bobdina
10-22-2009, 11:27 AM
By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Oct 22, 2009 5:36:30 EDT
When Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach took his fight public to stay in the Air Force, he never told the millions watching him on national TV exactly how his commanders came to learn he is gay.
Fehrenbach, 40, talked about his 18 years of service and the unfairness of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the ban that prevents gays from openly serving in the military — but not once did he talk specifically about how he came to face dismissal. All he said in interviews, including one with Air Force Times, was that a “civilian acquaintance” reported him.
Fehrenbach’s case tests the limits of what constitutes “telling” and under what circumstances a service member’s statement can be used to initiate discharge proceedings under don’t ask, don’t tell.
Indeed, in the next few weeks, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley could allow Fehrenbach to remain on active duty — making him the first openly gay service member to do so under don’t ask, don’t tell.
The reason: Fehrenbach admitted his orientation while defending himself against an unsubstantiated charge of male rape.
Police later refused to prosecute Fehrenbach, finding the charges groundless. But not before Fehrenbach told police he had consensual sex with a man he met through a gay Web site.
Fehrenbach would not discuss the rape accusation; Air Force Times sent him at least three e-mails since Sept. 28 requesting comments. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national advocacy group for gay military members that represents Fehrenbach in his legal battle, advised the lieutenant colonel not to speak with Air Force Times, though he has three times before.
Cameron Shaner, the man who made the rape charge, sought publicity, taking his story first to the Idaho Statesman newspaper. Both police and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations found no proof of a crime and consider Shaner, a former soldier, “unreliable.”
Here are the events that drove Fehrenbach to out himself:
The accuser
On May 7, 2008, Fehrenbach was at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, preparing for an F-15E deployment with the 366th Operations Support Squadron.
That same day, two students from Boise State University — Shaner and an airman — went to the base’s Office of Special Investigations detachment to report that service members were spreading AIDS at HIV sex parties, according to Linda Card, OSI’s chief of public affairs.
In a telephone interview, Shaner told Air Force Times that the airman had confided in him about the parties because of his prior service. He did not name the airman or mention the airman’s sexual orientation.
Shaner, who now lives in Arizona, said he is gay but left the Army voluntarily as a private first class when his enlistment was up in 1999. According to the Veterans Affairs Department, Shaner has a 100 percent service-connected disability. He would not disclose his disability to Air Force Times but told the Idaho Statesman that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and skeletal injuries.
At the meeting on base, Shaner said OSI Special Agent Karolyn DeRosier swore him in as a confidential informant.
OSI agents interviewed Shaner three times on May 7 and 8, Card told Air Force Times. The only oath Shaner took, she said, was the standard oath attesting to the truthfulness of his statement.
“After meeting with Mr. Shaner, AFOSI determined not to use him as a confidential informant,” Card wrote in an e-mail to the Idaho Statesman, which published its story on Shaner in August. “Special Agent DeRosier NEVER directed or requested him to carry out any actions as a source or informant, nor did any other AFOSI agent.”
OSI looked into HIV parties but closed the investigation in December 2008 after it couldn’t corroborate the information provided by Shaner and the airman.
Shaner “has a history of false reporting,” Card said. “He is considered to be unreliable.”
Differing stories
Fehrenbach met Shaner for the first time in person May 11, 2008, at his home in Boise, about 60 miles from Mountain Home, according to OSI’s Card.
Many of the base’s 4,000 airmen choose to live in Boise because it’s bigger — with a population of about 200,000 — and has more amenities than Mountain Home, with its 12,300 residents.
The men made contact through a paid gay Web site, www.ManHunt.com, according to Shaner, who said he subscribed to investigate the HIV parties. Shaner told Air Force Times he sought out Fehrenbach, thinking he might have information about the investigation.
At Fehrenbach’s home, the men took off their clothes and soaked in a hot tub, Shaner said.
