable efforts shall be made to provide all covered victims the same response procedures and applicable reporting options described in this Instruction.

d. The Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy may supplement the procedures in this Instruction to effectively use the unique support and counseling resources available at the Academy in cases involving cadets and officer candidates. All incidents must be reported to Commandant (CG-1112) per paragraphs 8.i.(2).b. and 8.i.(2).d. All incidents where victims choose unrestricted reporting must be immediately reported to the Coast Guard Investigative Service.

e. The restricted reporting option is available to those sexual assault victims who are Coast Guard members assaulted while in an active duty status. This includes members of the Coast Guard Reserve component when they are performing active duty training, or are in Title 10 (regular active duty) or Title 14 (emergency augmentation) status, or while in an inactive duty for training status. (Note: legislative and notice of eligibility procedural changes are needed to ensure that reservists can receive all needed services and still request restricted reporting. These issues are being worked. Future guidance will be provided when needed changes are in place.)

f. This Instruction supersedes all regulatory and policy guidance that is inconsistent with this Instruction, including references (a) through (d), not expressly mandated by law.

g. Reference (e) provides policies and procedures for reporting sexual abuse incidents occurring between family members or committed by caregivers and should be followed in those situations.

h. Any questions about the applicability of this Instruction should be directed to the cognizant Integrated Support Command/Headquarters Support Command Work-Life staff, or Commandant (CG-1112).

a. The Coast Guard is committed to ensuring victims of sexual assault are protected, treated with dignity and respect, and provided appropriate ongoing support. In addition, the Coast Guard is dedicated to ensuring that persons who commit crimes are held accountable. To achieve these dual objectives, the Coast Guard is adopting new policies that provide victims with more choices. The Coast Guard prefers unrestricted (complete reporting) of sexual assaults to activate both victims’ services and accountability actions but recognizes that unrestricted (complete reporting) represents a barrier for some victims in accessing needed services. Therefore, the Coast Guard now provides an option for restricted (confidential) reporting which does not activate the official investigatory process until/unless the victim chooses to request this option.

b. Commanding Officers have a responsibility to ensure community safety and due process of law, but they must also recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of victims under their command. Subject matter experts agree that a reporting system which promotes privacy and confidentiality for victims can have a positive impact that encourages victims to provide information about the assault.

c. Coast Guard members who are sexually assaulted now have the following reporting options: unrestricted and restricted reporting.

(1) Unrestricted Reporting. A service member who is sexually assaulted and desires medical treatment, counseling, and an official investigation of his or her allegation can report the matter using official reporting channels, e.g., Duty Watchstander, Supervisor, or the Chain of Command. Once a Coast Guard official receives a report that a sexual assault has occurred, the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) must be notified immediately. Use of the unrestricted reporting option is encouraged as it provides for immediate formal investigation by trained criminal investigators as well as the full range of protections to the victim including Military Protection Orders (MPO) and other police and command protective actions. It is the only option that can lead to offenders being held accountable and stopped from reoffending. Once notified of an allegation, CGIS has sole responsibility for the investigation. Commands are prohibited from taking any formal or informal investigative action, to include preliminary inquiry or interview of alleged victims, suspects or witnesses regarding the assault.

(2) Restricted Reporting. Restricted reporting allows a sexual assault victim to confidentially disclose the details of his or her assault to specific categories of individuals and receive medical treatment and counseling without triggering the official Coast Guard investigative process and notification of the victim’s command. Service members who are sexually assaulted and desire restricted reporting under this policy should report the assault only to an Employee Assistance Program Coordinator (EAPC), a Victim Support Person (VSP), or a DoD or Coast Guard Healthcare Provider (HCP). Cadets or Officer Candidates at the Coast Guard Academy may also report to those individuals listed in the Superintendent’s Instruction including Cadet Counselors, Academy Chaplains, and members of Cadets Against Sexual Assault (CASA). Service members who initially elect the restricted reporting option can, within 12 months of their initial confidential report of the assault, elect to pursue unrestricted reporting, which will result in initiation of a formal investigation by CGIS and afford the victim the full range of protections, including Military Protection Orders (MPO) and other police and command protective actions.

(a) Restricted reporting may not be an option if:

1. The member is assigned to an afloat unit and is underway and/or in a port other than their homeport at the time the assault is reported. However, restricted reporting may be available to victims who initially report to a military treatment facility (MTF) ashore, regardless of where the assault occurred; and restricted reporting may be an option if reported while assigned to a Coast Guard vessel with a Medical Officer aboard.

2. State law mandates that a report be made to the police agency that has jurisdiction where the assault occurred or was reported. In such jurisdictions the victim may be questioned by the police who may pursue the investigation and may notify CGIS regardless of the victim’s wishes. A description of applicable State Laws can be found at www.sapr.mil (click on Resources and go to bottom of page and click Civilian Rape Reporting Laws).

3. It is determined that the victim or other person(s) would otherwise remain in serious and imminent danger if the crime is not reported;

4. The victim is incapacitated or otherwise unable to make a competent decision;

5. The sexual assault was disclosed by a third party (someone other than an EAPC, HCP, VSP, or Chaplain) to another member either in the same command or another command. Third-party disclosures shall not by themselves rule out the possibility of restricted reporting when the incident is disclosed by the victim in the presence of a non-medical support person at a medical procedure.

(b) Normally, an HCP or EAPC, in consultation with the servicing legal office, can determine whether one of the “exceptions” to the third party disclosure rule has been met. Any privilege recognized under the Military Rules of Evidence will constitute an “exception” to the third party disclosure rule.

(c) If a victim reveals offenses in addition to the alleged sexual assault, that information will be subject to the same rules governing disclosure as the reported sexual assault.

(d) Unauthorized disclosures of restricted reporting may result in administrative or disciplinary action.

(e) The restricted reporting option does not create any actionable rights for the alleged offender or victim, nor does it constitute a grant of immunity for any actionable misconduct on the part of the victim.

(3) Report Made to a Chaplain. The policy on restricted reporting is in addition to the current protections afforded privileged communications with a Chaplain, and does not alter or affect those protections.

d. The purpose of the notification requirements described in this Instruction are to:

(1) Initiate the immediate official investigative process when appropriate;

(2) Document the initiation and progress of a victim’s case to ensure system accountability;

(3) Identify treatment options recommended to or preferred by the victim;

(4) Identify the final legal disposition; and

(5) Assist with identifying and managing trends, analyzing risk factors or circumstances, and taking action or making plans to eliminate or mitigate those risks as much as possible.

e. The purpose of the interventions described in this Instruction is to assist victims in tapping into their own natural resilience in recovering from the assault. In other words, to help “victims” become “survivors.”

6. DEFINITIONS. An extensive list of terms and definitions related to this Instruction is provided in enclosure (1).

7. PREVENTION. A command climate of prevention is enhanced by efforts to increase mutual respect and trust, efforts that highlight appreciation for diversity, and efforts to affirm the contributions of all personnel. Additionally, commands shall foster this climate by:

a. Emphasizing that sexual assault is a serious crime punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) as well as under state and local criminal statutes.

b. Emphasizing that sexual assault violates the Coast Guard’s core values and that ultimately it destroys unit cohesion and the trust that is essential for mission success.

c. Reminding all members that appropriate action will be taken with all reported sexual assaults.

d. Emphasizing the potential legal consequences for those who are found guilty of such crimes.

e. Assessing the organization’s climate and responding with appropriate action toward any negative trends that may emerge.

f. Ensuring that all unit personnel receive annual sexual assault prevention training as required by this Instruction.

g. Handling all incidents per guidance in this Instruction.

d. Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy shall:

(1) Ensure that all sexual assault incidents are reported to Commandant (CG-1112) using the Sexual Assault Incident Report Format in enclosure (3). Ensure that monthly updated reports are provided until services are no longer being provided and the case has been resolved. The case tracking number, as defined in this Instruction, is to be used to identify the case. No names are to be included in these reports. (No reports with names, or cross-reference list containing names, will be kept by Commandant (CG-1112)).

(2) Comply with the Commander’s Checklist for Unrestricted Reports of Sexual Assault, which is enclosure (4).

(3) Establish procedures to ensure the restricted reporting option and support services are available to all victims assigned to the Academy.

(4) Seek agreements with civilian medical facilities and local law enforcement agencies to retain and maximize victims' reporting options described in this Instruction.

PREVENTION. A command climate of prevention is enhanced by efforts to increase mutual respect and trust, efforts that highlight appreciation for diversity, and efforts to affirm the contributions of all personnel. Additionally, commands shall foster this climate by:

a. Emphasizing that sexual assault is a serious crime punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) as well as under state and local criminal statutes.

b. Emphasizing that sexual assault violates the Coast Guard’s core values and that ultimately it destroys unit cohesion and the trust that is essential for mission success.

c. Reminding all members that appropriate action will be taken with all reported sexual assaults.

d. Emphasizing the potential legal consequences for those who are found guilty of such crimes.

e. Assessing the organization’s climate and responding with appropriate action toward any negative trends that may emerge.

f. Ensuring that all unit personnel receive annual sexual assault prevention training as required by this Instruction.

g. Handling all incidents per guidance in this Instruction.

