Times Examiner Facebook Logo

Tuesday, March 19, 2024 - 12:26 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Tragically the United States Government is on the verge of a constitutional crisis. Complicating the matter is the possibility that the investigative agencies of the government that would normally be able to solve the problems, may have themselves become politicized.

There are seemingly valid allegations that the Obama Administration intentionally released classified information pertaining to individuals working in the Trump campaign. The Democrats and their friends in the media are attempting to confuse the facts by making other allegations

Without any facts to support their claim, Democrats and liberal factions of the media claim that Republicans worked with Russians to disrupt the presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton.  



There is a great deal of evidence that the Obama Administration has released the names of American civilians whose names appeared in intelligence reports but were engaged in no wrongdoing. Anyone involved in releasing such names should be charged with committing a felony.

Securing classified information is one of the most serious duties of people in government. The penalties are severe. If politics gets involved in the administration of justice, it makes a mockery of the entire process. It appears that was a practice in the Obama Administration. That means that the Trump Administration will have to crack down and prosecute offenders without consideration of their position or political affiliation. I have little respect for people who are careless with classified information.

My military experience has left me with a serious respect for classified information. For much of my service I carried Secret or higher classification. Access to classified information is based on a “need to know.”

For three years I was chosen to have a clearance above Top Secret. Along with that clearance came awesome responsibility regarding command, control and authority to launch nuclear weapons.

The creation of the organization was so tightly held that I was not informed of the assignment until I arrived at the destination. It was spring of 1965. I was a student at the Army Command and General Staff College. Most of my classmates had received orders for their next assignment. I heard nothing and calls to my assignment office in Washington brought nothing but silence. Finally I received orders to report to US Army Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. We had only a few days to pack what we wanted to take with us on the three-year tour in a CONEX container. We bought winter clothes for the boys and even a snow sled for the cold German winters.

Graduation came and we were all set for another tour in Germany, having served there in the late 50s. Out of habit, I checked my message box at the college. There was a note: “Call your assignment office in Washington, your orders are being changed.”
I called but could not determine when or where we were going. Our personal belongings were somewhere between Kansas and Germany, but the Army doesn’t worry about those small personal things.

Finally, orders came in the form of a brief message: “Proceed to Hawaii.” A panicked phone call to Washington produced only one message: “You will be met at the airport by your sponsor and briefed on what you need to know.”

We were met at the airport by a naval officer who took us to our hotel and promised to take me to work the next morning to a “human reliability” briefing.

LaVerle asked the supervisor what I would be doing. He responded: “flying about 8 or 9 hours a day.” That was about all she knew for the first few months of the assignment.    

No comments

Leave your comment

In reply to Some User