The Conspiracy of Silence.

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy has a problem. And that problem doesn't appear to be limited to two racial incidents involving hangman's nooses that occurred there this summer.

At least four nooses have been discovered by Coast Guardsmen at various times in the past year, according to Commandant Admiral Thad Allen. That means two more than Coast Guard officials had earlier acknowledged. To do nothing simply appears to have encouraged more of the same. It might have even given the impression of tacit approval. One has to wonder how many nooses would have had to be discovered before the Academy officials would have let the rest of the world know that they have a problem. How long would they have remained silent in the face of escalating potential violence before they decided to treat the root cause and stop looking for symptoms?

The root cause is racism and racial animus that was brought to light by the court-martialing of cadet Webster Smith. He was the most popular Black cadet at the Academy. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was a star athlete, a popular football player and a charming conversationalist. Innocent people with a pure heart, simply liked Webster Smith. He could easily have been selected as captain of the football team and the Homecoming King on any one of a number of civilian liberal arts college campuses. Moreover, his long time girlfriend was the first female Regimental Commander. He did not have to rape her or anyone. All the girls loved him. That is 30 percent of the cadet corps. They are mostly white girls. And, therein was the rub.

It appears that Webster Smith was a thorn in the flesh to more than just Captain Wisnieweski and Admiral Van Sise. He was not popular to a small cadre of white male cadets either. As one anonymous young cadet wrote "Webster Smitth was a 2/c when I was coming in...I didn't know him personally, but I was very embarassed by his actions. Whether he was a rapist or not, he was certainly a sexual predator and used information of his shipmates to ensure compliance. I don't know if he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but it certainly reflected poorly on our academy and coast guard. I can only imagine how many women were intimidated into sex by
him who didn't come forward...I know that coast guard women are just as
capable as men, but I can't help but feel a need to protect them (chivalry
was an important lesson in my family). I have a sister, and it would crush
me to see her abused...Therefore I have a very important respect and value
for all women in the coast guard."


Also, since there is a thin line between love and hate, a few of the white female cadets had developed motives of revenge and animosity toward him. So, it was not difficult for Wisniewski and Van Sice to find any number of willing co-conspirators to assist in the destruction of Webster Smith. That is the destruction of both his name and his career.

A former cadet in the Class of 2005 who fancies himself "The Great Pretender" chimed in with this "Interesting thing about Webster Smith was, he was always dating someone. He was always dating someone, perhaps, because everyone else was too. Atleast, everyone that he associated with. 'Sexual Predator' is a term only used by white men to describe black men who date their sisters and friends. Continue to scurry along pretending that you know the story. The biggest predator that I knewof was in the class below me. She was pretty popular from the day she was a swab and she coveted whatever guy she so chose. Webster knew that and that's why he was silenced and isolated, as to prevent further embarassment. Oh, by the way...you probably marched for her a few times."



Hate and revenge generally grow from the specific to the general. After the Administration had demonstrated to the corps of cadets and to the world that they were ready to put a stop to the easy cordiality between the Black Super Stud and the genteel white female cadets, every other Black male cadet became a potential target of hate symbols. The potential racism lurking beneath the surface began to seep out. Nothing makes a white male cadet without a date angrier than to see an attractive white girl with a Black man. It shatters the myth of black inferiority and goes against the grain. In a controlled environment like a military academy where the male officers are taught that they are the superior beings on the planet and are born to lead, it is hard for them to accept that any self-respecting white girl worth her salt would rather be with a Black man than with him. Webster Smith did not realize that every time he appeared in public with the Queen Bee, he was fueling the fires of jealousy and hatred against him; not just against him as an individual person, but against every other Black man similarly situated. So, thus began the sad saga of the nooses at the Coast Guard Academy.

On 22 July 2007, a Black cadet aboard the CGC Eagle found a hangman's noose among his personal belongings. A couple of weeks later, a female officer conducting race-relations training in response to the incident found a noose on her office floor.

These were hateful and serious acts. An inquiry into the first incident yielded nothing. Then the second incident occurred. Yet nearly two months passed before the academy did the right thing by calling in the Coast Guard Investigative Service - and only after prodding from U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.

Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe, the Academy Superintendent went on record pledging that, if the perpetrators are found, the Academy might bring proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Later, during an interview broadcast on National Public Radio, he said Coast Guard investigators will look into whether the incidents are related and, if so, whether they involved one or two people.

This wasn't some aimless frat prank. And these aren't just ordinary students. Admission to the academy is intensely competitive. The training cadets receive, according to the academy's website, "emphasizes academics, physical fitness, character and leadership," with the aim of graduating "officers of the highest caliber." Whoever is responsible for these incidents has flunked the character test.

Also it is too early to be narrowing the inquiry's focus? Why look for only one or two perpetrators? Other cadets might know more than they're telling. Shouldn't they be held accountable?

Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Thad Allen, released a statement Friday, 28 September 2007, decrying the incidents involving two nooses.
“We help people when they need us most, and we protect and defend the Constitution. It is inconceivable to me to ignore that when it comes to our own people. It is contrary to our organizational ethos, core values, and what the public expects from us ” Allen said.

The Coast Guard Academy finally confirmed Monday, 24 September, that two nooses were found this summer in the sea bag of a cadet serving on the Coast Guard training barque Eagle and in the office of a faculty member.