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES.

a. Commandant (CG-111) shall:

(1) Be responsible for oversight of policy and procedure implementation as described herein.

(2) Collaborate with Commanding Officers, Work-Life staff supervisors, and Coast Guard Medical personnel to ensure compliance with this Instruction.

(3) Monitor restricted reporting incidents, including tracking the locations and providing reports as appropriate. Names or other personal identifying information are not to be included in these reports and names shall not be included in the file names used for this report.

(4) Coordinate with CGIS and the Judge Advocate General’s Office of Military Justice (CG-0946) as needed.

b. Commandant (CG-1112) shall:

(1) Promulgate policy and guidance regarding the Coast Guard’s SAPRP.

(2) Provide periodic training on the requirements of this Instruction to field elements to ensure adequate and appropriate implementation.

(3) Establish a reporting system as required by this Instruction and create and evaluate quarterly statistical updates for training purposes and for monitoring the effectiveness of the SAPRP.

(4) Provide oversight of Quality Assurance review processes to ensure provision of quality services.

(5) Provide direct technical guidance to field staff, e.g., EAPCs, HCPs, etc., on the SAPRP.

c. CGIS Headquarters (CG-2-CGIS) shall:

(1) Ensure CGIS field units initiate and report formal criminal investigation of all alleged, suspected or actual incidents of rape or sexual assault reported to CGIS as an unrestricted report per CGIS policy and procedures.

(2) Ensure all CGIS field elements immediately notify the appropriate EAPC upon receipt of the initial report of an allegation of rape or sexual assault.

(3) Ensure all CGIS investigative personnel are trained on the requirements of this Instruction.

(4) Centrally manage the storage of evidence gathered in restricted reporting cases, to include Victim’s Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kits, until the victim decides to initiate the official investigative process or until the one-year anniversary date of receipt of the evidence by CGIS Headquarters, whichever comes first. Enclosure (2) provides information on the management of evidence collected in restricted reporting cases.

(5) Liaison with external investigating law enforcement agencies in all cases as appropriate under this Instruction.

(6) Advise all victims that they have the option to have a VSP, or other support person of his/her choosing, present during any interview. If the victim requests a VSP, or other support person, ensure that reasonable efforts are made for that person to be present during any interview or medical procedure if this can be accomplished without unduly delaying the investigation.

(7) Coordinate the transfer of any evidence held in restricted reporting cases for laboratory analysis when the victim chooses the unrestricted reporting option.

(8) Report aggregate data on unrestricted reporting cases to the Director of the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office on a quarterly basis.

d. Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy shall:

(1) Ensure that all sexual assault incidents are reported to Commandant (CG-1112) using the Sexual Assault Incident Report Format in enclosure (3). Ensure that monthly updated reports are provided until services are no longer being provided and the case has been resolved. The case tracking number, as defined in this Instruction, is to be used to identify the case. No names are to be included in these reports. (No reports with names, or cross-reference list containing names, will be kept by Commandant (CG-1112)).

(2) Comply with the Commander’s Checklist for Unrestricted Reports of Sexual Assault, which is enclosure (4).

(3) Establish procedures to ensure the restricted reporting option and support services are available to all victims assigned to the Academy.

(4) Seek agreements with civilian medical facilities and local law enforcement agencies to retain and maximize victims' reporting options described in this Instruction.

e. Commanders of Maintenance and Logistics Commands (MLC) shall:

(1) Conduct regular Quality Assurance reviews of EAPC performance to ensure compliance with this Instruction.

(2) Ensure that a Judge Advocate advises the victim and any witness(es) of their rights under the Victim Witness Assistance Program, per reference (a).

(3) Ensure all Coast Guard HCPs know the requirements of this Instruction. Of particular importance are those responsibilities in response to the victim immediately after a report is made. A collaborative approach with the EAPC, VSP and all HCPs is essential to meet the needs of the victim.

f. Command Chaplains shall:

(1) Provide and/or coordinate appropriate spiritual care and/or referral services, if requested by the victim.

(2) Participate appropriately in command climate stabilization responses.

(3) Ensure all chaplains receive mandatory annual training on implementation of this Instruction, which shall be provided or coordinated by the EAPC.

g. Commanding Officers (COs) and Officers-in-Charge (OINCs) shall:

(1) Comply with the Commander’s Checklist for Unrestricted Reports of Sexual Assault, which is enclosure (4).

(2) Provide information to the cognizant EAPC for the purpose of meeting the initial and monthly update requirements of paragraph 8.i.(2) of this Instruction. Commands must notify the EAPC of all reports of sexual assaults immediately after being informed of an allegation.

(3) Ensure completion of mandatory annual training on sexual assault prevention and the correct use of this Instruction by all unit personnel, both military and civilian, including assigned Coast Guard Chaplains and Public Health Service personnel detailed to the Coast Guard. The training must provide military personnel with an understanding of the reporting options available to them and the procedures used to ensure confidentiality.

(4) Ensure that all persons nominated to become VSPs are screened and recommended by the EAPC.

(5) Ensure that the competency/qualification code “VSP” is appropriately recorded per reference (f) for each Coast Guard member VSP, once certified as qualified by the EAPC.

(6) Provide support for the VSP, including reimbursement for travel expenses. Ensure that each supervisor of a VSP signs enclosure (5) and each VSP signs enclosure (6). VSPs provide emotional support and assistance to the victim per enclosure (7) and as directed by the EAPC.

(7) In cases involving unrestricted reporting consider not taking action on victim collateral misconduct until the final disposition of the sexual assault case.

(8) Recognize the consumption of alcohol by the victim, when discovered as a factor in an incident, as an alcohol-related situation vice an alcohol incident for administrative purposes and refer the victim for screening and treatment as appropriate. If the screening determines alcohol treatment is necessary, and the victim refuses or fails treatment, the use of alcohol may be considered an alcohol incident for administrative purposes.

(9) Consider the use of an MPO. In most cases it will be appropriate to bar the alleged offender from contact with the victim. In cases under investigation by CGIS, the use of an MPO shall

be coordinated with CGIS to ensure that any on-going investigative activity is not compromised or otherwise hampered.

(10) Consider reassignment of the victim. Reassignment of the victim is appropriate based on service need and when doing so is in the victim’s best interest and is consistent with his/her performance. In cases under investigation by CGIS, the use of reassignment for the victim shall be coordinated with CGIS to ensure that any on-going investigative activity is not compromised or otherwise hampered.

(11) Consider reassignment of the alleged offender when it is in the best interest of the victim and there is a service need. Reassignment of the alleged offender should only be used after consultation with the servicing legal office and Coast Guard Personnel Command. In cases under investigation by CGIS, the use of reassignment for the alleged offender shall be coordinated with CGIS to ensure that any on-going investigative activity is not compromised or otherwise hampered.

(12) Where applicable and to the extent possible, consider military, vice civilian, incarceration and prosecution of the alleged offender to protect the member’s family from immediate financial hardship. If the proposed initial law enforcement response is civilian incarceration and prosecution, recognize that this response option statutorily mandates that the member be placed in an absent without leave status, resulting in the immediate loss of all pay and benefits.

h. Work-Life Supervisors shall:

(1) Upon notification by the CO or OINC that an alleged rape or sexual assault has occurred, notify the EAPC as soon as possible, and confirm that CGIS has been notified in cases where the victim has elected unrestricted reporting.

(2) Be prepared to provide advice and guidance per this Instruction in the event the EAPC is not available.

(3) Ensure cross-training is provided to other appropriate Work-Life staff who may, in the absence of the EAPC, perform EAPC duties under this Instruction.

(4) Coordinate directly with the appropriate district Staff Judge Advocate to facilitate creation of agreements with civilian medical facilities to retain and maximize victim’s reporting options described in this Instruction.

i. EAPC Responsibilities:

(1) Victim.

(a) Explain the Victim Reporting Preference Statement Form, enclosure (8), to all active duty victims. The goal of this explanation is for victims to understand all reporting options available, including the limitations of restricted reporting, and to have an opportunity to declare their choice. Of particular concern is for the victim to understand

that the normal protections under unrestricted reporting, such as a military protection order, will not be available to them and that they may have continuing contact with the abuser. This form must be completed for all victims. This responsibility may be delegated to the VSP or Coast Guard HCP in those situations where the VSP or HCP see the victim first.

(b) Offer the services of a VSP, if available, and counseling services to the victim. The assigned VSP must be the same gender as the victim unless the victim agrees to a VSP of the opposite gender.

(c) Ensure that victims are informed of their rights under federal law, 18 USC § 3771(a). These rights are listed on page 2 of enclosure (8), the Victim Reporting Preference Statement Form.

(d) Explain to the victim any applicable State Law and associated investigatory practices in sexual assault cases that may require, despite the victim’s preference, reporting the offense to the local police department where the offense occurred, and that the police department may notify CGIS.

(e) In all cases, inform victim of their right to contact law enforcement authorities, including CGIS.

