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An Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Spc. Jeremiah T. Sancho Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011 at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
Air Force officials violated whistleblower laws when they retaliated against four civilian workers who reported the mishandling of war remains at the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del., independent federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The Office of Special Counsel concluded that in 2009 and 2010, three Dover mortuary officials retaliated against the employees for reporting the misconduct and must be disciplined. The employees alleged that they faced job termination, indefinite administrative leave and five-day suspensions.
“We applaud the whistleblowers for their courage in coming forward,” Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said in a news release. “We expect the Air Force will now take appropriate steps to discipline the wrongdoers and deter future acts of retaliation.”
In a written statement, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley said “there is no place for reprisal in the Air Force.” He said he has appointed a two-star general to review the findings and take "appropriate action."
“Throughout this process, the Air Force remains committed to this mission as a solemn obligation,” Donley said in the statement. “We continue to care for America’s fallen with dignity, honor and respect and provide care and support for their families.”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered the Air Force to review its handling of a major scandal at Dover Air Force Base, where the remains of deceased soldiers were lost of buried in landfills. Stan McDowell, whose son's remains went missing, talks to msnbc's Craig Melvin.
In an earlier investigation report released last November, the Office of Special Counsel said it had found "gross mismanagement" at the Dover facility, where small body parts of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan were lost on two occasions. The Air Force said at the time that it took disciplinary action — but did not fire — three senior supervisors there for their role in the mismanagement. The reprisal accusations were a separate matter and were investigated by the Special Counsel under the Whistleblower Protection Act.
According to The Associated Press the three disciplined in connection with the earlier Special Counsel included Air Force Col. Robert Edmondson, who commanded the Dover mortuary at the time of the incidents, and two civilian supervisors — Trevor Dean and Quinton Keel.
Edmondson was given a letter of reprimand, denied a job commanding a unit at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., and barred from future command assignments, The Associated Press reported. Dean and Keel took a cut in pay and were moved to non-supervisory jobs at Dover. All three have declined to comment publicly on the matter.
Although the Special Counsel did not identify the three accused of retaliating against the whistleblowers, two officials told The Associated Press that they are Edmondson, Dean and Keel. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of privacy restrictions.
Report: Air Force dumped remains of 274 troops in landfill
The four whistleblowers had alleged that they suffered retaliation for their disclosures, including job termination, indefinite administrative leave and five-day suspensions.
James Parsons, one of the whistleblowers, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had not seen the investigators' report but was told Monday that its conclusions support his and the others' claims of retaliation.
Parsons is an embalming/autopsy technician. Two of the other whistleblowers are Mary Ellen Spera, a mortuary inspector, and William Zwicharowski, a senior mortuary inspector. Those three told The Associated Press last November, after the scandal broke, that the Air Force had retaliated against them. Parsons said he was fired in 2010 but reinstated almost immediately. Spera and Zwicharowski said they received letters of reprimand.
Zwicharowski also said he was put on administrative leave for eight months and at one point was labeled "mentally unstable."
Spera and Zwicharowski both said in interviews Tuesday that they had not seen the Special Counsel report.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed deep disappointment in the Dover revelations last fall, and he ordered Donley, the Air Force secretary, to report back to him on the adequacy of the disciplinary actions he had taken.
Panetta also appointed a retired Army general, John Abizaid, to lead an independent assessment of actions taken to improve mortuary operations at Dover. That review is due to be completed by the end of February.
Air Force officials have 30 days to review the OSC’s findings and recommendations, according to the Air Force Times. If they do not sufficiently respond, the OSC can can pursue disciplinary action through the Merit Systems Protection Board.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An investigation found "gross mismanagement" at the mortuary of the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Three of its officials have been reprimanded for losing or mishandling body parts of dead service members. NBC’s Brian Williams reports.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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Sad that the USAF would resort to covering thier butts like this. Shame on them!!!
Funny quote of the day, "Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley said “there is no place for reprisal in the Air Force.” "
Reprisal is usually all you get, especially when you walk into a room and bump into some officers swollen head, bruise their over-inflated egos or question their authority. Want to experience true misery? Two words "academy puke". The ultimate in ring knocking losers, if they can make it twenty years without knocking up an E-2 they are promoted to full Colonel.
typical Air force, what do you expect.
