Bilecki Documents Captain’s Actual Duties in Papua New Guinea; GOMOR Filed Locally

Bilecki Documents Captain’s Actual Duties in Papua New Guinea; GOMOR Filed Locally

February 2023

Torii Station, Okinawa / Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Army Captain – O-3

Allegations: Failure to Report for Duty (Alleged Missed Movement); Alleged Intoxication / Incapacitated for the Performance of Duty

Facts

The Army accused a prior enlisted Captain assigned to 10th Support Group at Torii Station of missing movement during the Tamiok Strike Initial Site Survey in Papua New Guinea because he was drunk, hungover, or otherwise incapacitated in his hotel room.

Bilecki was retained during the AR 15-6 investigation phase, before the findings were finalized. That timing mattered. The defense was able to attack the allegation while the investigation was still being shaped, not after the command had already locked itself into a final GOMOR filing decision.

The Captain had been pulled into the site survey at the last minute. At the time, he was already planning North Wind, assisting with Talisman Saber, and handling current operations requirements. His assignment for Tamiok Strike was movement control. He was not sent to Papua New Guinea to own the full sustainment plan, identify life support requirements, or survey every training site.

The defense focused first on tasking. The site survey team split across multiple locations. One group was going to Goldie River Training Depot. The Captain's work was tied to the Air Terminal Wing, the entry point for personnel and equipment moving into Papua New Guinea. Before the Goldie River trip, he coordinated with the team lead that she would handle Goldie River and he would handle the Air Terminal Wing movement control work.

The next morning, the Goldie River group got on the bus. The Captain was not on it. A field grade officer later found him asleep in his hotel room. That became the allegation.

The defense showed that he was not assigned to be on that bus. Later that day, the Captain worked the Air Terminal Wing mission. He mapped the logistics profile, theater gateway and reception requirements, C-130 runway considerations, pallet and offload zones, and the Tamiok Strike deployment timeline. He also built sustainment and contracting recommendations outside his assigned movement control tasking. He briefed that work to the group the same day.

The defense then attacked the intoxication theory. The field grade officer did not document an odor of alcohol. He did not test him. He did not ask him to confirm whether he had been drinking. He did not inspect the bottle near the bed, which was a 64-ounce Yeti / Hydro Flask water bottle. He also drew meaning from a hotel air freshener on the desk. The Captain had received the air freshener from the hotel and used it to freshen the room.

The defense also gave the command the medical context. The Captain had been sick and exhausted during the trip. After returning to Okinawa, he tested positive for COVID.

The AR 15-6 rebuttal explained the actual movement control tasking and the work he completed. When the Investigating Officer asked follow-up questions, Bilecki submitted a supplemental response addressing the Hydro Flask, his condition when found, his flu symptoms, the later COVID test, and the alcohol-related questions. When the GOMOR was later issued, Bilecki submitted a separate GOMOR rebuttal to the Commanding General asking for local filing.

Those submissions changed the case from a simple "drunk officer missed movement" allegation into a documented tasking and proof problem. The Captain was not assigned to survey Goldie River. He completed the Air Terminal Wing work. The intoxication claim was not confirmed. The bottle was water. The air freshener was from the hotel. He was sick, exhausted, and later COVID positive.

The site survey itself was poorly organized. The planning team arrived without a rough planning estimate, clear cost parameters, or key sustainment planning decisions. The Captain was frustrated that the team was in Papua New Guinea before the exercise had been defined well enough for the trip to be useful. Goldie River was later assessed as the least preferred training location for Tamiok Strike.

The defense also pushed back against the broader character attack that grew out of the investigation, including unsupported claims about hotel bar conduct, drug use, and other misconduct based on secondhand assumptions and unidentified witnesses.

The Captain was a prior enlisted officer with more than eighteen years of service, six deployments, and more than 500 combat patrols. He had served as an 11B Infantryman before commissioning, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, served in Korea and Poland, and built a career doing hard Army jobs in hard places.

The Commanding General locally filed the GOMOR. The reprimand did not go into the AMHRR.

Result: GOMOR locally filed. No AMHRR filing. Officer career preserved.

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FAQ

Q: What was the central issue in the missed-movement allegation?
Whether the Captain was supposed to be on that bus at all. Bilecki set out the division of work between Goldie River and the Air Terminal Wing and documented the movement-control work our client completed that day. That gave the command a concrete answer to the allegation that he had simply failed to perform his duty.

Q: How did the defense answer the claim that he was intoxicated?
We examined what the reporting officer had actually observed and what he had assumed. The rebuttal addressed the untested container, the absence of a documented alcohol odor and our client’s illness. A supplemental response answered the investigator’s follow-up questions. When the reprimand issued, Tim carried those points into a separate request for local filing, supported by the Captain’s service record. The general granted local filing.