(f) Provide rape and sexual assault information handouts to victims and families.

(g) Provide case management to ensure the victim continues to receive appropriate services.

(h) Maintain records as necessary to identify victims and track services provided. This includes maintaining a victim-specific file with a contact log that records each contact made with the victim or on behalf of the victim. The signed copy of enclosure (8) will be kept in this file. The EAPC will maintain all records that could serve to identify the victim in a secure container and strictly control access to the information. Per reference (g), the case record shall be destroyed at the end of three years after the last contact with the victim. Consultation with the servicing legal office is required prior to releasing any information related to a case when the restricted reporting option has been selected or when the request comes from a military or civilian court.

(i) Ensure that the victim is aware that, regardless of reporting preference, the information contained in the record can be disclosed to military or civilian courts when so ordered by a judge, or as otherwise required in federal and state law, or by international agreements.

(j) Limit contacts made on behalf of the victim, or related to the victim’s case, to those authorized by the victim, or this Instruction, or listed as exceptions under page 2 of enclosure (8).

(k) Contact CGIS Headquarters immediately if a victim who previously requested restricted reporting now requests unrestricted reporting. If the case involves evidence in storage, this report must include the victim’s identifying information, the EAPC tracking number

specific to the victim, and the Preliminary Inquiry Case Control Number (PI CCN) previously provided by CGIS Headquarters. Upon receipt of this information, CGIS Headquarters will notify the appropriate CGIS field office to initiate a criminal investigation and initiate transfer of any evidence collected under restricted reporting, to include Victim’s Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit, to the appropriate laboratory for analysis.

(l) Advise all victims that collection of forensic evidence is preferred in all cases, including those cases in which the victim requests restricted reporting. Advise the victim that it is up to him or her to determine to what degree he or she will participate in the evidence gathering process.

(m) If the victim agrees to the collection of evidence, advise him/her not to hamper potential evidence collection by bathing, douching, changing clothes, eating, drinking, or cleaning in any way prior to the forensic examination.

(n) In restricted reporting cases, attempt to collect all clothing worn during or after the attack, and other materials (such as sheets, blankets, etc.) that may have evidence on them for transfer to CGIS Headquarters for storage. If there is any question about whether an article or item has evidence on it, include it. Consult with CGIS Headquarters regarding the best methods for handling and packaging evidence.

(o) Arrange whenever possible, with the victim’s consent, for a qualified medical person to collect evidence from the victim using a Victim’s Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit. In unrestricted reporting cases, CGIS special agents will be responsible for ensuring collection and proper handling of evidence.

(p) Explain to the victim that in restricted reporting cases the evidence collected will be kept in storage for up to 12 months and will be available during that time should the victim choose unrestricted reporting.

(q) Ensure that any evidence collected under restricted reporting, to include the completed Victim’s Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit, is forwarded via overnight express delivery directly to CGIS Headquarters per enclosure (2) for storage. Use only the assigned case number to identify the evidence.

(r) Ensure that the CGIS PI CCN, created at the time CGIS Headquarters receives the evidence, is recorded in the victim’s case record in restricted reporting cases involving forensic evidence.

(s) In restricted reporting cases, contact the victim in the sixth and eleventh month after forensic evidence was collected and confirm the victim’s decision regarding whether or not to pursue an unrestricted investigation. If the victim does not elect the unrestricted reporting, notify CGIS Headquarters in writing on the 1-year anniversary of submission of evidence. The written notification must reference the EAPC tracking number and CGIS PI CCN. (CGIS Headquarters will then destroy all evidence associated with the referenced EAPC tracking number and CGIS PI CCN.)

(t) Act as an advocate for victim as appropriate in providing information, as requested by the victim, for personnel-related processes such as Disability Retirement Boards and fitness for duty examinations, or other processes which need a more complete understanding of the victim’s experience. This is particularly applicable in cases involving restricted reporting. Such disclosure, by itself, does not change the victim’s reporting option in restricted cases.

(2) Notifications.

(a) Ensure that the victim’s CO, the servicing legal office of the victim’s command, and CGIS are notified immediately in all cases where the victim elects unrestricted reporting.

(b) Report all alleged sexual assault incidents, using the Sexual Assault Incident Report Format in enclosure (3), in all cases and forward to Commandant (CG-1112) by email message within two business days of notification. Use the case tracking number to identify the case. Names or other personal identifying information is not to be included in these reports and names shall not be included in the file names used for this report. (No reports with personal identifying information, or cross-reference list containing personal identifying information, will be kept by Commandant (CG-1112)).

(c) Arrange for regular meetings with the Integrated Support Command/Headquarters Support Command Commanding Officer (CO) (at least once each quarter in which an alleged assault is reported) to provide information about the alleged assaults within the AOR, particularly any information that may indicate a pattern involving locations, personnel of certain ranks or assigned to one unit which could place them at higher risk. The purpose of these discussions is to enable the CO to provide informational advisories or other warnings to members, and alert appropriate individuals, including sector and district commanders, regarding preventable risks. The cognizant Commander may choose to take actions such as restricting members from certain locations, holding mandatory educational sessions, or any other action intended to ensure a safer environment for members.

(d) Send monthly updated reports to Commandant (CG-1112), using enclosure (3), to provide additional information on assistance to victims and the legal/investigatory disposition of cases. Reports shall be sent as an encrypted, password-protected attachment to an email message. Use the case tracking number to identify the case. These reports shall continue until the case is resolved and the victim no longer is receiving services. No names shall be included in these reports and names shall not be included in the file names used for these reports.

(e) With the victim’s consent, notify the cognizant EAPC when a victim transfers to a new Work-Life office area of responsibility, if the victim is still receiving treatment, counseling or other services related to their assault, to ensure identification of appropriate support options and follow up.

(3) Victim Support Person Standards and Qualifications.

(a) Ensure that the VSP, if requested and assigned, has received VSP training and is thoroughly familiar with requirements contained in this Instruction.

(b) Ensure that the supervisor of each VSP signs enclosure (5), Victim Support Person Supervisor Statement of Understanding, and that each VSP signs enclosure (7), Victim Support Person Statement of Understanding.

(c) Recruit and screen VSPs within the AOR to cover expected needs. Criteria for applicant selection include:

1. Has not suffered a major loss or experienced a significantly traumatizing incident within the preceding twelve months.

2. Be emotionally mature: has good communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to readily empathize with the pain of others; can easily relate to others in a genuine way regardless of rank, rate, gender, or sexual orientation; and is not easily discouraged by anger misdirected at him/her by people he/she is trying to help.

3. Have at least two years remaining at the unit upon completion of training.

4. Be recommended for VSP duties by his/her command.

5. Applicant meets the needs of the AOR in terms of location, rank, rate, gender, and diversity.

(d) Certify in writing that the VSP has met requirements for a VSP Competency Code. Provide document to the VSP with instructions to take to his/her servicing personnel office so that this code can be properly entered into their training record per reference (h).

(e) Supervise VSPs in the performance of their duties to ensure compliance with the requirements of this Instruction. Provide support, re-training, and guidance as needed.

(f) Establish at least monthly contact with all VSPs in the AOR to ensure their continued availability and to provide additional information or training. Sending email messages, with appropriate reading material included, meets this requirement.

(g) Conduct monthly case updates with VSPs on all assigned open cases. Case updates may be telephonic.

(4) Training and Education.

(a) Provide annual general mandated trainings on Sexual Assault Prevention and the SAPRP as requested by Commands. This training shall minimally provide information necessary for participants to meet the following performance steps:

1. Identify the Coast Guard’s Zero Tolerance of Rape and Sexual Assault.

2. Identify the consequences if convicted to include jail time, dishonorable discharge and felony convictions.

3. Identify what constitutes “consent” and “lack of consent.”

4. Identify the Coast Guard’s policy on sexual assault response including the victim’s reporting options.

5. Recognize sexual assault when presented various scenarios.

6. Identify the required actions of bystanders.

7. Identify specific behaviors of the bystander that may help prevent sexual assault.

8. Identify specific behaviors of bystanders that may help prevent sexist behavior.

9. Identify how bystander behavior directly relates to Coast Guard Core Values of Honor, Respect, and Devotion to Duty.

10. Identify techniques for reducing the risk of sexual assault.

11. Identify protection against “date rape” drugs.

12. Identify the impact of alcohol abuse in Rape and Sexual Assault cases and one’s personal accountability when consuming alcohol.

13. Recognize the profile of a typical date or acquaintance rapist.

14. Recognize the effects of sexual assault on victims.

15. Identify assistance for victims.

16. Identify the role of the Victim Support Person including the methods for volunteering and the training provided.

17. Identify Rape and Trauma Syndrome including how it impacts one’s life far after the event and the importance of seeking both medical and counseling services.

18. Identify sources of help including websites and local non-Coast Guard-resources.

(b) Ensure that all Coast Guard HCPs in the AOR who may have contact with victims understand the requirements in this Instruction.

(c) When possible, provide additional trainings to COs, XOs, OINCs, XPOs, medical staffs, and CGIS offices to address their unique concerns in implementing requirements contained in this instruction.

