ChaplainDon and Alice

[Skyray]

Over on another couple of threads, Chaplain Don and Alice Mansell got their heads together and brought up a point that I would like to elaborate on.  They were talking about due process but in passing on that subject they touched on the fact that those in power teach us.  If you exist in an environment where due process is not extended, then you learn not to extend it to others.  In the last couple of weeks, I have come across numerous cases where members were terminated or forced to retire without appeal or a meaningful hearing.  Loaded boards, clandestine terminations so that the terminee finds out after her/is appeal time is past.  It's time to stop it.

[Chaplaindon]

I recall something in latin concering such ... Sic Semper Tyranus

"Thus always with tyrants"

Skyray, you are correct ... it's time to stop it.

Thanks for the kinds words!

CD

[Eagle400]

...I have advocated for "due process" a long time now.  We are a "Nation of LAWS," not of RULERS or PRECEIVED TRUTHS.   CAP, by extention is the same.

Well, in practice, it should be the same.  

Once this is over, if we place our trust in due process, it will be ended and we can move on.... Let's let this pass into history.

I don't think it's that simple.  Simply placing trust in due process and using the honor system is not going to win big in this fight.  What CAP needs is way better oversight of the 2b process by the CAP/IG, and that's going to take some radical changes to CAP's organizational structure and standard operating procedure in these matters.  

Once those changes are made, then we can move on and let this chapter of CAP's history pass.    

[Chaplaindon]

"I don't think it's that simple.  Simply placing trust in due process and using the honor system is not going to win big in this fight.  What CAP needs is way better oversight of the 2b process by the CAP/IG, and that's going to take some radical changes to CAP's organizational structure and standard operating procedure in these matters. 

Once those changes are made, then we can move on and let this chapter of CAP's history pass."

But every tactical move requires someone to step first. Be a "pathfinder" ... assume "point" (if you will) by exercising the sort of conduct in your own CAP career and dealings that you expect and/or demand from our higher-ups.

It has to start somewhere ... maybe I/we can be those audacious first few grass-roots leaders. Let's make the change, set the example and lead the way!

[ZigZag911]

Does CAP need a "Truth & Reconciliation Commission" (as South Africa, among other countries, had as part of its peace process) to review these cases, with authority to restore membership and rank "for the sake of justice"?

I'd like to see it, as long as some retired USAF JAG or IG officers and E-9s were part of any such board.

[alice]

If CAP leadership were truly serious about extending real due process to all members, they would start by demanding some edits to the Membership Action Review Board reg of CAP.  It is larded with undue command influence from the composition of the board to which adverse personnel actions are allowed to come before it for a final internal adminstrative appeal process.

I was asked to write the MARB reg when the then National Legal Officer and General Counsel were otherwise fully occupied dealing with the start-up of the BoG.  The MARB was something demanded by the GAO and the DoD IG to fix some glaring voids in CAP's internal due processes exposed during the 1999-2000 coast-to-coast investigations by the GAO and the DoD IG.  (I shall not soon forget the irony of having a Navy Commander and a GAO staffer pawing through my local squadron's personnel, finance, logisitics, and aircraft records.  We came out squeaky clean.)

I fought for but lost the fight to make the MARB totally free of undue command influence.  I lost a fight to make the reg gender neutral.  I also lost an interpretative fight to allow the MARB to take up stale cases if only on an ad hoc basis for the good of the organization.

Well.... I got the CAP DSM for doing the first draft.  Am still not happy at all with the fact undue command influence remains in it because so many personnel traumas in CAP could have been fixed or avoided had a really impartial MARB been created.

The great majority of people I know in CAP joined to have fun and do some public service.  We did not join to waste time with adverse personnel actions.  Speaking as a 10+ year CAP group legal officer who has never seen a complaint leave her group --- personnel messes can be fixed or avoided at low levels if grievances and "concerns" are dealt with promptly and with exquisite fairness.  (And yes, more than once a caring and competent CAP chaplain has smoothed over local waters which looked un-smooth-able.)

CAP had better fix that MARB before we find ourselves back in 1999.

[ZigZag911]

Major Mansell, it is heartening to hear that the initial draft of the MARB reg was written with the concept of equity and objectivity at it's foundation.

You sound like the kind of officer we need on the National Board!

Am I correct that you are  from California Wing??

Are you applying for the post of wing commander?

You should!