Academy informant program

[Fuzz]

https://s3.amazonaws.com/aog-emails/aog-board-update-osi.html

The Superintendent had a frank and candid discussion with the AOG Board of Directors at Friday's regularly scheduled meeting. Due to the high level of interest, the Superintendent permitted the meeting to be open so other graduates could attend. The Superintendent was forthright in taking and answering questions from everyone in the room. Discussions lasted more than an hour and those present articulated multiple views and concerns regarding the OSI case.

The Board is confident the Superintendent, her senior staff, and the Air Force's leadership are taking steps to address these current, critical issues. As additional information develops, the AOG will make that available to the graduate community.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Roger Carleton
AOG Board Chair

[osulax05]

you and LumberJack go skinny dipping together?

That's what I got out of it.

[Springer]

you and LumberJack go skinny dipping together?

By the time he was in college I had moved on to doing that with Flt Atts on my layovers.

[jazzdude]

This. I mean, there are some things I really did miss. Having to pay tuition. Room and board. Another job to pay the bills. Being a TA maybe. I could have had the gourmet dining at CC rather than Mitch's mountains.... I guess jumping out of planes, flying other planes, and skiing all winter just won't cut it.

I didn't go to the academy, so let me think...

Tuition-nope

Room/board-nope

Job during college-nope

Flying planes-yup, $100 hamburgers, flew where I wanted to, when I wanted to, with whoever I wanted to

Dining limited to campus- nope, restaraunts by the school accepted meal plan money

Job in the AF-pilot

As stated earlier, college is what you make of it.

[ClearedHot]

[Marlboro BLACK]

I went to the University of Hawaii on a sailing scholarship, 2 yr AFROTC, flew fighters for 11 yrs, retired early from a major airline after 24. I always wondered if I #$%* up my life by not going to the Academy.

F*ckin EPIC!!!

[ClearedHot]

FWIW

Of interest from Eric Thomas' lawyer...

Fellow graduates and distinguished colleagues,

Looking at this address list leaves me in awe and does me honor. If I could select a group of people whom I respect more I don’t think I could do better. I would like to add my thanks to John in speaking up on this matter. I have been largely silent to date other than what Eric has released, and I want to do nothing that could possibly prejudice him. But I do want to set the record straight.

People who know me know that my love for the Air Force and for USAFA is genuine and enduring. I’ve no wish to trash either. I am a graduate myself (1972), as is my second oldest son, (2005) who is on active duty at this writing. By the same token, I have an obligation to my client and to the truth. What follows is my best recollection of events prompted by a rather large stack of documents. If there are failings or inaccuracies, they are mine and mine alone. My memory is not merely imperfect, but probably doesn’t even make the curve.

For the last several years our Academy has faced a near herculean task of trying to do something about sexual assault, illegal drug use (especially Spice), and underage drinking. In doing that, they must face the reality that abuses such as this can and often do occur inside closed, tight-knit, sub-communities within the Academy—intercollegiate teams (recall the Wrestling team honor scandal in 1972), and yes, ethnic communities, and sometimes both.

They also have to take on what may well be an appreciable number of cadets to whom loyalty to class and classmate trumps all. Shortly before I retired in 2002 I overheard a first class cadet who had sat on an Honor Board that had convicted a fellow firstie ream out her classmates, with words like, “how can you convict a classmate, ever!” (The evidence of cheating in this case was overwhelming. It was not that particular cadet’s first time before an honor board, either.) She was furious and didn’t care who knew it. What I found so disheartening was not merely what the firstie said, but that she was apparently so certain that hers was the prevailing ethic within her class that she felt at liberty to express it openly.

The toleration clause has always been a matter of some controversy, (recall that Annapolis does not have it) and this is nothing new. I don’t know how many of us ever confronted the wrenching situation where you had to choose between tolerating and thus yourself becoming an honor violator, or turning in a classmate or a teammate. I am thankful always that while a cadet I never had to make that awful choice. But the reality is that the Honor Code states that a cadet is required to “snitch” on a fellow cadet who, after confrontation, is still suspected of having committed an honor violation. So having cadets tell on other cadets is also nothing new, at least when it comes to honor. In fact, it remains a requirement of our Code. Nobody doubts that it runs squarely athwart the predominant culture of young people today. Recall the West Point cadets from Texas who had committed murder and actually confided that to their classmates, so certain were they that it would not get out.