(d) Give all training participants a customer satisfaction form to complete. Review and share results with the Work-Life staff supervisor.

(e) Provide references for all statistics used in the presentation as well as recommended websites and reading material.

(5) Other:

(a) Provide advice and assistance to commands in the AOR regarding sexual assault.

(b) Identify local community medical treatment facilities equipped to provide forensic medical exams specific to sexual assault victims, preferably per standards provided in reference (i).

(c) If the accused is a Coast Guard member, Cadet, civilian employee, or family member of a Coast Guard member or Civilian employee, ensure that he/she is contacted and offered support as appropriate after CGIS has conducted an interview.

j. Coast Guard HCP shall:

(1) Immediately inform the EAPC when an active duty member reports any actual, alleged or suspected sexual assault covered under this Instruction. If the EAPC is not available for on-site contact with the victim, the HCP will ensure that requirements listed in paragraph 8.i.(1) are met to the extent possible.

(2) Immediately report all allegations of sexual assault to CGIS and the EAPC (or Work-Life supervisor if the EAPC is not available.) If the victim is active duty and chooses the unrestricted reporting option, immediately report the allegation to the victim’s command.

(3) Provide victims who present at Coast Guard clinics any urgent first aid or life-saving care indicated by their presenting symptoms or complaint before they are referred to another source of care. In most cases, Coast Guard HCPs will arrange for the victim to be transported to an appropriate location for examination by a sexual assault forensic examiner (SAFE) or sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE). When transport to a SAFE/SANE is not possible, Coast Guard Medical Officers (Physicians, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants) with appropriate clinical privileges may elect to assist victims by using a Forensic Evidence Kit to gather specimens as indicated by the patient’s history and presenting clinical signs. Note: Health Services Technicians may not collect forensic evidence.

(4) Consult as needed with the cognizant EAPC or the Sexual Assault Program Manager at CGIS Headquarters for guidance on appropriate handling and disposition of any forensic specimens, photographs, or other evidence.

(5) Ensure that when examining a victim a gender appropriate chaperone is provided, keeping in mind that the victim may be in a fragile emotional state. VSPs or another Coast Guard member of the victim’s choice may serve as a chaperone in these cases.

(6) Ensure that any victim who reports a sexual assault receives appropriate testing and counseling about sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and psychiatric care/counseling options.

(7) Obtain training on the requirements of this Instruction as needed from the EAPC.

k. VSP shall:

(1) Attend a minimum of 15 hours of Victim Support Person Training prior to being assigned to a support role.

(2) Provide emotional support and assistance to the victim per enclosure (8) and as directed by the EAPC.

(3) Provide assistance to the victim by offering to and/or helping to secure basic needs (e.g., provide clothing to wear home from the hospital after the forensic exam, arrange transportation, contact a family member/friend, etc., as requested by victim).

(4) Make follow-up telephone contact(s) with the victim to provide emotional support and to determine if additional referral services should be provided. Also assist the victim with scheduling follow-up counseling appointments.

(5) Attend mandatory annual training on use of this Instruction, which shall be provided or coordinated by the EAPC.

9. RESPONSE PROCEDURES.

a. When a Coast Guard member is treated at a non-Coast Guard military treatment facility the initial sexual assault response procedures of that military service will apply. Normally, the service’s Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) will contact the cognizant Coast Guard EAPC to report the case. The EAPC will work with the SARC to determine an initial follow-up care plan that best meets the needs of the victim. Depending on the location, the SARC may continue to be involved but once referred, the EAPC becomes responsible for ensuring proper management of the case per this Instruction.

b. Responding to the needs of the victim, once identified, will require a coordinated approach to include the victim’s command (in those cases in which the victim has chosen the unrestricted reporting option), the EAPC, HCP, and VSP (if assigned). In order to ensure a reasonable response time, it is critical that whoever is first to meet with the victim be fully knowledgeable regarding the victim’s options and the requirements of this Instruction and capable of explaining enclosure (8). EAPCs, VSPs, and HCPs also need to be thoroughly familiar with all applicable laws and local procedures in order to provide the victim an accurate description of his or her rights and options.

c. Sexual assault reporting procedures require EAPC notification for all incidents of reported sexual assault. The EAPC, in turn, will assign a VSP, if available, to assist the victim. Once any urgent medical injuries have been treated, the HCP, EAPC, or VSP (if assigned) shall advise the victim of the reporting options available to him or her, explaining the benefits and limitations of each, and document the reporting option the victim selects using enclosure (8).

d. At the victim’s discretion or request, the HCP, VSP, or EAPC shall arrange for the victim to have forensic evidence collected. To safeguard the victim’s identity in restricted reporting cases, the case tracking number will be used to label the evidence collected.

e. Evidence in restricted reporting cases will be forwarded to CGIS Headquarters for storage up to 12 months after the assault was reported.

f. When a victim requests restricted reporting and there are concerns regarding imminent threat and safety, the HCP or EAPC will consult with the servicing legal office of the victim’s command and CGIS before deciding to deny the victim's request for restricted reporting. The VSP will not participate in the final decision; their role is limited to providing information about safety issues to the EAPC and/or HCP.

g. If at any time a victim elects to change his or her reporting preference from restricted to the unrestricted reporting option, the EAPC shall immediately notify the victim’s command, the servicing legal office of the victim’s command, and CGIS.

h. Collaboration with DoD Military Treatment Facilities (MTFs) and the military branch sexual assault prevention and response personnel and civilian medical facilities will be essential in many incidents. Coast Guard HCPs, EAPCs and VSPs will need to be familiar with the local civilian facility or MTF’s procedures and prepared to liaison with the treatment facility’s personnel in each case, as applicable, to ensure assistance and advocacy for victims covered under this Instruction.

i. Support services are to be provided as appropriate when the accused is a Coast Guard member. The command should monitor the well-being of the accused, particularly for any indications of suicide ideation, and ensure appropriate intervention occurs. Additionally:

(1) The accused is to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a legal proceeding.

(2) Command representatives shall not interview the accused about the incident. Investigative interviews of alleged perpetrators, victims, and witnesses in suspected incidents of rape or sexual assault shall only be conducted by CGIS special agents.

(3) The accused will be treated respectfully, with appropriate care and concern, at all times.

(4) Information about the accused and the incident is to be closely held. Only those who have an official need to know are to have access to this information.

10. PRIVACY PROVISIONS. The Privacy Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 apply to records that contain protected health information. These acts and regulations place procedural requirements on the use and disclosure of such information.

a. The Coast Guard Healthcare Program may disclose protected health information about an individual whom it reasonably believes to be a victim of violence or sexual assault to a government authority, including a social service or protective services agency, authorized by law to receive such reports if:

(1) The victim agrees to the disclosure; or

(2) The disclosure is required by law and the disclosure complies with and is limited to the relevant requirements of such law; or

(3) The disclosure is expressly authorized by statute or regulation; and

(a) The Coast Guard Healthcare Program, in the exercise of professional judgment, believes the disclosure to be necessary to prevent serious harm to the victim or other potential victims; or

(b) The victim is incapacitated and unable to agree to disclose their protected health information. A law enforcement or public official, authorized to receive the report, shall verify the purpose that such disclosure is sought, that it is not intended to be used against the victim, and that immediate enforcement activity is dependent upon the disclosure and would be adversely affected by waiting until the individual is able to agree to the disclosure.

b. When information is disclosed, the Coast Guard Healthcare Program must promptly inform the person who is the subject of the information whenever it discloses reports of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence. There are two exceptions to this requirement:

(1) If the Healthcare representative believes informing the person would place him or her at risk of serious harm, or that

(2) The Coast Guard Healthcare Program would be informing a personal representative who it reasonably believes is responsible for the abuse, neglect, or violence.

11. ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECT AND IMPACT CONSIDERATIONS. Environmental considerations were examined in the development of this directive and have been determined to be not applicable.

12. FORMS/REPORTS AVAILABILITY. The forms called for in this instruction are available in USCG Electronic Forms on the Standard Workstation or on the Internet http://www.uscg.mil/forms/default.asp, Intranet at http://cgweb2.comdt.uscg.mil/CGFORMS/Welcome.htm, and CG Central at http://cgcentral.uscg.mil.

Mark J. Tedesco /s/
Director of Health and Safety

Wisniewski Surfaces in Popular Mechanics. The Wiz has Nine Lives.

2007-12-31T12:27:00.000-08:00

Racist Coast Guard Captain Douglas Wisniewski explains why another program that he oversees has caused great embarassment for the Coast Guard. From the court-martial of Webster Smith to the death of Lt Jessica Hill, Wisniewski has casted a giant shadow. His body count is stacking up. His career has left a trial of dead bodies and ruined careers from Atlantic shores to Arctic Zones, to Europe and the Far East.