This isn't 'rocket science'; which frankly the United States Air Force (USAF) does pretty well.
This is 'doing the right thing', 'accountability' and 'following the law'; with which the USAF seems to have broad problems.
These issues will not be addressed by the typical Military Services' "trikle-down" blame game of identifying low-ranking officers and more often enlisted men and women and punishing those who merely did their jobs and followed orders from their superior officers.
The plethora of competence, ethics and accountability issues in the USAF revealed over the past 18-months -- including at the Air Force Academy -- are only going to be addressed if a civilian task force is empaneled to fully investigate the issues, determine the parties and practices responsible, determine those accountable regardless of rank and make recommendations to the President and Secretary of Defense regarding necessary corrections, dismissals, early retirements and reductions in rank and pay-grade; and in some cases reprimands, punishments and courts martial.
Civilian control and oversight of the military was established fin the US or a reason. It is past time for that civilian oversight to remove from the military the roll of investigating itself.
the first thing you learn in Government service, if you are a whistle-blower, your career is over.
I would digress your career is not over but it makes getting promoted a bit more of a challenge. I would have one caveat on the civilian oversight, make sure none of the civilians are retired senior officers, I dont mind if they are advisors/consultants but if they didn't have the backbone to stand up to the corruption when they were active duty, who is going to respect their point of view now. One cannot speak of ethics, honor, and integrity when they themselves were incapable of practicing them.
No real surprise here, the unofficial Air Force motto is "Don't like the message,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,kill the messenger".
After five decades of "revising" scores of MSET, ORI and IG inspections to portray themselves and "prepared" and "fully trained" this should be nothing new. They do not trust their own troops to comply with PT testing standards and hired civilians to "oversee" that program. Attacking the Airman who points out mistakes is the fastest way to hide mistakes.
As an AF retiree, my first instinct was to refute your post, but while I personally had little cause to doubt the integrity of my superiors, I am aware it happens. But it's unfair to paint the entire force with such a broad brush. Most of those in command go out of their way to do the right thing.
You apparently left quite some time ago.
2010. And I would say the standards are far higher now than when I first entered. This whistleblowing thing would have never seen the light of day back then, never mind the people responsible being the subject of an investigation now.
People of conscience who do come forward and bring evidence of wrongdoing to the attention of the authorities generally become road kill. Most of the people who step forward and demanded change become financially ruined, loose their families and are unemployable because no one wants to risk being called out for wrongdoing. They become depressed, cynical and become non entities. Unfortunately our society does not provide protection or any kind of safety net for those who put everything on the line to bring criminals and wrong doers to justice. You think that they benefited from the decision? None of them will advance in their careers. Their coworkers will shun them and families will desert them. Going in no one will tell them that they will have to pay taxes on the gross amount of any award. The attorney will take over 30%. Their ex will demand a share. He/she will be left with less than 20% of the net award - this will cover the expenses (housing, food, insurance, divorce attorney, car payment, etc) that they incurred when they were unemployed. Criminals and the morally bankrupt will win every time.
What can we do to stop it?
I retired in 2011. Before I got out, I was surrounded by dirt bag MSgts and careerist backstabbing officers. It was sickening. They'd make a show of ethics but in reality it was all CYA.
Thank goodness i never went into the military. they might kick me out for being too honest.
So I guess you're saying that everybody in the military is dishonest which is why they're still there. What an asinine statement.
For a supposed "realist" you sure do see a lot of things that aren't there...
More and more and more we are like the old Soviet Union. Truth tellers are punished, and liars are promoted.
It is not specifically the military it is the entire government. Guaranteed the people who harassed the truth tellers will NOT be punished, which is no different than encouraging them to do it again.
At least the whistleblower law still works! Hopefully this will deter supervisors or leaders, regardless of their governmental or non-governmental affiliation, that retribution against those who report crimes or abuses will not be tolerated!
Like the retribution against Manning?
Buy a clue,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,they are cheap.
Manning illegally released classified material, there is a difference.
starbuck49, manning chose to blab sensitive military information to assange. that is not reporting crimes or abuses.
Far as I know, you're taking your future into your own hands when you blow the whistle.
You might get away with it in the government, but in the private sector, you're taking huge risk of losing your job and then it being very difficult to find another one.
