While I was on active duty with the US Army, I was threatened by a US Army lawyer named Captain Matthew Fitzgerald to do something which was contrary to the US Army legal regulations (which I did not know at the time but he did). Fitzgerald’s motive was to tout this as his first accomplishment on his annual performance report of which I later got a copy. This threat resulted in my losing over $50,000 of my personal funds.

When I asked the top lawyer (then Lieutenant General Dana Chipman) for assistance, the first thing they did was appoint Fitzgerald’s previous boss and a very obvious friend to “investigate.” Since there was no wrongdoing found as a result of this faux investigation but specifics were protected by the Privacy Act , I filed the same complaint with Fitzgerald’s Oregon State Bar which is NOT PROTECTED under privacy laws. Evidence showed that Fitzgerald lied no less than 10 times to his Oregon State Bar. Lying to your licensing state bar is grounds for permanent disbarment. The state bar clearly acknowledged that the US Army lawyers were wrongfully “protecting” Fitzgerald and if they were not, the state bar would take action.

I then sued in federal court. It was all thrown out of federal court due to Feres although I had a slam-dunk case with all evidence in my favor. In fact, I was never even able to get into court and present my case. The judge simply had his law clerks cut-and-paste a previous reply to a previous case. Just to add insult to my financial injury, Fitzgerald got promoted to Major. Feres was NEVER designed 60 years ago as protection. Today it protects against everything to include corruption, misdeeds, and even cover-ups by US Army lawyers wearing stars on their shoulders.

So I feel most sorrow for the female victims of sexual assault who basically have no recourse through the courts.