News of the Force: Sunday, August 5, 2012 - Page 2

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NEWS OF THE FORCE

Sunday, August 5, 2012 - Page 2

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Civil Air Patrol won't release findings of probe of historian's complaints

By John Nolan, Dayton Daily News

    

    The Civil Air Patrol, a 70-year-old non-profit that operates as an official U.S. Air Force Auxiliary and receives tens of millions of dollars in federal funding annually for search and rescue and other operations, won't release findings of an internal investigation into allegations its historians stole donated artifacts.

    Volunteer historians in the Civil Air Patrol's Historical Foundation have alleged for more than a year that the organization fails to properly account for uniforms and memorabilia entrusted to its care and that some of its historians have stolen those donated items.

    The Civil Air Patrol, a 61,000-member nationwide organization, investigated those allegations and completed an internal report in March, but refuses to make the findings public, contending that this is a private matter not subject to public scrutiny.

    The Historical Foundation uses the Civil Air Patrol’s name and is populated by its members. But the CAP's leaders said the Historical Foundation is a legally separate non-profit organization not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, a law that allows the public to obtain copies of government records.

    The Civil Air Patrol’s national commander, Maj. Gen. Charles L. Carr, Jr., of Columbus, Ohio, and senior officials at its national headquarters at Maxwell Air Force Base, in Montgomery, Ala., refused repeated requests from the Dayton Daily News and its lawyer to see the organization’s investigative report. Carr declined to discuss any details of the report. "There was no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever," Carr said. "I can assure you that if there was any evidence of wrongdoing, actions would have been taken."

    Rafael Robles, general counsel of the Civil Air Patrol, said that even if anyone had been disciplined, the organization would not disclose it. "CAP is under no ethical or legal obligation to provide the results of our internal investigation. Any findings and/or personnel actions taken are private and deemed confidential," Robles wrote in an e-mail responding to written questions from the Dayton Daily News.

    Richard Anderson, a Virginia state legislator who is a member of the CAP's Board of Governors, its governing entity, said that releasing the CAP's internal report would expose the identities of people who were interviewed for it.

    The Air Force, which oversees and provides operational funding for the Civil Air Patrol, said it does not have the report and isn't entitled to it because the Historical Foundation is beyond the reach of the Air Force. "The Civil Air Patrol is established, in part, to serve as an auxiliary of the Air Force and chartered by Congress as a private, non-profit corporation. The scope and authority of the Secretary of the Air Force depends on the specific CAP function being performed," said Maj. Jennifer Spires, an Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon. "The alleged misuse of historic aviation artifacts by CAP, and any corollary investigation, is a matter properly within CAP's corporate status and outside of its role as an Auxiliary of the Air Force."

    The Civil Air Patrol, founded in 1941, is a civilian entity organized on a military model. It has three congressionally assigned key missions: emergency services, including search and rescue, and disaster relief operations; aerospace education for youth and the public; and cadet programs for teenagers. That included the 2012 National Cadet Competition in June at Wright State University’s Nutter Center.

    The organization is heavily dependent on the Air Force, with its national headquarters and many of its state wing organizations maintaining their offices on Air Force bases. Through the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol was allocated $37.7 million in federal funding this year for operations, maintenance, and aircraft and vehicle procurement. That funding does not extend to the CAP's legally separate Historical Foundation, the Air Force said.

    The misappropriation, or at least undocumented handling, of donated historical items undermines confidence in the Civil Air Patrol, its historians said. "We would ask where it was, and we wouldn't get any answers," said Ed O’Brien, a Civil Air Patrol historian, deputy squadron commander and member of its Colorado Wing, based in Denver. "I found out that some of the stuff I'd sent in never got accounted for." O’Brien said he accepted a family’s donation of the military footlocker, and uniform brass and silver decorations, of the late John F. Curry, who served in the Army Air Corps, was the first national commander of the Civil Air Patrol, oversaw Dayton’s former McCook Field military facility and supervised the 1920s construction of Wright Field, now part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The Curry items were supposed to have been displayed at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum, in Denver, or at the Civil Air Patrol's national headquarters, O’Brien said. "And it wasn’t. I don’t know why. It was never returned here," he said. "I did get a receipt, which I sent on to the family."

    The internal investigation also focused on what happened to a military uniform and hat donated to James Shaw, now the Civil Air Patrol's national curator, by Adair Nunnally Pizer, of Valdosta, Ga. Pizer said the items had belonged to her late husband, George Winship Nunnally, a successful Atlanta businessman and early founder of the CAP and its Georgia Wing, and that she personally entrusted them to Shaw, of Leesburg, Ga. "We just wanted it to go into the collection of the Civil Air Patrol," Pizer said last week. She said Shaw told her he arranged for display of the items at a CAP meeting on Jekyll Island, Ga., and at Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

    But other CAP historians complained about a May 2009 online posting attributed to Shaw on a CAP chat web site that made this reference to the Nunnally uniform: "There is a uniform in my private collection that belonged to the first (Georgia Wing) commander. The widow gave me the uniform several years ago, along with pictures of him."