As a general rule under the UCMJ there is not a collateral requirement to tell on a classmate, even if you suspect him of having committed a UCMJ offense. This has particular relevance to things like underage drinking, where USAFA routinely will punish the ranking cadets present where underage drinking took place, even if they did not directly contribute to it, simply for not intervening and allowing it to occur. Zero tolerance sounds so appealing, but has built into it a paradox. Because USAFA makes it clear that certain things are presumptively cause for disenrollment, tremendous pressure not to snitch builds into the algorithm, because to do so means that a classmate is nearly certain to be disenrolled. Thus, systematically, the zero tolerance policy can have the opposite of the intended effect because a code of silence virtually descends. Since there is a “death penalty” for any sort of involvement, or even knowing about it, cadets figure they have little or nothing to lose by keeping quiet, since if they’re caught either way they’re out. I know we’d all like to believe that cadets are above human nature and moral cost-benefit-analysis, but the reality is we are all fallen.

Finally, there is the reality that getting an outsider into a tightly-knit USAFA sub-culture, association or IC team borders on impossible. If it is rumored that members of the football team were doing Spice, or that a given squadron has a sexual predator in it, trying to investigate it without having somebody with access borders on Sisyphean. Again, we must contend with the law of unintended consequences. BCT has changed dramatically from when we were there and much of it focuses on building class unity. Entire squadrons or flights can be punished for the derelictions of one. This can have the unintended effect of teaching basics and doolies that class loyalty comes first, and one fails all fail. Neither contributes to the idea of individual responsibility or accountability.

With respect to sexual assault, USAFA has a policy where the victim could decide if she wanted to pursue the UCMJ route or not. Again, a female underclass cadet who might have been victimized by another cadet who happens to be a member of, say, an intercollegiate team, might be seriously intimidated by the prospect of being the one to wreck the future of a popular and implicitly powerful cadet athlete and possibly even the team itself. Once again, by trying to encourage victims to come forward, an unavoidable paradox was built into the system.

Eric Thomas is an African-American who was a football recruit. He was “inside” a lot of the communities that OSI agents could not expect to penetrate so long as the code of silence within those communities stood fast. But he had witnessed a sexual assault, was friends with the victim, who chose not to go along the UCMJ path because she was scared not merely of the perpetrator, but his friends. He viewed that as a terrible injustice. He was also present at a major cadet Spice party. When he was interviewed, he ultimately agreed to become a confidential informant for the OSI, focusing on sexual assault. Ultimately, he became instrumental in the general court-martial and conviction of two different cadets for various sexual assaults. Both had multiple cadet victims. One had five cadet victims. The OSI lauded him as one of their “most valuable” confidential informants, responsible for over 25 proactive AFOSI cases. Yet all of this was underground. Eric’s AOC knew nothing of his activities for OSI; in fact at the time only the commandant, Brig Gen Clark, and a deputy knew about it.

Eric would tell you straight up he was far from a model cadet. There were things he did (chiefly breaking restrictions) that had nothing to do with the OSI. But it is equally true that some of his OTF’s that went towards his demerits and the MRC decision were related to times he was working for OSI. So, when his AOC recommended him for disenrollment, something entirely defensible given he knew nothing about Eric’s role, Eric’s handling agent arranged with the commandant to take the case to an investigating officer so that OSI could be more forthcoming to the investigating officer about tradecraft and what Eric had done for them. They knew that in the broader venue of a MRC, they could not discuss tradecraft.

Then misfortune stepped in. General Clark pcs’d and a new commandant took over. At about the same time the leadership at the OSI also changed. The disenrollment procedure was changed back to a MRC. Just fifteen minutes before the OSI handler was going to go before the MRC and tell them what Eric had done, he was ordered by the new OSI squadron commander not to go. Eric was understandably frantic; his handler, his wingman, had abandoned him. So on his own he tried to tell the MRC what he had done, but they were dubious. I do not think it violates any confidence to say that I too was skeptical of all Eric told me, but I have since received confirmation to such an extent that I know the above to be true.

