A Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army was staring down the barrel of an unjust General Officer’s Memorandum of Reprimand when he made perhaps the most important decision of his career. He hired an experienced defense attorney, Tim Bilecki, to represent him and draft a comprehensive GOMOR rebuttal to the Commanding General. It was a GOMOR that never should have seen the light of day in the first place, but once issued, his only choice to save his career was to fight back.
The LTC had been given a mandate to improve the Operations Support Branch at Central Command J2X. As with any introduction of the change, there were those who were enthusiastically in favor, and there were those who fought him at every turn. One of those who fought him was a young Major who would later place the LTC’s career in jeopardy. The Major would claim that the Lieutenant Colonel was condescending and belittling when giving her advice. Apparently, the Major had somehow made it this far in her career by being spoken to in the exact manner and tone of her preference by superior officers. Our investigation uncovered that this was complete bullshit, and there was no evidence to support her allegations. However, she didn’t stop there.
The Major went out of her way to speak to higher-ranking officers in a manner that disparaged the Lieutenant Colonel. She waved around a document given to her as belittling when it was documented constructive feedback. When the Lieutenant Colonel made a joke out of frustration, the Major chose to take that as a threat. Essentially, despite a proven track record of success and implementing change in prior assignments, the Lieutenant Colonel could do nothing right in the eyes of this Major, and she was on the hunt for any ammunition that she could get her hands on.
Once Bilecki got involved, we were able to show this conclusively in the rebuttal. The defense argued that the command was more concerned about the Lieutenant Colonel’s comment to the Major while she led the posse when it came to rallying others to speak of him in derogatory terms. The outcome of the rebuttal was that the GOMOR was only filed locally, which means it would not follow him throughout the rest of his career. It is crucial for field grade officers facing a GOMOR to retain competent civilian counsel because many commands are under massive pressure to take allegations of harassment seriously.
Even when innocence is obvious, GOMORs are still being issued so that commands look tough on the matter. Don’t take that lying down, and do not let your career become cannon fodder in this unjust campaign.
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