S&S - Letter-writer is willing to battle for his combat patch

Stars and Stripes

Letter-writer is willing to battle for his combat patch

By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008

Courtesy of Jeremiah Minor

Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Minor was recently threatened with legal action and with being kicked out of the Army by his new command in Iraq, after he wrote a letter to Stars and Stripes objecting to a requirement for all soldiers in his unit to wear the 1st Infantry Division combat patch. Here Minor, right, and another soldier pose for photo while on a patrol during a deployment to Afghanistan in February 2006.

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.

Somebody check my math, but if SSG Minor has already done combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq each, this makes his third combat tour, as a reservist, and that he volunteered for this one on his own (see immediately below). Clearly he meets the profile of a slacker.

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.” (sic)

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.

It actually seems that he did use his chain of command and his NCO support channel (which doesn't appear to have been very "supportive" to this NCO).

“If such behavior continues, you may receive punishment under Article 15, UCMJ, court-martial or adverse action such as bar to re-enlistment….”

Now there's a counseling statement that's just chock-full-o' inspiration.

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.

Oddly enough, this only seems to be a problem when it comes to a more junior soldier relating true facts which tend to make senior soldiers appear to be chumps.

“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.

To this day, I retain an idealistic notion that the system works, and that behind the scenes somebody is making a peer-to-peer phone call to a certain battalion commander to give them some clarifying input.

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.

I'm sure that SSG Minor is a little curious about that as well. Only his interest will be somewhat less academic in nature.

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.

Time out for some explanations for the uninitiate: what's being talked about here as "combat patches" are what the applicable Army regulations (AR 670-1) term "SSI-FWTS."

SSI = "shoulder sleeve insignia."

FWTS = "former wartime service."

Normally, one wears the unit patch (or "SSI") on one's left shoulder. That's one's current unit of assignment. Reservists can find themselves taking off their home unit's SSI when they deploy as part of an "Active Component" unit like the 1st ID. That doesn't seem to be what SSG Minor is objecting to.

Which takes us to the right shoulder. Since at least World War II, it has been the custom that if a soldier had served in combat with a U.S. Army unit, forever after he could wear that unit's SSI on his left shoulder, as a "shoulder sleeve insignia - former wartime service" or, as it's more commonly expressed, his combat patch.

(Note: Unit patches only became an official part of the army uniform during World War I, although there had been an earlier system in use by the Union Army during the American Civil War).

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.

Just to recapitulate, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade commander, COL Farrington, felt that mandatory wear of the "Big Red One" combat patch on the left shoulders of every single one of his soldiers was insufficient to ensure unit cohesion.

Perhaps if one was assigned to a unit commanded by the likes of COL Farrington, it would be insufficient.

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.

SSG Minor has summed up the essentials of AR 670-1's guidance on this matter in an admirably succinct manner. He grasps the very heart of the issue.

It's a pity there isn't a senior non-commissioned officer with at least as much experience as a reserve component E-6 permanently assigned to assist aviation brigade commanders with soldier issues like this. We could call one (give me a moment) a "sergeant major," so that their primacy in all things sergeanty would be manifest.

Yeah, I'm just a little bit annoyed with this silliness.

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.

I'm liking this SSG Minor more and more all the time. He wishes to honor his fallen comrades. It's a pity that his new combat command is doing its Damnedest to make very certain that he never develops that sort of reverential feeling towards the unit with which he's currently deployed.

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.”

A little more quibbling and clarification here: In my not particularly inexpert opinion, a combat command would be well within its perogatives to direct its soldiers to "sanitize" their uniforms during certain missions or phases of a deployment. That is, remove identifying patches or insignia to prevent providing intelligence to enemy forces or sympathizers. Similarly, there's every reason to expect that a combat command could enforce that its unit patch was worn on the left shoulders of its soldiers, which is where it belongs. I will assume that the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade does not have its own unit patch but instead wears the patch of its parent unit, the 1st Infantry Division or "Big Red One."

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.”

And you, gentle reader, would be wholly justified should you feel somewhat skeptical about what the prospects of getting this idiot of a battalion commander to correct his policy without there being some public "airing."

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.

Yes, that's what the left shoulder patch is supposed to do.

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.

Ya think?

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.”

Is there any doubt that this translates to "do what you want, but if you or your soldiers don't do what I want, you'll get a bad annual evaluation."

Hopefully there's someone who's not-a-complete-idiot somewhere in LTC Cutting's own chain-of-command who can point out why this is not just wrong, but an error.

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.

That's probably because SSG Minor is a better leader than his current battalion commander. He certainly has a better grasp of the applicable regulation that LTC Cutting does.

Minor is wearing his 173rd patch, just a few months into his yearlong deployment.

SSG Minor needs to trade places with the 1st ID's command sergeant major for the remainder of his 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.”

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SSG Minor's original letter here(April 15):

"Right to choose combat patch

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.

It seems that the brigade commander has made this an order and everyone will comply with his guidance, but he said Vietnam veterans could wear their own patch. That is discrimination.

I am not even allowed to wear [no patch] at all; I am forced to wear this 1st ID patch. Quite frankly, I am embarrassed to do so. First, I have not even been in country long enough to earn that patch or even want to wear that patch; I do not even have orders authorizing me to wear that patch. Second, 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. Third, I earned my 173rd combat patch through sweat and blood, and I have the Purple Heart to prove it.

This reflects poorly on a command that is willing to make soldiers suffer because they will not conform. I am deployed with other prior-deployed soldiers who have to suffer through this as well.

Staff Sgt. Jeremiah L. Minor
Camp Speicher, Iraq"

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On Wednesday, April 23, another soldier responded thusly:

"NCO must lead by example

The noncommissioned officer who wrote “Right to choose combat patch” (letter, April 15), is obviously not focused on the task at hand, which is to train the Iraqi Security Forces so they can secure their own country and we can go home for good.

He stated he is “forced” to wear the 1st Infantry Division patch even though he has not met the time requirement. He is incorrect. ALARACT Message 055/2007 published by the Army G1 (human resources) explains the policy on wearing of the combat patch in detail. However, he is correct when he stated he has the right to choose to wear, or not to wear, one at all.

What bothers me is that this NCO is embarrassed to wear his division patch and he says his command is making soldiers suffer by making them wear this patch. The soldiers who are suffering are the ones who patrol mounted and dismounted for eight to 10 hours a day in the scorching heat, the soldiers in the guard towers who are subject to daily attacks, and the soldiers who maintain and fix combat vehicles so that the mission can continue. The families whose loved ones gave the ultimate sacrifice are the ones who are suffering, not this NCO who is “forced” to wear the 1st ID patch.

He should demonstrate pride in his unit so his soldiers will mirror his actions by doing the right thing, not asking “why,” and lead by example. It seems to me that the command in the brigade is only trying to build esprit de corps and unit cohesion.

My two basic responsibilities will always be uppermost in my mind: accomplishment of my mission and the welfare of my soldiers. Sound familiar?

First Sgt. Carlos Cano III
Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah, Iraq"