Coast Guard regulations are not the only things that are written in blood. The fitness reports and the epitaths of of some cadets and officers are also written in blood. Wisniewski has left a bloody trail, but none of it has been his. Webster Smith was blamed for Kristen Nicholson's abortion, and Jessica Hill was blamed for her own death, and the death of BM2 Steve Duque. Shame. Shame. Where will he surface next?
'Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.'
- Oscar Wilde

This article was excerpted from the 28 December 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics.

On a brisk, sunny afternoon last August, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy came to a crunching halt in 4-ft.-thick pack ice, 490 miles north of Barrow, Alaska. The polar icebreaker had just completed the western leg of its summer mission to study the Earth's crust for the National Science Foundation. Since the ship had been at sea for more than 40 days, the commanding officer, Capt. Douglas Russell, offered the crew a little rest and relaxation: He let most of the 84 sailors and 35 scientists on board disembark for several hours of ice liberty. A few crew members armed with rifles kept watch for polar bears; others played football, drank beer or just milled around.

Lt. Jessica Hill, 31, of St. Augustine, Fla., and Boatswain's Mate Second Class Steven Duque, 22, of Miami, decided to make an impromptu training dive near the bow of the 420-ft. ship. Both were Navy trained, and considered seasoned divers. However, this would be their first cold-water descent using scuba gear. As the ship's diving officer, Hill was charged with supervising the dive plan and all personnel involved. This included a third diver, who briefly floated in the 29 F water before climbing out, shivering inside a leaky suit.

Unlike a porous wet suit, a dry suit acts as a barrier between the body and the water, helping the diver withstand freezing-cold temperatures. Air inside the suit affects the diver's buoyancy. It compresses as pressure increases with depth, reducing buoyancy, and expands as the pressure decreases again near the surface. In order to avoid ascending too quickly, divers often carry extra weight. Hill and Duque each loaded up with an additional 62 pounds.

At 5:45 pm, Hill asked three of her shipmates to serve as diver tenders for the operation. She briefed them on safety protocols and informed them that the maximum depth of each of the two 20-minute dives would be 20 ft.

Three minutes into the training session, Duque's safety line began to play out quickly. "I had the impression he was swimming away from me sideways under the ice," Duque's linesman later told investigators. Within seconds, Hill's line began to do the same. The third diver returned to the scene 20 minutes later and noticed that too much line had been spent. He ordered the dive support team to "haul 'em up." Though other bystanders joined the effort, it took three more minutes to bring Duque and Hill to the surface. EMTs worked for more than an hour to revive them, but it was too late.

Capt. Douglas Wisniewski, who oversees Coast Guard diving operations, spent months analyzing what happened that day. Mistakes had been made at every level of command. The Coast Guard hadn't checked the scuba equipment in the Healy's dive locker in five years, nor had it posted a more experienced dive master on board to oversee operations and properly train the dive personnel. (Hill had only 24 dives in her career.) Capt. Russell should never have authorized a dive during a party and without a standby diver. He also should have checked Hill's dive plan with the Coast Guard Diving Manual, as procedure required. Finally, Hill's dive plan did not include adequate safety procedures, or sufficient training for the support team.

Wisniewski was unable to determine conclusively why the divers carried such an unusually heavy load (more than twice the recommended amount), and why they failed to drop that weight when they began to descend uncontrollably. Against Coast Guard rules, some of the lead weight had been stashed in zippered compartments, which would have made it difficult to release. The divers also likely succumbed to nitrogen narcosis, a sense of drunkenness resulting from the body's increased absorption of nitrogen, under pressure.

The real culprit, however, was inexperience. "Hill and Duque simply didn't have enough dives under their belt," Wisniewski says. As a result, the Coast Guard is expanding its diver training program: creating new predive checklists, increasing the frequency of dive inspections and examining how to rotate its most experienced divers throughout the fleet. New policies for equipment maintenance and command oversight are also under review.

Wisniewski believes the most important lesson to be gleaned from this tragedy is to follow the rules: "Those procedures were written in somebody's blood." And sadly, so are the new ones.

Monday Morning Quarterbacks Question Explorer Turnover.

2007-12-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

Monday morning quarterbacks in the Antarctic tourist industry are asking for instant replay on the sinking of the the MS Explorer, a veteran of the polar cruise ship trade, purpose-built to operate in extreme polar environments, and manned by an experienced crew. That it sank during what appears to have been the most routine of circumstances – cruising through young pack ice in mild weather – has coaches and players scratching their heads.

"I'm totally shocked and surprised," says Leif Skog, who was captain of the Explorer for six years in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. "She was just outstanding in her design, perfect for ice navigation. It's very unlikely that pack ice caused this."

Jim Barnes, executive director of the Washington-based Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, which monitors tourism and other activities, concurs. "To think [the Explorer] could sink in less than 20 hours from a relatively modest incident is very surprising," he says. "It makes you wonder if something else happened, because it really doesn't add up."

Indeed, the initial explanation of the ship's sinking on Nov. 23 – that it struck submerged ice, sprung a "fist-sized" leak, and was doomed by uncontrollable flooding – doesn't hold water for ship-design experts. Essential pieces of the story are missing, they say. Those include what the vessel really struck, why flood control efforts failed, and how the second collision with a large iceberg occurred and when did it occur.

Serious doubt has been casted on the ice-damage explanation; however, multi-year pack ice is so hard that a bergie bit made of multi-year pack ice can cut through a steel reinforced hull like a hot knife through warm butter.

Sander Calisal, professor emeritus of naval architecture at the University of British Columbia, casts doubt on the ice-damage explanation. He notes that Explorer's 1A-class ice-reinforced hull ought to have withstood accidental contact with submerged ice. "If there were some kind of underwater ice then, yes, there will be some impact, but I would assume it would be relatively minor." An iceberg large enough to cause serious damage would be readily visible to radar, sonar, and the eyes of the bridge crew.

Mr. Skog, Seattle-based vice president for marine operations at Lindblad Expeditions, Explorer's original owner, says collisions with submerged ice are very rare events. In a polar career spanning three decades, he can recall only a handful of times when ships he served on experienced ice damage. All amounted to dents, save one incident when a cargo ship he was commanding suffered a small, easily contained leak in the Arctic.

Further, such damage almost always occurs in the bow area, which is double-hulled as an added precaution on ice-going vessels. But the Explorer's leak had to be in the middle of the ship, he notes, because as she sank, she remained on a level, bow-to-stern trim. When she sank, it was not bow first or stern first.

The apparently small size of the puncture suggests the ship may have struck something harder than ice, according to Claude Daley, an expert in ice-reinforced ship design at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. "A fist-sized hole doesn't sound like ice damage to me," he says. "You need something very hard to cause a small hole in steel. Stone, for instance."

One possibility, says Skog, is a large stone embedded in floating glacial ice. "There can be huge rocks frozen into the ice, and they can be hard to see," he says. "When I was down there in the '70s, in poorly charted waters, you would see things that looked like little islands, but were actually floating."

Whatever caused the damage, Mr. Calisal says it shouldn't have sunk the ship by itself. "Passenger ships are designed with many watertight compartments to contain flooding," he says. "There had to have been a chain of failures to prompt the captain to abandon ship."

Explorer's owner, GAP Adventures of Toronto, is unable to provide further information on the incident, now that their insurance company, Steamship Mutual, is investigating, according Susan Hayes, the GAP Adventure's vice president for marketing. "We don't know exactly what happened," she said. "At this point, I'm not actively in the loop."

Reviewing the facts
Initial reports from the company – and accounts given by passengers and crew – suggest something unexpected happened aboard the ship while the crew worked to contain the damage.

The incident started about midnight local time (GMT-3), when the Explorer struck something, suffering damage amidships on the starboard side of the lowest passenger level. Passengers there recalled hearing two loud bangs and the sound of rushing water, as their cabins began to flood. They alerted the crew, and a distress call was sent out at 12:20 a.m.

While passengers congregated in the muster station on an upper deck, the crew located what Ms. Hayes said was "a crack and a fist-sized hole." The Toronto Globe & Mail reported Nov. 24 that the crew sealed the affected compartment with watertight doors and, for about an hour, appeared to have stabilized the situation with bilge pumps.

Several witnesses have since recounted that while they were waiting in the muster station, the Explorer drifted into a large iceberg. The iceberg – which one passenger described as being as big as the ship – reportedly struck the damaged starboard side.

Water levels reportedly began rising again sometime after 1:30 a.m., although it is not clear if this was a result of the second collision. Power failed, and, at about 3 a.m., Captain Bengt Wiman gave the order to abandon ship. Two other cruise ships arrived on the scene at about 7 a.m. to begin plucking passengers and crew from lifeboats and rafts. All 154 aboard were rescued. Explorer, which had rolled on her starboard side, reportedly sank that evening.

"The worst thing is that the ship probably sank with the secret of what really happened," says Skog, who hopes investigators manage to find the answer. "On our ships we need to know the facts; speculations aren't really fruitful for us."

Monday morning quarterbacks throw the most touchdowns.

BACK TO THE FUTURE:

Millvina Dean, the last remaining survivor of the Titanic disaster,
seen here in 2002, is auctioning mementoes from the doomed liner to
pay for her nursing home fees.

