Posted on 04/18/2008 8:35:51 PM PDT by jazusamo
EVERETT -- Eleven years ago, Sabrina M. Weiner graduated as a valedictorian at Kamiak High School near Everett. She was a National Merit Scholar, aiming for a bright future after earning a Navy ROTC scholarship to Stanford University.
Two months ago, Weiner, 27, after seven years in the active and reserve duty during which she rose to the rank of lieutenant, forfeited her career.
In a rare instance involving a commissioned officer, Weiner was arrested and given a choice between a court-martial or less-than-honorable discharge after refusing to serve in Iraq.
Speaking publicly for the first time about it, Weiner says she was not against the war but the so-called "individual augmentee" program. In the past several years, that program has sent nearly 60,000 sailors from ships and bases to augment Army and Marine ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It is not an against-the-war argument but a people-accountability argument," Weiner says. "I was proud to say I was a Navy officer. My problem is the way they are using us as IAs. It minimizes the job and training we do for the Navy."
It cannibalizes the Navy -- and Air Force -- to cover up a shortage of Army and Marine troops to fight the wars, she argues.
For her convictions, she was thrown in jail, flown across the nation in shackles and threatened with court-martial. Today she is scraping by in Everett, living frugally, tutoring high school kids in math and is enrolled in graduate studies at the Alden March Bioethics Institute based at the Albany Medical College in New York.
"I'm not another Watada," she cautions, referring to the Fort Lewis Army active duty lieutenant, Ehren Watada. In 2006, Watada refused to accompany his Stryker Brigade to combat duty in Iraq, contending that the war is immoral and unconstitutional.
Unlike Watada, whose case remains active after moving from a military to a federal court last year, Weiner's was resolved within a month in February. And unlike the Army lieutenant, Weiner has not become an anti-war cause for Hollywood celebrities and peace activists.
Navy officials declined to discuss Weiner's case, saying they were unfamiliar with it.
According to the Navy Department, 7,063 active and 5,050 reserve sailors are serving as individual augmentees, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in the Horn of Africa and other locations. They include 3,145 active-duty and reserve officers and more than 9,000 active-duty and reserve enlisted men and women. The Defense Department and top Navy officials have acknowledged that the policy has created hardships for sailors and their families. The Navy has altered the program after listening to complaints from sailors, and invites more input, though it says the program is needed and will remain in place for some time to come.
Assignments are voluntary and involuntary, and reviews from sailors are mixed. Active- and reserve-duty sailors, who declined to be named, cited problems with the program to the Seattle P-I. They included a ship driver from San Diego, a sailor from Eastern Washington and a Navy aviator.
The aviator contacted his congressman after he was involuntarily sent to serve with ground forces in Iraq only a few months after returning from a full deployment with his squadron flying support missions in the war zone.
The individual augmentee jobs typically include public works and reconstruction; training local forces in Afghanistan; medical care; protecting U.S. bases; interpreting laws, especially concerning contractor obligations; forging closer ties with communities in Afghanistan; handling detainees; and administrative work.
Weiner got a call before Christmas that she would be getting orders soon to be called up.
Weiner says her job in Iraq was to have been commerce officer, providing money to local Iraqi leaders.
That gave her pause, not only because she was not trained for the job, but also because she is of Japanese, Korean and Jewish ancestry.
"They were going to have me negotiate money transactions with Iraqi warlords. A woman of Jewish and East Asian descent to try to talk to men about money in a country where women aren't always allowed to handle money," Weiner says.
Weiner's record and fitness reports before she was called up to IA duty indicate anything but a shrinking violet. She had earned two overseas service ribbons, commendation and achievement medals and was part of a Meritorious Unit Commendation.
After graduating from Stanford in 2001, Weiner started her career aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, a vessel second in size only to aircraft carriers and which transports Marine landing forces. She was serving overseas during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
She received glowing fitness reports:
"Assigned to arduous sea duty ...," her commander wrote in one review. "Outstanding officer and Navy professional! On the fast track! Assign only to the most challenging jobs!"