Admiral Allen said he would not tolerate such behavior and will be conveying his policies on discrimination to the cadets, faculty and staff in a speech on 4 October at the Academy.
He will be accompanied by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, and Coast Guard director of civil rights Terry Dickinson.

"These are going to be our future leaders. The last thing you want are your leaders not being tolerant," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, told CNN before heading for the Academy. "I want to say to them that they should not tolerate it amongst themselves, because they will be judged by their weakest link," he said. "So far we haven't found out who did this, but I think they can help us find this person."

"The noose, to African Americans, is a symbol of hatred and it takes us back to the times when African-American people were being hung from trees for no reason at all," Cummings said. "And so it's a very offensive kind of thing."

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
(Billie Holiday)





Each generation must be taught about the symbols and dangers of racial intolerance. Nooses speak a special language all their own. It is lynch language. In the South lynching has been referred to as the defense of white southern womanhood. They have not actually hung anyone from the yardarm of the CGC Eagle or at the Academy, yet; but the court-martialing of Webster Smith and the planting of hangman's nooses have sent just as violent a shockwave rippling through the community.

True to his word but against his first impulse, on 4 October Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Thad Allen told the crowd at the Academy "By my mere presence you know this is important. When you enter the Coast Guard you are held to a higher standard. Anybody that is involved in putting symbols of racism in anybody's workplace or personal equipment, in my view, that is conduct unbecoming an officer."

Allen vowed to find those responsible. The Coast Guard has more than a dozen (CGI) criminal investigators working on the case.

Allen was joined by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, who has called for a thorough investigation. He decried the incidents as "an act of terrorism." "Any attack upon any link in this chain of our nation's defenders weakens and endangers us all," Cummings said. "It is a heinous act calculated to make it far more difficult for you as a service to achieve the strength of unity that your essential mission for the people of our country requires."

Cummings urged the cadets to cooperate with the investigation. He knows what most of us suspect; that is, that there appears to be a conspiracy of silence.

I suspect that there is a small cadre of cadets, both male and female, that are behind these incidents. They did not realize how powerful was the nature of the symbol that they had chosen, because they were not raised under Jim Crow laws and have never actually witnessed a real lynching. They have only heard about it. They might have simply had the notion that a noose works against racial mixing the same way that their grand mother's old time remedy chicken soup or castor oil works against a cold.

"I would bet more than one person knows what has happened here and I'm convinced we will find out who did this," Cummings said.

"Our Coast Guard must never, never allow an atmosphere to exist that condones complicity in a conspiracy of silence about actions that are wrong," Cummings said.


Cummings noted that the Coast Guard rescued thousands of hurricane victims in 2005.

"Those men and women of the Coast Guard who rescued more than 33,600 individuals from the rising flood waters of the Gulf Coast did not ask whether the person to be saved was Black or white, Asian or Hispanic," Cummings said. "They simply saw Americans suffering, and they saw Americans in peril - and without hesitation, and at risk of their own lives - they reached their hands to lift their fellow human beings from harm's way."


The Rev. Jesse Jackson, on the same day that Admiral Allen and Congressman Cummings were speaking at the Academy, said racial incidents like those at the Coast Guard are becoming all too frequent across the country and urged more federal enforcement of hate crimes.

"Hanging nooses or hanging people or swastikas _ these are provocative hate crimes," Jackson told The Associated Press. "Unless justice is a deterrent this hatred will spread."

"Given the number of these incidents, the president and the attorney general nominee (Michael Mukasey) should be very concerned," Jackson said.

The Coast Guard Academy has pledged to hold additional racial sensitivity training, seminars and discussions in the coming months.

The academy created a task force last year to examine the culture after the first student court-martial in the academy's 130-year history. Cadet Webster Smith, accused of sexual assault in a case involving four white female cadets. He was found not guilty of rape, but he was convicted extorting sexual favors, sodomy and other charges, based on highly questionable testimony.

Webster Smith filed a formal complaint of racial discrimination alleging he was treated differently because he was Black. The complaint is still under consideration at the Department of Homeland Security.
He also appealed his court-martial conviction. That case is still being reviewed by the Coast Guard Court of Military Review.

Jonathan Scott, a Black cadet from Mississippi, was among the hundreds on 4 October attending Commandant Allen's speech. He said the nooses highlighted some issues that the Coast Guard was not aware of and that some cadets thought the perpetrator may have intended them as a joke.

"They don't understand the impact is has on everyone," Scott said.


In December 2007 Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell's Office announced that she has contacted the offices of the Chief State’s Attorney, the Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut to condemn a rash of recent incidents involving nooses and offer her Administration’s assistance in investigating and prosecuting the cases.

“These incidents are repugnant and will not be tolerated,” Governor Rell said. “The state will lend whatever support it can to arresting and punishing the individuals responsible for these despicable acts. We will not allow a tiny number of wrongheaded people to intimidate or harass others as a result of ignorance and prejudice.

“No one in Connecticut should have to live in fear or feel threatened on the job because of their race – or any other characteristic,” the Governor said. “I know state and local officials are taking them very seriously and U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor has assured me he will be meeting this week with leaders of the NAACP and other organizations to assure them of his office’s efforts as well. Racism in any form is simply unacceptable – it must be rooted out and stopped.”