This is a Friday, April 17, 1998 file photo of Millvina Dean, 86, a
living Titanic survivor, as she looks up and smiles as she signs a
Titanic movie poster for an enthusiast at the Titanic Historical
Society's convention in Springfield, Mass. As a 2-month-old baby,
Millvina Dean was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat from
the deck of the sinking RMS Titanic. Now Dean, the last living
survivor of the disaster, is selling some of her mementos to help pay
her nursing home fees. Dean's artifacts, including a suitcase given to
her family by the people of New York after their rescue, are expected
to sell for about 3,000 pounds (US$5,200) at Saturday's auction in
Devizes, western England. Dean, 96, has lived in a nursing home in the
southern English city of Southampton Titanic's home port since she
broke her hip two years ago.

Commander P.H. Nargeolet walks away from the M.V. Royal Majesty with
Millvina Dean, 84, of England at the Black Falcon Pier in Boston in
this September 1, 1996 file photo. Dean, a surviver of the Titanic
disaster was on board the Royal Majesty when it sailed to the site
where the Titanic's maiden voyage ended 84 years ago and watched as
research vessels tried to raise part of its hull to the surface.
Although a cable snaped sending the hull plunging down to the ocean's
floor, Dean was thrilled to be there.

Another TITANIC, except for the Grace of God.

2007-11-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

The M/S Explorer, a Canadian cruise ship, sank after it hit an iceberg in Antarctic waters, 23 Nov 2007. A Norwegian cruise ship rescued everyone aboard.
Someone is not being completely honest about this cruise ship. A hole the size of a fist will not sink a ship, not even the worse rust bucket. This was a Liberian registered vessel. That means it was registered under a flag of convenience to avoid safety inspections and compliance with the Coast Guard's safety regulations in the USA or England.
The Captain, Bengt Witman, was Swedish. Engineering Officers came from Bulgaria. Some of the crew came from the Phillipines. G.A.P. Adventures, a Canadian, company owned the ship. The G.A.P. owner and CEO is Mr. Bruce Poon Tip, a personal friend of Former Vice President Al Gore. Mr. Poon Tip had invited Vice President Gore and his wife, Tipper Gore, to tour the Antarctica onboard the M/V Explorer. Passengers paid $8,000.00 per person for a cabin, based on double occupancy.
Also, ships are deliberately compartmentalized to prevent them from sinking until more than one-third of the living spaces are completely flooded. Did this ship have water tight compartments? Did it have a double bottomed hull?
My ship, USCGC Glacier (WAGB-4) was punctured while I was onboard but not on watch by the underwater projection of an iceberg which was more than 2 miles away on the surface. Reserve Lieutenant junior grade Bill Pitt was the Deck watch Officer on duty on the Bridge. He violated a Standing Order of Captain E. E. "Gene" McCrory. We were prohibited from coming closer than 5 miles from an iceberg that we could see on the surface because the underwater projections could go for miles in any direction.
Multi-year pack ice is so hard that a bergie bit made of multi-year pack ice can cut through a steel reinforced hull like a hot knife through warm butter.
This iceberg was made of multi-year blue pack ice that is almost as hard as a diamond on the Moe Scale, and it ripped open a fuel tank and we lost over 10,000 gallons of fuel. And it flooded an engine room. We had free-communications with the sea; but, we dogged the hatch to that compartment and experienced no danger of capsizing or sinking. Ships are designed that way.
It is hard to sink a ship. A hole the size of a fist would not sink a ship. Even if you do not seal off the compartment, a standard bilge pump could easily pump out the volume of sea water entering through the fist size hole.
Was the M/S Explorer equipprd with bilge pumps? Were they working? What was the pumping capacity of one of the bilge pumps? Even the smallest bilge pump would be capable of pumping out the amount of sea water that could be expected to enter the ship through a hole the size of a man's fist.
Moreover, most ships have double bottoms. The iceberg would have to be shaped like a battering ram to penetrate both bulkheads and flood the compartment. Even then, because of the compartmentilization of the ship she would not sink. Even if disabled, and badly listing to one side, the ship would stay afloat indefinitely. It would not sink.
The Chilean navy said the entire MS Explorer finally slipped beneath the waves Friday evening, 23 November 2007, about 20 hours after the predawn accident near Antarctica's South Shetland Islands. It took less than a day to sink. A properly maintained seaworthy ship with compartmentalization would stay afloat indefinitely. It would be virtually unsinkable. The EXPLORER was unseaworthy. It was a death trap. Only by the grace of God did we avoid a second TITANIC. It is a wonder still that not one of the senior citizen passengers died from exposure to the Antarctic elements.
Most of the body's heat escapes through the top of the head. In Antarctic Survival Courses they teach that the most important part of the body to cover is the head. One can quickly die of hyperthermia if exposed to the elements without a hat. The water temperature was 2 degrees (Centigrade) or 34 Degrees (Fahrenheit). The ambient air temperature was probably close to that. If there was any wind at all, the added chill factor would quickly strip the body of bodyheat. If passengers were rushed to life boats without coats or hats, and then floated in the open Antarctic Ocean for 6 hours or more, it is a small miracle that no one died.

COUNTDOWN TO A CASTROPHE.
A TIMELINE TO A TRAGEDY.

M/V Explorer launched 1969.
Sank in Antarctica 23 Nov 2007.
About 2400hrs (Midnight) 22 Nov M/V Explorer hit an iceberg or bergie bit causing fist-sized hole in hull.
About 0015 hrs 23 Nov ship hit an ice floe causing a crack in the hull spanning several compartments. This was the second collision. This was most likely a stress fracture. If you apply pressure on an area of the hull under great stress, it will crack like an egg shell. In such a case the hull and the bulkheads will open up like a ripe watermellon.

About 0030 hrs M/V Explorer made International Distress Call. (MayDay, MayDay) An Argentine Rescue and Command Center picked up the distress call amid reports the ship was taking on water despite efforts to use onboard pumps. (This was according to Capt. Juan Pablo Panichini, an Argentine navy spokesman.)

0230 hrs Flooding shorts-out all electrical power.
0300 hrs 23 Nov Captain, Bengt Witman, gives order to abandon ship. All 91 passengers take to life boats, and 13 Officers remain onboard with the Capt.
0500 hrs Captain and 13 officers abandon ship.
1100 hrs M/V Nordnorge begins rescuing passengers from the water.
Water temperature is 33 Degrees (Fahrenheit), or 2 Degrees (Centigrade). Water freezes at 32 Degrees Fahrenheit.
2000 hrs (800 PM) 23 November 2007 M/V Explorer sinks beneath the frigid waters with thousands of gallons of fuel and oil. The first Antarctic ecological tragedy.

The Guardian reported that inspections this year found 11 deficiencies
in the ship, including missing search-and-rescue plans and
lifeboat-maintenance problems. Lloyd's List reported the Explorer had
five deficiencies in its last inspection in May, including watertight
doors that were not as required.

Andrea Salas, a guide on the cruise which had left Ushuaia in her native Argentina 12 days earlier, said: “I was in the ship’s bar having a drink with colleagues and some passengers when two passengers from the cabins below came in shouting, ‘There’s water, there’s water!’ ”

Crewmen struggled for an hour to strip walling and insulation from the cabin to reach the foot-wide hole but water poured down a 2in-wide scupper pipe used to remove condensation from the cabin. It flooded the engines below and there was a power cut, knocking out the bilge pumps which had been clearing the water from the hull.

Peter Svensson, the Explorer’s first officer, said: “In the water we tried to cover the hole — we managed it at first but then we got a small blackout and the water started coming in more.”

As the Explorer began to list at 25 degrees, an order was given to abandon ship.

Raymond King, 67, on holiday from Belfast, said: “It was pretty horrific. It was wet, it was cold, it was scary. I’ve got the clothes I am wearing, my watch, my camera and that’s it.”

The M/S Explorer sank within 20 hours of hitting the ice floe. That can mean only one thing. The ship was not seaworthy. It was unsafe and had no business carrying passengers for hire. It was a liability.
Someone is trying to limit their liability with these false stories about a hole the size of a fist, and othersuch nonsense.
The Norwegian vessel, Nordnorge, picked up 154 people - all the passengers and crew of the cruise ship M/S Explorer. It supposedly hit an ice floe before dawn on Friday and immediately began taking on water. There were 13 American tourists onboard. Incidents of this nature are sure to become more common in the Arctic as global warming makes the Northwest Passage more accessible.

Captain Bengt Witman gave the order to abandon ship after the Canadian ship began listing sharply to starboard. This was only 2 hours after the collision. Everyone boarded lifeboats and inflatable rafts. Only one in four life boats had an motor that would start. That means that 75 percent of the life boats were defective. If he had waited a mere ten minutes more to give the order to abandon ship, all the life boats on the starboard side would have been under water. That means half the life boats would have been unavailable. Was the one life boat with a working engine on the starboard side? A rare calm in Antarctic seas and the swift response of a passing ship helped save all aboard. If the seas had been rough, and the life boats had had no engine power and no manueverability, and some of the passengers were not properly dressed, then we would be looking at a major tragedy; ie, a Second Titanic.

