Posted on 06/21/2007 8:33:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Leave of absence for major who disappeared
Officer serving at Manas said she was kidnapped
HENDERSON, N.C. — The Air Force officer who disappeared in Kyrgyzstan in September and reappeared three days later will take a leave of absence from the military to spend time with her husband, her mother said Tuesday.
Maj. Jill Metzger talks with family members in September 2006 after arriving at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. Metzger's mother said the major will start an 18-month leave from the military to spend more time with her husband. A Moody spokesman said he could not discuss Metzger's status.
Maj. Jill Metzger’s 18-month leave will start next month, said her mother, Jeannette Metzger.
“It’s just a temporary thing, just to give her a chance to get her life back together,” Jeannette Metzger said. “She hasn’t been with her husband — the Air Force did not put her with her husband — so this is a way that she’s going to be able to be with him until she decides what she’s going to do.”
Jill Metzger, who grew up in Henderson, is married to fellow Air Force officer Joshua Mayo.
Capt. Gary Arasin, a spokesman for Moody Air Force Base, Ga., where Metzger is stationed, said he could not discuss Metzger’s status. Since she returned to duty in late October, Metzger has continued her work in the mission support squadron, which oversees personnel matters for the base, Arasin said.
Metzger was stationed at the U.S. base in Manas outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, when she vanished Sept. 5 while on a shopping excursion in the city. When she reappeared three days later, she said she had been kidnapped.
The Justice Department and Air Force Office of Special Investigations are looking into the matter. Capt. Christine Millette, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, said OSI hoped to complete its investigation soon.
Ping
A retired Army Major berated the Air Force Times and the Associated Press for covering up evidence that Major Jill Metzger:
- committed adultery while deployed
- had an illegal abortion off base while AWOL to cover it up
- went AWOL again to fake her own kidnapping
- lied to her superior officers and to government agents
- gave false official statements
- committed other acts that are unbecoming an officer
If true, these are Article 32 offenses.
If true, she is a disgrace to her nation, her marriage vows, her uniform, and her commission.
It gets worse.
Because she was a "poster girl", this information is not only being suppressed, but she is lobbying for a "medical disability" pension so she can retire with pay as a Major.
It gets even worse.
The vital US presence at Manus in Kyrgyzstan might have been damaged by her behavior and her accusing locals of high crimes. Articles published recently in the Air Force Times and Reuters claim that both China and Russia are lobbying Kyrgyzstan to throw the US out of Manas, and the US is struggling to convince the government of our goodwill. The base is vital to the Global War on Terror.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Pentagon Spins Media In Military Bride Case (Major Metzger)
Pentagon Spins Media in Military Bride Case
By Cliff Kincaid and Andy Selepak | June 15, 2007
The major media ignored MacDonald's charges. Then, suddenly, an Associated Press story appeared, saying that Metzger was going on a voluntary leave of absence from the military.
The hard-hitting website Militarycorruption.com calls her the Paris Hilton of the Air Force. Some others call it the case of the "Runaway Military Bride." Air Force Major Jill Metzger is an attractive blonde, 34-year-old newlywed and two-time Air Force Marathon winner who was reportedly abducted by thugs in Kyrgyzstan last September.
She surfaced three days later and returned home. She said she overpowered her abductors and escaped. But local media in Kyrgyzstan claimed that she had been procuring an abortion. Her case has been under seemingly endless investigation by the FBI and U.S. military authorities. In a major development, Militarycorruption.com reported on Tuesday in a copyrighted, exclusive investigative report that Metzger was being quietly retired July 2 on a "disability" pension. Retired U.S. Army Major Glenn MacDonald, editor-in-chief of the website, said this favorable treatment is an outrage that reflects political correctness and fear of feminism in the highest reaches of the Pentagon.
Media Cover-Up
The major media ignored MacDonald's charges. Then, suddenly, an Associated Press story appeared, saying that Metzger was going on a voluntary leave of absence from the military. The AP reported that "Maj. Jill Metzger's 18-month leave will start next month, said her mother, Jeannette Metzger." MacDonald calls it disinformation and a diversion from the truth about what happened in this highly sensational case. MacDonald's website reported that there is no such thing as an "18-month leave of absence" for an active duty member and there is no military regulation that will allow it.
"We telephoned numerous Air Force personnel and administration people to get their opinion on this and were told there is no regulation that allows that," MacDonald said. He also told AIM, "I am personally incensed by Air Force Times, which had a copy of our investigative article on Metzger, yet ignored our copyrighted and exclusive story and published an Associated Press dispatch containing erroneous information on Metzger that they knew was wrong. They froze us out.
If that isn't censorship, what is?" MacDonald said that he telephoned an editor Wednesday to alert him that the content of the AP report was wrong and misleading, but that as of Thursday afternoon, Air Force Times was still featuring that misinformation as the lead story on its online edition. Pleasing the Powers That Be "I guess that will earn them more brownie points as they genuflect before their pals in the Pentagon public affairs office," MacDonald said, "but it is a disservice and insult to their readers to try and conceal all the facts about the Metzger case. Thousands of their readers also see MilitaryCorruption.com each day."
MacDonald told AIM, "I spoke with Air Force Times editor Kent Miller before this story went up and he had lamely told me his reporters at Air Force Times called the Pentagon each week to see if there was anything 'new' in the Metzger case. He even admitted--his word--that he knew they were 'stonewalling' the paper. I asked the obvious question: then why didn't you have the balls to write an editorial or article saying you were being 'stonewalled' and asking 'What has the Air Force got to hide?'" Even before MacDonald's story appeared, reporting that Metzger was being retired with a pension, various blogs were following the case, with one commenting, "We think the brass is waiting for the furor to blow over so they can then sneak 'silly jilly willy' out the back door with a big fat taxpayer-paid 100% medical pension (this while honorable women injured in Iraq receive far less)."
The Heroine The story of Metzger's disappearance was widely covered in the media, with CBS News reporting that the Kyrgyzstan Interior Ministry said Metzger and another U.S. servicewoman were recorded on a security camera entering the TsUM department store in central Bishkek. The cameras, however, showed Metzger leaving her companion just three minutes later.
Three days later, the AP and CBS News reported a remarkable tale of a heroic escape by Metzger from her captors. Metzger told the Kyrgyz police she had been abducted by three young men and a woman in a minibus and held in a rural area 30 miles from Bishkek.
Metzger told Kyrgyz police chief Kemilbek Kiyazov that someone put a hard object and a note in her back pocket, saying it was an explosive. The note also included detailed instructions about where to go and what to do. Kiyazov said the major reported that she was met by three men and a woman who put her into a vehicle, took her to a house and placed her in a dark room. Metzger reportedly said that she managed to escape after an abductor brought her food and she struck him. Militarycorruption.com, which was suspicious of her story, noted that local media reported that Metzger was actually seeking an abortion. A television station provided details, even naming the medical facility that performs the procedure.
According to this version of the story, Metzger had an extramarital affair and planned to have the abortion and return to the base the same day. But the abortion went badly and she had to stay at the medical facility for an extended length of time.
That's when she realized that she had to come up with a cover story explaining where she was. Metzger and her family have refused to comment, except to say that they back up her story of being abducted and then freeing herself. But if she was indeed abducted, why hasn't there been a full-court press by U.S. authorities to find her kidnappers and punish them? Is there a reason why the Air Force would want the truth covered up?
Metzger was a poster child for the Air Force. What's more, her husband is an Air Force officer, her father-in-law is an Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agent, and her own father is a retired Air Force colonel.
Very Important Persons
So she has some very high-level connections. If it is true that Metzger made up the abduction story and in fact had an abortion, militarycorruption.com reports that she could have violated the following regulations: disobeying an order because she didn't stay with her group in the store, knowing it was forbidden to wander off; making a false official statement; conduct unbecoming an officer; adultery; and fraternization.
On June 12, 2007, Lt. Col. Kathy Reardon, the Chief of the Air Force Press Desk, told AIM that Metzger did disappear for three days and did turn up at a house in Kant, Kyrgyzstan. She said that Metzger did ask the occupants of the house to call the Kyrgyz police, who called the U.S. Embassy. Metzger was then sent to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan for a medical evaluation, then off to the Ramstein AFB in Germany, and finally to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.
She said that she was unable to divulge what, if anything, Metzger was treated for because of privacy laws. She also said privacy laws prevented her from discussing if Metzger has or had any medical issues that might necessitate a disability retirement pension. Reardon said that the case was not closed and was being investigated by the OSI and the Department of Justice. She said the Department of Justice was investigating the incident because it involved the reported abduction of a U.S. citizen on foreign soil. OSI Public Affairs Office spokesperson Capt. Christine Millette had no additional information, saying that while Metzger claimed to be abducted while serving overseas, she was not abducted on a U.S. Military base. Therefore, the Department of Justice had "the lead" on the case and OSI was playing a supporting role. The Department of Justice would not comment.
Rank-and-File Outrage
MacDonald added: "Why should Metzger, if she engaged in misconduct while in uniform, be rewarded with a disability pension when genuine combat veterans, especially our Marines in Iraq, are coming home with an arm or leg shot off and they have to fight for every cent in compensation they receive from the government?"
The retired field-grade officer and three-year Vietnam vet believes that if Metzger were to receive a disability pension it might be for PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because you can't test for it. Major MacDonald added that if Metzger is given a disability pension for PTSD it would be an insult to all combat veterans who actually do suffer from PTSD.
MacDonald believes that this story is important because "the morale in the Air Force, if she gets away with this, will be devastated." He adds, "we were practically alone among the media investigating this story beyond the Pentagon press releases," adding that "the mainstream media is reluctant to cover a story where a feminist 'celebrity officer' gets in trouble."
Militarycorruption.com is an Arizona-based website founded by MacDonald and the late General Peter E. Genovese Jr. Online for seven years, it gets up to 250,000 hits a day and is read on every military base in the continental U.S. and overseas. "We are clicked on by readers in over 120 countries of the world," MacDonald said. "I don't draw a dime for what I do as editor, by my own choice," MacDonald said. "As a former enlisted man and NCO, I've never forgotten where I came from and will continue to fight to my dying day [MacDonald is rated 100% disabled, combat-related, by the VA] to get justice for the troops. We take very seriously our motto here at MilitaryCorruption.com: 'Fighting for the truth...Exposing the corrupt.'"
