JAG CENTRAL

This opinion piece by Col.(R) David R. Welling, USAF, appears in this week's Air Force Times:

I had a great friend who made one Fiscus-like mistake with one woman. Their consensual affair lasted just a few weeks. He freely admitted that he was wrong and pleaded guilty at his court-martial. I was present when the jury pronounced him “guilty as charged.”

He was shackled, taken to the base jail, given body cavity searches, made to sit in his underwear in solitary confinement for 24 hours, humiliated and harassed. Then he was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for almost a year of prison time. After that, he was kicked out of the Air Force with nothing to show for his otherwise 20-plus years of honorable service.

What can I possibly say to my friend, in light of the Fiscus case? Maybe he needs a good lawyer. Maybe with our new “standards,” we ought to revisit his case.

BACKGROUND: MG Fiscus served as the Air Force Judge Advocate General, the service's top attorney, until a scandal broke in which he was found to have had numerous adulterous sexual relationships with subordinate officers, some bordering on harassment. Instead of a court martial, MG Fiscus accepted retirement as a colonel (a 2 grade reduction in rank). As far as this author is aware of, a general grade officer has never been prosecuted under the UCMJ.