One passenger described it this way, "We huddled together and tried to comfort each other and stay warm.We were drifting because out of four lifeboats, only one had an engine that worked. The greatest sight was when a helicopter came over."

The passengers huddled together for warmth as they floated for five hours in sub-zero temperatures in the frozen wastes of the Antarctic ocean, not knowing when they would be rescued.

At one point the flooded engines of the Explorer roared back into life and the vessel, by now listing at 45 degrees, began to churn the water as it moved backwards in a circular motion perilously close to the survivors' lifeboats.

The 2,400-ton vessel’s Mayday messages were picked up by two other liners, the Nordnorge and the Endeavour, and by a Brazilian warship. They took five hours to reach the scene as a Chilean navy helicopter hovered overhead and coastguards from Falmouth in Cornwall co-ordinated the rescue with their counterparts in Argentina and the United States.

The captain of the Norwegian ship said the passengers and crew were cold and wet but in good condition despite spending four hours in icy, windswept seas off the South Shetland Islands. By Friday evening, several hours after the rescue operation was complete, the stricken Explorer disappeared beneath the Antarctic waves.

The rescue ship landed the Explorer's crew and passengers on nearby King George Island, despite delays caused by high winds and seas. They stayed at Chilean and Uruguayan military stations on the island, and were flown to Punta Arenas on the Chilean mainland as soon as weather conditions permited.

A Canadian adventure company, G.A.P. Adventures, owned the sunken vessel, which had been on a 19-day tour of the Antarctic and the Falklands. Passengers paid 4,000 British Pound Sterling each for the tour.
American Ely Chang of Urban, Calif. was among the first to get out of a Chilean Hercules C-130 in Punta Arenas, clutching his life jacket like a precious souvenir and reminder of anxious hours spent adrift.
"It was very cold but I'm so happy because we all survived this and everyone's all right. Now I'm going home," he said.
Dutch citizen Jan Henkel said he decided to propose to his girlfriend Mette Larsen after they survived the ordeal.
"There were some very frightening moments but the crew was very professional and the captain very good and had everything under control," said Henkel.
Others in Antarctica counted the survivors lucky.
"They were fortunate because other ships just happened to be in the area and came to their aid rapidly," said Lieutenant Col. Waldemar Fontes, chief of the small Uruguayan base where the rescued tourists and crew took shelter overnight. "The seas were calm and there weren't any storms. That doesn't happen often in Antarctica."

There were 154 people aboard the ship, including 91 passengers from 14 countries. Twenty-three British passengers dominated the list, followed by 17 Dutch, 13 Americans and 10 Canadians. The passengers came from more than a dozen countries, including Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada and Australia. They were all evacuated to Punta Arenas, Chile.

An Argentine rescue and command center first received a distress call from the Explorer at 12:30 a.m. EST (0430 GMT) Friday, 23 November 2007 amid reports the ship was taking on water despite efforts to use onboard pumps, said Capt. Juan Pablo Panichini, an Argentine navy spokesman.

Bob Flood, 52, a scientific journal editor and ornithologist from the Scilly Isles who had joined the £4,000-a-head cruise to give lectures about birds such as the albatross and the storm petrel, said: “We didn’t panic because we knew there must be other cruise ships in the area. The bizarre thing was that people began to tell Titanic jokes.”

Capt. Arnvid Hansen, whose cruise ship Nordnorge rescued the castaways, said Explorer's distress call came hours before dawn and he steamed 4 1/2 hours "full ahead" to the rescue before weather could close in.
"We have to work together with the forces of nature, not against them," Hansen said.
He said blinding sleet, fog, high winds and treacherous seas are common in Antarctica, Earth's windiest continent, even in the October-to-April "summer" when cruise ships flock to the area by the dozens.
"I've been a captain for four seasons in Antarctica," Hansen said. "It's not dangerous but sometimes it's tricky and it's a challenge."
Hansen said calm seas and benevolently light winds prevailed as his crew took just an hour to collect the 154 passengers and crew, rounding up their lifeboats and rubber rafts as the crippled Explorer listed every more steeply to starboard, its hull gashed.
High seas would have made picking up the lifeboats much trickier and would have exposed the castaways to brutally cold weather and the chance of hyperthermia.
Shortly after the rescue though, winds began picking up considerably. After midday, when he reached a Chilean base at King George Island nearby, the winds and waters were so rough the captain had to wait hours to unload the passengers.
"The weather can change in a half hour in Antarctica and you never know if we are going to have it very good one moment or very bad," Hansen said.

The Nordnorge used its own lifeboat as a “lift”, lowering and raising it to bring the 91 passengers, nine expedition staff and 54 crew of the Explorer aboard 10 at a time from their four lifeboats and eight dinghies.

The operation took half an hour. Three of the passengers were suffering from hypothermia and had to be clad in thermal blankets and fed hot drinks until they recovered.

Jerry DeCosta, vacationing on the Explorer said "Everything was done right: The captain got everybody off and the weather was ideal. It was a fluke of nature and luckily we got out," he said, marveling at Nordnorge's swift response. "We sent out a distress call and people came to help."

Guillermo Tarapow, captain of an Argentine navy icebreaker, Almirante Irizar, that caught fire last April 10 off Patagonia while returning from Antarctica, said he thought the dangers of castoff Antarctic ice to shipping were on the rise.
Tarapow, who saved his stricken ship from sinking and won praise for safely evacuating his 296 passengers, said he has seen a dramatic increase in the number of icebergs over 20 years and blamed climate change.
"You now see many more icebergs ... where there didn't use to be. It makes navigation difficult and they are all very dangerous," Tarapow said.

Less than a year ago, M.S. Nordnorge was involved in another Antarctic rescue. The Norwegian cruise ship evacuated 294 passengers after another ship from the same cruise company, M.S. Nordkapp, ran aground on a remote Antarctic island. The Nordkapp was later refloated.

Lt.-Col. Waldemar Fontes, chief of the Uruguayan base where some of the rescued tourists and crew took shelter, on 24 November said "We would tell them: 'You're shipwreck victims.' They'd say they wanted to stay. They were having fun."
The attitude may seem strange, he said, but the passengers had reason to be happy.
"If the storm that kept them from disembarking (the Norwegian ship that rescued them) had hit while they were on the lifeboats, it's quite possible many of them wouldn't have survived. "It's that harsh, really. They were very lucky."

The British luxury passenger liner Titanic sank on April 14-15, 1912, en route to New York City from Southampton, Eng., during its maiden voyage. The vessel sank with a loss of about 1,500 lives at a point about 400 miles (640 km) south of Newfoundland.

The great ship, at that time the largest and most luxurious afloat, was designed and built by William Pirrie's Belfast firm Harland and Wolff to service the highly competitive Atlantic Ferry route. It had a double-bottomed hull that was divided into 16 presumably watertight compartments. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering the liner's buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable. Shortly before midnight on April 14, the ship collided with an iceberg; five of its watertight compartments were ruptured, causing the ship to sink at 2:20 AM April 15. Inquiries held in the United States and Great Britain alleged that the Leyland liner Californian, which was less than 20 miles (32 km) away all night, could have aided the stricken vessel had its radio operator been on duty and thereby received the Titanic's distress signals. Only the arrival of the Cunard liner Carpathia 1 hour and 20 minutes after the Titanic went down prevented further loss of life in the icy waters.

Many of those who perished on the ship came from prominent American, British, and European families. Among the dead were the noted British journalist William Thomas Stead and heirs to the Straus and Astor fortunes. The glamour associated with the ship, its maiden voyage, and its notable passengers magnified the tragedy of its sinking in the popular mind. Legends arose almost immediately around the night's events, those who had died, and those who had survived. Heroes and heroines, such as American Molly Brown, were identified and celebrated by the press. The disaster and the mythology that has surrounded it have continued to fascinate millions.

As a result of the disaster, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was called in London in 1913. The convention drew up rules requiring that every ship have lifeboat space for each person embarked (the Titanic had only 1,178 boat spaces for the 2,224 persons aboard); that lifeboat drills be held during each voyage; and, because the Californian had not heard the distress signals of the Titanic, that ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol also was established to warn ships of icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

On Sept. 1, 1985, the wreck of the Titanic was found lying upright in two pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of about 4,000 m (about 13,000 feet). The ship, located at about 41° 46' N 50° 14' W, was subsequently explored several times by manned and unmanned submersibles under the direction of American and French scientists. The expeditions found no sign of the long gash previously thought to have been ripped in the ship's hull by the iceberg. The scientists posited instead that the collision's impact had produced a series of thin gashes as well as brittle fracturing and separation of seams in the adjacent hull plates, thus allowing water to flood in and sink the ship. In subsequent years marine salvagers raised small artifacts and even a 20-ton piece of the hull from the wreckage.

BACK TO THE FUTURE:

Millvina Dean, the last remaining survivor of the Titanic disaster,
seen here in 2002, is auctioning mementoes from the doomed liner to
pay for her nursing home fees.

