"Sabrina M. Weiner, 27, near her home in Everett on Friday. Weiner was a Navy reserve officer until she refused to go to Iraq in January."
Posted on 04/19/2008 11:09:14 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
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, forfeited her Navy career after seven years on active and reserve duty, during which she rose to the rank of lieutenant.
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 jailed, flown across the nation in shackles and threatened with court-martial. Today she is scraping by in Everett, tutoring high school kids in math and 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 suddenly and involuntarily called up to serve alone with ground forces in Iraq, only a few months after returning home to his young family from a full deployment with his squadron flying 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 soon be called up. She 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 hot line, a nonprofit organization at www.objector.netthat 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 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 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 and commitment. She wants to continue to serve her community, perhaps to apply her studies in bioethics to 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."
The sad part of it is I met more of them like that than not: Wanted the free education, decent pay and the prestige of the rank and positions but pulled out the female “trump” card when the going got tough.
They put a bad light on the women who really wanted to serve.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Sorry for your luck there missy, you signed on the dotted line and ugh you like Cindy Sheehan, that should be a mark against you right away....
Douche bag!
During the Nam this was a big problem ~ guys would try like crazy to join the Navy just to avoid the draft, then they'd get in the Navy ~ maybe even be commissioned, and next thing you know some guy's got 'em on a Swift Boat!
Can you imagine how startled John Kerry was when he found out Swift Boats ran up and down a narrow river getting shot at rather than just running parallel to Vietnam's China Sea shoreline ~ far away from any effective fire from the NVA.
Now this doesn't mean all the Navy folks are this way ~ I've known some who weren't ~ but some aren't ~ hey, there are even guys in the Infantry who don't like to get shot at. And, besides, this is a chick ~ we know she didn't sign on for that part.
"Sabrina M. Weiner, 27, near her home in Everett on Friday. Weiner was a Navy reserve officer until she refused to go to Iraq in January."
Did she miss the part where she swore “to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and “to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me”?
Well, I’m a retired Navy Reservist who went in during Vietnam. I do not think many Navy folks thought that DaNang was “good duty” but we all swore the same oath given to every armed forces member (Navy, USMC, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard) and that oath states that 1. we will obey the orders of the Commander in Chief and the officers appointed over us; and 2. that we will defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic.
“...and other duties as assigned...”
Getting shot at in the Infantry is an occupational hazard, not especially pleasant but it goes with the job.
Buddy of mine who was a US Army supply officer thought Da Nang was tremendous duty ~ the alternative being out in the boonies.
Agreed. I certainly did. And see #18.
The most egregious order we had came down from Defense Secretary McNamara himself in the early Kennedy years. He considered himself an “efficiency expert,” having done so well making Ford Motor Company more efficient.
The order said that any jeeps or trucks that were not being sufficiently used at the company level—which would be determined by their mileage, which had to be reported up the line—would have to be turned back in.
The predictable result was that our company officers ordered us to go out in the desert and drive around in circles, until we had put on the required mileage. They were, of course, absolutely right. If trouble came, we would need those vehicles. No good officer would ever agree to turn company equipment back in if he could help it.
So, out we went into the desert.
A better solution would have been to fire McNamara for stupidity. That would have saved a lot of trouble down the line, when we got into Vietnam.
I was under the impression this was done to have a large number of people who would understand armed forces operations from perspective of another branch of service.
Concerning DoD's deeply flawed and ill-conceived "warm body" augmentation policy, she does have a point here. That's why so much of the reconstruction and civic action that has been going on in Iraq has been so incompetent.
Ditto.
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