Blue Mass Group

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$25 MILLION down the drain because of homophobia

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Decorated, 18-year-vet F-15 Fighter Pilot, Victor Fehrenbach, is being thrown out of the airforce for being gay, two years before he can retire with a full pension:

Please watch that video. Everyone needs to watch it. This guy is amazing. He’s saved American lives. We trained him at the cost of $25 million to this country — and he clearly made good use of it. Now, we’re getting rid of this war hero, two years before he could retire with dignity and with the hero’s welcome he deserves, because he’s a sexual minority. WTF?

Over at my blog, I called this Obama’s violence on gay people. It has me so angry I’m ready to riot on the streets. It’s within Obama’s power to suspend DADT and place a moratorium until Congress fixes this law. He promised to end DADT early and often on the campaign trail — and now he’s backtracking a mile a minute.

An entire generation of gay people have been waiting for this policy to be fixed. Lives are being destroyed – and America is being made less safe: Our military has thrown out over ten thousand qualified, well-trained people — at the cost of who knows how many billions in lost training and talent – because of policies made in bigotry. When will this stop? Why won’t President Obama keep his promise?

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  3. …but are you sure it’s within Obama’s power to suspend a duly enacted law?  Personally, I think as Commander-in-Chief it SHOULD be his right, but that’s different from saying that it IS.

    • Please don’t use the word violence in this context.  The link is to definitions I looked up just to be sure there wasn’t an obscure definition of which I wasn’t aware.  He was not physically injured or roughed up and Obama has not personally shown him ill will.  Save that term for Matthew Shepard or for how the police treated civil rights demonstrators in the 60s.  This is another instance where we risk a word losing its impact if applied too generously.

      • his life was ruined. What he was doing for 18 years was taken away from him. That is committing violence against him. I will use the word violence, because that is what was committed. We risk “losing” by being watered down pansies. Lives are being destroyed – I will describe what’s being done accurately and impeccably.

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        p>As for Obama, he can stop Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell tomorrow. It’s an executive order or two away. While Obama’s correct that such a measure can’t be “durable” and can be sustained indefinitely so long as he’s president, which will give Congress plenty of time to act – as well as save this hero’s up-to-now life and livelihood.  

        • While Obama’s correct that such a measure can’t be “durable,” and it can be sustained indefinitely so long as he’s president, which will give Congress plenty of time to act – as well as save this hero’s up-to-now life and livelihood.

           

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          p>fixed

    • … the policy was instituted from the executive, not the legislative branch.  Was this actually turned into a law afterwards?

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      p>Either way, there is some disagreement over who has authority to lift the policy:

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      p>

      The Obama administration has suggested that it is Congress, not the president, which has the authority to lift the ban. However, a committee of military law experts at the University of California at Santa Barbara has recently determined that it is within the authority of the executive branch to discontinue the policy.

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      p>Link to the referenced paper here.

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      p>Interesting note on your reference to violence below:

      Beyond the official regulations, gay people were often the target of various types of harassment by their fellow servicemen, designed to persuade them to resign from the military or turn themselves in to investigators. The most infamous type of such harassment was called a blanket party; during the night in the barracks, several service members first covered the face of the victim with a blanket and then committed assault, often quite severely and sometimes even fatally, as in the case of Allen R. Schindler, Jr.. When passing the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” bill, President Clinton cited U.S. Navy Radioman Third Class Schindler, who was brutally murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey (with the aid of an accomplice), leaving a “nearly-unrecognizable corpse”. The introduction of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” with the later amendment of “don’t pursue, don’t harass” has officially prohibited such behavior, but reports suggest that such harassment continues.

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      p>They actually used the violence as justification for the policy.  That is, they threw up their hands at the military’s ability to control it’s own troops from criminal activity.  Of course the only way this happens is if people in the system let stuff slide.

      • …I abhor and condemn in the strongest terms any actual violence committed against a soldier on account of sexual orientation.  The excuse you cite on the part of the military is indeed pretty pathetic.

