An assistant secretary of the Navy upheld the forced retirement of a senior chief accused of hazing junior sailors in a canine unit based in Bahrain.
The decision comes four years after a Navy investigation in which sailors claimed Michael Toussaint, a chief petty officer at the time, had acted as ringleader for a culture of abuse within the kennel between 2005 and 2006. Last February, Toussaint denied much of his alleged misconduct before a retirement review board that was convened months after he was censured by the Secretary of the Navy.
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The Pentagon recently released a study showing new support for getting rid of the policy, "Don't Ask Don't Tell," that currently requires gay and lesbian military service members to keep quiet about their sexuality. The study interviewed 115,000 service members.
The Pentagon summed up their findings in the answers to three questions:
- When asked whether knowing that a fellow unit member was gay or lesbian would affect their unit's ability to get their job done, 70 percent of service members said that it would have no effect or a positive effect.
- When asked if during their career, they had ever worked with someone they believed to be homosexual, 69 percent of service members said yes.
- While serving in a unit with someone they believed to be homosexual, 92 percent of service members said their ability to work together was "very good," "good," or had no positive or negative effect.
The Pentagon also stated that most of the concern about "open" service is driven by misperceptions and stereotypes about what it would mean if gay and lesbian service members were allowed to be open. In addition, they spoke to many gay service members who said they are not trying to push a social agenda or get special treatment, but would like to stop serving in silence.
Youth Radio has been following this issue for over a year. In August 2009, Youth Radio profiled Joseph Rocha, a member of the military who survived extreme harassment from his peers and superiors because of his sexuality. Watch his video below, and visit Youth Radio's hub page for its investigative series Sailors' Abuse Kept Silent in Navy Canine Unit that has won some of journalism's top honors, including an Edward R. Murrow Award.
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A senior chief who was censured by the Secretary of the Navy for hazing sailors under his command may retire with a full pension, Navy officials say.
Since it was announced last October, the terms of Michael Toussaint’s retirement have come under scrutiny that is unprecedented for an enlisted sailor. The senior chief petty officer, who from 2005 to 2006 led a Bahrain-based canine unit that was plagued by widespread documented abuse, denied much of his alleged misconduct in February during a retirement board hearing, a proceeding normally reserved for commissioned officers.
The case will soon go to the desk of an assistant secretary of the Navy, who faces a choice: to approve the unanimous recommendation of the three board members who said Toussaint deserves to retire with a senior chief's pension; or to take a harder line and reduce him to a lower pay grade, as government lawyers had sought to do during the hearing.
Deciding against the retirement board's recommendation would be rare.
"I've never yet seen one (a board recommendation) that was overturned by a higher authority," said Eugene Fidell, a professor at Yale University and President of the National Institute of Military Justice.
But advocates for the sailors who were abused under Toussaint’s leadership said Navy officials had led them to expect a harsher judgement from the board hearing, which according to Navy guidelines determines the highest rank at which a sailor or officer has served honorably.
"I was surprised," said Aaron Tax, legal director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, “because we thought that the Navy believed this was someone who engaged in outrageous behavior." Tax said despite the board's recommendation, the Navy should lower Toussaint's pension to that of a first class petty officer, the rank he held before becoming chief of the Bahrain unit.
Last September, Youth Radio uncovered a 2007 Navy investigation into claims of the unit’s culture of abuse and connected it to two subsequent investigations into the suicide of a sailor implicated in the hazing scandal. While names in the copies of the Navy report were redacted, Youth Radio interviewed six sailors from the unit, all of whom named Toussaint as the ringleader of the abuse.
During the February hearing, Toussaint denied the most serious accusations against him -- that he ordered sailors to simulate sex acts during training exercises, that he threw parties with hired prostitutes, and that he condoned the humiliation of a gay soldier who was hog-tied to a chair and left in a dog kennel.
Toussant's lawyers claimed that four sailors who testified against him at the hearing were exaggerating the extent of the hazing. They accused one sailor, Joseph Christopher Rocha, of lying about Toussaint in the media to increase his own public profile as an advocate for the repeal of the U.S. Military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Rocha was discharged from the Navy under the policy after returning from Bahrain.
Youth Radio has obtained statements from each of the retirement board members -- an enlisted sailor and two Navy officers -- explaining why they sided with Toussaint.
"Senior Chief Toussaint has served honorably and was made the 'scape goat' in this case, for the benefit of one disgruntled sailor," wrote one of the board members, Lt. Cmdr. Angel Bellido.
Another board member wrote that he took into consideration the testimony of a Navy SEAL who said Toussaint saved his life last summer when he was shot during a combat mission in Afghanistan.
Toussaint included these statements in a March letter to Juan Garcia, the assistant secretary of the Navy who oversees personnel and will make the final decision on the retirement pay.
"The board's unanimous decision… is a clear repudiation of the allegations," Toussaint wrote in the letter, which Youth Radio obtained through his lawyer.
Military law experts familiar with Toussaint's case said he may be the first enlisted sailor to go before a retirement grade determination board, a proceeding that exists outside the military justice system.
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The U.S. Congress took two steps yesterday toward ending the military’s policy of discharging gay and lesbian servicemembers.
The House of Representatives approved an amendment that would repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, as soon as military leaders receive a Pentagon report on how such a repeal would be implemented and the President signs off on the plan. The Senate Armed Services Committee passed a similar amendment, which will be added to the defense authorization bill.
