It's important to understand that there is no such thing as a binding "doctor's note" in the military. You may have an allergy to the charcoal filters (...or you may have a sprained ankle...or the flu...) and your doctor can write a note for you but this is just a recommendation from the doctor to the commander. Ultimately, it is entirely up to your commander whether you will be excused from duty, excused from using the filter, etc. A commander holds immense power in the U.S. military and there is good historical reason for this but that's out of scope for my comment. This is what Capt. Wilson ran up against. Ultimately, he can either choose to obey his commander or he can resign his commission and leave the military.
That said, as a military officer myself, I am disgusted with the words that this article claims were used on his evaluation report. Sarcasm has no place in an evaluation and to use language like that is unprofessional. He should fight that evaluation and it sounds like he is.
Still, there are better ways to fight the system than to go on "60 Minutes" in your uniform. There are professional journals for the various military occupations where such a complaint might be raised without going straight to national news. When you pull that big of a fire alarm, you really have to be prepared to toss your career down the drain because it's a strong possibility.
>Still, there are better ways to fight the system than to go on "60 Minutes" in your uniform.
There probably aren't.
> There are professional journals for the various military occupations where such a complaint might be raised without going straight to national news.
These problems are ongoing for several years now. They have been covered widely in the armed forces media, the national media, and the international media. Wilson did not just 'go straight to national news.'
>When you pull that big of a fire alarm, you really have to be prepared to toss your career down the drain because it's a strong possibility.
While true in practical terms, that's not something to be proud of; and not a defense of the Air Force's handling of the matter. The F22 program has eaten bigger careers[1] than Wilson's, and looks like it will keep doing so until morale improves. What a way to run an army.
The military (in particular the US military) is not set up to accommodate the job satisfaction you might expect in a civilian job. If you somehow find yourself under a bad leader (and lots of soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen do) then you basically just ride it out until that person either rotates out to a new duty station or you do.
Generally speaking though, the quality of leadership in the military is higher than it is in the civilian world. Most officers are basically middle-management and I was blessed by some really outstanding company commanders while I was in.
That said, there are no guarantees of that and if you find yourself in a bad command, you have few options as an officer (besides resigning your commission) and fewer as an enlisted guy.
If there is any upside to this, it's that good commanders will earn the loyalty and respect of their people and those people will literally give their lives to the mission for him. Bad commanders don't get that kind of honor and as such their mission readiness and reputation often suffers.
This is one of the flaws you get with leadership in the military - while enlisted and officers alike are encouraged to be a leader and speak out about issues when no one else does so or is able to, the reality is that if you do, you almost certainly will face reprisal.
The leadership principles preached by the US military are rock solid, but the execution can be incredibly flawed unfortunately, and good men & women get screwed by it for doing the right thing.
* I do not know if he went to his chain of command with the issues first, but this is just a general observation from serving in the military myself.
He sent a memo to the then commander, did a confidential survey, sent the survey result to the commander, and sent few more memos to other senior officers. None were interested in his work. They dismissed his questions and concerns.
Search the phrase "After about 40 hours of flying with the filter."
I have to say in a disciplined organization like military, it's always a bad idea to speak on behalf of your organization without approval. There are all kinds of gotchas in these organizations. But if these officers dismiss his concerns, I really think he has the right to ask for help in public. In the end, he's a human being.
I don't think something like this is fixable, it's pretty much a flaw in human nature. This is why courts and juries and checks and balances have to exist. Many people are cynical, self-interested political animals especially in positions of power because being cynical helps them get power. It's something you have to recognize as a very real risk before blowing that whistle. You will likely be sacrificing your career, and in some cases your freedom and life.
Discrediting a whistleblower who jeopardize a life's work and career works in leadership's favor, especially since they're probably mad as a group. As an example I've witnessed high ranked enlisted working together, planning and cheering the demise of lower ranked individuals. If it's not worth the personal cost, one can consider taking the anonymous route which is getting easier with the tools the EFF is creating. One should also learn good opsec and not brag about what was done ala Chelsea Manning.
My impression is that the way this was handled was flawed. Effectively removing him from his full-time ACC job is highly questionable.
The issue is more complicated. The flight surgeon was concerned over the filters, but the chain-of-command couldn't allow him to fly without the filter. There was genuine concern from the chain of command, acting on the premise it was toxic fumes getting into the pilots air/oxygen supply. That turned out to be flawed as well.
Whistleblowing is an amazingly foolish activity for the whistleblower.
It might help society, but the consequences tend to destroy the whistleblower. I saw what it did to a close family member who blew the whistle on activities that caused the death of at least one patient.
Retaliation against Whistle-Blowers: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
http://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2012/10/24/whistle-bl...
" the results of a 2011 National Business Ethics Survey titled “Retaliation: When Whistleblowers Become Victims.” The report contains some shocking statistics:
45% of US workers observed wrongdoing;
65% of those who witnessed wrongdoing reported it;
22% of those who reported wrongdoing said they experienced retaliation (an increase of 46% from 2009); and
46% of those who observed wrongdoing but chose not to report it, cited fear of retaliation as the reason."
