Gina Gray; Arlington whistleblower’s ordeal
Dana Milbank in the Washington Post tells the story of Gina Gray, an actual whistleblower, as opposed to the pretend whistleblowers we’ve read about in the media lately. Gray was a fairly new employee at the Deparment of Defense who tried to tell her superiors about the mismanagement at Arlington National Cemetery and she was fired for her trouble;
Gray’s ordeal began in April 2008 after I covered the Arlington funeral of an officer killed in the Iraq war. While there, I observed a dispute between Gray and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham, the man later at the center of the Arlington scandals. Higginbotham was trying to prevent reporters from observing the burial, in violation of the family’s wishes and Arlington’s regulations — and Gray, though new on the job, told him he was wrong.
Gray registered her objections internally — but loudly. She refused to sign off on a report to the Army secretary’s office that was a whitewash of the way burials were handled at Arlington because, she said, her higher-ups were violating Defense Department regulations. She began to learn of other misdeeds by Arlington management and attempted to let military officials know; in June 2008, according to one of Gray’s legal filings, she told the commanding general of the Military District of Washington about “major problems” at the cemetery, involving fraud, mismanagement and broken regulations.
Two days later, she was fired.
DoD’s inspector general has recommended that Gray be compensated for her wrongful termination as a whistleblower, but Milbanks writes that he got a statement from the Army Secretary’s office stating that they won’t pay her because she was on a probationary status when she was terminated. Gray’s whistleblowing resulted in a housecleaning among the upper echelon of the the staff at Arlington for their gross mismanagement, most of them were allowed to retire, but Gray was fired outright for exposing them. She remains unemployed and had to drop her lawsuit against the DoD because she ran out of money.
Category: Arlington National Cemetary, Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Big Army
The implied message from DOD is to utilize your probationary period to ignore wrongdoing and hopefully become complicit. In other words, become a bureaucrat!
That’s crap. Isn’t there some lawyer who can work with her pro-bono and get their pay from the government once she wins the lawsuit?
Another shining example of our tax dollars at work. New employee gets hired presumably due to qualifications, discovers some things are not as they should be and, while trying to be a good new employee, points those problems out to her superiors. Superiors already know they are lazy, worthless, corrupt bums so they terminate the new employee.
I wish this were the first time I had heard a story like this…..I do hope she can find an attorney who is willing to take on a difficult case.
Is this the same Gina Gray who was on here not too long ago because the poser belladonna rodriquez had stolen her identity by pretending a photo of SSG Gina Gray in Iraq was belladonna? If this is the same Gina Gray, then DA is in even more trouble than we thought, as Gray would be an honorably discharged/retired combat veteran whom DA is trying to shaft and destroy, and the public relations/public outcry complications on this would be even more severe for DA. Imagine, a former female combat veteran who goes to work for DA as a DAC gets shafted/fired/blamed for exposing the management malpratices of old-line enfossilized bureaucrats. If this Gina Gray is the same Army SSG Gina Gray who posted here on TAH, the PR nightmare for DA has just increased tenfold…
I’m hoping the additional public exposure involved in this will set things right and she will be properly and duly compensated.
Yeah, this is definitely one of those cases where I’d be more than happy to give this woman reinstatement and back pay.
As for the probationary status, who gives a flying fuck? She saw something grossly wrong and tried to fix it, which is more than anyone else was doing.
‘If the Obama administration wants whistleblowers to take the “proper” route, it needs to protect them when they do.’
The assumption is that a whistleblower IS protected, and we can see for ourselves that this is completely not trued. If you read the entire article, you see that they are, in fact, persecuted rather than protected. Waht they do clashes with the ‘feel good’ meme of the current administration.
There are more scandals to come. I’m quite sure of that. Clowndog has reached the end of his influence. Geeez, and I thought Nixon was bad.
“She dropped her lawsuit because she ran out of money”. That is a fuckin shame, she shouldn’t have to pay anything, she did no wrong!! Ya gotta love the fantasy world of the beltway.
“If you shoot at a king you must kill him.” — Emerson
Seems to be true in any government organization on earth.
@2.
A lot of lawyers become turd piles when assessing government lawsuits.
I had to deal with it before. They are only interested if it is easy and has a payday.
When helping someone look for an attorney, this is what I got. Loosely translated, not worth their time.
So I just told them thank you and I will be letting the greater Veteran community know that they should take their business elsewhere in the future.
I had a few accuse me of slander for saying that. Anyway, they got the message.