Amy from AZ
The killing of news reporters was an accident, but it is a crime to cover it up and say someone else did it, when the government knew full well what had happened with gun camera footage.
hs321 POSTS
Far as I know, you're taking your future into your own hands when you blow the whistle.
You might get away with it in the government, but in the private sector, you're taking huge risk of losing your job and then it being very difficult to find another one.
WOW YOU ARE DESCRIBING HOW THINGS WERE UNDER COMMUNISM....IF WE CAN'T SPEAK OUT WHEN THINGS ARE WRONG..WHAT TYPE OF FREEDOM DO WE HAVE?
No, they're not describing how things were under communism. It's how things work in a CORPORATION. Corporate power is a bigger threat to Americans than communism ever was. Try blowing that whistle as an employee of a big corporation and see what happens: exactly the same as what happened at Dover.
When everything is classified, then nobody can tell the truth. It is the number 1 way the military conceals their lies. If it involved dishonesty or corruption it is classified. Therefore it is illegal to tell the truth.
Corporations don't lie like the government, because they have competition and either compete or go out of business. it is the monopolies that cause the problems. The US government is a monopoly. When they make a mistake is is always someone else's fault, and they simply take more money from the people. The utility companies are semi monopolies. Same as government. they give crappy service and never make mistakes (ha ha).
You get good service at a sandwich shop, if there are nearby competitors. If it is the only one around for miles , generally the service and pricing is worse.
They reprimand whistleblowers for turning in people showing a disrspect for our fallen troops, and then want to prosecute troops for pissing on the bodies of enemy troops they just killed in a fire fight. Sounds like a double standard to what seems to be the same training program. ONE more reason to get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Lets take the money we are wasting over there and spend half of it in a crumpled country called America and use the other half to pay down the debt that was created by going over there in the first place.
We should have done that in 2003.
More importantly, one more reason to tar, feather, and flog all politicians in Washington DC.
This is shameful. Glad that the whistleblowers got justice. The colonel needs be to be forced to retire he is of no more use to the USAF.
Chris Giliard, the whistleblowers have not yet gotten justice. Let's wait and see if they get justice or if the media lets this story die a quiet death.
Again, I remember what Obama said when he was "running" back in 08, one of his lies was ,"I, am going to stop any an all mistreatment of Govt. whistleblowers", well again, so much for all of those "good words" that so many of you fell for and elected him to this office.....seem to be falling short.....as usual!
Poopreaper666; obviously you think too highly of yourself. What the hell does this has to do with the President? It's called the chain of command where the Persident as Commander in Chief should not have to discipline a Colonel and a few civilian employees. The commanding general is the person who should have corrected this colonel. The President created the policy that stated that whistleblowers will not be punished for bringing to light any wrongdoing that is found to be of creditable standing.
According to the article the people who retaliated against the whistleblowers are in trouble and the whistleblowers vindicated. Seems to me Obama told the truth.
I always "love it" when people think that the solution is forced retirement!
Yeah, that will teach them! Here you go, don't work anymnore with all your pension?!
Shouldn't the pension be reduced for wrongdoing? They should demote the bastards first then force retirement at E4!
I am retired army,I don't know how it goes in the air force but when I was in,you blew the whistle in most cases,something bad happened to the whistleblower,if he was alone.I mean passed over for promotion,assigned to the worst jobs,transferred to lower sloblowiva with out winter gear,pay get messed up.That happened more time than I care to remember,
Forced retirement,no reduction to E-1 then retired charges are proven
Officers in the military are infamous for covering their butts at the expense of those below them. The military is so top heavy with Generals and such our taxpayer dollars are wasted.
one important thing you don't understand is that the government does not follow the rules people have to follow. take the sunshine law in Florida, most government documents and work goes on where 'the sun don't shine.' and if you try to get these documents or minutes you could pay thousands of dollars or your request could be rejected outright. what are your rights if rejected? well, its much like probate law, hire a lawyer and support him until you run out of money. the government and state use your money (tax dollars) to keep secrets. why do you think the occupy movement started. welcome to legalized, organized government corruption!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is precisely indicative of what the Elitists (Politicians) in the Ivory Towers (Wash DC) think of the common-folk.....disposable. Sleep on that while you ponder which hack to vote for in November. BTW, does anyone ever see their locally elected Elitist at the local grocery store, library or public park? I know I don't.....I wonder why?