    Shaw, reached at his Georgia home, referred questions to the CAP's national headquarters. Carr, the CAP's national commander, wrote in a March 2012 letter that the internal investigation had been completed and he would give Shaw, identified only as the national curator, a "verbal counseling."

    It isn't the first sign of trouble for the Civil Air Patrol. A March 2011 inquiry by the Air Force inspector general, prompted by complaints from within the Civil Air Patrol, said the organization has suffered for years from turmoil and political infighting at its highest ranks.

    Most of the 25 witnesses interviewed for that report "blamed the turmoil on CAP's acrimonious political culture" and said the organization had a patronage system and separate entities that competed for governing authority, the Air Force investigators concluded. They recommended that the CAP consider improvements to its governing structure.

    In 2007, the CAP ousted its then-national commander, Antonio J. Pineda, over allegations that another CAP member had taken tests for him at the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College in 2002 and 2003. Pineda’s successor, Amy S. Courter, the CAP's first female national commander, later complained of lack of cooperation from senior CAP officials in the organization she inherited.

    Most of the CAP’s ranks are volunteers, outside of a paid staff at the national headquarters. Despite the organization’s high-level turmoil, its membership is steady and it performs its missions capably, the Air Force inspector general’s report noted.

    "The Civil Air Patrol is a very vibrant organization," said Carr, its current national commander. "Our people are very dedicated in what they do."

    (Ed. note: News of the Force cooperated with the Dayton Daily News in their research for this article.)

 

U-Haul crashes into the Mall of America, one dead

    The Mall of America, the nation's largest shopping venue, averages 100,000 visitors a day has been considered a high risk target for terrorist attacks since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security first began applying a "risk based" system of likely targets.

 

Real estate sailor swings property deals from Afghanistan

    She’s a Navy officer in an Afghanistan war zone moonlighting as a Manhattan real-estate power broker - but which job is more cutthroat?

    U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. Commander and Prudential Douglas Elliman agent Rachel Martin, 33, was deployed to Kandahar in December for a 330-day tour. But serving on a desert base 6,800 miles from Park Avenue wasn’t enough to make her abandon the moneyed clients she’s been cultivating for four years in the ruthless jungle of residential real estate. So from her barb-wired perch, where she lives in a converted container in the former Taliban stronghold, Martin continues to close million-dollar deals. Her weapons of choice: a Defense Department-approved cell phone and secure voice-over-Internet communications.

    Martin, who attended the Dwight School on New York City's Upper West Side, joined the Navy in 2001 as a meteorologist/oceanography officer after graduating from SUNY-Oneonta. After eight years of active duty, Martin signed up for the reserve while starting a career in real estate. Within two years, she was selling a $4.5 million, 4,000-square-foot condo in TriBeCa and a $1.4 million condo at the Trump World Tower in Midtown Manhattan, according to Streeteasy.com.

    In December, when she was called up again and assigned as an operations officer to the Defense Management Contract Agency, she decided to continue her career as a condo warrior. In June, Martin, with the help of a colleague, "worked the deal at 200 Riverside Boulevard while I was deployed here," she wrote in an e-mail from Kandahar, of a $1.9 million three-bedroom, three-bathroom luxury pad at Trump Place on West 70th Street. Her commission was about $114,000 - double the $65,000 she earns on active duty in the reserve.

    The building’s hardwood oak floors and indoor lap pool may have felt world’s away from her spartan officer's quarters. But she was immersed in the deal, her colleague said. "It was a challenging sale, because the third-floor property has the highway at eye level," said Leonel Piraino, a Prudential Douglas Elliman agent who serves as Martin’s Manhattan liaison.

    Over the past eight months, Martin has been in constant contact with clients and colleagues back home. Martin, who’s scheduled to return to New York in November, is currently working with a handful of clients looking to buy in the $3 million range uptown.

    Piraino said it makes him feel patriotic to assist the soldier of fortune. "I felt so proud of Rachel for going all the way to the middle of nowhere to defend our country," said Piraino, a native of Argentina. "It’s my honor to help her."

 

Illinois corrections officer killed in traffic crash

By Jim Corvey, News of the Force St. Louis

    A St. Clair County, Illinois, Sheriff's Department corrections officer died from injuries sustained in a crash early this morning in the 8100 block of Old St. Louis Road, Belleville police said.

    Police said Steven Johnson, 37, was ejected from the sport utility vehicle he was driving after it entered a median area, crossed another road and rolled over about 12:30 a.m., local time. He was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he later died.

    The cause of the crash is under investigation.

 

Veteran Seattle cop accused of using excessive force

    

    A veteran Seattle, Wash., police officer is under investigation for allegations of use of excessive force and unprofessionalism. The 19-year veteran is being investigated for his conduct during a police response to a report of a drive-by pellet gun shooting.

 

Iraq sees wave of attacks on security forces

    A wave of brazen attacks killed dozens of Iraqi soldiers, police and anti-Qaeda militiamen in recent days, but security forces say it pales in comparison with the worst years of violence in the country.

