Letter-writer is willing to battle for his combat patch By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008
Courtesy of Jeremiah Minor
Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Minor was recently threatened with legal action and with being kicked out of the Army by his new command in Iraq, after he wrote a letter to Stars and Stripes objecting to a requirement for all soldiers in his unit to wear the 1st Infantry Division combat patch. Here Minor, right, and another soldier pose for photo while on a patrol during a deployment to Afghanistan in February 2006.
Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Minor has watched friends die on combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the teenage translator killed by a grenade tossed into a Kirkuk street. Minor gave his Purple Heart to her family.
He was a college student in Ohio until recently, when he decided to return to Iraq, he said, so that a new father in his Reserve unit wouldn’t have to go.
“I’d take a dozen of him for 20 of my soldiers,” said Sgt. 1st Class John Pumma, Minor’s former first sergeant with the 2100th Military Intelligence Group in Ohio. “He’s a super solider.”
But Minor, 30, was recently threatened with legal action and with being kicked out of the Army by his new command in Iraq.
What had he done?
“Minor failed to use his chain of command or NCO support channel prior to writing an article to the editor of Stars and Stripes,” said the form signed by 1st Sgt. Louis Edwards II, at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit.
“If such behavior continues, you may receive punishment under Article 15, UCMJ, court-martial or adverse action such as bar to re-enlistment….”
The warning, contained in DA Form 4856, is by all accounts a curious threat.
Commanders’ legal guides, military legal experts and the Department of the Army all agree: Soldiers have the same constitutional right as other U.S. citizens to write to newspapers and otherwise express themselves without seeking permission.
“Generally, there is no legal requirement that soldiers get permission to publish letters in a newspaper prior to publication, nor is there a requirement that the command be given an opportunity to review them first,” said Maj. John Kiel, an Army lawyer and expert in military free speech issues.
As long as operational security isn’t violated, “We all have the right to speak up,” said Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Army.
They also agree that, while soldiers with complaints should take them up internally with their chains of command, there is no military law offense for not using the chain of command before seeking help elsewhere. And how long soldiers should pursue an issue through the chain “is a judgment call,” Edgecomb said.
“I’d be curious what they’d prosecute him for,” she said.
Minor’s problems with the new command began shortly after he arrived at Speicher, where he’s a military intelligence analyst with a task force conducting operations against roadside bombs.
“I wasn’t even in country a day before I was instructed that I would be taking off my 173rd combat patch and replacing it with a 1st Infantry Division patch,” he wrote in his letter to the editor, published April 11.
The mandate that troops wear the 1st ID patch on their right shoulders was an attempt by Col. Jessie Farrington, commander of the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, to build a sense of unity.
But it didn’t build Minor’s.
“Army Regulation 670-1 states that the soldier has the right to wear whatever combat patch he has earned as he sees fit, or even elect not to wear one…. I earned my 173rd combat patch through sweat and blood, and I have the Purple Heart to prove it,” his letter said.
He wants to wear the 173rd Airborne Combat Team patch, he said, for profound reasons.
“It’s for my fallen brothers — how I will honor them and remember them. It represents how they became who they were. It’s who you are and where you came from,” he said.
Minor was correct in demanding he be allowed to wear the patch. “It’s a soldier’s choice,” Edgecomb said. “A commander can’t trump this regulation.”
Minor said he protested the mandate with his first sergeant, his company commander, his command sergeant major and the battalion commander before writing his letter to Stripes. “All of them said that we had to wear the [1st ID] patch and that it was an order,” Minor said.
But battalion commander Lt. Col. James Cutting said he never heard from Minor about the issue. No one wants to deprive Minor of his rights, either to wear his combat patch or express his opinion, Cutting said.
The counseling Minor received was simply an attempt to correct a young sergeant who had handled his problem incorrectly, Cutting said.
“He defaulted immediately and wrote to Stars and Stripes,” Cutting said, and aired “a local problem in a public forum.”
Cutting took the blame for the confusion, saying he’d misinterpreted the brigade commander’s wishes on the combat patch. Asking soldiers in a brigade formed from many units to wear the one patch was a reasonable request to try to make everyone feel like part of the same team, he said.
When he found out that soldiers should not be ordered to wear the patch, Cutting said, he sent out guidance saying so. The matter, Cutting said, had been blown out of proportion and had become a distraction from the mission.
But other soldiers said they also felt pressured into wearing the 1st ID patch, and that the chain of command made it clear there was no point in arguing.
“Our first sergeant and company commander told us, and battalion sergeant major and battalion commander both told us, it was an order that we wear the 1st ID patch by order of the brigade commander,” Staff Sgt. James Beatty wrote in an e-mail to Stripes. “We took our chain of command at its word that going to the brigade would get us nowhere, and Staff Sgt. Minor wrote his letter.”
Likewise, Sgt. Laura Elkins said she was present when the company commander was asked whether wearing the 1st ID patch was an order. “He said, ‘Yes, it is,’” she said.
“My perception is that regulations are enforced when it’s convenient,” she said. “Should it be challenged, you’re open to retaliatory measures.”
Three days after Minor’s letter was published, Cutting put out guidance. “Wear what you want,” he wrote.
But, the memo said, “The expectation is that leaders will support the [brigade] commander’s guidance that we act as a team and wear the patch. ‘Leaders’ is subjective but anyone getting an evaluation is a leader at some level. Not mandatory, but strongly advised we all wear the 1ID patch.”
For Minor, who gets an evaluation, the guidance seems to be coercive. And the counseling letter he received remains an issue. Minor wants it pulled from his file because, he said, he’s done nothing wrong.
“Having the UCMJ threatened against you? I would never write that down on a counseling statement with one of my soldiers,” he said.
Minor is wearing his 173rd patch, just a few months into his yearlong deployment.
“I’ll pretty much have a hard year,” he said. “They’re trying to make an example of me. But if it gives the soldiers their rights back and corrects an unlawful order, it’s worth it.”