Air Force fires officers for nuke scandal
Greg and PintoNag send us links to the story that the Air Force has fired nine “commanders” and will discipline a dozen more in regards to the ballistic weapons force scandal that rocked Malmstrom Air Force Base’s 341st Missile Wing earlier this year, according to the Associated Press;
Investigators determined that the cheating, which officials originally said happened in August or September last year, began as early as November 2011 and continued until November 2013, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal details before James’ announcement. It involved unauthorized passing of answers to exams designed to test missile launch officers’ proficiency in handling “emergency war orders,” which are messages involving the targeting and launching of missiles.
When the cheating was first revealed, Air Force leaders condemned it as violating the most basic Air Force values. They also suggested that it reflected an unhealthy pressure from commanders to achieve perfect test scores.
The commander of the wing, Col. Robert Stanley, was allowed to resign, of course.
Category: Air Force
Everyone involved in this ought to be doing jail time in a federal prison. This involved the most powerful part of our strategic arsenal.
Just the skimming of details has to undermine faith in the reliability of the US Air Force to maintain and, if needs be, use, our land-based strategic nuclear missiles.
IMHO, this ONE thing is the most important task given to the USAF and if they can’t do this, then what else might they be falling short on?
Not to mention that our potential enemies can look at this and wonder just how much of a deterrent those systems are. Perhaps our Air Force is as corrupt as our government. Certainly it begs the question when they have to resort to cheating to pass what should be core job requirements.
Well, the personnel and benefits costs savings with ending those careers should just about cover the cost of maintaining the new 2 star billet as SECDEF’s senior advisor for military professionalism.
Karma. Several months ago Col Stanley sacked security forces group commander Col David Lynch…what goes around.
BTW, Col Stanley was a Brig Gen select…
Yep. The scandal coming to light almost certainly was the reason he was never confirmed by the Senate (I think his name was never submitted due to the scandal, but I could be wrong).
He apparently read the tea leaves correctly, and decided to “save face” by resigning and retiring. He was never going to see that star.
It will be interesting to see Stanley’s retired grade. I’m guessing he had 3 or more years in grade before the scandal, so absent evidence of earlier wrongdoing he’s probably “grandfathered” at that retired grade. (And unless the USAF decides to go after him for dereliction of duty, calling this “misconduct” is IMO a stretch. In the USAF command setup here [Wing Cdr/O6 – Operational Group Cdr/O6 – Squadron Cdr/O5 – Flight Commander/O3, I think], Stanley was 3 levels above the level at which the misconduct occurred. He was remote enough from the actual misconduct that he’s IMO not legally culpable. Morally, perhaps; legally, no.) But stranger things have happened.
Stanley was promoted to Col Sept 2009…
http://www.malmstrom.af.mil/library/biographies/bio.asp?id=14550
– Mmm, apparently a drug problem in the company grade ranks (yeah, what does the red button do?)…more on Washington Times link below.
From Wash Times:
For Col. Stanley, the allegations have been particularly wrenching because they arrived just as the Obama administration had made moves to promote him to the rank of brigadier general.
Col. Stanley was added to a list of nominees that the Obama administration sent to the Senate for confirmation on Jan. 7. A week later, Ms. James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh announced that they had uncovered the cheating ring and planned to visit the Air Force bases from which the cheating allegations stemmed.
Read more: http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/27/air-force-colonel-resigns-nine-officers-relieved-p/#ixzz2xGCkOhKP
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Jonn: I’m guessing Stanley was “allowed to resign” and retire because he was on his way to another assignment anyway. The USAF probably quietly told him that he was now persona non grata and that it would be in his best interest to go quickly. They almost certainly didn’t have enough evidence of wrongdoing on his part to prove dereliction of duty – which is likely the only UCMJ charge that might apply. And given his remoteness from the actual cheating and unpreparedness issues (he was 3 levels of command above that), proving dereliction of duty would have been IMO virtually impossible.