This is a Friday, April 17, 1998 file photo of Millvina Dean, 86, a
living Titanic survivor, as she looks up and smiles as she signs a
Titanic movie poster for an enthusiast at the Titanic Historical
Society's convention in Springfield, Mass. As a 2-month-old baby,
Millvina Dean was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat from
the deck of the sinking RMS Titanic. Now Dean, the last living
survivor of the disaster, is selling some of her mementos to help pay
her nursing home fees. Dean's artifacts, including a suitcase given to
her family by the people of New York after their rescue, are expected
to sell for about 3,000 pounds (US$5,200) at Saturday's auction in
Devizes, western England. Dean, 96, has lived in a nursing home in the
southern English city of Southampton Titanic's home port since she
broke her hip two years ago.

Commander P.H. Nargeolet walks away from the M.V. Royal Majesty with
Millvina Dean, 84, of England at the Black Falcon Pier in Boston in
this September 1, 1996 file photo. Dean, a surviver of the Titanic
disaster was on board the Royal Majesty when it sailed to the site
where the Titanic's maiden voyage ended 84 years ago and watched as
research vessels tried to raise part of its hull to the surface.
Although a cable snaped sending the hull plunging down to the ocean's
floor, Dean was thrilled to be there.

Webster Smith and John Miller, Cases in Controversy.

2007-11-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021

Webster Smith is 0 for 2, but John K. Miller is batting a thousand. The System does not work for everyone. It did not work for Webster Smith. He made love to his girlfriend and was charged with rape. During that year he assisted her in recovering from the residual affects of an abortion and continued to date her.

John K. Miller forcibly sexually assaulted a total stranger, resulting in his receiving a broken nose; yet he is still on course, steady as she goes.
On Nov. 12, 2006 Coast Guard Cadet John K. Miller was arrested at the Navy Lodge hotel in Groton on charges of third-degree sexual assault, first-degree unlawful restraint and second-degree breach of peace. That cadet, John K. Miller, a 19-year-old from Michigan, was at a party with other cadets in a hotel when, police said, he assaulted a female guest, who is not a cadet. Police said there was alcohol at the two-room party. Miller had prevented his victim from leaving one of the rented motel rooms, police said, and forced her to have sexual contact that was not traditional intercourse, according to one officer.
.When he was arrested, John Miller was bleeding and had sustained a broken nose. Whoever broke his nose must have been a pretty tough cookie. A 6 foot 2 inch 200 pound football player is no pushover, even when he has been drinking. The victim was not a member of the Track or Volley Ball team. She was a civilian.
Cadet Miller was treated at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. He was released into the custody of the Commandant of Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy after posting $10,000 bail.

Miller - a member of the academy football team - was in Superior Court in New London on Monday, December 4th, wearing a jacket and tie. He was not in his Coast Guard cadet uniform. He spoke with a judge for a moment, just long enough to have another appearance set: a Jan. 8 pretrial hearing.
Leaving the courthouse, he chose not to comment on his case.

Miller continued attending classes and living in Chase Hall, the academy barracks. That is a switch from the situation with Webster Smith, who was immediately removed from any exposure to other cadets, prevented from going to class, and forced to work at hard labor on the boat docks.

Cadet John K. Miller is a white Caucasian; whereas, Cadet Webster Smith is a Black African-American. They were both football player at the Academy, but that is where their similarities end. Webster Smith was singled out for special punishment and character asassination. His cadet photo was released to the news media early in the investigation process to achieve maximum exposure. Cadet John K. Miller has been shielded from exposure. He was not been removed from the cadet barracks at Chase Hall. He is still attending classes. He has not been subjected to pre-trial punishment. Webster Smith was forced to work at hard labor on the boat docks. The treatment of the two cadets has been as different as night and day.

The ink was hardly dry on Admiral James Van Sice’s Approval of the Sentence in the Smith case when John Miller was arrested for sexual assault. The Assistant Superintendent, Captain D. R. May, said that the Smith case had shown the resolve and commitment to our system of military justice, accountability and most important, our true embodiment of the Coast Guard’s core values of Honor, Respect and Devotion to duty. He asserted that the Academy Superintendent would never waiver from his commitment to these precious values and will ensure that they are always present in all that is done at the Academy.
It was really fortunate that the John Miller was arrested for sexual assault so soon. It provided Captain May and the Academy senior staff with a timely and appropriate opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to core values and to equal protection of laws. Time has shown how selective they have been in living up to their own standards.

The accusations against Webster Smith were internal, so the investigation was conducted by the Coast Guard and ended in a military General Court-martial. Smith was placed in jeopardy of imprisonment from 20 years to life. In John K. Miller's case, he was arrested by Groton police and faced a criminal trial in civilian court.
10/10/2007 The Day reported the results of John K. Miller's civilian trial.
If cadets John K. Miller and Steve Schimmel stay out of trouble, the criminal cases against them will be dismissed.
John K. Miller and Steve Schimmel were arrested in separate incidents last fall and dismissed from the academy in January 2007.
Miller was accused of sexually assaulting a person at a party and preventing the victim from leaving the room at the Navy Lodge on Nov. 12. Groton Town police charged him with third-degree sexual assault, first-degree unlawful restraint and second-degree breach of peace. Police said Miller was among a group of people who had rented rooms at the lodge and were partying.
Miller was placed on a two-year form of special probation called accelerated rehabilitation in New London Superior Court on April 23, 2007. He cannot contact the victim or go to the academy. He must also undergo an alcohol evaluation and any other evaluation, counseling or treatment deemed necessary by the Office of Adult Probation.
Miller and his attorney, Paul F. Chinigo of Norwich, declined to comment.
According to court documents, Miller's application for accelerated rehabilitation was granted because the court believed he probably will not offend in the future; he has not been adjudicated as a youthful offender within the past five years; and he has no previous record. (Webster Smith had no prior record. As a matter of fact he was a choir boy)
The victim was notified of the agreement and the case was continued to April 24, 2009, where it will most likely be dismissed and Miller's record absolved if he abides by the conditions. (Webster Smith carries the stigma of a registered sex offender.)
Schimmel is accused of forcing his way on Oct. 29 into the house of a couple who said he was intoxicated at the time. New London police charged him with second-degree criminal trespass, second-degree criminal mischief and breach of peace.
His attorney, John M. Newson of Norwich, said Tuesday that Schimmel paid the couple full restitution to repair the broken door, between $1,100 and $1,200, in February. In exchange, the state did not pursue the charges, he said.
The case is still open but as long as Schimmel does not commit another offense, it will be closed and dismissed in March, Newson said.
This kid was intoxicated to the point that he didn't know what he was doing, but he had an impeccable background and no one was physically hurt,she said. The victims were scared, but overall this was the right result. The victims got their door and my client went about his way.
Wow, the System really works, if you are white, you are right; But, if you are Black, baby, get back. These three cadets; two white, and one Black, clearly demonstrate the unequal protections afforded American citizens of different racial persuasions. In America, being Black is clearly hazardous to your health.

The U.S. Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals has scheduled oral arguments in the Case of The Appeal of the Court-martial Conviction of Cadet Webster Smith for January 16, 2008 in Arlington, Virginia.

A legal brief filed by his lawyers claims the convictions should be thrown out because the defense team was not allowed to fully cross-examine one of his accusers during Smith's court martial. They say that meant the jury didn't hear testimony that the accuser, a female cadet, Shelly Raudenbush, had once had consensual sex with a Coast Guard enlisted man and then called it sexual assault.
Lt. Cmdr. Patrick M. Flynn, the government's lawyer for the appeal, said 27 November that the jury "heard enough" and the trial judge was within his rights to impose reasonable limits on the cross-examination.
"They didn't need to hear the additional details the defense is arguing they should have been allowed to hear."

Lawyers from the WilmerHale law firm for former Coast Guard cadet Webster Smith also contend in their legal brief “The excluded cross-examination would have devastated Shelly Raudenbush's(the accuser's) credibility, on which the government's case depended completely, making it all but certain that the outcome in this pure credibility contest would have been different."
The convictions on the three charges were based on the testimony of the female cadet, who said Smith coerced her by threatening to reveal a secret she had confided in him. That secret was about the past relationship.
Besides the question of whether the military judge abused his discretion, oral arguments will focus on whether Smith's conviction for sodomy was constitutional and whether the government proved the extortion charge.
Smith's lawyers argue that Smith engaged in private, consensual sexual activity with another adult and should not be punished.

Smith's lawyers said the evidence does not prove the extortion charge because prosecutors did not demonstrate a direct link between the female cadet's presumption of a threat and a sexual encounter, which occurred a few hours apart. She said Smith told her he needed more “motivation” to keep her secret, according to the records.

“Criminal sanctions cannot be based on the subjective perceptions of the recipient of a communication, perceptions that the communicator plainly cannot control,” Smith's lawyers argued in the records.
The court may hear arguments about the failing to obey an order and abandoning watch charges or issue a ruling based on the briefs filed by both sides.

The defense also is asking the court to set aside Smith's convictions on two lesser charges of failing to obey an order and abandoning watch.