In our May 18 issue, Matt Labash reported the story of Maj. Jacquelyn Parker, the Pentagon pin-up girl for combat gender integration who helped destroy the careers of several distinguished Air Force pilots from the 174th Air National Guard Fighter Wing, once known as the "Boys from Syracuse." After a disastrous year-long training stint in the F-16 (in which Parker got lost during flights, forgot to aim her missiles, and nearly killed herself), she withdrew from the program, but complained to New York Guard brass that she'd been treated unfairly. Cowardly New York Guard leaders (under the stewardship of George Pataki's adjutant general, John Fenimore) saw to it that 12 pilots were fired, transferred, or assigned to career-killing jobs below their ranks.
Days after the story appeared, the one-time Boys from Syracuse took their fight to the east steps of the Capitol, where, after a press conference, 15 former unit pilots returned over 150 medals and awards that included seven Distinguished Flying Crosses for perilous sorties flown during the Gulf War. After a fruitless three years of the pilots' protests going unheard, their fight has now been joined. Reps. Gerald Solomon and Henry Hyde issued angry denunciations of the pilots' treatment, with Hyde demanding that Secretary of Defense Cohen "actively intervene" to "do justice to the victims of this embarrassing and avoidable debacle."
That intervention may come with or without Cohen's compliance. Solomon and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett have attached an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that calls for the Defense Department's inspector general to examine the case, then to report the findings to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on National Security. What will likely never come is a clean admission from Guard leaders that their behavior was unconscionable. After the protest, a Fenimore spokesman told the Air Force Times, "Any news reporter who takes the time to study the findings of the various investigations will surely conclude the disciplinary actions were justified." We did, and we don't.