Given that, short of giving him the proverbial sh!t detail or make-work assignment, there wasn’t much else the USAF could do to the man other than encourage him to retire by telling him he’d probably be SERBed soon. F-ing up or being a poor leader generally isn’t criminal.
I’m not going to defend the Col.; a commander is responsible for everything his people do or fail to do. He was assigned to Malstrom to fix problems that got the last commander fired, so he had a responsibility to find problems and fix them. What bugs me is that this testing scandal came to light after a drug ring was busted that covered two AFB bases. I think this has become a structural problem within the Air Force that stems in part from the lack of focus that this mission gets. Gone are the days of Strategic Air Command where this mission was the one focus. Instead today we have STRATCOM, which focuses on a host of world wide missions which included until a couple years ago, the cyber mission for the military. So how much attention does the nuclear mission get from STRATCOM on any given day? Where is the Air Force plan to fix the structural issues that encouraged the drug use and the command climate that fostered the cheating by making test scores the main indicator of success for promotion?
Don’t take what I said above as defense of any of the COs involved, MT FAO. COs get relieved for scandals and/or widespread misconduct within their commands periodically, whenever things are found to be bad enough.
Proving misconduct, however, is another matter. And in general, it appears that misconduct is what renders military service “not successful” for retirement grade purposes. That’s the point behind my comments above.
Having said that, there’s also the element of common sense involved. Using the “the commander is responsible for everything” logic, the POTUS is ultimately responsible every time Joe Tentpeg gets D&D downtown. Common sense says that’s BS – the POTUS is simply too damn remote from that situation to have any real effect. In contrast, Joe Tentpeg’s team chief may well be justifiably in deep sh!t because of the situation, particularly if it’s occurring regularly. Squad/section leader? Maybe. Platoon leader? Uh, well . . . dunno. Company commander? Battalion commander?
Where to draw the line is situation dependent. If misconduct or other issues are widespread, the immediate commander is indeed culpable – and maybe the next one up. (Repetitive problems confined to a few individuals probably aren’t an indicator of culpability IMO; some d!ckheads just won’t get their act together no matter how hard you try.) But it has to be really bad and widespread IMO before culpability rises 3 levels above the misconduct in question.
At what point does the next person “up” in the chain-of-command become culpable for the misconduct of subordinates multiple levels below him/her? Drawing that line is one of the hardest calls of all a leader ever has to make. For that question, there simply is no set answer.
Hondo, didn’t take it that way. Having been a commander I totally agree with your point.
My broader point is that when two or more consecutive commanders at the same base get fired and one investigation covers several bases, there might be a bigger problem.
MT FAO: wasn’t sure you had, but realized I’d not been as clear as I’d have liked on that point – and that someone could take what I was saying as a defense of these guys. Plus, I also wanted to expand on the “command responsibility” issue you raised. IMO it’s definitely a thorny problem with no set answers.
I fully agree with your observation about widespread and/or persistent issues being an indicator of a possible systemic problem. As the proverbial “outsider looking in”, I think the USAF may well have some serious systemic problems within that community that require immediate attention. Maybe this is a good start.
GOT-DAMN IT!!! My USAF What the flying FARK is WRONG with you of late??!?!?!?
Makes me wonder how high up the food chain the axe will fall in Charleston as well.
Nuclear weapons, nuclear power, makes no difference–the public hears “nuclear” and “cheating” in the same sentence and immediate panic mode sets in.
Frankly, I’m wondering if the special little snowflake mentality has finally come home to roost. I know that 25-30 years ago, shit like this would NEVER have been tolerated at any level, let alone with staff members at prototype as happened in Charleston.
If a sea-returnee with 3-5 years (or more if coming from a second sea tour) feels the need to cheat on an examination for which they likely qualified in the fleet, they need to unass the program most ricky-tick.
Then again, I’m just an old fart and don’t know what I’m talking about, right?
Hammer all of their dicks flat. Pour encourager les autres, shit like that.