After the MRC disenrollment recommendation Eric tried again and again to contact his OSI handlers through text, cell phones, and everything else, but received no response. Finally, he got hold of his handling officer in November of 2012. During all of this time his disenrollment package was being processed. I do not know the reason for the delay.

It was not until November of last year that his handler finally contacted Eric, and told him that he would meet with him. Instead, when Eric showed up he was met by the OSI commander and another agent who figuratively worked him over for an hour or two, telling him he was a disgrace, had violated his non-disclosure oath and was unfit to be an officer, or words to that effect. At this point I attempted to call the OSI commander, but did not receive a return call the first time. The second time, I left a message and he did subsequently return the call, but for whatever reason we were never able to speak one-on-one.

It was at about this point that Eric’s disenrollment package left the commandant’s shop and went to the superintendent, Lt Gen Gould. I was in contact with JA, and told them of my concerns that Eric’s role with OSI had not been fully and completely understood by his chain of command. Meantime, we sent in the first Privacy/FOIA request to OSI. It was returned “no records.” I know this to be categorically false.

I sent a letter to Lt Gen Gould, a portion of which the Gazette published. It was provided at the behest of my client. The thrust of my letter was that I thought the AFOSI had treated Eric badly, yes, even “despicably.” They had deceived him and left him in the lurch at the MRC. Very important to understand is that I did not know and do not know to this day what the OSI had told the superintendent or the commandant, if anything, about Eric. He had no way of knowing that either. But the disenrollment recommendation flowed inevitably from the fact that the MRC plainly did not believe Eric’s claims. I was told through JA that it would be helpful to General Gould’s consideration if we could provide some corroboration to show he was on an OSI op at the time of any of his OTFs. Recalling that OSI had declined to provide any records, in fact had claimed that there were no records, the only thing we had was a few texts that show that on at least one or two of his OTFs he was actively working for OSI.

Ultimately, General Gould decided on the disenrollment, but also did not recommend he be made to pay the cost of his education—something that I know from many other cases can approach $190,000 for a second-semester firstie. I had earlier spoken to General Gould on another case about the devastating effect of that payback, which is brutal. The alternative, enlisted service, was formerly the presumptive outcome, but manpower and budget crunches along with a change in the law have reversed the default to be reimbursement. I gave Eric to appreciate that the decision to forgive repayment was a major concession, and I believe it was probably made with Eric’s OSI work in mind. He also received a fully honorable discharge.

In the meantime, a second FOIA request to AFOSI resulted in a “no records” reply. It was not until Eric got his congressman involved that OSI records came forward. In deciding who is being honest and who is not in all of this, I think it’s important to recognize that twice the OSI denied that they had any records on Eric. The result was that I cannot know for sure if USAFA leadership had the benefit of records that are now available at the time they were making their decision. If they did have them, then I’m hopeful that they were not aware that OSI was claiming that none existed.

Because I was once SJA for OSI, I know a little bit about the process and procedures of recruiting, deploying, and handling confidential informants. From what I know, this was not followed. AFOSI cannot promise to get a confidential informant “off” or promise immunity, and Eric does not claim that they did. What it is obligated to do is to come forward and state truthfully what a confidential informant has done in the appropriate forum. Leaving Eric to dangle in the wind at his MRC then berating him for disclosing his activities does not comport with my recollection of OSI confidential informant protocols. Lying to a confidential informant and telling him that there is no record of his assistance is, if anything, more clear cut.

Apropos to the culture. It took raw guts to do what Eric did. He was targeted against what at least one of the victims thought to be a group of cadets who were bulletproof. He bucked the powerful current of umerta within his generation and his culture, at genuine physical risk. Once he was outed, he became a pariah in every sense of the word. He may never be able to shake that off. Physical courage at USAFA is still plentiful, but what we need is the moral courage that Eric had and has. I don’t know that I would have had the strength of character and the resolution to do what he did. As I told my classmates, “if we had more like him, we wouldn’t need so many of them.”