Two nooses were recently discovered by Turner Construction Co. workers at the Blue Back Square development in West Hartford; police believe those incidents may be connected to the discovery of nine nooses found at a Turner construction site in Stamford. Police believe an employee of a subcontractor may have been the target of the nooses, which are often perceived as a reference to racially motivated lynchings during the late 19th and first half of the 20th century.

A third West Hartford noose was discovered at a Home Depot store on New Park Avenue. Earlier this year, a noose was left near the belongings of a cadet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London; a second noose was discovered by the white female officer sent to the Academy to conduct race relations training in the wake of the first incident. In November, a Bridgeport police officer found a noose under her cruiser.

On Tuesday, 4 December 2007 U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor said “We're going to start tacking some hides to a shed here if we can, because we think the only way we can stop this and to get Connecticut off of this map is to start holding people accountable.”

“It's shocking, it's troubling to learn that Connecticut has probably had more of these incidents since the unfortunate incident in Louisiana than just about any other state in the country,” O'Connor said as he pledged to “dedicate all the resources we can” to helping apprehend those who have created the displays in Connecticut.

The first nooses were found at the Coast Guard Academy. That was the scene of a gross miscarriage of justice in the court-martial of cadet Webster Smith. It is not unthinkable that these evil symbols began at the Academy and that there have been so many in the State of Connecticut because of the prosecution of an innocent man. When the Convening Authority rejected the legal advice of the Article 32 Investigating Officer and decided to prosecute a Black cadet notwithstanding a lack of credible evidence, then it becomes more of a persecution rather than a prosecution. That was a Defining Moment in the history of the Coast Guard Academy. Nothing good can follow from such a gross flaunting of legal norms and a denial of the equal protection of laws. It became a travesty. It has become known as the Travesty on the Thames.

Justice has been slow in coming, even in the first of the noose discoveries this year. The Coast Guard Investigative Service is still trying to determine who placed a noose in the luggage of a Black cadet this summer, or who put a second noose in the office of an academy staff member who led civil-rights training sessions after the first incident was discovered.

Despite claims of “zero tolerance” for racial intimidation and hate crimes, none of those responsible for the roughly 12 noose incidents in the state this year has been caught.
“The thing that is very puzzling to our community,” said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut State Conference of NAACP Branches, “is that zero tolerance has meant zero arrests.”

Scoffers and nay-sayers may look upon these incidents as victimless crimes; but, let me remind you that gambling and prostitution were once considered victimless crimes. Now, we know better.




Thurgood Marshall did more to improve the life of the damned, the dispossessed, and the downtroddened than 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.)

Rooting out Racism.

In a recent Editorial in The Day, it was asked “What must the Academy do to restore dignity and honor to the 130-year-old military school?" It must reassert its moral authority. It must re-take the moral high ground.

An infection must be treated quickly and aggressively. The problem of bigotry at the Academy has not gone away. On the contrary, the senior officer corps has been leading by example. They have shown the junior officers and the cadets how they want the Black cadets to be treated. (Keep your hands off the white girls and stay in your place.) That was supposed to be the practical lesson of the Webster Smith court-martial. But, it has gone much further than that.

THIS IS THE QUESTION!!
The question was asked ”How did some twisted and cowardly person get away with leaving the threatening, offensive objects in a cadet’s personal belongings and in a staff member’s office?
Well, the answer is simple. He had help. He had assistance. He had an accomplice. Maybe not an active co-conspirator, but he was certainly helped by a sympathetic on-looker or two. Van Sice and Wisniewski blazed the trail and hinted for all men of like mind to follow.

Think about it. How did Adolf Hitler manage to exterminate 6 million Jews? The answer is simple and obvious “he had help”. He was helped by the majority of the ordinary good German people. The perpetrators of The Holocaust were many more than just the Gestapo and the German army. The German people had to assent to and contribute, in their own respective ways, to The Final Solution. Had Germany not been defeated, the Germans would have eliminated every single Jew in Europe. The Holocaust was the defining feature of German politics and the political culture of the Nazi period. It was the most shocking event of the twentieth century. The persecution of the Jews culminating in the Holocaust was the central focus of the entire German population during the Nazi period because of what it meant to the entire German population at the time. Ordinary Germans became Hitler’s willing accomplices. They accepted Hitler’s ideas of white, Aryan racial superiority and minority racial inferiority. And they marched with him right out of the community of “civilized nations”.

The world is in greater peril from good people who sit back and do nothing in the face of escalating evil than from a few bigots. All right thinking people should care enough to stay informed. Don't ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight. I remind you of what Pastor Neimoller said in World War II: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me".

The court-martial of Webster Smith was similar to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The parallels between the two are frightening. It was the central focus of the Coast Guard Academy legal staff and senior officer corps for two years. The majority of the population of Connecticut acquiesced. Not one voice was lifted in dissent. It was celebrated as a worthwhile accomplishment. It sent a message. The quotes in the New London and Norwich papers were jubilant. The Letters to the Editor were in total agreement. These two noose incidents can be liken to The Kristall Nacht (Crystal Night) of the Nazi Era.
Kristall Nacht, November 1938, turns out to be a crucial turning point in German policy regarding the Jews and may be considered as the actual beginning of what is now called the Holocaust.


