{"id":38058,"date":"2013-10-19T17:13:09","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T21:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=38058"},"modified":"2013-10-20T05:49:59","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T09:49:59","slug":"regarding-lt-col-james-wilkerson-usaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=38058","title":{"rendered":"Regarding Lt Col James Wilkerson, USAF"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case anyone\u2019s forgotten:\u00a0 Lt Col Wilkerson is the former Aviano AB IG who was convicted of sexual assault by a General Court-Martial and was sentenced to 1 year of confinement plus dismissal (the equivalent of a Dishonorable Discharge for an officer).\u00a0 However, his sentence was set aside by his then-commander, Lt Gen Craig Franklin<\/a> \u2013 ostensibly, in part because Lt Gen Franklin felt Wilkerson was a \u201ccommitted husband\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lt Gen Franklin\u2019s action caused huge amount of consternation at the time – IMO, rightfully so.\u00a0 I mean, really:\u00a0 what’s the point of holding a court-martial at all if you’re going to ignore the verdict?<\/p>\n

Well, it appears Wilkerson will only be a Lieutenant Colonel a short while longer.\u00a0 Seems he got a \u201cshow cause\u201d letter regarding his retention on active duty from the CG of Air Combat Command, Gen Mike Hostage, recently.\u00a0 Since he had 20+ years of active service, Wilkerson opted to retire rather than appear before a board of officers considering his retention.<\/p>\n

However, the acting SECAF \u2013 The Honorable Eric Fanning – has determined Wilkerson did not<\/b><\/em> serve successfully at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel<\/a>. (No joke.) He\u2019ll thus retire as a Major, effective 1 January 2014.<\/p>\n

Funny how a felony conviction for a morally reprehensible act \u2013 even if later set aside \u2013 causes most people to view the individual who was convicted, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s probably not adequate justice in this case.\u00a0 But it\u2019s better than nothing.<\/p>\n

It also appears that his GCM conviction wasn\u2019t the first incident of sexual impropriety of which Wilkerson has been guilty.\u00a0 The USAF revealed in June that further investigation determined Wilkerson had had an extramarital affair and fathered a child out-of-wedlock<\/a> some 9 years or so ago.<\/p>\n

I wonder if Wilkerson’s wife knew about the earlier affair and kid – and if she will dump his ass after he retires?<\/p>\n

Wilkerson was a Major at the time of his affair.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the statute of limitations for that misconduct is 5 years.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing the acting SECAF felt he couldn’t use that misconduct as justification to rule Wilkerson’s service as Major unsatisfactory due to said statute of limitations.\u00a0 I’m also wondering how Lt Gen Franklin feels about setting aside Wilkerson\u2019s conviction now.<\/p>\n

In any case:\u00a0 it certainly looks like this guy being \u201cinvited\u201d to leave active duty is an example of \u201cgood riddance\u201d.\u00a0 IMO, it\u2019s a pity it had to be put off for nearly a year due to an ill-advised action on the part of one of his previous commanders.<\/p>\n

Ditto the fact he\u2019s being allowed to retire at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case anyone\u2019s forgotten:\u00a0 Lt Col Wilkerson is the former Aviano AB IG who was convicted … Regarding Lt Col James Wilkerson, USAF<\/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":[187,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-shitbags"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38058","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=38058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}