A few hours after the rendezvous, Shaner said he drove to Boise State’s rape crisis center, where he called the local police to report a sexual assault. A counselor at the center said she could not discuss any client without his or her consent, citing confidentiality laws. Air Force Times e-mailed Shaner a consent form from the counselor, but as of Oct. 15, Shaner had not acknowledged sending the waiver to the center. Shaner told police Fehrenbach raped him in the hot tub and that he had gone to Fehrenbach’s home at OSI’s request — as a confidential informant.
Officers began an investigation and called in OSI, Card said.
Shaner, according to Card, had made several other rape allegations to Boise police, all unproven. Local investigators found no physical evidence to support Shaner’s rape accusation, she said.
When OSI agents talked with Shaner on May 14, 2008, he admitted OSI did not ask him to investigate Fehrenbach, Card said.
When police officers interviewed Fehrenbach two days later, he admitted to a consensual relationship with Shaner and other men but denied he had assaulted Shaner, Card said.
The civilian investigation ended with attorneys from the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office in Boise declining to charge Fehrenbach.
Boise police refused to release their closed investigation file because the rape allegations didn’t result in an arrest, said Lynn Hightower, a department spokeswoman. Hightower cited an Idaho statute allowing law enforcement agencies to withhold reports that would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
The OSI, according to Card, closed its case after concluding Shaner was an unreliable witness, no felony had occurred and the sex had been consensual.
Based on the OSI findings, Air Force staff judge advocates at Mountain Home and 12th Air Force headquarters at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., decided not to prosecute Fehrenbach.
A career wrecker?
If Fehrenbach hadn’t talked, he could have been prosecuted for rape. Now, though, he is at risk of ending his career, two years short of retirement.
Fehrenbach’s admission to being gay had triggered an Air Force investigation into whether Fehrenbach had violated the don’t ask, don’t tell policy, Card said.
At Mountain Home in September 2008, four months after Shaner made his rape charge, commanders determined Fehrenbach had violated the policy and recommended his discharge.
The finding meant Fehrenbach faced an almost certain dismissal once his case went up the chain of command, eventually landing on Donley’s desk for a final review.
“I was devastated, absolutely devastated,” Fehrenbach said about the recommendation in a May interview with Air Force Times. “The Air Force has been my life.”
Dismissal, though, would mean a huge financial loss as well as an emotional one for Fehrenbach, the son of two Air Force officers. If unable to finish out his career, Fehrenbach will lose $46,000 a year in retirement pay as well as medical benefits, according to pay charts. He would get a lump sum of about $80,000, half of standard involuntary separation pay for an officer of his years, the charts show.
At first, Fehrenbach said in the May interview, he considered resigning his commission and quietly leaving the service to take a job with a defense contractor. Then, Fehrenbach said he had a change of heart when he heard Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promise to end don’t ask, don’t tell, figuring the Illinois senator might get Congress to lift the ban before he was dismissed.
Obama took the oath of office Jan. 20 but hasn’t taken action on the policy. He continues, though, to promise gays that they will someday soon serve openly in the U.S. military.
Since the ban went into effect Oct. 1, 1993, about 13,000 service members — including more than 2,200 airmen — have been discharged, according to the Defense Department. In the 10 months since Obama became commander in chief, 49 airmen — all enlisted — have been discharged for violating the policy, Air Force statistics show. The number for all services wasn’t available from the Pentagon.
A bill repealing the law is pending in Congress. More than 170 congressmen have signed on as co-sponsors, but the bill remains stuck in the House Armed Services Committee.
On April 15, an Air Force administrative discharge board made up of five officers recommended an honorable discharge for Fehrenbach.
In mid-May, a year after Shaner’s allegations, Fehrenbach told his family that he was gay. A few days later, on May 19, he appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” to tell his story to the world.
“I was faced with the end of my life as I knew it,” Fehrenbach told Maddow.
“The more I thought about it, about how wrong this policy is, I thought that I had to fight.”
Encouraging signs
Fehrenbach is still at Mountain Home as assistant director of operations for the 366th Operations Support Squadron, though no longer on active flight status. In his years of service, Fehrenbach has amassed 2,180 hours of flight time, including 400 hours in combat over Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
The recipient of nine Air Medals and five Air Force Commendation Medals, Fehrenbach can’t be removed until Air Force personnel officers review the paperwork and Donley, the service’s top civilian leader, approves the board’s dismissal recommendation.
