Looks like yet another senior military officer has self-terminated their career.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gen. John Hesterman, USAF Assistant Vice-Chief of Staff, has been relieved and will retire.\u00a0 He was relieved due to having an “unprofessional relationship with a junior officer”.<\/p>\n
Specifically, Hesterman was found to have exchanged inappropriately-worded emails with an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel (from excerpts quoted, apparently female) between March 2010 and May 2011.\u00a0 No other evidence of misconduct was found.<\/p>\n
Hesterman had recently commanded the air campaign against ISIS.<\/p>\n
This case may well be nothing more than an example of the appearance of impropriety vice actual misconduct.\u00a0 Other accounts indicate there was more to the matter.\u00a0 Dunno.<\/p>\n
Either way, it doesn\u2019t matter<\/em>.\u00a0 For those in very senior positions \u2013 enlisted or officer \u2013 mere appearance of impropriety matters.\u00a0 (It goes without saying that actual impropriety matters.)\u00a0 Every damn thing leadership does<\/span> is watched by subordinates; that\u2019s inherent in accepting such an assignment.\u00a0 And you can bet your last dollar that everything the CG or his\/her SEA does is<\/em> noticed – and that word gets around.<\/p>\n Both Fox News<\/a><\/em> and the Air Force Times<\/a><\/em> have articles on the matter.\u00a0 By reading both (neither is very long), IMO you can get a reasonable idea of what happened.<\/p>\n You might have gotten a raw deal, General.\u00a0 Or you might have deserved this.\u00a0 But either way you did this to yourself by forgetting that you were – in essence – a public figure and under the proverbial \u201cmicroscope\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"