"No man can struggle with advantage against the spirit of his age and country, and however powerful a man may be, it is hard for him to make his contemporaries share feelings and ideas which run counter to the general run of their hopes and desires." (Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America). Indeed, the court-martial of Webster Smith tapped into a deep reservoir of anger and resentment that Wisniewski had appealed to.

A house divided against its’ self cannot stand.

As the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, this is what you must do. You must re-take the moral high ground. You have lost the moral high ground. You have an albatross around your neck. You command America’s Humanitarian Service, the Coast Guard. Speak up. Make your thoughts and feelings known. Set the tone. Define the cadence. Plot the course. Lead, and we will follow. Speak Truth to action.

Until you act decisively, Admiral Allen, you will continue to be a part of the problem. I want you to become a major part of the solution. You are the tip of the spear. It all starts with you. You specialize in managing events that have no precedent. You never get angry. You never get emotionally involved.

However, you do not control the System, but you are in the driver’s seat. Just as a car does not drive its’ self, the Coast Guard does not drive its self. It must be driven. It must be guided from point A to B; or, at least, pointed in the right direction. That is what leaders do. They speak TRUTH to action. That is what I am asking you to do now. Speak Truth to action. Please, take the lead. You must order The Court of Military Review and the Office of Civil Rights to take immediate steps to decide the criminal and the civil rights appeals in the Webster Smith case in their respective offices. Order them to make the right decision.

At the Academy on 8 September 2006, you did not mention the Webster Smith Case; but, while talking with reporters, you said THE PROCESS used to deal with the issue worked as it should have. No, Admiral, it did not. It should be obvious to every reasonable person today that the Process has run amok. It has not worked as it should have. We are sinking deeper and deeper into a cess pool of racial bigotry. People in positions of power, are using their positions of public trust to impliment policies rooted in their own personal bias. We must act now to root out racism.

It is not too late. Your house is coming apart. Do something. We are with you. We look to you, The Correct Answer Man, the correct answer. I am asking you again, let the healing begin.

From Clove Hitch to Hangman's Noose.

Knot tying is a part of the seamanship nomenclature taught onboard the CGC Eagle.It is part of the practice of marlinespike seamanship - the general knowledge of knots and the care of rope. The ability to tie knots, bends and hitches, splice rope and use lines properly sets the trained boater apart from the landlubber. Someone onboard the Eagle went from a Clove Hitch to a Hangman's Noose. That person might make a good sailor, but he would not make a good Coast Guard officer.



WE INTERUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING YOU A LATE BREAKING DEVELOPMENT FROM THE ACADEMY:
Now that the cat is out of the bag, the Academy had started to release bits and pieces of information about the cadet noose incidents. Hopefully this will keep New London from being inundated with a wave unwelcome guests from Jena, Louisiana returning from that noose incident.
Congressman Elijah E. Cummings asked the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen on Tuesday, 25 September, to investigate two racially charged incidents where a noose was left in a Coast Guard Academy cadet's personal belongings and in a staff member's office.
“Whenever I see racism raising its ugly head, I'm going to address it,” said U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
Shortly after Cummings publicized his request to Commandant Adm. Thad W. Allen, the superintendent of the academy said he asked the Coast Guard Investigative Service to investigate the incidents.
“I am not satisfied we have done enough to address these heinous acts,” Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe said in a statement. “I want to do everything within my power to send a clear message to the academy, our community and our service that hateful acts such as these will not be tolerated here.”
But Cummings said Burhoe should have made this request sooner.
“It seems to me the superintendent's sensitivity to this issue should have been one to call for an investigation immediately,” he said.
On July 22, a third-class cadet, or sophomore, who is Black, found a six-inch piece of string tied into a noose in his personal belongings on the Coast Guard barque Eagle, the academy's training vessel. This incident was first reported in The Day on Saturday, 22 September. (That is about 2 weeks after it was first reported on this cgachasehall.blogspot.com blog on on 6 September.) The Academy had been sitting on it for over 2 months.
Capt. J. Christopher Sinnett, commanding officer of the Eagle, conducted a full investigation into the incident but was unable to identify the person responsible, according to the Academy. That was not the type of trained initiative and leadership that the American people should have to rely on. It appears to lack conviction. Even the cadets could have done a better job. Perhaps the CGIS should make deputies of some of the cadet leaders. There is one in Texas, who seems to have significantly narrowed down the list of suspects. He cared enough to write this:
From An Informed Party in Houston, Tx : Funny. The academy went on an all out man hunt to find who wrote the name "Webster Smith" on the Admiral's farewell flag when he "resigned" his post, 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
Houston, Texas

The Academy held race relations training for all the cadets in response. But then the assistant civil rights officer, a white active duty junior officer who was conducting the training, found a small noose on her office floor.
“We are preparing officers at the taxpayers' expense to go out and command troops who will be diverse and we want to make sure they appreciate diversity,” Cummings said. “The last thing we want is for an officer to be leaving something like a noose in a bag belonging to a cadet and or an officer. That's ridiculous.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, called the incidents detestable, and praised the academy for calling for an investigation. Cummings said he still wants Allen to visit the academy to make it clear that this conduct will not be tolerated.
Angela Hirsch, a Coast Guard spokeswoman, said the commandant is "NOT" currently planning to go to the academy, but that headquarters staff would provide support to Burhoe. When asked about the delay in contacting CGIS, Hirsch said the initial investigation on the Eagle was “a robust response.”