Fehrenbach, though, has a chance of staying in uniform. The opening came June 30, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters he had ordered Pentagon lawyers to review ways to apply the law in “a more humane way.” Gates wondered whether the law required the military to dismiss service members investigated only after someone turned them in.
“Do we need to be driven to take action on somebody, if we get that information from somebody who may have vengeance in mind or blackmail or somebody who has been jilted,” Gates said at the time.
While Gates didn’t cite Fehrenbach by name, just the day before Fehrenbach had attended an invitation-only White House reception marking Gay Pride Month.
At the reception, Obama discussed don’t ask, don’t tell. Afterward, the president stopped to talk with several in the crowd, including Fehrenbach, who on Air Force orders wore civilian clothes.
In an interview with Air Force Times a few days after the reception, Fehrenbach said he briefly told Obama about his situation.
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘We’ll get this done,’” Fehrenbach recalled in the interview.
In July, when Donley was asked how he would enforce the rules, the secretary told Air Force Times he would follow the law as interpreted by the Defense Department.
“Our approach will be to execute the law as Congress has written it and if there are policy adjustments that are made within the existing legal structure, those policy changes will be led and coordinated at the DoD level and we’ll be part of that,” Donley said.
When Obama spoke Oct. 10 at a gay rights dinner sponsored by Human Rights Campaign in Washington, he repeated the repeal pledge but offered no direct action or deadlines.
“We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country,” Obama said.
The questions raised by Gates and the president’s stand may have delayed the need for Donley to sign off on Fehrenbach’s case.
In an Oct. 12 interview on Maddow’s show, Fehrenbach pointed out most dismissals take about five months to process, a timetable that would have him headed out the door by now.
An Air Force spokesman said Fehrenbach’s case had not reached Donley’s office.
Fehrenbach told the show’s viewers that his continued service demonstrates military units can operate with gay members.
“We prove every day that this policy needs to be changed, now,” Fehrenbach said.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/10/airforce_fehrenbach_102109w/
Posted : Thursday Oct 22, 2009 5:36:30 EDT
When Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach took his fight public to stay in the Air Force, he never told the millions watching him on national TV exactly how his commanders came to learn he is gay.
Fehrenbach, 40, talked about his 18 years of service and the unfairness of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the ban that prevents gays from openly serving in the military — but not once did he talk specifically about how he came to face dismissal. All he said in interviews, including one with Air Force Times, was that a “civilian acquaintance” reported him.
Fehrenbach’s case tests the limits of what constitutes “telling” and under what circumstances a service member’s statement can be used to initiate discharge proceedings under don’t ask, don’t tell.
Indeed, in the next few weeks, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley could allow Fehrenbach to remain on active duty — making him the first openly gay service member to do so under don’t ask, don’t tell.
The reason: Fehrenbach admitted his orientation while defending himself against an unsubstantiated charge of male rape.
Police later refused to prosecute Fehrenbach, finding the charges groundless. But not before Fehrenbach told police he had consensual sex with a man he met through a gay Web site.
Fehrenbach would not discuss the rape accusation; Air Force Times sent him at least three e-mails since Sept. 28 requesting comments. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national advocacy group for gay military members that represents Fehrenbach in his legal battle, advised the lieutenant colonel not to speak with Air Force Times, though he has three times before.
Cameron Shaner, the man who made the rape charge, sought publicity, taking his story first to the Idaho Statesman newspaper. Both police and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations found no proof of a crime and consider Shaner, a former soldier, “unreliable.”
Here are the events that drove Fehrenbach to out himself:
The accuser
On May 7, 2008, Fehrenbach was at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, preparing for an F-15E deployment with the 366th Operations Support Squadron.
That same day, two students from Boise State University — Shaner and an airman — went to the base’s Office of Special Investigations detachment to report that service members were spreading AIDS at HIV sex parties, according to Linda Card, OSI’s chief of public affairs.
In a telephone interview, Shaner told Air Force Times that the airman had confided in him about the parties because of his prior service. He did not name the airman or mention the airman’s sexual orientation.