She left active duty in August 2004, receiving high marks in her final evaluation in all categories but professional expertise.
By 2005, Weiner as a reservist worked as a research liaison officer at the prestigious Office of Naval Research. Her detachment was responsible for managing research in underwater unmanned vehicles and weaponry. She also served as the unit's public information officer. Her fitness reports continued to average "above standards" or "greatly exceeds standards." A commander called her "an excellent officer" and "a highly motivated self-starter."
Her last good report was November 2007, this time newly assigned to a joint service unit of the Selective Service System in New Orleans.
"She is most strongly recommended for promotion and greater responsibility in the Naval Reserve," her commander wrote.
It all unraveled on Jan. 9 when she received orders to be called up.
She agonized over the policy and her own convictions, readiness and obligations as an officer. The job seemed to her a random call for a warm body.
"I was not afraid of dying; I was afraid of acting out of weakness," she said. "It would have been easier to just go along with it." Weiner was to report Jan. 28. She was depressed, and she tried to call local Navy lawyers for advice. "I was told they could do nothing because I'm a reservist" with her headquarters in New Orleans, she said.
She turned to GI Rights hotline, a nonprofit organization at www.objector.net that offers legal help to servicemen and women, especially to those refusing to go to war.
Weiner found a lawyer and filed a request for personal hardship, In a conference call, her commanding offer was angry at her, she said. "I never got to tell them why I was refusing to deploy," she said. He ordered her report to New Orleans.
Weiner said she refused to report while her request for exemption was in the pipeline. Counselors and lawyers seemed unfamiliar with how to handle officers refusing to report, having handled mostly Army enlisted personnel.
A Navy official tried to reach her at her parents' home. Weiner was told to report voluntarily or risk arrest and being transported in shackles.
"My dad said, 'We support you. They are trying to send you to an Army position in Iraq. I understand.' "
Weiner put her jobs and a graduate program in bioethics on hold. She said she was preparing in to pack for New Orleans on the night Everett police arrived at her door.
Weiner said she was booked and strip searched and did nothing to resist, and credits jail and military authorities who handled her arrest with "acting very professionally." Though friends and the GI Rights people knew of her situation, she wanted no action or protest. " I wanted to know what the Navy will do." Military police took over and escorted her in shackles, walking to help her conceal them and avoid attention through the airports from Seattle and in New Orleans. "The staff was kind and wonderful to me," she said.
She was flown to New Orleans on a Friday night, and the Navy was ready for her: Face detention, then a court-martial or accept an other-than-honorable discharge,
a separation from the service in a middle ground, ranking below honorable and general discharges but above bad conduct and dishonorable discharges.
Weiner said she mulled whether how much it might affect her later life. Wanting to teach and write after graduate school, she opted for the discharge. She was flown home the next day. Her final fitness report dated Feb. 20, 2008, sharply contrasts her earlier ones.
"Lt. Weiner's failure to report ...was counter to good order and discipline, negatively affected the command climate and represents a failure to live up to the Navy core values of honor, courage and commitment. Lt. Weiner effectively put her personal desires above the needs of the Navy team and the nation ...Lt. Weiner is most strongly recommended for separation from the Navy."
The episode still makes her emotional both in what she gave up and for the support she has received. Weiner feels she showed honor, courage, commitment. She wants to continue to serve her community, perhaps to take apply her studies in bioethics into ensuring the safety of the food we eat.
"I want people to know about IAs, but there's a good side," she says. "The Navy did the best it could. I have no hard feelings. We are there to serve -- we serve the constitution."
What does Jewish have to do with it; I don’t expect she would be wearing a Star of David on her blouse. There are people of the Jewish faith serving in Iraq.
Thank goodness her cowardice was exposed before she was put in harm’s way, which would have endangered her ship mates.A dishonorable discharge suits her.
Shippy ping.
Not corrupt in the slightest. The military has a bunch of very different jobs, and a bunch of very different people that have very different job wants and needs. Putting them in the right jobs is bound to create problems here and there. They are not interchangeable parts.