    • and I linked in a reply to your PS comment, yes, it’s within the President’s authority to suspend implementing DADT. It was written into the very law that created the policy that the President would have broad authority in interpreting and enforcing it. If the President decided to indefinitely suspend DADT upon further review, and to give congress time to act on changing the policy, it would violate no law or even the spirit of the law.  

    • No, he can’t do that.  But he doesn’t need to.  This is a military matter, and as to such matters the president’s power as commander-in-chief is at its zenith.  Each DADT discharge is a sort of adjudicatory proceeding within the military.  It seems to me that the president, as c-in-c, can order a high-level review of each such discharge to ensure that it is not adversely affecting national security (or some other mumbo-jumbo).  That will effectively stop the discharges for as long as he wants them to stop.  Very simple.  I do not understand why he’s not doing it.

      • … here with regard to the POTUS Commander-In-Chief powers and the Congress’ power to create a standing army?  Does congress have no say in the makeup of the army they are empowered to create?

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        p>Article 1, Section 8:

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        p>

        To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

        To provide and maintain a Navy;

        To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

        • In this case, the very law that congress created (DADT) gave the executive branch wide powers in overseeing and enforcing it.  

          • … but not to David’s:  “This is a military matter, and as to such matters the president’s power as commander-in-chief is at its zenith.”  

            • that the Prez has considerable latitude in the management of the military, otherwise, what does being c-in-c mean?  Of course, he can’t directly contravene a congressional enactment.  But he has a lot of wiggle room, and he should use it.

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              p>In other words, he should exercise his power, and if someone doesn’t like it, they can pass another law or sue him.  Of course, neither of those will happen under the present circumstances.

              • … the issue can be said to speak more toward the army’s composition than operation.  The primary power for raising an army is clearly the Legislature in the constitution, and composition seems more an issue to be worked out in the raising of the army more than it’s operation.  Let’s put it differently,… if the Legislature decided to set quotas by age for recruitment to be strictly adhered to, wouldn’t that be within it’s power constitutionally?  It’s not a stretch then to wonder if the Legislature decided to restrict on the basis of sexuality.  At that point DADT could be seen as an executive mitigation to a Legislative mandate under Article 1:

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                p>Mandate: No homosexuals in the army.
                Executive work-around: Operationally we won’t know about sexuality (DADT)

                <

                p>Mandate: No ‘out’ homosexuals in the army.
                Executive regulation ensuring compliance: Operationally we won’t know about sexuality (DADT)

                <

                p>Even if you don’t buy that, it still begs the question, what does it mean that the Legislature can raise an army?  Surely it doesn’t just mean ‘fund’ an army (the purse string powers are pretty clearly enumerated explicitly).  It just occurs to me that, if you buy that it is not limited to funding, composition seems logically within the purview.

                • And that’s coming from a lawyer.  I just don’t think it works that way.  Obama’s c-in-c.  He runs the show.  So it runs the way he says it runs.  If Congress doesn’t like it, as I said, they can pass a new law, or someone can sue him.  And that will not happen.

  4.  President Obama was elected. He now has no need to satisfy every little splinter of the pary platform. I never really heard him express wholehearted support for GLBT’s.
    I think maybe the captain was fooling around with the wrong superior officer. It happened to a friend of mine.  
    Is there a source for the $25 million figure? I would like to read it.

    • yeah, those gays, women, and racial minorities wanting their equal rights.  so annoying.  

    • … that figure specifically, but I wikipedia has a section on the financial impacts of the policy:

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      p>

      In February 2005, the Government Accountability Office released estimates on the cost of the policy. Cautioning that the amount may be too low, the GAO reported $95.4 million in recruiting costs and $95.1 million for training replacements for the 9,488 troops discharged from 1994 through 2003.

      In February 2006, a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission including Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary during the Reagan administration, former Defense Secretary William Perry, a member of the Clinton administration, and professors from West Point U.S. Military Academy concluded that figure should be closer to $363 million, including $14.3 million for “separation travel” once a service member is discharged, $17.8 million for training officers, $252.4 million for training enlistees and $79.3 million in recruiting costs. The commission report stated that the GAO didn’t take into account the value the military lost from the departures.