The professional consequences of whistleblowing by nurses
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11125963
"Abstract
When nurses encounter misconduct in the workplace, their ethical codes of conduct bind them to the role of patient advocacy and compel them to safeguard the patient from harm. However, reporting misconduct can be personally and professionally risky. The aim of the research was to examine the professional consequences of whistleblowing and nonwhistleblowing in nursing. A descriptive survey design was used to examine the professional effect of reporting misconduct (whistleblowing) and not reporting misconduct (nonwhistleblowing). Ninety-five respondents were included in the study; 70 were self-identified as whistleblowers and 25 were self-identified as nonwhistleblowers. Results indicated that there were severe professional reprisals if the nurse reported misconduct, but there were few professional consequences if the nurse remained silent. Official reprisals included demotion (4%), reprimand (11%), and referral to a psychiatrist (9%). Whistleblowers also reported that they received professional reprisals in the form of threats (16%), rejection by peers (14%), pressure to resign (7%), and being treated as a traitor (14%). Ten per cent reported that they felt their career had been halted. These findings suggest that when nurses identify and report misconduct in the workplace, they may experience serious professional consequences.
"
I knew someone who was a nurse who blew the whistle on a life and death situation in a hospital. Her reward? Transfer to the night shift, and somehow her skills weren't needed by other hospitals in the area.
Blew the whistle on issues both in the OR (surgeon with poor hygiene & safety; not washing hands, habitually leaving sponges and tools in patients) and in nursing homes (neglect that was literally killing residents). Retaliation each time. At least my mom was good at fighting it - she always managed to come out ahead somehow with a different job or a nice severance.
Retaliation for all sorts of things is huge in that profession.
It's hard to say that the disciplinary actions against Capt Wilson were the result of whistleblowing. From the article:
When the F-22 was cleared to fly again in September 2011, the Air Force had added a charcoal filter to the breathing system in the hopes of trapping contaminants. But that fix appears to have presented new problems.
In the months that followed, pilots discovered the filters were releasing charcoal dust inside their oxygen hoses. The result, according to a letter Wilson's lawyer sent to the inspector general: coughing fits and other respiratory ailments.
Members of the squadron, including Wilson, told their commander they wanted to fly without the filter but were informed that anyone who refused would face disciplinary action.
Additionally, he was denied promotion and grounded in April 2012. The article doesn't say when it was filmed or if his superiors were aware of the 60 Minutes segment, but that segment didn't air until a month later. It's possible that it was filmed prior to being disciplined and his commander found out, but they had already established that any pilot refusing to fly without the charcoal filter would be disciplined.
The oxygen system problem(s) aren't new to the F22. One pilot has been killed, and some pilots have refused to fly the plane over persistent problems that haven't been sorted out. So, Wilson isn't alone in his complaints, and he isn't making things up.
I think csandreasen wasn't saying that the complaints weren't warranted; just that it might have been the refusal to fly, rather than the whistleblowing per se, that stalled his career.
That's exactly what I was trying to say - I think this is an issue of pilots getting caught in a health/safety battle, and there's every reason to go about investigating from that angle (I'm assuming that's what the Inspector General investigation is focused on). I don't see the evidence to conclude that he's being reprimanded for whistleblowing.
Seems like some higher ups at the air force got mad at him because he made them look incompetent of solving or even ignoring a serious problem with the jet.
There should be a law that gives immunity to whistleblowers. We can already, to some extent, make it more difficult to discriminate based on sex or color or pregnancy -- a similar thing would be good for whistleblowers.
Of course, there are ways and there are ways, but in the general case if organisations knew that the matter of things will still be observed two years after blowing the whistle and that it can't look bad, there would be an incentive to treat these people right.
There should be an independent committee outside of the military handling complaints that have been ignored (you need to provide evidences you've done all you could to raise the issue to your superiors.)
There is. There are Inspectors General (IG) at many levels in the armed forces and in the Department of Defense as a whole. Outside of this, there is your congressman which it sounds like Capt. Wilson went to. Starting a "congressional", as they're called, is like pulling the fire alarm in an office building with 15,000 people in it: it had better be a real fire and not just a lunch that smoked up the break room microwave.
About 45 years ago, there was a captain in the US Navy who answered candidly in a congressional hearing about the F-111's potential for use on aircraft carriers. He was greatly admired by his fellow officers for doing this, but he killed his career along with the naval F-111.
The problem was traced to a faulty Breathing Regulator/Anti-G (BRAG) valve. The value issue, combined with breathing technique issues caused the problems.
That said, as a military officer myself, I am disgusted with the words that this article claims were used on his evaluation report. Sarcasm has no place in an evaluation and to use language like that is unprofessional. He should fight that evaluation and it sounds like he is.
Still, there are better ways to fight the system than to go on "60 Minutes" in your uniform. There are professional journals for the various military occupations where such a complaint might be raised without going straight to national news. When you pull that big of a fire alarm, you really have to be prepared to toss your career down the drain because it's a strong possibility.