37 Censored Military History

1996-0514, Harassment, Sexual Harassment Scam Results in Double Murder.
A double murder in Virginia Beach that may have gone unsolved, except for the tale told by blood splatters. The murderer was Eddie Makdessi. His victims were his wife and the man she had lured into a sex trap.
Police found the bodies of Navy Seaman Elise Makdessi and Navy, SMSGT Quincy Brown, her co-worker, in an apartment off Holl and Road.
Eddie Makdessi told police he had come home with his wife that night was knocked out from behind and restrained and awoke to find Brown raping Elise Makdessi. SMSGT Brown then stabbed Elise Makdessi to death.
Makdessi broke free, grabbed a revolver and shot Brown. Brown rose from the floor and Makdessi shot him several more times from behind the bed.
Makdessi's account of that night was inconsistent with evidence. Because of the volume and pattern of Brown's blood on the bed, walls and carpet, police concluded that Brown was on his knees, facing the door when he was shot.
Brown's green jacket was folded and draped across the living room chair, which was inconsistent with the allegation that Brown had forced his way into the apartment. He also showed that there were no binding marks on Makdessi's wrists.
The murder was a result of a sexual harassment money scam set up Mr. Makdessi and his wife Seaman Makdessi. The goal was to have a sexual threesome with SMSGT Brown to gather DNA seaman samples for a lawsuit against the Navy. During the threesome, Mr. Makdessi double-crossed his wife by murdering both her and SMSGT Brown.
Mr. Makdessi wasn't charged at the time. He received a $500,000 (895,946-2022) insurance check from New York Life and $200,000 (358,379-2022) from the Navy. He traveled to Massachusetts and New York City before a trip to the Middle Eastand Russia.
Makdessi was indicted in 2001, returned to the United States in 2003 and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 2006. He was fined $202,500 (362,858-2022) and is spending life in prison.

1996-0615, Reserve Parachute Handle Comes Out to Easy.
Reserve parachute, ripcord grip is changed so female Soldiers can deploy the reserve.
The grip now comes out easily.
1997-0615, Jump Master Procedures change. Jumpmasters were being sucked out of the Acft unable to hold on in the 130-knot blast of air they have to fight while doing door checks. The new procedure is not daring in the least. You peek out the rear corner of the door while keeping your body in the Acft. That change sucked. It was a badge of honor to hang by your fingertips & boot heals.
2000-0711, A Jump Master, SSG Frederick J. Briggs, decapitated by an accidental reserve deployment while in the Acft.
2001-0702, Jump Master, Piece of plastic authorized to keep Jump Master rip-cord-grips secure during door check procedures.
2001-0724, A Jump Master, Alexander F. LN-Unk, decapitated by accidental reserve deployment while in the Acft.
The Army Safety Center @ Fort Rucker, Alabama does some math & finds, 10-Jump Masters have been injured & three-killed since the new reserve ripcord grips were introduced four-years ago. A speed of 130-160 Knots is the speed-range for Airborne Ops. During training, the C-17 pilots try to go 130 & never drop below 800-feet AGL. In combat the planes would fly in tight formation @ 160-knots & as low as 350-feet. That is why the jump in Grenada & Panama felt so different. The pilots were flying @ 160-knots. In Grenada, the Rangers did not wear reserve-parachutes. They jumped @ 450-feet the reserves need 500-feet to deploy. They carried extra ammo instead. The Rangers did not use any weapons cases. They strapped their individual weapon to the parachute webbing.
About every 6-month a Jump Master would be sucked out the right or left jump doors of an Acft. The C-17 would circle & relay the grid coordinates for pick up by helicopter. All Jump Masters had to carry safety matches to start a fire so rescuers could find them. This was a cool story if you were the Jump Master. You could blame all kinds of things. In those days, the PM & A Jump Master would hang by their fingertips & the heels of their spit shined jump-boots. It was so cool arching your back in the door. This was part of the official door check done two minutes prior to drop time. Normally the Primary (P) Jump Master takes the left-door. The P Jump Master has the option of working the right-door but rarely does. A Jump Master can be very inexperienced. Often a senior Soldier wanting to earn his Senior or Master Parachute badge. P Jump Master is a full time job. You have to be good to be selected for the P Jump Master job on a jump. The right door A Jump Master does not have many duties other than echo the jump commands with the P Jump Master starting @ the 20-minute time warning. All 10-of the jumpers sucked out since the rules change 4-years ago were Jump Masters on the right-door.
The solution to keep the reserve from deploying in the wind: A plastic guard inserted in the Jump Master teams reserve parachute.
2001-0906, New Jump Master procedures have the Jump Masters stand six-inches inside the Acft during door checks.

