Whistle Blower From the Veteran's Administration

Your average disabled American service member who has served in our most recent conflicts, and come home with health issues will tell you that the  Veteran's Administration does not act in a timely manner and appears to actively fight accurate assessment of health matters and disabilities that are directly related to their military service.  Now an individual, who worked for the VA until he quit because of ethical  concerns, has come forward, and is testifying to congress as to what he observed while working as a researcher for the V.A.  He is claiming that results that prove connections to health issues are buried, or ignored.  I believe him.  I find Military.com to be without bias, accurate, and factual in their reporting.  This article is worth reading.

Whistleblower: VA Hiding Veteran Health Data | Military.com

   

West Point... Hellloooo, Are You There?

Every once in a while, I write to West Point, never hear back from them... but I keep writing...  West Point is where the ethics of the Army is held accountable.  West Point is where committees of general officers meet and talk about the state of ethics in the Army.  Notice I said talk about the state of ethics in the Army.  I don't think they are doing a good job, those committees aren't the least bit concerned with my opinion of course, but that won't stop me from expressing my opinion.  I've decided to make my letters public from here on out.
 

To Whom it May Concern, and I Certainly Do Hope it Sincerely Concerns Someone,

My name is Debra LeCompte, and my husband is COL (RET) Randy LeCompte, an honor graduate of West Point, (top five percent of the class of 1981.)  My husband would love to attend his 31st reunion this year, but is currently serving with the State Department in Iraq in the civilian sector.  My father and grand-father were Soldiers as well, my daughter was a Soldier, and she is now serving in the civilian sector in Germany where she lives with our two grand-daughters as her husband serves in Afghanistan.  Our other son-in-law was blown off a recon vehicle in 2003 in Iraq, and can no longer serve, but he would give everything in him to do so.

My family, especially my husband, has been recipients of the all that is good in the Army.  We are better as a family because of the Army, as my husband says, "the Army gives one skills, identity, and purposeful living."  We have all also been the recipients of very bad things from the Army because of the problem of ethics in the Army.  The Academy is not achieving it's goals of teaching ethics.  The Army is not, because of the incestuous relationships involved in its' "self-policing," truly promoting ethics.  I don't think anyone who reads this, (if anyone does,) can with any honesty argue that point.

We had a young intern from West Point in our home for dinner while my husband was still employed with BAE Systems, as was our custom with each of the interns who spent part of their summer in the Sealy, Texas plant.  My husband being the man he is, posed the question, "So, which of the Army Values do you think is the most important?"  For a couple of minutes the young man could not answer, he couldn't remember any of the seven values, then he at first said, "leadership."  My husband reminded him that was an  acronym used in another set of characteristics promoted by the Army.   Finally the young man said loyalty.  That is a frequent answer among Soldiers.  Both my husband and I disagree with this answer every time we hear it , for so many times a Soldier means by that response loyalty to his unit or to a commander.  There are times, more frequently than I would like to acknowledge, when that is not the honorable or right thing to do.  In order for loyalty to be worthy of first mention, it should be loyalty to honor and doing the right thing.  Too many times loyalty in the Army is affected by who does your OER, honor never is.

When a firstie can't tell a retired colonel who earned a Bronze Star in Afghanistan what the Seven Army Values are.... your ethics training is a monumental failure in my opinion.  That is without mentioning the First Sergeant with 19 years in, who by all reports was an outstanding mentor and man of honor, who was sleeping on the floor of a Garland, Texas jail, all because he came up against corrupt command.  I can't mention every miscarriage of honor that I have knowledge of, there are too many innocent people involved.  My great sorrow is I am but a grain of sand in the scheme of the Army Family, but I know of dozens of atrocities.  It is like rats, for every instance of lack of honor that I know of, there are a hundred I am not aware of.  Even though I know of the rats, like my husband, I love the Army, the real Army, the one that belongs to the hearts of those who nobly serve, and I will fight for the honor, integrity, and reputation of that Band of Brothers, (and Sisters,) until the day I die.  I believe there is an answer to this breakdown in ethics.

The answer West Point is ACCOUNTABILITY.  That accountability should begin with generals, not cadets.  Every time self serving corruption prevails, those who would serve with integrity are driven away.  Who, of any character,  wants to associate with lack of integrity?  Who wants to risk their own career and reputation to those lacking integrity?  Just as those who would serve with honor are driven away, those lacking in it are reinforced in behavior which is dishonorable.  They receive the message you have to "go along to get along."  No matter who you are, what your rank, the answer is ACCOUNTABILITY.  It only exists when those controlling the "self policing" are possessed of honor.  As the guardians of the honor of the United States Army those meetings where accountability by individuals is weighed and measured in the balance must be populated by men and women of honor and the COURAGE to execute The Code of Military Justice.  Surely, you can scrape together enough general officers with moral courage to fill the positions on those committees?

West Point, you are accountable for a firstie who doesn't know The Seven Army Values as he enters his senior year.  A web site about honor and integrity won't do it, all the training, classes, and instruction in the world, won't do it, only accountability without bias, favor, or self serving will forge a force where honor and integrity are the norm, not the exception.  When every Soldier believes and knows that lack of honor will not be tolerated under any circumstances, when they know power mongering will be met with swift and sure justice, and lying is unacceptable and will result in dire consequences, will honor and integrity, and a force devoted to The Seven Army Values prevail.