Shaner, who now lives in Arizona, said he is gay but left the Army voluntarily as a private first class when his enlistment was up in 1999. According to the Veterans Affairs Department, Shaner has a 100 percent service-connected disability. He would not disclose his disability to Air Force Times but told the Idaho Statesman that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and skeletal injuries.
At the meeting on base, Shaner said OSI Special Agent Karolyn DeRosier swore him in as a confidential informant.
OSI agents interviewed Shaner three times on May 7 and 8, Card told Air Force Times. The only oath Shaner took, she said, was the standard oath attesting to the truthfulness of his statement.
“After meeting with Mr. Shaner, AFOSI determined not to use him as a confidential informant,” Card wrote in an e-mail to the Idaho Statesman, which published its story on Shaner in August. “Special Agent DeRosier NEVER directed or requested him to carry out any actions as a source or informant, nor did any other AFOSI agent.”
OSI looked into HIV parties but closed the investigation in December 2008 after it couldn’t corroborate the information provided by Shaner and the airman.
Shaner “has a history of false reporting,” Card said. “He is considered to be unreliable.”
Differing stories
Fehrenbach met Shaner for the first time in person May 11, 2008, at his home in Boise, about 60 miles from Mountain Home, according to OSI’s Card.
Many of the base’s 4,000 airmen choose to live in Boise because it’s bigger — with a population of about 200,000 — and has more amenities than Mountain Home, with its 12,300 residents.
The men made contact through a paid gay Web site, www.ManHunt.com, according to Shaner, who said he subscribed to investigate the HIV parties. Shaner told Air Force Times he sought out Fehrenbach, thinking he might have information about the investigation.
At Fehrenbach’s home, the men took off their clothes and soaked in a hot tub, Shaner said.
A few hours after the rendezvous, Shaner said he drove to Boise State’s rape crisis center, where he called the local police to report a sexual assault. A counselor at the center said she could not discuss any client without his or her consent, citing confidentiality laws. Air Force Times e-mailed Shaner a consent form from the counselor, but as of Oct. 15, Shaner had not acknowledged sending the waiver to the center. Shaner told police Fehrenbach raped him in the hot tub and that he had gone to Fehrenbach’s home at OSI’s request — as a confidential informant.
Officers began an investigation and called in OSI, Card said.
Shaner, according to Card, had made several other rape allegations to Boise police, all unproven. Local investigators found no physical evidence to support Shaner’s rape accusation, she said.
When OSI agents talked with Shaner on May 14, 2008, he admitted OSI did not ask him to investigate Fehrenbach, Card said.
When police officers interviewed Fehrenbach two days later, he admitted to a consensual relationship with Shaner and other men but denied he had assaulted Shaner, Card said.
The civilian investigation ended with attorneys from the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office in Boise declining to charge Fehrenbach.
Boise police refused to release their closed investigation file because the rape allegations didn’t result in an arrest, said Lynn Hightower, a department spokeswoman. Hightower cited an Idaho statute allowing law enforcement agencies to withhold reports that would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
The OSI, according to Card, closed its case after concluding Shaner was an unreliable witness, no felony had occurred and the sex had been consensual.
Based on the OSI findings, Air Force staff judge advocates at Mountain Home and 12th Air Force headquarters at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., decided not to prosecute Fehrenbach.
A career wrecker?
If Fehrenbach hadn’t talked, he could have been prosecuted for rape. Now, though, he is at risk of ending his career, two years short of retirement.
Fehrenbach’s admission to being gay had triggered an Air Force investigation into whether Fehrenbach had violated the don’t ask, don’t tell policy, Card said.
At Mountain Home in September 2008, four months after Shaner made his rape charge, commanders determined Fehrenbach had violated the policy and recommended his discharge.
The finding meant Fehrenbach faced an almost certain dismissal once his case went up the chain of command, eventually landing on Donley’s desk for a final review.
“I was devastated, absolutely devastated,” Fehrenbach said about the recommendation in a May interview with Air Force Times. “The Air Force has been my life.”
