Little head thinking gets CPT fired
Married Capt. John Hintz, a captain of a recruiting unit in Des Moines got fired for sending and receiving racy emails with a local school superintendent, Dr. Nancy Sebring, there. Sebring resigned her position earlier this year as a result of her indiscretion and began a law suit to keep the emails and Hintz’ name from being made public. According to the Des Moines Register;
The personal correspondence came to light following public records requests by The Des Moines Register and Omaha World-Herald seeking information about Sebring’s sudden exit from the Des Moines district in May. She had accepted an offer to become leader of Omaha’s public schools, but then resigned from the Des Moines job earlier than scheduled.
Quoting from the Army Times, WHOTV writes;
Hintz has served in the Army for 14-years and is the recipient of the General MacArthur Leadership Award, the Army Commendation Medal with “V” and the Purple Heart.
There’s a longer story at the Army Times, but I don’t link to Gannett any more because they employ Tobias Naegele, the senior editor at Military Times who is a crybaby, cowardly, backstabbing POS.
I’m guessing that Hintz had service as an enlisted man before he became an officer, because there’s no way the Army would keep a captain around for 14 years otherwise. But thinking with your little head while in uniform is a really bad idea. Especially if you’re going to use government servers and email accounts to conduct your tryst. Hintz switched to a private email account about halfway through the affair, but it was too late, I suppose.
Category: Military issues
Yet more proof of the old saying that the Deity gave men two heads and only enough blood to operate one at at time . . . .
CPT of a recruiting depot. That says it all.
Again?! I’ll be interested to see what happens to the horny Cpt! The nasty Col, IMHO, got away with it.
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I never figured out why I saw so much fucked up shit when I was in recruiting. It’s like integrity and honor went out the window for some of these people. Made me wonder how they ever rose above E-3, if that.
Yat Yas 1833: doesn’t seem to be overt fraud involved, so I doubt he’ll be prosecuted. But a relief-for-cause eval is a career-killer for an Army officer. And unless he’s a fairly junior CPT, he may well get 2x nonselect for promotion before hitting the 18 year sanctuary point and end up out the door w/o retirement. I’d also guess there’s a good chance he could be paying alimony and child support soon, too.
@2: Eat shit…seriously.
Starting with YG2000, those of us who weren’t assessed combat arms aren’t required to command in order to be branch qualified as a Captain. That means HRC has no incentive to properly manage those officers and they can get pigeonholed into “equivalent staff positions”. For example: a Signal Officer who has 2 years of Battalion or Brigade S6 time as a Captain is considered branch qualified and often is told he CAN’T command because he’s too senior. I was one such individual who had to fight to get a Recruiting Command in order to have any command time at all.
As for the Captain: very poor judgment is unfortunately all too common in USAREC. In the 2 years I was in command, I saw a peer removed from command for sleeping with another Soldier’s wife at an Annual Training Conference, saw multiple Recruiters get busted for inappropriate relationships, whether perceived or otherwise, had two Soldiers busted for adultery, and saw multiple abuses of the Government Travel Card/Recruiter Expenses.
As I was leaving command, Recruiters were being told in official policy NOT TO ACCEPT FRIEND REQUESTS from trainees or recruits…and to lock down their twitter accounts, as they were being held responsible for inappropriate posts on their wall…from others.
As far as 5’s comment…it’s simple: not everyone can handle the stresses of recruiting. Even those who can suffer incredible strains on their personal and family lives. Some command climates in USAREC are so toxic that they even lead to suicides (see Houston Recruiting Battalion case from 2009).
Hondo, you can guarantee there will be a thorough audit of his GOVCC expenses as well as the vehicle log of his GOV.
@7.Perhaps I was a little harsh. You have a valid point.
Now as far as eating shit, I have a good deal of experience. I personally like mine with a little Heinz 57. It helps mitigate the aroma and allows it to stay on the bread.
David: doubtless, and that is as it should be. But I’m guessing he was probably clean regarding the GOVCC and use of his GOV. The fact that he was smart enough to put all the really steamy stuff in e-mail from a non-govt account shows he’s got at least some common sense. When the upper head is in operation, that is. (smile)
Does anyone know what this woman looks like?
I mean, is she smoking hot?
Green Thumb: there are photos in the article linked above. Demi Moore or Angelina Jolie she ain’t.
Wow. I cannot believe that this guy jepordized his career over her.
Seeing is believing, though.
She’s 15 years older than he is, too.
This guy was a company commander in by BN last deployment. D co. 1-187. Seemed like a pretty squared away guy. Apparently not. They got chewed the fuck up in Afghanistan. 60 Minutes did a special on COP Zerok where his company occupied. Don’t know why you would go to recruiting command after commanding a line company? I’m no officer though, maybe that is more common than I thought. He had all the right tickets punched, really shit the bed on this one.
…Sadly, anything an officer or senior NCO does in a recruiting unit would not surprise me – the worst could best be described as Joe Izuzu from the old commercials…with a homicidal streak. The best…well, merely incompetent and/or clueless is the most charitable description possible. We only had one actual recruiter go rogue while I was in that misbegotten job (USAFRO Akron OH, 89-93), but it was pretty spectacular – he was doing his own pelvic exams on female recruits. On the other hand, this guy sounds like he knew his time was up after he was sent back from Afghanistan, and just didn’t give a damn.
Mike
He didn’t get sent back from Afghanistan, he finished the tour and redeployed with his company
@15:
After command, you’re basically locked into an assignment into one of the three billets before you make Major:
-ROTC instructor
-Recruiting Company Commander
-JRTC/NTC OC
As a recruiting commander, it’s all about attitude:
If you go in with a “woe is me, I’m stuck here” attitude, you will fail and your Soldiers will wait you out. If you go in head first, make your highest priority to do the best you can to enable your recruiters to succeed in all aspects (yes, even higher of a priority than the actual mission…blasphemy to all USAREC folks, I know), and do the right thing even if you get punished for it, you will be remembered for a long time.