I have been very plain spoken, and in the past it has not done me a bit of good.  Well, there was the commander of the First Sergeant sleeping on the jail floor who was relieved of command, but please understand, I speak plainly because of my devotion to, and respect of all those who live "uncommon lives."  Their families as well depend upon the honor of leadership.  I wish the Academy, The Army, and every Soldier serving only the  best.  It is owed to them.

With Respect and Sincerity,

Debra LeCompte

I Have Set My Face Like A Flint

I am writing a novel, I wanted to share the introduction here, and perhaps the first chapter.  This is the first half of the introduction.  The book is loosely based on a collection of experiences and stories I have heard from Soldiers over the years.  Being based in actual experiences, the book writes itself, I just change details, names, and of course, strive to protect the innocent... for the guilty I have no compassion...
 Isaiah 50: 4-7
"The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair:  I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." 

 

 I Have Set My Face Like A Flint

Introduction

As soon as the doors of the car shut in the parking lot, she asked how it had gone.  He answered first with complete silence, then a quiet, “wait until we are out of the parking lot.”  Instantly she knew it had not gone well.  As they pulled out, she searched his face for clues, but waited for him to speak when he was ready.  Far too much was revealed in his face, and the level of his anguish was palpable in the car.  Her mind raced, she longed to break the silence and ask, “How could it have gone badly?”  Instead, she held her breath waiting for him to speak.  When he finally did, his usually quiet and confident voice was even more quiet, and shaking with emotion and pain.

The trouble for her new husband, Colonel Douglas Cutler, had actually began a few months before when the Army had announced that due to “The Transformation,” the 2nd Brigade would be moving from the 78th Division of the Army Reserves to the 36th ARRTC.   The Transformation was the process of reorganization and base closures that the Department of Defense had determined was necessary in order to change the Army into a new leaner and meaner organization, and save the country’s taxpayers billions every year in doing so.  The 2nd Brigade, which her husband commanded, and where she served as the unit’s Family Readiness Group leader, trained drill sergeants in the fine art of being drill sergeants.  The Soldiers under Colonel Cutler’s command tended to be the “best of the best.”  Their job was the training of men, and a few women, to be those who took the Army’s raw recruits and turned them into dedicated and loyal Soldiers, who were highly disciplined, in the best physical condition they would know in their lifetimes, and confident to the point for some, of being completely without fear.  The Army would then assign them specialties and populate their ranks with this fresh set of America’s sons and daughters who were ready to stand the wall in defense of all national security threats, and when necessary, to wage war.  For four years now, it had been necessary to wage war. 

The term “OPTEMPO” had become familiar to her, and a part of her everyday work as the FRG leader.  Her lifelong respect for all those serving in the country’s military had grown past even what she had learned in childhood.  From her own father’s service in the National Guard as she was growing up, she gained the impression of all things military being honorable.  Her father had first entered the Army when he was seventeen years old.  Somehow, he had convinced his mother to lie about his birth date, giving him the few months he lacked being eighteen years old and of legal age to join the military.  She had to write a letter saying his birth certificate had burned in a house fire, and being the time it was, few hand written records of such things existed anyway.  She probably would not have done it if the prospects of having food enough to feed him were even a glimmer on the horizon.  Already she had cut the toes out of his shoes to allow for his still growing feet.  Where or when new shoes could be had wasn’t even something she thought of, there were so many more pressing matters.  

 
There were the stories of her father's active duty service and how it had been, for him the opportunity to leave the abject destitution of his childhood growing up during The Great Depression.  Serving under a West Point graduate he identified as Major James, her father told of coming for the first time to understand successful living as he was led under this young soldier’s command.  From that experience, he had gained the rights to certain benefits, including the obtaining of a GED at the government’s expense, and then training to become an electrician.  The work ethic that was his through his instinctive survival of poverty, hunger, and need, had coupled with the positive attitude and ethics developed by Major James, and fueled her father’s success in life.  His life was also anchored solidly in a deep and personal faith in God.   His principled life had enabled her childhood to be sheltered, safe, and full of happiness, which developed in her a naivety few still possessed at her age.  The honor, integrity, and loyalty, taught as the basic principles of the Army to all young recruits, was internalized by her father, and now at 79, these traits burned as strongly as they ever had.  In his lifetime, he had never slipped an inch from duty, honor, and country.  
 
This parenting had been one of the things that first drew her to the Colonel.  She saw in him the living embodiment of the legendary “Major James.”  He too, was a West Point graduate, possessed of deep beliefs in self-less service, all that was honorable, and he endeavored to live as closely as possible his sacred “Seven Army Values.”  His own childhood had created in him a drive for excellence in all he did, and he left West Point as an honor graduate in the top fifth of his class.  Later, as he attended The Army War College, they were already acquainted, and by the time he graduated, again with honors, they were in a relationship.  Oddly, despite his own bleak childhood growing up in privation and a physically and emotionally abusive family, he too, was possessed by naivety in certain areas of reasoning.  To her developing wonder at this fact, he was even more naive than her concerning people.  Over the next several months she would watch the heartbreak he experienced as those he had looked to with such admiration for leadership revealed  feet of clay and dishonor within their lives he could never have conceived of.