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING YOU THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT: THIS JUST IN:
Commandant Adm. Thad W. Allen has changed his mind. He has changed his travel plans and is now scheduled to visit the academy Oct 4th 2007 to address the cadets at the Academy in response to two racially charged hangman's noose incidents.
U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., asked Allen to visit the academy to make it clear that such conduct will not be tolerated.
“I am very pleased to be accompanying (Allen) next week when he addresses the entire student body to convey the message that hateful, threatening behavior such as placing nooses among the personal effects of students and officers is both unacceptable and intolerable,” Cummings, chairman of the House subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said in a statement Wednesday, 26 Sept.
Cmdr. Brendan C. McPherson, Allen's press secretary, said “Given the latest reports and Chairman Cummings' interest in visiting the academy, the commandant firmed things up for his plans this afternoon and extended the invitation for Chairman Cummings to join him,” and . "Allen plans to bring Terri Dickerson, head of the Coast Guard's Office of Civil Rights, on the trip."

“This is another step in the investigation, with CGIS becoming involved,” she said. “We are taking every step we can to make sure the overall climate is free of bigotry at the Coast Guard Academy and throughout the service.”
James Sloan, assistant commandant for intelligence and criminal investigations, said that CGIS agents will “diligently work to track down anyone involved with these acts.”
Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe, superintendent of the academy, said the commandant's visit will be “a clear symbol of the Coast Guard's commitment to eliminating discriminatory barriers here and throughout our service.”
“We are buoyed by the support our commandant has provided us as we address the hateful actions that occurred here at the academy,” Burhoe said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, who spoke to Allen on Wednesday about the investigation, said he was convinced that the Coast Guard is taking the matter seriously.
“They're going to treat it as a criminal investigation,” Courtney said. “It really comes very close to a hate-crime type of incident, so I'm all for that. I think that people really have got to realize that this is not something like a prank.”

Burhoe said if the individuals are found, the academy will take action, including possible proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (Perhaps he will get a chance to court-martial another cadet.)
“There is absolutely no place for racism in our service or in our academy,” he said.

The Navy Times reported on 26 September that the Coast Guard is launching a criminal investigation into the discovery this summer of two nooses, one in the seabag of a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet and one in the office of a white faculty member at the Academy.
On July 22, a Black third class cadet aboard the training barque Eagle found a noose inside his seabag. On Aug. 2, a female diversity instructor found a noose on the floor of her Academy office during a break in instruction.
The incidents were first reported in The Day newspaper of New London on 22 September, about 2 weeks after they were reported on the cgachasehall.blogspot.com, and 2 months after the first incident occurred. They were not disclosed by the Coast Guard when they occurred. The were disclosed after a massive Civil Rights style protest demonstration in Jena, Louisiana.
Coast Guard officials initially said the incident on board Eagle occurred July 15. The service announced Tuesday that the actual date the incident occurred was July 22.
On July 14, a week before the third classman found the six-inch-long noose, made of string, two members of the Eagle’s crew — a white third class female cadet and a Black enlisted crew member — were allegedly assaulted while on liberty together in Veracruz, Mexico. The Eagle later sailed without them onboard. We have yet to get the Full Story on why the Eagle sailed so suddenly and why she left the female cadet and the enlisted man in Veracruz, Mexico.
An Academy spokesman said the subsequent administrative investigation did not determine a link between the two incidents.
Immediately following the noose incident, Eagle skipper Capt. Christopher Sinnett conducted race-relations workshops aboard the ship.
At the same time, diversity training was ramped up at the Academy; it was during a break in that training Aug. 2 that the female staff instructor found the second noose — another six-inch-long one made of string — near her desk.
When the second noose was found, the Eagle was at sea and had not yet returned to New London from its summer tour.
However, a number of personnel who were on the Eagle on July 22 may have been at the Academy Aug. 2, when the second incident occurred.
The ship had a “phase change” in late July in Miami, with some cadets heading home, or to the Academy, for summer liberty.
It is not clear what charges could be brought against any suspects if they are found.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, no specific crimes are listed as “hate crimes,” although evidence that links any motivation to race, color, gender or sexual orientation may be considered by military judges or court members in meting out sentences, explained Brent Harvey, an attorney with the Washington D.C.-based firm Feldesman, Tucker, Leifer and Fidell.
“In and of itself, it’s not a crime, but I can certainly see — and I won’t speculate in this specific case — instances where this type of action might be part of a criminal case,” Harvey said.
The discoveries follow nearly two years of racial unease at the Coast Guard Academy that began in December 2005 with the investigation and subsequent court-martial of, Cadet Webster Smith, a Black cadet.
Former 1st Class Cadet Webster Smith, a 22-year-old from Houston, Texas, became the first cadet ever court-martialed at the 130-year-old school.
His accusers were all white female cadets.
During his criminal proceedings, Smith filed a civil rights complaint against the Coast Guard and several academy officers, saying he was treated differently during the investigation than others who had committed similar offenses because he is Black.
The Department of Homeland Security notified Smith on Aug. 20 that his complaint had been denied.
Smith has appealed his criminal conviction, and that process is ongoing.
As a result of the court-martial and its aftermath, which included the reassignment of then-academy superintendent Rear Adm. James Van Sice for issues allegedly unrelated to the Smith case, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen convened a task force to study leadership, culture and climate at the school.
That group made several recommendations regarding increasing minority recruitment at the school and improving diversity training.
Blacks account for roughly 4 percent of the Coast Guard Academy’s student body of 1,000 students.
Overall, the Coast Guard has 2,498 Black personnel out of 40,699 active-duty members.
On Tuesday, 25 September, Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Coast Guard and maritime transportation subcommittee, asked Allen to examine the incidents thoroughly.
“I was utterly shocked when I heard about these implicit threats on both a student and an officer,” Cummings said through a press release. “Racial discrimination and intolerance have no place in either the Academy or the Coast Guard, and these incidents run directly against the efforts being made to increase diversity throughout the Coast Guard.”
Former Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Vincent Patton, the Coast Guard’s top enlisted member from 1998 to 2002, said the service faces a tough road in recruiting black Americans but praised its current diversity programs.
He recalled one of his first duty stations in Cheboygan, Mich., where he was the first Black person many area residents had ever seen.
“We have units that are located in areas that have little and sometimes no minority population. That’s not to say that minorities can’t do well there, but the challenge is that young African American men and women, especially from urban areas, want to be welcomed in and happily know they will end up where they are not alone,” Patton said.


