The Jag Shop

[conanthebarbarian]

Oops! That should be "commissioned". CTB

[knownuthin]

Hey Conan. I'm a 90-day wonder from Medina. I spent 90 days wandering what the hell did I do. So you went green. I was assigned to an Army post for 2 years in a joint assignment. I just loved all the singing and marching in the morning. Of course I was only a spectator from my nice air conditioned office. Anyway, good luck to you and all the other JAGs.

[jagghagg]

allrise said:

I did not realize asking a question one time was considered obsessing. I know that it is an important factor and I was curious. I am not a veteran but I did not post the question because I have an issue with VP.

Allrise, it is just that (perhaps people than you) DO have "an issue" with VP. I tend to think that a discussion about VP, VP points and the amount of "extra"points one may get would result in one ugly thread.

[ALJD]

jagghagg said:

I tend to think that a discussion about VP, VP points and the amount of "extra"points one may get would result in one ugly thread.

Jagghagg,

If you ever go to the old troll infested board and do a search on VP, you will see that VP discussions have been beaten to death and all of them usually end in flame feasts and name calling. For that reason, I watch VP threads very carefully and will moderate as soon as it starts to get "ugly".

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, no?

[jagghagg]

ALJDiscussion does a very compassionate and efficient job here on the boards!

[conanthebarbarian]

Knownuthin: Great to hear from another Medina grad. I was Class 72-04, Sq. 3, Flt 16 "Rodney's Rangers"! I still have my ball cap and t-shirt somewhere. Remember the OT club and the "OT Special" (14oz. T-bone steak)? Geez, I really miss that place; needless to say I had a great time and did a lot of my best work at the OT Club. On a recent AT tour to Fort Sam, the Lackland Public Affairs office was nice enough to take me on a tour of the "new Medina" (totally under construction). I did mange to get into Forbes Hall and found that the "Master Bedroom" (lecture hall) still looked the same as it did in the summer of 1971. Good times, good times! But really hot! Good luck to you as well! CTB

[knownuthin]

Conan: What a memory you have. My only recollection of the OT Club was of an OT trying to sing (trying being the operative word) "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by The Animals. I was in Class 79-02 (I think), which graduated 10/24/78. I started out in Sq 5 but my flight was moved to Sq 7 during the OT surge. When I started OTS there were 4 squadrons and there were 8 when I left. So I was in the "Lucky 7" and I too still have a T-shirt somewhere. My squadron color was yellow. Do you remember the room inspections. I got written up for a "dead body" in my room. A fly died and was lying on my desk. By good times, I hope you don't mean "tight meals." But "be no week" was pleasant. We called the last week "be no week" because there would be no inspections, be no parade, be no exams, etc. Hope to see you at the ALJ equivalent.

[jagghagg]

The Boston Globe <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/>

Control sought on military lawyers


Bush wants power over promotions


By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | December 15, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.

The administration has proposed a regulation requiring "coordination"
with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.

A Pentagon spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the reasoning behind the proposed regulations. But the requirement of coordination - which many former JAGs say would give the administration veto power over any JAG promotion or appointment - is consistent with past administration efforts to impose greater control over the military lawyers.

The former JAG officers say the regulation would end the uniformed lawyers' role as a check-and-balance on presidential power, because politically appointed lawyers could block the promotion of JAGs who they believe would speak up if they think a White House policy is illegal.

Retired Major General Thomas Romig, the Army's top JAG from 2001 to 2005, called the proposal an attempt "to control the military JAGs" by sending a message that if they want to be promoted, they should be "team players" who "bow to their political masters on legal advice."

It "would certainly have a chilling effect on the JAGs' advice to commanders," Romig said. "The implication is clear: without [the administration's] approval the officer will not be promoted."

The new JAG rule is part of a set of proposed changes to the military's procedures for promoting all commissioned officers, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe. The Pentagon began internally circulating a draft of the changes for comments by the services in mid-November, and the administration will decide whether to make the changes official later this month or early next year.

The JAG rule would give new leverage over the JAGs to the Pentagon's general counsel, William "Jim" Haynes, who was appointed by President Bush. Haynes has been the Pentagon's point man in the disputes with the JAGs who disagreed with the administration's assertion that the president has the right to bypass the Geneva Conventions and other legal protections for wartime detainees.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said that Haynes was traveling and unavailable for an interview, and she did not respond to other written questions submitted by the Globe. In the past, Haynes has made several proposals that would bring the JAGs under greater control by political appointees.

As part of the uniformed chain of command, the JAGs are not directly controlled by civilian political appointees. But Haynes has long promoted the idea of making each service's politically appointed general counsel the direct boss of the service's top JAG, a change Haynes has said would support the principle of civilian control of the military.

One of Haynes' allies on the Bush administration legal team, former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, recently coauthored a law review article sharply critical of the JAGs' unwillingness to endorse the legality of the administration's treatment of wartime detainees.

Yoo, who wrote a series of controversial legal opinions about the president's power to bypass the Geneva Conventions and antitorture laws before leaving government in 2003, called for some kind of "corrective measures" that would "punish" JAGs who undermine the president's policy preferences.

Yoo's law review article did not specifically discuss injecting political appointees into the JAG promotions process, and Yoo said in an e-mail that he did not know anything about the new Pentagon proposal.
But several retired JAGs said they think the proposed change is an attempt by the Bush administration to turn Yoo's idea into a reality.