Don't rock the boat even if it's taking on water.
The Colonel should face a court-martial and if found guilty should face a dishonorable discharge and jail time for what he did both to the bodies of the deceased and to the whistleblowers. For the civilian employees that took part in this mess, they should be fired from their positions and lose their pensions and all attached benefits. Let them see what it's like to be vulnerable.
Both of my husbands served in the USAF and both appauled at this. I was raised by veterans and am glad they are gone and didn't know about this. As a kid, we would take time to travel all over the western US to clean and decorate veteran graves from WWl on up. My family has veterans all the way back to the civil war. This was my favorite branch since I knew so many. My dad was USAC (USair corp before the USAF) Sorry but this just breaks my heart. This is the final thank you and salute we can give our warriors, both male and female.. What the hell has happened to the Air Force. Anyone caught in a coverup or revenge against the "whistleblowers" should be dishonorably discharged, regardless of rank. There is no damn excuse for this!!!!!
Same ole BS from our military. I'm retired army and the most important thing they teach is CYA
Be all you can be. Just make sure you don't rock the boat (or plane).
I hope each and every military person involved, at any level is aggressively punished to the fullest extent of the law, military or otherwise.
It is "these types of low-life, COWARDLY PUNKS who seem to believe they can function according to "their own rules" while "hiding behind their military uniforms, etc."
The fact that this case involves "the handling of the remains of deceased veterans" makes it that much more intolerable.
They truly are a total disgrace to their uniforms.
I would be especially happy to learn that all involved are forced to retire and lose all military benefits, especially their pensions and of course... their "burial benefits" too :-)
So what are they going to do for the Whistleblowers? Re-hire them? They should be compensated in some way.
Those military involved in the reprimand should be dishonorably discharged from the military and deprived of any and all military benefits. There is absolutely NO excuse for their actions. If the Military did wrong their actions should be brought to light. What makes them exempt from any and all illegal actions?
the colonel involved is already being investigated for the miss-handling of remains. He will not get a discharge, at most he will get "forced retirement" since he has been in past the minimum retirement threshold. It's the same as the generals that were "retired" a few years back over the Minot afb nuke fiasco. They all retired with all benefits intact. Any person that came in during the '80s most likely falls under the old "high 3" retirement where they get the average of the highest 3 years of pay that they collected regardless of when during their career it was. So getting "busted down" and retiring doesn't really effect them much, they will still get their retirement based off of the average highest payed years. most officers eligible to retire can pull down $8K-$16K a month in retirement depending on what the actual rank and years served was. This, by the way, far exceeds anything an enlisted person gets in retirement so don't get the idea that this is what everyone serving is going to get.
Yeah right. The air force won't do squat to their own. Just look at the sentences, or lack there of, to the soldiers that murdered 24 citizens at Haditha and the lack of proper sentences to those responsible for the suicide of Pvt. Lew. These guys while cop a plea deal, get a slight reduction in rank and that will be about it. Typical military justice.
Financial compensation may be one of the things at least they have to do to compensate what those civil workers have faced, especially those who lost jobs and benefits.
It's your tax money.....
Even though it's 2012 - It's the MILITARY..... and you don't expect reprisals against whistleblowers????
Reprisals will happen somehow every time any commander gets a "black eye" caused by a subordinate.
Retaliation by the AF against whistleblowers is nothing new. The AF is well known within itself to discourage people from bringing wrongs to the light of day. The bottom line of the AF is to make the generals smile.
Hire civilian secretaries and make every other position military. That will reduce the chances of people accusing others of "retaliation". If these were military personnel it would have been deemed "Administrative punishment" and left at that. Did these people even bother to take their concerns to anyone higher up before jumping the "chain of command"?