Dismissal, though, would mean a huge financial loss as well as an emotional one for Fehrenbach, the son of two Air Force officers. If unable to finish out his career, Fehrenbach will lose $46,000 a year in retirement pay as well as medical benefits, according to pay charts. He would get a lump sum of about $80,000, half of standard involuntary separation pay for an officer of his years, the charts show.
At first, Fehrenbach said in the May interview, he considered resigning his commission and quietly leaving the service to take a job with a defense contractor. Then, Fehrenbach said he had a change of heart when he heard Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promise to end don’t ask, don’t tell, figuring the Illinois senator might get Congress to lift the ban before he was dismissed.
Obama took the oath of office Jan. 20 but hasn’t taken action on the policy. He continues, though, to promise gays that they will someday soon serve openly in the U.S. military.
Since the ban went into effect Oct. 1, 1993, about 13,000 service members — including more than 2,200 airmen — have been discharged, according to the Defense Department. In the 10 months since Obama became commander in chief, 49 airmen — all enlisted — have been discharged for violating the policy, Air Force statistics show. The number for all services wasn’t available from the Pentagon.
A bill repealing the law is pending in Congress. More than 170 congressmen have signed on as co-sponsors, but the bill remains stuck in the House Armed Services Committee.
On April 15, an Air Force administrative discharge board made up of five officers recommended an honorable discharge for Fehrenbach.
In mid-May, a year after Shaner’s allegations, Fehrenbach told his family that he was gay. A few days later, on May 19, he appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” to tell his story to the world.
“I was faced with the end of my life as I knew it,” Fehrenbach told Maddow.
“The more I thought about it, about how wrong this policy is, I thought that I had to fight.”
Encouraging signs
Fehrenbach is still at Mountain Home as assistant director of operations for the 366th Operations Support Squadron, though no longer on active flight status. In his years of service, Fehrenbach has amassed 2,180 hours of flight time, including 400 hours in combat over Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
The recipient of nine Air Medals and five Air Force Commendation Medals, Fehrenbach can’t be removed until Air Force personnel officers review the paperwork and Donley, the service’s top civilian leader, approves the board’s dismissal recommendation.
Fehrenbach, though, has a chance of staying in uniform. The opening came June 30, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters he had ordered Pentagon lawyers to review ways to apply the law in “a more humane way.” Gates wondered whether the law required the military to dismiss service members investigated only after someone turned them in.
“Do we need to be driven to take action on somebody, if we get that information from somebody who may have vengeance in mind or blackmail or somebody who has been jilted,” Gates said at the time.
While Gates didn’t cite Fehrenbach by name, just the day before Fehrenbach had attended an invitation-only White House reception marking Gay Pride Month.
At the reception, Obama discussed don’t ask, don’t tell. Afterward, the president stopped to talk with several in the crowd, including Fehrenbach, who on Air Force orders wore civilian clothes.
In an interview with Air Force Times a few days after the reception, Fehrenbach said he briefly told Obama about his situation.
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘We’ll get this done,’” Fehrenbach recalled in the interview.
In July, when Donley was asked how he would enforce the rules, the secretary told Air Force Times he would follow the law as interpreted by the Defense Department.
“Our approach will be to execute the law as Congress has written it and if there are policy adjustments that are made within the existing legal structure, those policy changes will be led and coordinated at the DoD level and we’ll be part of that,” Donley said.
When Obama spoke Oct. 10 at a gay rights dinner sponsored by Human Rights Campaign in Washington, he repeated the repeal pledge but offered no direct action or deadlines.
“We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country,” Obama said.
The questions raised by Gates and the president’s stand may have delayed the need for Donley to sign off on Fehrenbach’s case.
In an Oct. 12 interview on Maddow’s show, Fehrenbach pointed out most dismissals take about five months to process, a timetable that would have him headed out the door by now.
An Air Force spokesman said Fehrenbach’s case had not reached Donley’s office.
Fehrenbach told the show’s viewers that his continued service demonstrates military units can operate with gay members.
“We prove every day that this policy needs to be changed, now,” Fehrenbach said.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/10/airforce_fehrenbach_102109w/