Under the current system, boards of military officers pick who will join the JAG corps and who will be promoted, while the general counsels' role is limited to reviewing whether the boards followed correct procedures.
The proposed rule would impose a new requirement of "coordination" with the general counsels of the services and the Pentagon during the JAG appointment and promotion process.

The proposal does not spell out what coordination means. But both JAGs and outside legal specialists say that it is common bureaucratic parlance for requiring both sides to sign off before a decision gets made - meaning that political appointees would have the power to block any candidate's career path.

"It only makes sense to put this in if you want [general counsels to exercise the power to give] thumbs up or thumbs down, in order to intimidate JAGs," said retired Colonel Gordon Wilder, who was the Air Force's top JAG specialist in administrative law until last January.

Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor who is also general counsel to the National Institute of Military Justice, agreed that the regulation boils down to giving political appointees the power to veto JAG promotions.

"The message would be clear to every JAG, which is that when you have been told that the general counsel has a view on the law, any time you dare disagree with it, don't expect a promotion," Saltzburg said, adding "I don't think that would be in the best interest of the country. We've seen how important it can be to have the JAGs give their honest opinions when you look at the debates on interrogation techniques and the like."

Key members of the Bush administration legal team have pushed to subject the JAGs to greater political control for years.

In the early 1990s, both Haynes and Vice President Cheney's top aide, David Addington, were politically appointed lawyers in the Pentagon during the Bush-Quayle administration. On their advice, Cheney proposed making each service's general counsel the boss of his JAG counterpart, but the Senate Armed Services Committee forced the administration to back down.

In 2001, Haynes and Addington were restored to power in the Bush-Cheney administration, and the conflict over JAG independence resumed amid the fights over such war on terrorism policies as harsh interrogations.

Responding to the conflicts, in 2004 Congress enacted a law forbidding Defense Department employees from interfering with the ability of JAGs to "give independent legal advice" directly to military leaders. But when President Bush signed the law, he issued a signing statement decreeing that the legal opinions of his political appointees would still "bind" the JAGs.

And throughout the past several years, the administration has repeatedly proposed changes that would impose greater control over the JAGs, such as letting political appointees decide who should be the top service JAGs. Each previous proposal has died amid controversy in the Pentagon or Congress.

The new proposal goes further than anything the administration has pushed before because it would affect all military lawyers, not just the top JAGs.


(c) Copyright

[workdrone]

jagghagg said:

Control sought on military lawyers

Yeah, really bad idea. If it happened it would have turn the JAG Corps into political commissars. Thankfully it got quashed really quickly once the proposal became public:

www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/military_jag_flap_071218w/

At least it's one less thing to worry about for 2008.

[jagghagg]

workdrone said:

Thankfully it got quashed really quickly once the proposal became public:


.

Thanks, Workdrone, this only came to my attention today (as I have been out of town and, apparently, out of touch) - so my outrage seems to be pretty far behind the power curve.

[workdrone]

jagghagg said:

so my outrage seems to be pretty far behind the power curve.

It's much easier on the body to be pissed off for half a day then 5 days. I was not a happy camper when I read the original article on the 15th. Think I was seeing red after I read that article. Thank God sanity prevailed this round.

[conanthebarbarian]

Knownuthin: You are absolutely right, "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" by the Animals, was the unofficial anthem of OTS and it was always the very last song played at the OT Club at closing time. I certainly remember those tall "Singapore Slings" the bar served. One of the guys in my flight drank 18 one night and on the way back to Medina the steering wheel of his Chevy Corvair (yes, Corvair) came loose and he rolled over into a ditch. Not surprisingly, he was just fine. I certainly do remember those idiotic room inspections (we used to shine the floors with Pledge just before the inspector showed up! Ha!) and I always got lots of demerits for my mustache. (I was such a rebel.) The "Master Bedroom" was always a good place to catch up on lost lecture material (z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z). Saw my first B-52 as it flew low over the chow hall-it gave an added dimension to lunch that day. Best regards. CTB

[morgullord]

I dug my old JAG tie pin out of the bottom of the jewelry box and wore it to the interview yesterday. No one noticed/commented on it.

[conanthebarbarian]

morgullord: what time were you there? I was sittiing in 1608 at 1100. Hope you did well. CTB

[morgullord]

I arrived at 1500 for a 1600 interview. Best of luck to you, too!

[morgullord]

Anyone out there with CENTCOM experience?

[conanthebarbarian]

peejay: An outstanding record of accomplishment; your judgeship is well deserved. Best regards. CTB

[jagghagg]

I know I am not the only USAF JAG who was interviewed (I know of at least two others) but am I the only USAF JAG on these boards ? Identify yourself!!!!

[knownuthin]

I thought I did. See reply #12 on this thread.

[counsel]

While we are waiting, thought I would pick your combined creative brains. This board has been so helpful, I would like to start another board or maybe just a website to collect useful information for military spouses who are trying to actively engage in the practice of law. Because really, the joys of taking the bar exam or navigating reciprocity rules every few years must be shared. There have been a few military spouses who have been a great asset to me along the way and I would like to return the favor. In addition, I see a lot of military spouses giving up their careers, which on some days sounds good, but is a great loss to the profession. So here is my quandary: I need a good name. I want something that describes being a military spouse and the practice of law -- Dependents, Esq. -- although I don't really like that. Any suggestions?