My friend finally found one that took the case. And lets just say, he got paid.
Why is everything on the site center justified all the sudden?
MDW Commander = bootlicker.
MDW SGM = toadie.
@2 The big challenge is that you’re not only taking on the federal government, but that its lawyers have essentially unlimited time and resources. They took full advantage of that and ran out the clock on Gray.
@ #4
From -> http://arlingtoncemetery.net/putting-her-foot-down-getting-the-boot.htm
“She worked for eight years in the Army as a public affairs specialist in Germany, Italy and Iraq, then returned to Iraq as an army contractor doing media operations. While working with the 173rd Airborne in Iraq in 2003, her convoy was ambushed, and, she says, she still has some hearing loss from the explosion. The 30-year-old Arizonan was hired to work at Arlington in April.”
So yes, could very well be the same Gina.
“The implied message from DOD is to utilize your probationary period to ignore wrongdoing and hopefully become complicit. In other words, become a bureaucrat!”
What passes for honor in 2013.
Any business is run the way it is because the management wants it that way — good or bad. Whistleblowers are a wonderful ideal, but the reality is different. No one likes whistleblowers (called “troublemakers”) in their own house. They usually are the harbinger of audits, lawsuits, firings and bad press. A whistleblower better be prepared to walk when they blow that whistle — or be really comfortable standing in the middle of the firestorm they create.
Did this lady do the right thing? Of course. Is her subsequent plight a surprise? No.
I cannot blame attornies for not wanting to take on the government in an employee relations case. It is not that they cannot win, most of the cases I have heard of are winnable.
A friend of mine was wrongfully accused of violations, and was demoted and removed from their occupation. 18 months later while in the deposition phase the Federal Judge hearing the case informed the VA Attorney that their case was without merit, as their key witnesses were utterly unreliable and that they had no case. The VA simply rescinded all charges, making it as if the case never occurred. When the VA Rescinded all charges, it was as if it never happened regarding attorney fees. The Union had hired an attorney, who they had paid his fees up to that date. They lost any hope of the VA having to reimburse them, as did the attorney on the remainder of his bill and expected income had the case gone forwaard. Some strange SCOTUS Ruling that exempted the Federal government from having to reimburse attroney fees for accused, if the Government Agency rescinded charges.
May be why so many attornies want nothing to do with fighting Uncle Sam. It is not a fear of not winning, it is a fear the Government can simply end the case, and walk away free and clear of any finnancial burdens regarding the aggrieved employee.
Dirty rotten bastards the lot of ’em! So, they not only don’t give a shit about our fallen, but they add insult to injury by firing the one person trying to make things right, and a combat Vet to boot!! Then, they act like a bunch act like a bunch of cowards and punish her some more by draining her bank account. Not a man amongst that bunch.
Fuckin’ scum sucking drag queens.
As for the Commander at MDW: Ruck up, Sir.
An employee’s probationary status allows the employer to terminate the employee for any reason or no reason, save for illegal discrimination. The theory behind it is that a probationary employee may be rotten and should not be permitted to hang around while the employer is burdened with the lengthy and costly termination process. What I would argue in this case is that the termination ought to viewed as antithetical to public policy and good government.
Why not set up a legal fund for her? Clearly we have managed to make a difference in other places with low visibility…anyone?
It seems to me what’s broken in the Gina Gray case has happened due to a lack of checks and balances at a high level, and it’s evidently become a matter of shooting the messenger as a warning to anyone else who would air the Army’s dirty laundry. By losing her job, Gray is being punished, yet actually should be no more at fault than someone who, say, witnesses the robbery of a convenience store.
One place where things have apparently gone wrong is that although the Inspector General can be a conduit for information on corruption, the ultimate authority for acting on the information still rests with the Department of the Army. At the risk of yet another lame metaphor, if the fox is guarding the hen house, who is supposed to be watching the fox?
It’s probably also true that if you look at Gray as a witness, and not as a protagonist in a legal scuffle, it means that it should no longer be up to her, and her available financial resources, to determine how things should shake out in court. In the interest of fairness and what’s best for the country, the actual conflict might be better fought between separate segments of government. The precedent for this has already been seen by some agencies of local law enforcement, ostensibly unable to clean up their own corruption mess, who have been forced to operate under consent decrees.
The process of whistle blowing should also not be a matter of punishment versus reward. Somehow, the system seems to be set up in a way that would allow Gray to reap a financial windfall, but only if she has a certain level of financial resources. Whatever happened to the idea of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing and not because it’s a matter of playing legal casino?