    • to train that pilot would have to be included in the costs. How much does it cost to fly a training mission? Or the weaponry they use in training? The cost of repairing and maintaining a piece of equipment (an F-15) that’s worth tens of millions? Or all the actual teaching involved in how to pilot a sophisticated plane like the F-15, including the skills he needed to earn that model of honor he received, which he described during the interview. Indeed, it seems like the $25 million figure — which came from him — is rather conservative.  

      • is that they did get value over their 18 years.  I’m not arguing in support of DADT; merely focusing on the training claim.  They got tremendous productivity out of him, so the training costs aren’t “lost” and since he’s got fewer than two years to go, they weren’t going to get a tremendous amount more productivity out of him.

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        p>The policy is awful, but training costs are a red herring.

        • Losing his services for 2 years either means the air force has to retrain someone else quicker, at great cost, or do without a F-15 Fighter Pilot. Moreover, regardless of which decision the Air Force makes, America is less safe: a new pilot would almost certainly be less skilled and one less highly trained pilot is one less highly trained pilot that – either of which could get people unnecessarily killed. Training costs are not a red herring — they may not be the be-all, end-all, but if DADT is costing our country hundreds of millions, that’s hundreds of millions less we can be spending on things like health care or body armor for our troops.  

          • financially or in terms of aggregate ability of their airmen… but given that he’s served for 18 years, the $25M isn’t akin to Bluto Blutowski’s seven years of college.  That’s all.

  5. How is it that this man was “found out”? Was it the result of fraternization (absolutely forbidden in the military)
    That 25 milion sum is ridiculous and absurd. Training over an 18 period may reach to the level of two million—max.

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    p>As a 28 year military person and having served in two wars I’ll beat this drum one more time. You don’t want to go into a war zone with people that do not have your best interest at heart. It could result in a fatal injury by ommision or commission. That’s just the way it is—like it or not. The military is very unforgiving whatever the chink in your armor is. The uniformed services are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the
    Articles of War. Aforementioned codify behavior and the consequence for failing to adhere to same. You cannot, now or ever, force a human being to conform to a particular type of behavior. You may punish nonconformity. In the military—a lot of folks simply don’t care. In a war zone, where there is active shooting, grudges and scores get settled and the dirty linen gets aired. Folks have one priority and that is survival. You get in a combat situation for long enough and sometimes folks don’t even care about that much. They simply want to close with the enemy and kill him and destroy everything around them—everything else amounts to nothing—ie rules/regs/civility.
    Unless you have been in combat for a protracted period of time you can’t understand what I am talking about–but give it some thought. I am not saying it is right—what I am saying is that is just the way it is.

    • It doesn’t answer the question.  Even if there’s some argument to made against gays in active combat, what about, say, intelligence jobs?  What about jobs as an Arabic translator, for God’s sake?

      • ” I have to die because I am straight” and “so and so will live” (because he/she has a REMF job). The ACLU will sue you.

        • are still not assigned to certain combat duties, I believe.  Apparently that is OK.  Why would this be any different?

    • doesn’t have anything to do with gays, or blacks, or Catholics, or Jews, or yankees, or rednecks, or any other arbitrary subgroup.

      <

      p>So help me understand.

    • The Brits and Israelis allow gay people to serve openly in their armies – including active duty combat situations. Are you suggesting that American soldiers are incapable of dealing with gays in the armies when those other countries, with equally skilled and trained soldiers, are managing fine? If you think that, you’re not very patriotic, are you?

      • You’re talking apples and oranges. How about the ROK Marines, the Russians, the Ghurka’s. Everyone has a different rule book.  The bottom line is that the service secretaries, the Joint Chiefs, the chiefs of staff and the Commandant all say the same thing, ” maybe in the future—not now.” The legal quagmire is in itself beyond dealing with. Personally—if it happened, I think everthing would be quiet for about six months, then the problems would start. Then the courts martial, then an escalation in problems, then open revolt. The military is a closed society. It is like a caged tiger. You don’t poke it with a stick, because if for whatever reason it gets out of its cage —then you are in deep shit. You can make all of the derisive comments you like—it will change nothing and the only thing between you an Al Qaeda is the US military. Learn to live with it–or learn to live with the Taliban. I understand the Taliban are inclusive and celebrate diversity. Goodfellas  

        • … Israel and the UK soldiers to not be criminals and/or for their system to root them out when they are, but you can’t trust US soldiers as much.