The full repeal likely will not occur before the end of the year, since the Pentagon’s implementation report is due in December. Yet activists who have fought to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” are, in general, celebrating yesterday’s votes as momentous and hard-fought victories. One activist, Navy veteran Joseph Christopher Rocha, wrote to us after the House vote expressing his mixed emotions:
Many of us are still struggling to make sense of the pain and suffering inflected (sic) on us by this policy. It is hard to believe that the policy that ruined so many lives will suddenly be: no more. Indeed there is no way to forgive the abuses facilitated and allowed toward our servicemembers under the amendment passed by Congress in 1993 that will forever be known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Instead, we must take comfort in that it will never happen again legally once implemented by the President and Department of Defense.
Rocha’s firsthand experience with anti-gay abuse while serving in Bahrain was the basis of a Youth Radio investigation into his Navy unit.
The abuse investigation received the 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for international radio reporting, given this week at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
By: Joseph Christopher Rocha
This week I joined hundreds of gay and lesbians veterans (even one active duty gay vet currently stationed in Iraq), flooded the halls of U.S. Capitol as part of Veterans Lobby Day on Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT). But our stories of valor and patriotism were not all received by willing and interested ears.
Three years ago Don't Ask Don't Tell silenced me from reporting repeated abuse by fellow soldiers and my unit chief, all because they suspected I was gay. But when I told my story to Congressman Dan Lungren's (R-CA) Legislative Director Kevin Holsclaw, he dismissively replied, "The Representative does not support social experiments in our armed services." One floored comrade recounted how the most pressing inquiry on Representative Dana Rohrabacher's (R-CA) mind regarding DADT, was whether or not she had ever "engaged in homosexual acts" during her career.
by the audacity of representatives and their staffers to look veterans in our eyes and tell us they couldn't care less about our mental health, job security and human dignity, I hurried off Capitol Hill, hoping my one o'clock might be more fruitful.
I dialed the 202 number as I exited the cab and hurried into a coffee shop across from the White House. Inside I scanned the crowd. What does a Deputy Director to the President even look like?
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By: Joseph Christopher Rocha
Those, like me, who are following the Pentagon's plans to end the ban on gays in the military, expect big changes soon. Based on a just-completed 45-day review of "don't ask, don't tell," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has received recommendations to apply the policy in "a manner that is more appropriate and fair." And while a full repeal of the policy likely remains months away, even the simplest change - raising the bar for the kind of evidence required to launch an investigation - could have a profound impact on the lives of gays and lesbians serving in the military. I know, because if that change had been made three years ago when I was enlisted, I would be a sophomore at the United States Naval Academy today.
After a childhood of abuse at the hands of a meth-addicted mother, I had only one dream, and only one ambition: to graduate from the Naval Academy and to dedicate my entire life to serving my country. I enlisted on my 18th birthday and, after serving for nearly four years and receiving three congressional nominations for the Naval Academy, I was accepted to the academy's preparatory school.
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Youth Radio reporter Rachel Krantz speaks to KCBS about yesterday's stunning turn of events in the Bahrain Navy Hazing scandal.
You can find the interview on KCBS' Interviews and Analysis page.
By Rachel Krantz and the Youth Radio Investigative Unit
This story is part of Youth Radio's investigation: Sailors' Abuse Kept Silent In Navy Canine Unit.
After Youth Radio broke the story last month on widespread hazing in a Bahrain canine unit, the Chief of Naval Operations has completed reviewing how officials handled an investigation into the abuse. He found that the chief petty officer responsible for the abuse had not been adequately punished.
As a result of the top-level Navy review of misconduct in a canine unit in Bahrain, the Secretary of the Navy has censured the unit’s former chief petty officer, Michael Toussaint, forcing him to retire from the Navy.
Previously, an investigation into the hazing at the base in Bahrain between 2004 and 2006 revealed widespread abuse of sailors and other misconduct, including gambling and soliciting prostitutes. On September 22, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead ordered Navy Installations Command (CNIC) to review what actions were taken as a result of the hazing investigation.
"After reviewing the investigation and the CNIC report, Admiral Roughead found the incidents were not in keeping with Navy values and standards and violated Navy’s long standing prohibition against hazing," said Navy spokesperson Commander Elissa Smith.
Smith said the Secretary of the Navy's letter of censure will become part of Toussaint’s permanent military record. Toussaint, now a senior chief petty officer, will be reassigned to Naval Special Warfare Group 2, where he will perform administrative duties until his retirement in January.
Roughead has also ordered the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to interview commissioned officers who served in Bahrain at the time of the hazing. Previously, a navy spokesman said the investigation report had indicated that two commissioned officers might have had knowledge of the hazing events. The spokesman told Youth Radio neither officer was recommended for disciplinary action.
Joseph Christopher Rocha served in the unit and experienced some of the worst abuse at while under Toussaint’s leadership. The 23-year-old said many of his fellow sailors have mixed feelings about the results of Roughead's review.
"A lot of us are disappointed in that Toussaint won’t see his day at a military court martial," Rocha said. "But overall, I commend the CNO and the Secretary of the Navy for a wanting to look further into this, to see how widespread the corruption was."
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Reporter Rachel Krantz spoke to KPFK Pacifica Radio today about her experience reporting Youth Radio's Sailor Abuse Investigation. She was interviewed by Barbara Osborn and Howard Blume for their weekly show about the media, Deadline LA.
Check below to listen to the interview and hear the inside scoop about how the Youth Radio investigation was brought to the public.