Thurgood Marshall did more to improve the life of the damned, the dispossessed, and the downtroddened than 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 Thurgood to the banks of a nearby river where a lynch mob had a rope hanging from a tree, ready for 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.)

The EAGLE has landed.

CGC Eagle, Coast Guard Academy training ship returns from 4 month cruise to the Caribbean. Officer candidates, cadets and the Eagle's crew sailed to Barbados, St. Martin, Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico, making their last stop at Norfolk, Va., four days ago before returning to New London.
"The ship's primary mission is to train those cadets and officer candidates, but the vessel also has a public relations mission", said Captain Chris Sinnett, the Commanding Officer . The Eagle's stops in the Caribbean were chosen because they have U.S. embassies or a strong Coast Guard presence.
The Coast Guard estimates the vessel hosted more than 40,000 visitors over the last 112 days. The cadets and crew took part in several community service projects along the way, helping to repaint a baseball stadium in Colombia, volunteering at an animal shelter in Barbados and making repairs to an orphanage in St. Martin.

A male crewmember and a female cadet were sent home to be with their families after an alleged assault while on liberty during a port call in Veracruz, Mexico, in mid-July. According to the crewmember and the cadet, two Mexican policemen surprised them after a swim at a local beach, attempted to handcuff them, stole some of their possessions, threatened them and forced the female to perform oral sex on one of them, a Mexican prosecutor told The Associated Press.

The police officers have been charged with robbery, abuse of authority and sexual misconduct.

When asked about the female cadet and the crewman that he left behind in Veracruz, Mexico, Captain Sinnet had no comment.
(The Day. 18 Aug 2007)

THIS JUST IN: Captain Chris Sinnett can probably be forgiven for leaving the female cadet and the enlisted man behind in Veracruz. He had other things on his mind. There were some very nasty and mean-spirited things going on below decks on the Eagle. For example, an African American cadet awoke one morning to find a hangman’s noose had been left in his bag. Was this just a practical joke, or was this evidence of infiltration of the cadet corps and the ship’s crew from certain sick elements in our society? Could this possibly be more fallout from the Webster Smith court-martial? Well placed sources confirm that there has been no official investigation and no suspects have been named.
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.
This gives an indication of the environment and the atmosphere at the Academy that gave rise to the things that happened to Webster Smith. The Academy is pretty much a closed society. Attitudes and actions start at the top of the chain of command and run down hill. The senior officers set the tone, and the lower ranking officers and cadets take their clues from them. The senior officers gave the impression that they wanted to scape-goat African American cadets to make political points with Congressman Shays and the Militant women's organizations to show how they were protecting the young white female cadets.
What they did to Webster Smith signaled to the cadets that they could engage in some subtle racially intimidating behavior. Also, if they were caught the punishment would be lax or little at all. They started to roll a snowball down a mountain, and now it is picking up momentum. They unleashed a whirl wind. Who knows where it will end? One thing is sure, Van Sice and Wisniewski opened up a Pandora's Box.
This did not happen over night. It has been brewing. What happened to Webster Smith was not an abberation. It was in keeping with the decisions and signals from the Superintendent and the Commandant of Cadets.
The correct decision in the Formal Complaint of Racial Discrimination could put the brakes on this trend, and might even stop it all together. It would show some of the lesser bigots that their pranks or intimidating acts will not be tolerated by the larger society outside of the Academy grounds.
The Rule of Law still prevails in this country. Most people would do the right thing for the right reason, if they were allowed to do so.
On the September 25 the AP reported that Congressman Elijah E. Cummings has called for a thorough military investigation in the Noose Incidents at the Coast Guard Academy.
Rep. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, urged Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen to address the full academy and asked for a more intensive probe.
"Racial discrimination and intolerance have no place in either the Academy or the Coast Guard, and these incidents run directly against the efforts being made to increase diversity throughout the Coast Guard," Cummings said in a statement.
"I have asked Admiral Allen not only to conduct a thorough investigation into the incidents, but also to address the entire academy to convey that such behavior will not be tolerated in the service," he said.
Cummings praised the efforts of the academy to expand training in race relations but said that was not enough.
The first noose was left in a Black cadet's bag July 15 on board the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in early August on the office floor of a female officer who had been conducting the race relations training in response to the first incident.
Academy Superintendent Burhoe was outraged that the incident happened to a cadet in that training environment. The campus has launched a full investigation and race relations training for the next group of cadets headed to The Eagle.
The investigation came up empty and the white instructor of the race relations classes found a second noose on the floor of her office.
"I would expect the public to hold us to a higher standard" Burhoe said.
Burhoe is continuing the search for the culprits and remains proud of the overall academy and its adherence to the Coast Guard's core values of honor, devotion of duty and respect.
"We really can't let the few bring the majority who are doing exactly what they should be doing when they're doing it down," Burhoe said.