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          p>Glad to see where your relative levels of trust are.

        • Clearly, you think so little of our military service men and woman, that you think they’re incapable of working with gay men and women. Why do you hate America?

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          p>

          it will change nothing and the only thing between you an Al Qaeda is the US military. Learn to live with it–or learn to live with the Taliban.

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          p>That is such utter bullshit. Do you know anything about the fucking Taliban?

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          p>

          I understand the Taliban are inclusive and celebrate diversity

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          p>What a surprise, more malarkey. Seriously, dude, that’s not even tongue-in-cheek, that’s just offensive. The oppression the Taliban forced on the other regions of Afghanistan and on women was literally homicidal. Why would you even joke about that?

  6. for the bravery and sacrifice you’ve shown by enlisting in the military for a lifelong career, and for fighting for the citizens of our country.  Thank you for your dedication to the people you lead into battle, for providing your expertise in leading soldiers into and safely out of military operations.  
    I hope you win the current battle you are having with our government concerning DADT, your right to serve and your right to finish your career in the military in order to be discharged with full honors and full retirement.
    Our government and country owe you not only that, but so much more.  Thank You so much for dedicated service.

      • Do you know where I can find the job description for a Lt.Col. in the Air Force?  

          • He’s a Lt. Col. in the Army.  Not the air force.  I would think that would be a 4 instead of a 3 though….

            • Unless your point was to demonstrate that homophobic Lt. Cols are perfectly OK, just not homosexual ones?

                • Note that the Army and Air Force roles differ somewhat:

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                  p>

                  In the United States Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, lieutenant colonel is a field grade military officer rank just above the rank of major and just below the rank of colonel. It is equivalent to the rank of commander in the other uniformed services.

                  In the U.S. Army, a lieutenant colonel typically commands a battalion-sized unit (300 to 1,000 soldiers), with a Command Sergeant Major as principal NCO assistant. A lieutenant colonel may also serve as a brigade or task force Executive Officer.

                  In the Air Force, a Lieutenant Colonel is generally a director of operations or a squadron commander in the operations group, a squadron commander in the mission support and maintenance groups, or a squadron commander or division chief in a medical group. Lieutenant colonels may also serve on general staffs and may be the heads of some wing staff departments.

                  In the 21st century U.S. military, the rank of lieutenant colonel is usually gained after 16-22 years of service as an officer. As most officers are eligible to retire after 20 years active service, it is the most common rank at which career officers retire.

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                  p>

                • I think you’re rating out of your disdain for Sen. Brown as a person regardless of his experience in the military, which would be far more informative than wikipedia.

                • My father in law was also a Lt. Col. … and who cares?

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                  p>Thanks for the reminder of why the Mass. GOP is hurtling towards irrelevancy.  What’s your rank in the state party, again?  

                • and I mention a particular Lt. Col. who is a public figure which one could easily email and ask such a question of, you would think this would be relevant.  

                  <

                  p>However, from this thread and the last, it appears that missing the point is quickly becoming your modus operandi.  

              • I googled him and he came up as a fallen soldier, did he do something that was against gay people?

      • and could not find one from a website I know to be reputable. The only info on the USAF official website is payscale?!  That was a big help.

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        p>But from what I’ve read about Lt. Col. Fehrenbach and about other Lt. Col.’s, he was a leader without question, and a very good one too.

        • “Lead into battle” doesn’t have to mean the first person to walk into the area.  The man is, by definition, a leader.  He’s a field grade officer between major and colonel, and either a director of operations or a squadron commander.

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          p>An Lt Col is the leader, responsible for other airmen.  He and his personnel go to battles, risking injury or death.  Ergo, he “lead[s] into battle”.

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