So this long jeremiad ends as it began. This is not about trashing USAFA, or the OSI corporately, or even the concept of using cadets as confidential informants. This is about honoring your commitments and telling the truth. From everything I know Eric’s handling agents behaved with integrity—they may have erred in not preventing him from working on ops while he was on restriction, which can be chalked up to inexperience. But I can think of no excuse for telling a cadet you’re going to bat for him at a MRC, then not showing up, refusing to answer his repeated requests for meetings afterwards, then tricking him into a “special inspection” (some of us know well what that is) with OSI command when he thought he was finally meeting with his handling agent, and finally twice lying about his OSI records. Despite all else, Eric emerged with his honor intact.

I hope this to be the opportunity for USAFA and the Air Force at large to take a serious look at things like Zero Tolerance, the building of class loyalty at the expense of individual responsibility, and the a priori decision that even knowing about a non-honor offense and not reporting it is as serious as the offense itself. All of them have the effect of reinforcing the kind of groupthink that we cannot afford in our Air Force or in our Academy. Whether or not to continue using cadets as CI needs to be looked at, of course. But it should be done with the understanding that sexual assault cases in particular will prove difficult to investigate, still more difficult to result in conviction. That will remain the case unless and until we can reshape the culture of these young men and women to accept individual responsibility and acknowledge a higher morality than protecting your classmates.

My understanding is that the finalization of Eric’s case awaits disposition in the Secretary’s Review Boards Agency, or its modern equivalent. The point at this stage is that Eric was deprived of due process when the OSI failed to support him at the MRC, and when they failed to provide discoverable records in time for him to use them in his disenrollment package. We cannot know if either or both would have been persuasive, but that’s why a due process violation is so serious. If Eric fails to persuade the Secretary, he has recourse to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records—a process that in my experience can take a year or more. Eric is not out to hurt USAFA or the Air Force, both of which he still loves. On the other hand, if it is found that people within the OSI or elsewhere were complicit in some of the deceptions here, then accountability should be demanded. The institution does not suffer, but is strengthened when it admits error and holds those responsible accountable. But here as in politics, a cover up can be more damaging by far. John said it best, USAFA is a national treasure. The one thing I know about this address list is that all of us believe that and will do what is in our power to protect and preserve it.

Very respectfully,

Skip Morgan

[Bender]

While I have no pertinent personal thoughts on this topic, I do appreciate it when someone takes the time to write like an adult.

Considering the extent of his target audience, it was probably best he proof read a second time.

Bendy

[LookieRookie]

OTF = Over The Fence (Leaving the campus without permission/signing out)

MRC = Military Review Committee ( Aka a board looks at officership. There's a PRC for physical fitness and an ARC for academics.)

[TreeA10]

While Counselor Morgan lauds the courage and integrity of Mr. Thomas for his actions assisting the OSI, he fails to acknowledge the lack of courage and integrity that led to Mr. Thomas being a target for the OSI and thus forced into being an informant. I have never liked the idea of a one mistake AF but I also believe character matters.

[FlyinGrunt]

True. But nevertheless, when you make a promise, YOU KEEP IT. This is the kernel of why we have an Honor Code at the Academies. TOT, bump plan, what-have-you . . . the folks on here involved in combat ops know that you do not go NORDO at the moment of truth, and you tell that truth as soon as you know it - lives are on the line. The fact that OSI did that, along with apparently lying about C1C Thomas's records, make this despicable.

Would you decry a rape victim because she happened to be a stripper, or even a hooker? While clearly a simile gone absurd, I think you get my point: just because the victim's character isn't perfect doesn't mean that all wrongs are justified against them.

After all, in today's absurd warrior monk USAF model, we have all fallen short of the glory of the US Air Force. I myself am no exception.

[ThreeHoler]

Expect a new AFA scandal in the news tomorrow.

[MSCguy]

Let me guess-hazing at cadet basic training involving sexual and religion harassment? Potentially involving recruited athletes? Most of their scandals involve at least one of those three elements.

[Herk Driver]

Expect a new AFA scandal in the news tomorrow.

Who cares?

https://m.gazette.com/air-force-academy-superintendent-orders-investigation-of-athletic-department-after-gazette-inquiry/article/1534906

Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!

Edited August 2, 2014 by Herk Driver