I shutter to think that this may have become the preferred means of racial intimidation on high school and college campuses. A few months ago three white teens in Jena, La. were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. They were suspended from school, but they were not criminally prosecuted.
Racial tensions first erupted after a black student tried to cross an invisible color line and sit under the schoolyard's "white tree" to be greeted the next morning by nooses hanging from the tree.
Later, six Black teens were accused of beating a white classmate. Five of the Black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth teen was charged as a juvenile.
Congress woman Maxine Walters denied racism was involved.
"This case has been portrayed by the news media as being about race," Walters said. "And the fact that it takes place in a small southern town lends itself to that portrayal. But it is not and never has been about race. It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.""I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was. The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town," Walters said.
Mychal Bell, one of six Black teens arrested for allegedly attacking a white classmate in Jena, La., has had both of his convictions in the case thrown out. A Louisiana judge ruled that Bell, a minor at the time of the crime, should not have been tried as an adult.
LaSalle Parish district attorney Reed Walters told a press conference that the case "is not and never has been about race."
He denounced the students who hung the nooses from a tree last September but said he was unable to prosecute them because it did not qualify as a hate-crime -- a conclusion also reached by the region's federal prosecutor.
"This was an awful act," Walters said. "It was not a prank but a vicious and crude statement ... The people who did it should be ashamed of themselves and mortified at the havoc they have unleashed on this community."
Presidential candidate Barrack Obama said "When a noose hangs from a schoolyard tree in the 21st century and young men are treated in a way that is not equal nor just, it is not just an offense to the people of Jena or to the African-American community, it is an offense to the ideals we hold as Americans," he said in a statement.

In Washington, President Bush on 20 Sept 2007 said he is concerned about the racial tensions in Jena, adding that federal law enforcement agencies are monitoring the situation.
"The events in Louisiana have saddened me, and I understand the emotions," he said. "The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there. And all of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice."

Minority applications to the Coast Guard Academy are down almost to the pre-1970s level. Some might say that is a good thing. I say that it is un-American and can only lead to embarrassment for the Academy and a Pandora’s Box of traumatic incidents for innocent young cadets. I say it sounds like a few rotten apples are being allowed to spoil the whole barrel. This all started at the top of the Chain of Command. How far down has it metastasized?
It is written that he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. We reap what we sow. Let us pray for cooler heads as well as calm seas.

12 Jan 2008, Update: White Teenage Female Cadet Claims Sexual assault By Mexican Police on Veracruz Beach.
Two Mexican law enforcement officers accused of assaulting a white female Coast Guard Academy third class cadet and a Black enlisted crew member stationed onboard the Coast Guard Academy training ship USCGC Eagle are still in jail.
The incident occurred during a port call in Veracruz, Mexico, in mid-July 2007.

The case is under review by the First Criminal Court in Veracruz, and the judge has not issued a final decision, according to a Coast Guard Academy spokesman.

The U.S. Embassy has just received a verbal update from the Mexican court.

According to that update, the accused police officers filed an appeal against their imprisonment, and a federal court denied the appeal, but the criminal court is expecting a new appeal. Mexican courts are like German jokes, they are not funny and you never know where they are going or how they will come out.

The third-class female cadet and the male crew member said the police officers attempted to handcuff them, stole some of their possessions, threatened them and forced the female to perform oral sex on one of them, while they were on liberty after a late night swim at a beach in Veracruz, Mexico.

The two policemen have allegedly been charged with robbery, abuse of authority and sexual misconduct.

How many football players does it take to rape girl?

How many big burly football players does it take to rape a dainty distance runner? The answer is THREE. TWO to watch, and ONE to pile-on.

This is a true story, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Webster Smith; except, of course, it demonstrates most vividly that the military justice apparatus at the Coast Guard Academy under Captain Doug Wisniewski was running on two separate and very unequal tracks. White rapists were allowed to resign, and their victims were harassed out of the Academy; whereas, innocent Black cadets were framed, prosecuted, and sent to jail on perjured testimony. The accusers received plush assignments and other rewards for having done the dirty deed.

Doug Wisniewski, you can run, but you can't hide. Your sins will find you out. Heaven help us if someone of your ilk believes that you are the stuff of which admirals are made.

