Joe Rocha revisited

I’ve been getting my ass handed to me in my email from Ace of Spade’s Gabriel Malor and doubleplusundead‘s AliceH for not doing my homework on the Washington Post opinion piece I quoted yesterday. I should add that I’m getting my ass handed to me in a very genial manner.

I’ll concede I was a bit rushed because my wife wanted to see the West Virginia mountains before the leaves all fall off of the trees (like they did last year and like they will again next year).

Gabe wrote to say;

Contrary to your commenters who claimed Rocha is a “failure at life” and your suggestion that he’s just “weak in the knees” and “looking for an excuse”, it appears that something went on over there and DADT played a part. Is it as bad as he says? Is he exaggerating? We don’t know (yet), but dismissing him outright avoids the facts.

If, as you say, it’s bullshit then you have nothing to fear from pointing your readers at the investigation. On the other hand, if something did go on, you just libeled a good man (and encouraged others to do so) based on nothing but your gut.

Either way, your post didn’t do a bit of good for any involved. Doesn’t make the Navy look better. Doesn’t rehabilitate DADT. It certainly doesn’t get us any closer to getting past the counterproductive status quo.

So I went to digging and found a Navy Times article which said;

In January [2007], Rear Adm. David Mercer, the commander of Navy Region Europe, Africa and Southwest Asia, sent a team of senior officials to review the working dog unit and others at Naval Support Activity Bahrain.

Mercer subsequently added personnel to Bahrain, he said.

Master-at-Arms Senior Chief Michael Toussaint, the man implicated in the investigation, works with SEALs in Virginia. He reaches his 20-year point in the Navy this coming January.

It’s unclear if anyone was disciplined in the wake of the 2007 investigation.

One sailor implicated in the probe, Master-at-Arms 1st Class Jennifer Valdivia, committed suicide in January 2007, the same day the investigators forwarded their report to her commanders.

Her suicide was likely tied to the investigation, according to her family and Navy investigators.

AliceH wrote to tell me about the circumstances surrounding Valdivia’s death;

Petty Officer 3rd Class Jake Wilburn, who received a dishonorable discharge, told the newspaper he felt as though he became a scapegoat. He said Valdivia failed to stop the hazing after Toussaint’s departure.

“Once he left, everybody had been used to being ruled by fear and intimidation,” Wilburn said. “She didn’t know how to lead any other way. Everybody completely walked all over her, and she just lost control. No one paid her respect, so she tried to overcompensate.

As I learned my lesson about research, I chased down another Navy Times article;

Master-at-Arms 1st Class Jennifer Valdivia’s apparent suicide came on the same day the investigators forwarded their report to the commander of Naval Support Activity Bahrain.

“They told her to pack her bags; she was going to the brig. They were going to strip her of everything she ever got in the Navy,” her father, Chris Young, of Alpha, Ill., told Navy Times.

Valdivia had been promoted to the kennel’s leading petty officer after Toussaint left Bahrain in March 2006, Young said.

The Navy official familiar with the investigation confirmed that Valdivia was leaving the Navy but her commanders halted that move as a result of the investigation. It’s unclear whether her suicide was connected to the probe, the official said.

So, apparently, something very wrong was going on at the Navy’s Working Dog Unit in Bahrain. Does it change my mind about Rocha? Nope. He blamed his supervisor at the Working Dog Unit for his PTSD and his decision for announcing his sexual orientation to his supervisors, but that’s not what he told the Navy Times reporter;

While in Rhode Island, Rocha decided to tell his command that he is a homosexual because he disagreed with the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He said he wanted to pursue a career permitting him to acknowledge his homosexuality.

He claims he made a political decision unrelated to his treatment. Valdavia was blamed for the same things that unit members said that her previous supervisor had done. And who were the witnesses about the behavior – Joe Rocha the politically motivated activist and Jake Wilburn, a sailor who has been dishonorably discharged.

Rocha says DADT was the reason he couldn’t report the hazing to which he claims he was subjected, yet he had no problem taking his punishment at the prep school.

Am I the only one who sees the flaws in this story? Having been railroaded by military subordinates a few times myself, I recognize the pattern.

Might I be wrong? Yes, it happened before. Once. As I told Gabe, I made it clear that my opinion is based on nothing except my gut feelings. Since we’re only treated to one side of this story, (there’s nothing anywhere that I can find quoting Master-at-Arms Senior Chief Michael Toussaint) we have to assume we’re missing something.

I haven’t changed my mind from yesterday, though. And if “getting past the counterproductive status quo” rests solely on my shoulders, I’m pretty sure this post doesn’t help.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues