By facsimile to: 202.224.

1388
The Honorable Carl Levin
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate
269 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

By facsimile to: 202.228.2862

The Honorable John McCain
Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
March 30, 2011

Dear Senators Levin and McCain:

We are writing to express our deep concern about troubling developments within the
Department of Defense legal community.
As you may be aware, political appointees within the Pentagon’s legal bureaucracy have,
over the past 20 years, regularly attempted to limit the professional independence of military
judge advocates. DoD’s political legal establishment has attempted to muzzle and subjugate
military lawyers by executive fiat and multiple “hostile takeover” efforts to bring them under the
direct control and supervision of the appointees.
Fortunately, those attempts have failed, though only through repeated Congressional
intervention to make it clear to the Department of Defense that Congress wants independent JAG
Corps that can provide apolitical, objective and unbiased legal advice from a military perspective
to commanders, free of an administration’s political spin du jour.
Congressional wisdom regarding the need for independent military legal advice was
unequivocally demonstrated once again several years ago. Judge advocates cried foul when the
political powers wanted them to fall in line to support highly suspect legal interpretations
regarding military commissions and treatment of detainees. The Supreme Court and other
federal courts that subsequently examined those issues vindicated the military lawyers in every
case. The JAGs were right. The political lawyers were wrong.
The Air Force JAG Corps led the way in that particular effort to keep the military on the
right side of the law. Following that episode, Congress enacted a provision that prohibits DoD
personnel from interfering with independent JAG advice. In Washington, of course, the political
bureaucracy never forgets a slight.
Given this troubling history and against this backdrop, we cannot help but be
extraordinarily concerned about the decision announced earlier this month by DoD to gut the Air
Force JAG Corps leadership by specifically eliminating three of the Corps’ four brigadier
general (one-star) positions. The deleted billets are the chief legal advisors to the commanders of
the Air Force’s three most important major commands, those responsible for air combat
operations, airlift and logistics.
In making this decision, DoD political appointees summarily overruled or ignored the
protests of the Air Force Secretary, Chief of Staff, and other Air Force leaders.
Although the order eliminated a number of flag billets in other career fields throughout
the Department of Defense, the “cover story” for the targeted USAF JAG cuts (significant cost
savings) simply doesn’t hold water. The Defense Department will realize less than $50K annual
The Honorable Carl Levin
The Honorable John McCain
March 30, 2011
Page 2

savings from downgrading the positions. That’s a mere trifle compared to the cost of the literally
unbridled growth of Senior Executive Service positions (the civilian equivalent of flag rank)
assigned to the political lawyers’ own offices over the past several years. By the way, not a
single one of those expensive SES billets was touched by the edict in question.
Likewise, DoD’s alternative rationale (to equalize rank structure among the Service JAG
corps) is absurd on its face. None of the other Service JAG Corps took such a hit.
The impact on the Air Force as a whole, and on its JAG Corps in particular, will be
devastating. Indeed, given the obvious absence of a rational basis, these cuts will be interpreted
as sending an extraordinarily strong and unambiguous message to military lawyers of all ranks
and Services. “Regardless of what Congress may say or intend, you better fall in line with the
legal interpretations of the political appointees . . . or else!”
Legal considerations, as General Petraeus and other commanders have often noted, have
become critically important to the operational success of our forces in the field. Make no
mistake about it, the military is a hierarchical system based on rank. To signal a marginalization
of the military legal profession by downgrading its leaders sends all the wrong messages to
friend and foe alike. Eroding the authority of the military officers tasked with providing the kind
of objective, expert, and sometimes brutally frank legal advice is a formula for repeating the
stunning legal misjudgments of past political ideologues, who so undermined that for which our
soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have sacrificed so much.
Congress has in the past acted to protect the legal independence of military judge
advocates by specifying in statute not only flag grade of the Judge Advocate Generals and
Deputy Judge Advocate Generals of all the Services, but also three Army JAG Corps brigadier
general positions. Unless DoD reverses its troubling and profoundly unwise decision in this
matter, we urge the Congress to provide the same protection to the Air Force’s JAG Corps.

Very respectfully,

/s/
Jack L. Rives
Lt Gen, USAF (Ret)
Judge Advocate General
2006 – 2010

/s/
Nolan Sklute
Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Judge Advocate General
1993 - 1996

/s/
Andrew M. Egeland, Jr.
Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Deputy Judge Advocate General
1993 – 2000
The Honorable Carl Levin
The Honorable John McCain
March 30, 2011
Page 3

/s/
Joseph G. Lynch
Maj Gen, USAFR (Ret)

/s/
Thomas L. Hemingway
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Mobility Command
1991 - 1996

/s/
Joseph R. Lowry
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Logistics Command
1977 - 1982

/s/
Edward F. Rodriguez, Jr.
Brig Gen, USAFR (Ret)

/s/
James W. Swanson
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Mobility Command
2000 - 2003

The general officers whose names appear below join in this letter.

Thomas B. Bruton
Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Judge Advocate General
1980 – 1985

Bryan G. Hawley
Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Judge Advocate General
1996 – 1999

Robert W. Norris
Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Judge Advocate General
1985 – 1988

Walter D. Reed
Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Judge Advocate General
1977 – 1980
The Honorable Carl Levin
The Honorable John McCain
March 30, 2011
Page 4

Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.

Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
Deputy Judge Advocate General
2006 – 2010

Dennis M. Gray
Maj Gen, USAFR (Ret)

Robert I. Gruber
Maj Gen, USAFR (Ret)

Richard D. Roth
Maj Gen, USAFR (Ret)

Armando de Leon
Brig Gen, USAFR (Ret)

David G. Ehrhart
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Materiel Command
2006 – 2009

Gordon A. Ginsburg
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Systems Command
1981 - 1987

Thomas G. Jeter
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Systems Command
1987 - 1991

Roger A. Jones
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Strategic Air Command
1988 - 1992

Michael N. Madrid
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Materiel Command
2002 - 2006

Michael W. McCarthy
Brig Gen, USAFR (Ret)
The Honorable Carl Levin
The Honorable John McCain
March 30, 2011
Page 5

James C. Roan, Jr.

Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Logistics Command/Air Force Materiel Command
1991 - 1995

Jarisse J. Sanborn
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Mobility Command
2003 – 2006

Jerald D. Stubbs
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Materiel Command
1999 - 2002

Edwin B. Tatum
Brig Gen, USAFR (Ret)

Norman R. Thorpe
Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Logistics Command
1984 - 1988

Chester D. Taylor Jr.

Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Systems Command
1977 - 1981

Olan G. Waldrop, Jr.

Brig Gen, USAF (Ret)
Staff Judge Advocate, Air Force Materiel Command
1995 – 1999

cc: The Honorable Jim Webb (facsimile 202.228.6363)

The Honorable Lindsay Graham (facsimile 202.224.3808)