“Whatever happened to the idea of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing and not because it’s a matter of playing legal casino?”
Indeed. She is the female Bradley Manning.
@22- um, no. Brenna Manning sold classified info to Wikileaks because the Army wouldn’t pay for it’s gender-reassignment surgery, not because it was the “right thing to do”
Ian: sure. In fact their actions were damn near identical.
Gray took her complaints through proper channels to a corrupt leadership who later fired her – and who were in turn fired when her complaints were proven to be substantiated. Manning took classified material to foreign individuals who made it public and caused the death of individuals friendly to the US, and maybe US personnel as well. He’s been convicted of multiple felonies for doing so.
Their actions certainly seem virtually identical to me.
And yes, I’m being sarcastic as hell in agreeing with you. If you’re serious in equating the two, you are a freaking idiot.
This is bullshit. She did it the right way. The person who fired her should have their nuts crushed. Nut crushings should go up the chain until she’s reinstated with back pay.
Then, at worst, she should be given the job her superior had. She showed honor and integrity in her actions. She was treated ignobly and without integrity. This is intolerable.
Maybe slightly off topic but I’ll say it anyway. My bride of 30 years ashes were buried at Arlington (ANC) last Wednesday. I was gratified by their diligence which was, really chain of custody. I brought the urn to ANC. The ANC rep (a great guy BTW) had me sign an affidavit and proof of cremation and custody. The family and friends walked to the grave site where an Old Guard Soldier was standing at attention with an Old Guard CPT standing nearby. I formally presented the urn to the Soldier and he received it formally. He presented it to the CPT and the two placed it on the burial site for the ceremony. Afterwards,the ANC rep watched the urn like a hawk while it was placed in a vault and buried. He then encouraged us to photo the interim marker. Her site already appears on the ANC website with a photo of the headstone coming. I was impressed.
BTW: my bride was Belgian. All I asked for was a Priest. ANC provided a Monseigneur from Lebanon who was fluent in many languages. He conducted the service and included portions in French and Italian, which my bride spoke. His ceremony was so personal that some attendees thought he was our parish priest.
Back on topic: I hope this lady’s actions contributed to all of this.
The current regime has been prosecuting whistleblowers as spies. 197 whistleblowers have been charged under espionage laws.
#26. I’m very sorry for your loss, and grateful they did well for you there.
#22 Ian –
You’re wrong, but your comment helps define the dilemma.
Bradley Manning’s motives have always been questionable, and there’s a strong argument that can be made that his disclosures were more about notoriety and getting back at his perceived persecutors than they ever were about things wrong the Army was doing.
Another one with real dodgy motives is Edward Snowden who at some point crossed over to the dark side when he and Glenn Greenwald plotted to have Snowden go to work for Booz Allen.
Gina Gray is a very different situation in that she did the right thing in the right way and got dumped on.
Manning and Snowden failed the system; the system failed Gray. And because of the specific way the system failed, Gray can claim the moral high ground in a way Manning and Snowden can’t.
Lest there be any confusion, there are probably more than a few folks among the TAH crew, including some old MI types, who find the fact that the NSA has been casually trampling all over the Fourth Amendment to be annoying in the extreme. Still, those same people would probably tell you that both Manning and Snowdem deserve to be locked up. Having both views might seem contradictory, but they’re really not.
Ian…look up the word “fucktard” in the dictionary. See that? Yeah, that’s you.
@4 + 14: Took a look at the headline photo and the one Belladimwit ripped off. Profile vs side shot, sure, but there seem to be some similarities (eyebrows, cheeks, etc).
Same or not, a terrible shame.
This should settle the lack of comprehension on Ian’s part.
Whistleblowers have guidelines to follow and are supposed to be protected for following them.
Manning sold classified info to Wikileaks because s/he/it was feeding a worthless fucking ego and was, in addition, an undisciplined social moron who punched a higher-ranked enlisted, and got pasted for it. He didn’t blow the whistle on anything, he sold out. He also got people killed.
Gina Gray followed the guidelines for reporting those not following the rules at a national cemetery. Her actions got the slackers and layabouts in trouble for NOT following prescribed procedures. She was not feeding her ego, she followed the rules, and got fired for it.
Manning is an unprincipled asshole who doesn’t give a crap about anyone but himself, and thought it was okay to commit a crime. He’s facing some serious prison time now.
Gray is principled, followed the rules, and did the right thing, but lost her job.
I’d hire her in a second. I think a lot of other people would, too.