Most people in the military (at least the smart ones) keep a paper trail or create a paper trail to cover themselves when stupid things happen. I wonder if any of these people (retaliator or retaliatee) even bothered to do the same? Most times you bring deficiencies to your supervisor verbally and get a response. If the response if favorable and corrects the problem then all is good. IF the answer does not, then you create a statement of actions taken and press forward to the next supervisor in line, creating more paperwork if you continue to get negative action. That's how things are suppose to work in the military, civilians don't seem to think they are bound by chain of command but according to their job descriptions and contracts they are. They probably weren't "punished" for whistleblowing, they were more likely reprimanded for not getting it handled at the lowest passible level. It's like using a stick of dynomite to kill a spider in a tent full of people instead of just trying to step on it first. That is where understanding of the system you work in comes into focus. These people don't operate in a "civilian" environment, even if they were military they would most likely have gotten in some kind of trouble for not doing what every commander i have worked with has ever said. "I can not tell you NOT to go to the IG (or other agency) but i would at least like things to be corrected at the lowest possible level to give us a chance to fix it before "outsiders" are brought in and things get blown out of proportion." It's like shooting a defendant because you don't think the jury won't do their job and convict.
I am curious how you equate getting railroaded for whistleblowing as justification for punishment for bypassing the chain of command. I have seen military folks do all sort of questionable behavior and the chain of command's solution is a slap on the wrist. Now if someone who feels the need to file an IG compliant and bypasses the chain of command and shortly after that person is demoted, gets bad performance ratings, and/or is re-assigned to a position of lesser responsibility that is acceptable in your eyes? In my experience, image is everything, the military tells everyone they live up to a higher standard and when bad behavior happens which tarnishes that image, they bury the incident. If anyone brings forth information they cannot bury via the chain of command, those individual(s) are ostracized and railroaded.
these people were far from railroaded so that argument is mute. Getting demoted after an incident usually throws up some red flags, performance ratings could be lower due to the choice to be honest with the persons rating as opposed to "keeping them competitive" and is hard for anyone to prove wrong-doing unless there is a drastic drop in rating compared with previous ones. being re-assigned is mostly use to remove that person as a target in the work-place to maintain discipline and most of the time has nothing to do with retribution. The instance used in this article is the commander was re-assigned, prior to these charges, to a non-command position and was later named as one of the people responsible in the alleged retribution acts. I'm sure You don't have a problem with that kind of "re-assignment"?
The military is not a civilian friendly environment to start with, especially when the civilian has no military background. so when someone goes "out of house" with a problem they are "ostercized" by the people they work with and it creates a hostile work environment. That is the nature of the beast, we train to be "one team, one fight" and when someone breaks rank it becomes detrimental to cohesion for the military folks. You can call i burying something, but these people probably did not notify anyone there that it was going on so that it could be corrected in house. Do i agree with retribution for whistle blowing? no, but what they did wasn't whistle blowing they completely ignore the most obvious route to correct the problem and instead went the public humiliation route.
When the chain of command is implicit in the bad behavior, at what point in the chain of command is someone going to do the right thing? In my experience if more than two layers of the command are culpable, the 3rd level supervisor is going to do everything to avoid getting called on the table as his or her actions now threatens the 4th level supevisor promotional chances. Easiest way to solve is to ignore the complaint and shut down the complainer with comments like yours above, "we are all on the same team, don't rock the boat, try to get along, and my personal favorite, be nice. Y'all are trained to kill people but heaven forbid you hold some accountable for their actions or inactions.
They would have to have documentation that there was a complaint. That is where keeping a paper trail comes in. yes, going from your supervisor to your commander is what is suppose to happen regardless of what is done or not done about the complaint before you go out of the house. That is where your paper trail comes in handy.
True, most of us are trained to kill people, other people not each other. I'm all for holding people responsible, but at least give them a chance to hear the problem before you decide to have someone else fix it. There is nothing worse than someone over you coming down to ask you why something is happening that you didn't know about or wasn't told about because somebody decided his issue is too important and wanted to over-step. That's what gets people in trouble. Yes, embarrassing your boss can get you in trouble in the military. It's filed under "remedial training" to correct behavior.
Example: The mail distibutor in a large corporation has a problem with the wheel on his cart wobbling and dumping the mail on the floor. He feels that he needs to go to the CEO first to get his wheel fixed and then announce to the media that company efficiency is down because of his wobbly wheel. that CEO comes down through his "chain-of-command" via VP and other supervisors to find out why his cart isn't getting fixed . the delivery guy didn't even tell his boss what was wrong or he would have found out his boss had an extra wheel in the storage room.