> Letter-writer is willing to battle for his combat patchhttp://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54710
>
> Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Minor has watched friends die on combat tours in
> Afghanistan and Iraq, including the teenage translator killed by a
> grenade tossed into a Kirkuk street. Minor gave his Purple Heart to her
> family.
>
> He was a college student in Ohio until recently, when he decided to
> return to Iraq, he said, so that a new father in his Reserve unit
> wouldn’t have to go.
>
> “I’d take a dozen of him for 20 of my soldiers,” said Sgt. 1st Class
> John Pumma, Minor’s former first sergeant with the 2100th Military
> Intelligence Group in Ohio. “He’s a super solider.”
>
> But Minor, 30, was recently threatened with legal action and with being
> kicked out of the Army by his new command in Iraq.
>
> What had he done?
>
> “Minor failed to use his chain of command or NCO support channel prior
> to writing an article to the editor of Stars and Stripes,” said the form
> signed by 1st Sgt. Louis Edwards II, at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit.
>
> “If such behavior continues, you may receive punishment under Article
> 15, UCMJ, court-martial or adverse action such as bar to re-enlistment….”
>
> The warning, contained in DA Form 4856, is by all accounts a curious threat.
>
> Commanders’ legal guides, military legal experts and the Department of
> the Army all agree: Soldiers have the same constitutional right as other
> U.S. citizens to write to newspapers and otherwise express themselves
> without seeking permission.
>
> “Generally, there is no legal requirement that soldiers get permission
> to publish letters in a newspaper prior to publication, nor is there a
> requirement that the command be given an opportunity to review them
> first,” said Maj. John Kiel, an Army lawyer and expert in military free
> speech issues.
>
> As long as operational security isn’t violated, “We all have the right
> to speak up,” said Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, a spokeswoman for the
> Department of the Army.
>
> They also agree that, while soldiers with complaints should take them up
> internally with their chains of command, there is no military law
> offense for not using the chain of command before seeking help
> elsewhere. And how long soldiers should pursue an issue through the
> chain “is a judgment call,” Edgecomb said.
>
> “I’d be curious what they’d prosecute him for,” she said.
>
> Minor’s problems with the new command began shortly after he arrived at
> Speicher, where he’s a military intelligence analyst with a task force
> conducting operations against roadside bombs.
>
> “I wasn’t even in country a day before I was instructed that I would be
> taking off my 173rd combat patch and replacing it with a 1st Infantry
> Division patch,” he wrote in his letter to the editor, published April 11.
>
> The mandate that troops wear the 1st ID patch on their right shoulders
> was an attempt by Col. Jessie Farrington, commander of the 1st Combat
> Aviation Brigade, to build a sense of unity.
>
> But it didn’t build Minor’s.
>
> “Army Regulation 670-1 states that the soldier has the right to wear
> whatever combat patch he has earned as he sees fit, or even elect not to
> wear one…. I earned my 173rd combat patch through sweat and blood, and I
> have the Purple Heart to prove it,” his letter said.
>
> He wants to wear the 173rd Airborne Combat Team patch, he said, for
> profound reasons.
>
> “It’s for my fallen brothers — how I will honor them and remember them.
> It represents how they became who they were. It’s who you are and where
> you came from,” he said.
>
> Minor was correct in demanding he be allowed to wear the patch. “It’s a
> soldier’s choice,” Edgecomb said. “A commander can’t trump this regulation.”
>
> Minor said he protested the mandate with his first sergeant, his company
> commander, his command sergeant major and the battalion commander before
> writing his letter to Stripes. “All of them said that we had to wear the
> [1st ID] patch and that it was an order,” Minor said.
>
> But battalion commander Lt. Col. James Cutting said he never heard from
> Minor about the issue. No one wants to deprive Minor of his rights,
> either to wear his combat patch or express his opinion, Cutting said.
>
> The counseling Minor received was simply an attempt to correct a young
> sergeant who had handled his problem incorrectly, Cutting said.
>
> “He defaulted immediately and wrote to Stars and Stripes,” Cutting said,
> and aired “a local problem in a public forum.”
>
> Cutting took the blame for the confusion, saying he’d misinterpreted the
> brigade commander’s wishes on the combat patch. Asking soldiers in a
> brigade formed from many units to wear the one patch was a reasonable
> request to try to make everyone feel like part of the same team, he said.
>
> When he found out that soldiers should not be ordered to wear the patch,
> Cutting said, he sent out guidance saying so. The matter, Cutting said,
> had been blown out of proportion and had become a distraction from the
> mission.
>
> But other soldiers said they also felt pressured into wearing the 1st ID
> patch, and that the chain of command made it clear there was no point in
> arguing.
>
> “Our first sergeant and company commander told us, and battalion
> sergeant major and battalion commander both told us, it was an order
> that we wear the 1st ID patch by order of the brigade commander,” Staff
> Sgt. James Beatty wrote in an e-mail to Stripes. “We took our chain of
> command at its word that going to the brigade would get us nowhere, and
> Staff Sgt. Minor wrote his letter.”
>
> Likewise, Sgt. Laura Elkins said she was present when the company
> commander was asked whether wearing the 1st ID patch was an order. “He
> said, ‘Yes, it is,’” she said.
>
> “My perception is that regulations are enforced when it’s convenient,”
> she said. “Should it be challenged, you’re open to retaliatory measures.”
>
> Three days after Minor’s letter was published, Cutting put out guidance.
> “Wear what you want,” he wrote.
>
> But, the memo said, “The expectation is that leaders will support the
> [brigade] commander’s guidance that we act as a team and wear the patch.
> ‘Leaders’ is subjective but anyone getting an evaluation is a leader at
> some level. Not mandatory, but strongly advised we all wear the 1ID patch.”
>
> For Minor, who gets an evaluation, the guidance seems to be coercive.
> And the counseling letter he received remains an issue. Minor wants it
> pulled from his file because, he said, he’s done nothing wrong.
>
> “Having the UCMJ threatened against you? I would never write that down
> on a counseling statement with one of my soldiers,” he said.
>
> Minor is wearing his 173rd patch, just a few months into his yearlong
> deployment.
>
> “I’ll pretty much have a hard year,” he said. “They’re trying to make an
> example of me. But if it gives the soldiers their rights back and
> corrects an unlawful order, it’s worth it.”
>
> --
> Civis Romanus Sum