I actually wrote an article to that effect that was published in the April 2010 Recruiter Journal (afterthought article for an ILE requirement).
@16:
One thing you don’t know is that anytime there is ANY suspicion of impropriety, an investigation happens. When it’s at Station-Level or below, a COMPANY COMMANDER is pulled out of the fight to investigate.
In this case, a Battalion Commander is going to get pulled out of his AO to investigate this.
@18
Those jobs are career killers for CG officers, unless you do not care.
Ex. If you are a LTC looking to hang it up and get your kids in-state…I get it. Plus you can teach, mentor and give something back.
Outside of that….
@18 makes sense, every commander I have ever had has gone to JRTC or NTC. Never had one go to ROTC or Recruiting. Thanks for the insight
@21.
They’re only a career killer if you do poorly.
My Battalion Commander while I was in recruiting was COL Ed Box.
In 2002, he was the Downers Grove Recruiting Company Commander (company I commanded from 2007-2009)
In 2008, he was the Chicago Recruiting Battalion Commander
He just took command of the 3rd Recruiting Brigade
The current commanding general of 4ID was the DCG of USAREC while I was there
The current CG of USARAK was the Chief of Staff of USAREC before he became Chief of Staff of XVIII Airborne
The current CG of III Corps was the USAREC Commanding General after being the Chief of Staff of V Corps (if I’m not mistaken, he’s also Bruce Campbell’s older brother)
Check that, LTG Campbell is not related to Bruce.
USAREC is a different beast, to be sure, but that is not to say that investigations aren’t conducted. David in #20 is right, and it seemed that Baton Rouge battalion had more than its fair share of misconduct and improprieties. The battalion Sharepoint for JAG was left open for access for a short while and I was surprised to see how many people were seeing UCMJ.
That said, senior NCOs and officers in USAREC do tend to protect their own. At the company level and below, I heard of many things simply being dismissed that were not right.
As far as 5?s comment…it’s simple: not everyone can handle the stresses of recruiting.
I would opine then that compared to some jobs out there, recruiting is NOT that stressful, or if so, that most of the “stress” is in the form of artificial stress placed on the field guys by the CRF (Navy term for Career Recruiter Force, or as we called them, Can’t Remember Fleet) types.
The Navy says that the CPO community is the backbone and leadership of the Navy–if that was so, the CPO community I saw when I was in recruiting was so soup-sandwich fucked up I wouldn’t follow them into a whorehouse if they had a handful of $100’s and the other was full of condoms.
STRESS does not make people do shit like this (or what I saw.) Lack of integrity does.
#26,
USAREC is a different beast. It’s gotten much better, but I saw the last vestiges of the “old” USAREC when I reported in December 2008. Write contracts and you’re good to go, unless the station/company is sucking. Then it’s “what else you got?”. Don’t write contracts and your career is threatened, personal time taken away, and work environment just plain sucks. Sure, most of the stress was (and is) placed on Recruiters by their leaders, but just dealing with a variety of people is stressful itself.
Getting chewed out by irate mothers, having Future Soldiers decide they don’t want to go the weekend they were supposed to ship, having a Future Soldier get shot in the chest while waiting to ship, going to a school to console students after a much loved JROTC instructor dies while testing a rappel tower. All of these are stressors that are unique to USAREC–though every leader deals with similar situations.
@26:
You’re right and wrong at the same time. Stress on its own doesn’t make people do those things. A combination of stress, fear, and weak will does.
You’re also right that the majority of the stress in USAREC comes from USAREC itself. Toxic leaders contribute heavily to that stress.
fm–when I was in the field, the saying was, “Two for you, three for the station, four for the distict.” I’m sure you’re also familiar with the term, “Hero to zero.” I knew guys who had PPR’s over 3 who rolled doughnuts two months in a row and were threatened with mast (June and July SUCKS when you have a shitload of 11S RTO’s.) When I became the Nuclear recruiter, I had the CR jumping my shit on a near-daily basis going, “Why aren’t YOU making goal?” as if the NRD’s lack of focus on a small (15 of a total goal of 250) was going to change because he bitched me out. You can only help a field recruiter so much, and when a kid joins because of my efforts, it’s “HIS” contract, and if he attrites, it’s “MY” failure. Point out a recruiter’s school folder where he’s simply put in the same names year after year without ever stepping foot in the fucking school because half the people he’s listed have retired and moved on, and it’s YOUR fault for pointing that out. A recruiter asks you to make a presentation on a day next week that you can’t commit to because that day was taken by another school 200 miles away, and guess who gets bitched out by the CR and Zone Sup? Yep–yours truly. I also dealt first-hand with the pissed off monthers, EPO’s, CO’s, and even Admirals and Congressmen who didn’t seem to understand Johnny wasn’t going because Johnny was a shitbag, and frankly I wouldn’t want him standing watch on my boat anyway. Despite that, I never felt anywhere near the level of stress I did running the plant on a boat, to say nothing of sucumbing to the temptations of dipping DEPpers, getting blown by a Zone Sup’s wife (ask my first CR and Admiral Watson about that one–Google it if you like), driving G-jets drunk WITH APPLICANTS IN THE CAR AND THEN WRECKING THEM, putting ringers on deck for the ASVAB and then claiming at his mast, “I did it for the… Read more »
This was husbands old captin…. he will be in more trouble once they dig somemore…
Fuck USAREC
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/03/army-major-selections-list-030112w/
This is what happened to John Hintz. He was promoted to Major.