One night a dainty little distance runner, a delicate flower from the Garden State, was studying with her classmate in his room when without warning she was pounced on and savagely raped by three beefy bullies. Only one actually did the dirty deed, but the other two vicarious varmints are equally culpable. They not only failed to assist this damsel in distress, but they refused to raise a hue and cry for help. And against every human instinct for compassion, when questioned later, they lied about the incident. They were so distracted in their little 12 foot by 12 foot room that they were totally unaware that this delicate little flower had been deflowered.

The big bad burly football player who actually did the dirty deed, let's call him Mister Big, or MB for short. He was so brazen as to actually threaten the delicate flower and her two roommates with physical violence if they breathed a word about what he had done. The poor little innocent roommates of the delicate flower were so stressed that they were driven to take prescription medication. They even had to be referred for mental health counseling to cope with the somatic manifestations of the stress brought on by MB's threat.

Our delicate flower received no charity from her fellow cadets. She became a pariah. She was branded and taunted by some of the other athletes. She had to face daily taunts of "What's the matter; don't you like rough sex?" Can you imagine such treatment from the cream of the crop? She was ridiculed and branded a slot, harlot, loose woman, and not only by the other cadets. She was dragged out of bed one night about midnight in only her pajamas, and she was hauled before a CPO and a LT and called a bunch of dirty names. One can only imagine that this is how we treat victims of sexual assault these days. Also, Doug Wisniewski did not call it rape; nor did he call it sexual assault. He called it non-consensual sexual activity. That way, he would not have to court-martial anyone. Anyone White, that is. You see, court-martials are reserved for the Black cadets. That is the kind of justice Doug Wisniewski believed in.

The Academy has replaced Doug Wisniewski with a female Commandant of Cadets. Also, they want to get female officers involved in the rape investigation and counseling process as early as possible. Doug was replaced by Judy. Doug said this and now Judy agrees that there is an atmosphere of fear and intimidation at the Academy, and that some female cadets are hesitant to come forward with assault allegations.

Well, for once, Doug has said something that I agree with. But, the big question is, who are they afraid of? From what happened to our delicate flower after her rape, it is clearly obvious that they are afraid of the Academy staff officers. This is incredible. Little did the news media realize when Doug Wisniewski said that there was an atmosphere of fear and intimidation at the Academy, that the female cadets were afraid of the officers. They were not afraid of Webster Smith. They were afraid of Doug Wisniewski and his staff officers. They were so afraid that they were willing to be used to court-martial Webster Smith, after MB had been allowed to slip away with nary a slap on the wrist.

So, what did they do to our delicate flower? They assigned a female staff officer to interview her. The interview turned into an interrogation. The investigation became an inquisition. The female staff officer inferred that the delicate flower was responsible for her own rape. She, as much as, accused her of provoking the incident. When the interview became a custodial interrogation, the delicate flower was not provided with legal counsel; nor was she given any Article 31 warnings. She was forced to make a statement, which she did not write. She signed a statement that the female staff officer had written and she was not provided with a copy of the statement. That statement went straight to Doug Wisniewski, and he used it in an Article 15 NJP proceeding to expel a first class cadet two weeks before he was to graduate in the Class of 2006.

Can you imagine that? The only senior cadet who was showing any trained initiative and leadership, who was actually doing Doug Wisniewski's job for him, was charged with fraternization and expelled two weeks before graduation. The system is on its head. It has turned upside down. Finally, the inmates are in charge of the asylum.

What happened to our delicate flower the night of the rape? She was treated at a medical facility. She was taken off base, of course. We must always leave room for plausible deniability. Yes, she received expert civilian medical care. The evidence of the rape was sent to the Connecticut Crime Laboratory. The lab report went to the New London PD. Doug Wisniewski sent a couple of his boys over when the Chief of Police was not in, and they confiscated the forensic evidence and took it back to the Academy. Perhaps, they screamed federal supremacy or something and walked out with the evidence.

What did Doug Wisniewski do with the forensic evidence? Heaven only knows. It certainly was not used to make an air-tight case against MB. This would have been a slam-dunk case to prosecute. But, no, Doug Wisniewski had Webster Smith in isolation waiting for a court-martial with only rumors and lies as evidence. So, in December 2005 Doug takes MB to a Captain's Mast NJP and lets him resign from the Academy. He probably thinks he is home free, but he is not.

Now, our delicate flower is left in the hot house. All of the other female cadets saw what the Administration was doing to our delicate flower trying to get her to resign. They became afraid and intimidated. Female cadets from freshmen to senior cadets were intimidated. They were more than happy to say or do anything that Doug Wisniewski and the lieutenants asked of them. They were more than happy to caucus and implicate Webster Smith.

Morale was in the toilet. Esprit de Corps had gone out the window. Where ever Doug wanted to lead, they were willing to follow, just don't get on their case. This is the atmosphere that is created when you single out some one for special treatment, when justice is not administered fairly and equally. All the cadets are suspicious of each other. And they are all afraid of the Administration. The women are afraid to report incidents of any nature for fear of being forced to resign. The men are afraid that innocent incidental contact with a female cadet will lead to charges, false statements, and possible court-martial. That is the legacy of Doug Wisniewski. Congratulations, Doug. You done good.