{"id":33751,"date":"2013-01-22T10:49:23","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T14:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=33751"},"modified":"2021-03-23T08:56:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T12:56:57","slug":"congress-gets-one-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=33751","title":{"rendered":"Congress Gets One Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story has gotten some publicity elsewhere.\u00a0 But I haven\u2019t seen an update on TAH since Jonn\u2019s original article<\/a>, so I thought I\u2019d do one.<\/p>\n

Apparently a key Senate committee recently refused to recommend approval<\/a> for one Navy Reserve Captain recommended for promotion to RDML.\u00a0 The guy they\u2019re\u201dblackballing\u201d is a former naval aviator \u2013 with a confirmed air-to-air kill!\u00a0 The nomination was returned to the White House without action, effectively killing it unless the POTUS chooses to nominate the individual a second time.<\/p>\n

Personally, I’m OK with that.\u00a0 The air-to-air kill occurred in September 1987, during a training exercise.\u00a0 And the jet he downed \u2013 a RF-4C \u2013 happened to belong to the USAF.<\/p>\n

As Jonn noted in his earlier article, the individual concerned is CAPT Timothy Dorsey, USNR.\u00a0 A little background is perhaps in order.<\/p>\n

In September 1987, during a training exercise in the Med, Dorsey (then a LTJG and an inexperienced pilot) apparently deliberately shot down a USAF RF-4C.\u00a0 He seems to have \u201cforgotten\u201d there was a USAF aircraft in the area at the time, and interpreted his exercise clearance to fire as the “real thing”.<\/p>\n

A contemporary description of the incident can be found here<\/a>, while a more recent account \u2013 including quotations from the official Navy investigation of the incident \u2013 can be found \u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0 The quotations from the ROI in the second article are IMO particularly damning.<\/p>\n

After being pitched from Naval Aviation, Dorsey went into the Naval Reserve and changed career fields to Intelligence.\u00a0 Dorsey was nominated last year to a RADM Intel billet in the Naval Reserve.\u00a0 Reputedly the Navy knew of the derogatory info in his background at the time, but for some reason didn\u2019t share that derogatory info with the SECDEF – who then recommended Dorsey’s nomination to the POTUS.<\/p>\n

Dorsey reportedly never acknowledged his responsibility for the shoot-down.\u00a0 According a retired naval aviator with apparent knowledge of both the incident and Dorsey<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cI would never have guessed (referring to Dorsey) he\u2019d ever make it to commander, much less admiral.\u00a0 In fact, I thought his career was over back when the shoot-down happened. He refused to accept any blame for the shoot-down and swore he was just following [rules of engagement] even though he knew it was a friendly. I mean, the guy did it on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words:\u00a0 “I was just following orders.”\u00a0 Just exactly the kind of guy or gal you want serving as a GO\/FO, eh?<\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t Dorsey\u2019s career end after the 1987 incident?\u00a0 Well, it seems his dad was a Naval Aviator, a former CO of the USS America and a RADM at the time of the incident; he later made VADM.\u00a0 So I\u2019m guessing a little familial \u201ctop cover\u201d may have had something to do with that.\u00a0 Ditto that little matter of \u201cforgetting\u201d to inform the SECDEF of the derogatory info in Dorsey\u2019s background last year.\u00a0 My guess is that also just might have been another favor to Dorsey (or Doresy\u2019s dad) courtesy of an old friend at DON.<\/p>\n

But I could be wrong.\u00a0 Maybe that was just a routine, garden-variety screw-up someone made while reviewing his files.\u00a0 Maybe they just missed\u00a0 the incident entirely when they reviewed his records prior to the RADM promotion board.<\/p>\n

Yeah.\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n

For once, it looks like Congress did the right thing.\u00a0 We talk bad about Congress all the time when they screw up.\u00a0 Here, I think it\u2019s time to give credit where credit is due.<\/p>\n

Thanks, Senators.\u00a0 Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story has gotten some publicity elsewhere.\u00a0 But I haven\u2019t seen an update on TAH since … Congress Gets One Right<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,119,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-navy","category-reserve-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111693,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33751\/revisions\/111693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}