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at Cliff.Kincaid@aim.org Andy Selepak, a writer at Accuracy in Media, is the author of the study, New Evidence of Liberal Media Bias and can be reached at andrew.selepak@aim.org
Come on, they are Gannett. No reason to have high expectations for part of that liberal organization.
Did you see this portion of the article?
her father-in-law is an Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agent, and her own father is a retired Air Force colonel.
The OSI is office that is investigating her. I doubt an agent would be so reckless as to coach her as a witness and/or aid in any cover up - but since the story is not getting any media attention, so the temptation to do so may be greater.
Wouldn't they have been able to tell during the medical eval at Bagram that she'd had an abortion?
...her husband is an Air Force officer, her father-in-law is an Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agent, and her own father is a retired Air Force colonel.
And the US Air Force, US Taxpayers, anyone of a few hundred thousand military personnel, US Foreign Policy, Veterans disability funding and even troop deployment logistics are getting screwed because daddy's little girl couldn't keep her legs closed.
Earlier I called her a basket case. Now I'll call her a slut.
Semper Fi
I am not a doctor, so I am not sure.
I do know that she got a complete medical checkup at Landstuhl - the military's premiere overseas hospital in Germany not far from Ramstein Air Base (where she was flown to).
Landstuhl is top notch, and so are its people.
But, none of that information has ever been made public. Public Affairs officers are citing "privacy" concerns. When a crime is committed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it is usually released to the public except in extreme circumstances (such as national security or if the information will be harmful to children, or some other circumstance).
For instance, if a soldier at Fort Bragg attempts to murder his wife, it hits the local news.
The story of Major Jill Metzger was an international top story for weeks.
Are we to believe nothing about this case is to be learned by the public?
Understood.
The father in law might actually be interested in seeing what his son has married into. He may be the reason the investigation has gotten as far as it has.
Could be. The OSI are a very professional lot who do great work, and I didn't mean to impugn them with my post.
It is just that the whole affair stinks.
I was one of the ones on FR who were defending Maj Metzger last fall when she reappeared after being missing.
There were a lot of comparisons to the "Runaway Bride" at the time.
I thought an officer would have more integrity than to do something like that. Now, the information coming out in that article by Cliff Kincaid and Andy Selepak speaks of crimes much worse than those committed by old bug eyes Jennifer Wilbanks.
Patton was in the Olympics????
What did he compete in? Did he get any medals?
First I’ve ever heard of it.
The case not the poster.
QUESTION OF THE MONTH: DO YOU THINK MAJ. JILL "BOMB IN MY BACK POCKET" METZGER DESERVES A DISABILITY PENSION AND PERHAPS THE AIR FORCE CROSS FOR HER "HEROICS" IN KYRGYZSTAN? E-MAIL US YOUR THOUGHTS AT STAFF@MILITARYCORRUPTION.COM.
"They're running out the clock," said an Air Force officer at Moody AFB Georgia. He was referring to the top brass hoping they can get Maj. Jill Metzger safely retired on a medical disability (PTSD?) sometime in July. Jill's very public jogging around the base kind of undercuts a "physical" disability caused by her "abduction" in Kyrgyzstan in 2006. So it makes sense to go with something else.
We have also heard from a mainstream media reporter who didn't bother to dig further on this bizarre story because he was told by Pentagon flacks they "couldn't comment" due to an "ongoing investigation." This was in the past few days. Well, hello there. Any good Admin person - as an officer told us - knows that an active duty member cannot be processing out and have a date to retire if ANY "ongoing investigation" is STILL in progress.
There is a final report, and if you or we got to see it and hold it in our hot little hands, we'd know a lot more about whether or not Metzger is a liar and a manipulator. Someone who has seen it got back to us, but you can be sure the original version is guarded closer than all the gold at Fort Knox. We hear the name of a flag officer is included on its pages.
And this....
I don't want her publically flogged or anything, and she needs God's forgiveness just as we all do. She needs Christ.
But, remorse, regret, and admitting one's sins are the first step towards the path to forgiveness.
If she is allowed to skate on this, the morale of enlisted folks who would have been nailed to wall will plummet.
wow...
I smell a different standard of conduct for women in the military. If it had been a man, he would have been in prison.
From Wikipedia.
See if your library has Patton: A Genius for War
Maybe this is like Valerie Plame’s leave from the CIA... to go counsel women or whatever nonsense they came up with. IMHO it was a ‘leave’ to send her on her first and only “covert mission” so the libnuts in the CIA could claim she was covert within the sacred five years of being “outed.”
It’s “Just temporary”. 18 months. Yeah... right.
The mind boggles.
There's some controversy about his placement due to the pistol marksmanship event. Patton's shot group was extremely tight. Patton and his defenders contend that two rounds shared a hole. The event judges contend that one round missed the target entirely, and of course, the judges' ruling stood.
Had the ruling gone the other way, Patton would have taken at least a bronze.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.