Hers is one of the biggest complaints: “I’ve already done that. If I do it again it stalls or kills my career. I need to do a job in ‘x’ to keep my career on track.” This is the furthest thing from slacking off.
The military will often accommodate you, but only if they know. And the way you get them to know is by asking someone senior how to get accommodation from the system.
But, as is again often the case, you hit a dead end. The military has boxed you in to a situation that is unacceptable. It’s the end of your career one way or the other. Importantly, she had not reached that point, and good advice from somebody senior might have turned up a mutually satisfactory conclusion.
In the final analysis, except for the very worst jobs, the military wants people doing a job that want to do a job. And they can almost always find *somebody* who wants to do that job. And thus the system works. But the assumption is that if you really don’t want to do a job, you have to use the system to let them know.
And you never, ever miss a movement. That is a cardinal sin.
She can marry Watada and they both will be Weinerless.
"I had the distinct honor of seeing off Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother, as she headed off to Crawford to ask George Bush why her son is dead. She is going back tomorrow, and will stay there until she gets an answer, and the truth." - Sabrina M. Weiner blog
Infinite DragonAge: 28
Astrological Sign: Leo
Zodiac Year: Sheep
Location: Washington : United StatesAbout Me
Naval Officer with three years of Active Duty experience, currently assigned to ONR Seattle with Navy Reserve. Served three years overseas in Japan, commissioned through ROTC scholarship.
Education: B.S.: Science, Technology and Society, Stanford University.
Primary academic interest is Bioethics, secondary in any interdisciplinary technology and science studies fields.
I think I must agree with you on that point. Someone F’ed up.
She thought she was a head chef and she didn’t like being asked to wash dishes.
Putting her skills in Iraq or Afghanistan would have been a waste of money, resources and effective management.
“I think the whole military needs to reval where they put people I am highly skilled e6(computer specialist) I am sitting in a battalion e4 slot, I should be in a base noc somewhere instead of telling users in my battalion what icon to click on. When something really gets stuffed up I have to call the base noc and I know more than some of them. We also have lots of highly skilled signal soldiers that pulling guntruck duty or tower duty. but she should not have missed movement”
Welcome to the real world. You describe pretty much most large corporations.
I should have done a little digging before I posted this thread, it would have brought to everyones attention how left leaning this article is and the true feelings of Weiner.
Even after a poster mentioned her blog I didn’t check it until another poster mentioned her support of Sheehan. It was an eye opener and shot down any credibility the writer of this article had.
It’s pretty clear to me that someone in the military got wind of her blog in 2005 and ordered her to cease and desist. For her to take the position she did while still in the military, especially being a fairhaired officer was ridiculous.
I believe her problems began then and it snowballed ending in this fiasco. I’m sure there is much more to this that the lib writer didn’t include in this sob story.
Thanks for your post.
Hiya Lily, I should have pinged you to this piece because you have a great way with words. :-)
She got off light with a discharge. She's lucky she didn't get sent to Leavenworth.
Your primary loyalty as an officer is not to the "Army" or the "Navy" or the "Air Force" or the "Marines". It is to the United States of America.
If you are ordered, for whatever lawful reason, to perform duties with other branches of the Armed Forces or to supprt other branches of the Armed Forces, you DO it or you suffer the consequences under the UCMJ.
I agree, she did get off light. I have the feeling the Navy soft pedaled this wanting to avoid another Watada fiasco but then I could be wrong.
Well said and so very true. In previous wars I believe she would have had free room and board at Leavenworth for this stunt.
YIKES. I thought only “strangers” were on this thread. My dad would ground me for that sorta talk.
Does Leavenworth take women? I thought the USDB was a male only club.
You are, of course, right.
Well there’s a first. I thought maybe they had a secret housing pod for women.
********” I, Sabrina Weiner, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.’’********
Lt. Weiner, do you recall when you solemnly swore on that particular day to support the Constitution? Do you? Where in the above allegiance gave you the right to express your opinion? I’m glad you took your a$$ out of the service.
I fought in World War II and I’m sorry that one of my duties was to fight for scum such as you.
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