 

U.S. Coast Guard news

    

    According to the U.S. Coast Guard, crews responded to a distress call just before 10 a.m., yesterday, from the 28-foot sport fishing boat Dawg Daze after a butane stove exploded while the vessel was off the coast of Maine.

    The U.S. Coast Guard International Ice Patrol, based at New London, Conn., has welcomed five new members during the summer transfer season. Lt. Eric Thompson, the new Ice Information Officer, reported from Sector Anchorage, Alaska.

    A Coast Guard helicopter crew from San Diego, Calif., rescued a merchant seaman yesterday who had been burned aboard the container ship M/V Jupiter, 30 miles off the coast of San Diego.

    U.S. Coast Guard Sector Charleston, S.C., released a letter last week threatening to limit service to the Myrtle Beach area following two recent cases in which pilots were forced to land their aircraft during search and rescue operations after being hit by lasers.

    A handful of distinguished military guests and a color guard boarded USCGC Slater yesterday morning to commemorate the 222nd birthday of the U.S. Coast Guard. The cutter is docked in the Hudson River, just south of the Dunn Memorial Bridge, near Albany, N.Y.

    And the Coast Guard rescued a 40-year-old man who was injured after he dove off his boat into a sand bar at Presque Isle Bay, north of the Erie Yacht Club, in Cleveland, Ohio, yesterday afternoon. The man's name and hometown are not being released, and there is no Coast Guard imagery associated with this case. A watch-stander at Coast Guard Station Erie, Pa., was notified at 1:35 p.m., EDT, from a local 911 emergency dispatcher of a 40-year-old man who dove off his boat into 5 feet of water, hit a sand bar, and reportedly could no longer feel or move his arms. A rescue boat crew from Station Erie and Erie Fire Department paramedics launched aboard a 25-foot Response Boat—Small. The rescue crew entered the water to immobilize the man using a stokes litter, a type of rescue stretcher, brought him aboard the RB-S and transported him to the Erie Yacht Club, where emergency medical services were waiting to take the man to the Hamot Medical Center, in Erie. The man was listed in serious condition. The surgeon attending to the man at the Hamot Medical Center stated that the quick and professional response of the rescue crew and Erie Fire Department paramedics prevented more extensive injuries.

 

UFO news

    A strange UFO video was posted to YouTube showing a streaking, unidentified flying object, colored like a rainbow, zooming over the skies of an undisclosed area of Brazil.

    The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), is sponsoring their 42nd annual symposium this weekend in Covington, Ky.

    A UFO video posted to YouTube has been uploaded by a man in the U.K. which was filmed in July, but, apparently looked at again in light of the recent Goodyear blimp controversy. The results are amazing. The UFO video was posted by Arran Shaw.

    Last week dozens of witnesses saw a strange, unidentified flying object, hovering in the night sky around Cape Girardeau, Mo. It was described as round, with red and white blinking lights.

    A commercial airline pilot, who wishes to remain anonymous, has reported seeing, and being buzzed by, a UFO while trying to land his jet at the Kansas City International airport last Monday night.

    And a video on YouTube shows an eerie, saucer-shaped UFO hovering in the early morning skies near Montreal, Canada. What makes the unidentified flying object so strange is the shape of the craft, which shows no lights, no markings and emits no engine noise.

 

Record spending by Obama's camp shrinks coffers

    President Obama has spent more campaign cash more quickly than any incumbent in recent history, about $400 million from the beginning of last year to June 30 this year.

 

Terrorist who killed U.S. soldiers to be released by Iraqi court

    Judicial Watch reports that Hizbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq, who tortured and killed 5 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and was detained by U.S. forces in early 2007, will be freed by an Iraqi court – the inevitable, and predictable, result of an Obama administration decision to hand him over to Iraqi authorities rather than bring him to Guantanamo Bay.

 

Today in History

    On Aug. 5, 1963, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater. Read more about Today in History at our web site, http://newsoftheforce.org .

 

The parting shots

    A photograph of U.S. President Barack Obama holding a baseball bat while talking on the phone to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was intended to show their close relationship, a White House spokeswoman said, after the photo caused a stir in Turkey. The two leaders spoke last Monday to discuss the crisis in Syria, after which the photograph of Obama, seated at his desk, talking on the phone while holding a bat autographed by black-American baseball great Hank Aaron, was released by the White House.

    Members of an all-woman Russian punk band on trial for staging a protest at the altar of Moscow's main cathedral will likely receive long jail terms despite President Vladimir Putin saying they should not be judged too harshly, a defense lawyer said. A Moscow court refused to hear most defense witnesses called to testify on Friday on behalf of the protest action by the Pussy Riot band, dimming hopes among human rights groups that Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, could escape lengthy sentences.

    And a Spanish politician who was driving a car that crashed in Cuba last month, killing the island's top dissident, was in proceedings in Spain to have his license revoked, according to Spain's national traffic authority.

 

 

                 

 

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