1996-0615, SF, Secret, SGM forced to retire as a MSG for Security Violation.
SGM Clark had a wild wife. He was assigned to the 160th SOAR but lost his security clearance due to his wife’s misconduct.
The Army transferred him to Ft Eustis, VA. His new job was with a secret Army unit called, “Advanced Flight Concepts,” he was working with top-secret equipment. He failed to tell his new unit about his security clearance problem.
When the Commander found out, he was told to retire or face court-martial. He was not a SGM (E-9) for 2-years, so he retired as an E-8.

1996-0615, Adultery, Commander of the Sergeant’s MAJ Academy Fired.
COL (O6), Robert I Jordan, Jr. was relieved for cause and forced to retire for having an affair with his secretary at Ft Bliss, TX. When COL Jordan arrived at Ft Bliss, he left his wife and daughter at Ft Hood, so his daughter could graduate HS. He lived in VIP billeting, located behind the Officers Club for that first year. His adultery charge with his secretary was very embarrassing since COL Jordan had a zero-defect policy for NCOs. He personally gave a very stern briefing to all NCOs arriving for the 1SG, battle staff and sergeant’s major academy on proper conduct and behavior especially sexual misconduct.
COL Jordan was confronted with e-mail messages of a sexual nature from him, addressed to his civilian secretary. Other female employees and Soldiers at the academy had previously complained about the preferential treatment his secretary was receiving from her COL "boyfriend”, but their complaints were ignored.” His secretary admitted that she and the colonel would take TDY trips to maintain their affair and that the colonel was able to get her promoted utilizing his power and influence. The Information management officer at the academy was a very strange woman, with skeletons in her own closet, she was the person who “sharked” (rhymes with Narked and SHARP), on the COL by divulging the e-mails.
After his relief the Commander of Ft Bliss, a MG addressed the 700-Soldiers of the SGM-class and called all SGMs and NCOs, “pieces of ****.” For some reason the MG blamed the staff and students for COL Jordan’s downfall, he had to apologize.

1996-0615, Gay, Marriage Airborne Style
A civilian man dressed as a woman walks into 82D DIV HQ. He wants an ID card. He has a valid marriage license where he and a male SGT in the 82D got married in Myrtle Beach, SC. The **** hits the fan. At the court martial for the SGT, the man showed up to testify that he was really a hermaphrodite and had both male and female genitalia. Nobody on the panel wanted to see so the case was dropped. This was the first gay marriage in the Military I know of.

1996-0625, Race, Leaders Meet and Decide White Male Soldiers Are Bigots.
In a hearing before the House National Security Committee, the heads of all the Military services set a new standard for members who may belong to a hate-group, "disruptive conduct.” If a member of the Armed Forces makes bigoted statements, wears racist clothing, flies a Nazi or Confederate flag, Commanders may discharge the Service Member from the Military.
The rule applies on or off post: During duty hours or off duty. To-Go West says it will be at the discretion of the unit commander to interpret the new rules.
AF Secretary Sheila E Widnall had to leave early because of a truck bomb in Saudi Arabia, but she was not changing current AF rules. Edwin Dorn, Pentagon undersecretary of personnel stated, "extremists are a miniscule part of the Military but we want them out altogether.”

1996-0716, SF, Race, Black Soldier Paints Swastikas.
MI Co, 7th SF, the barracks doors of eight-black Soldiers have two-foot tall, red, swastikas spray-painted on them during the night. This is the second time in a month that somebody has vandalized the barracks with spray painted racial graffiti. President Bill Clinton mentions the spray-painting incident during his acceptance speech at the DNC convention, "Soldiers do not deserve to have swastikas painted on their doors.”
1996-0729, a BG is assigned to investigate the swastikas:
The Army offers a $10,000 (17,919-2022) reward for Info. BG Kenneth Bowra and Army CID are investigating the incident. The Army restricts all 172 residents of the vandalized Barracks to the Barracks until the investigation is complete.
1996-0730, Black SGT man: SGT Robert Washington, MI Co, 7th SF, a black Soldier is the primary man in the swastika incident. He was found with red spray paint on his shoes that matched the paint used for the swastikas. He resides in the vandalized Barracks.
1996-1223, SGT Guilty: SGT Washington found guilty of the swastika incident and is discharged from the Army with a general discharge.

1996-0717, VD, Army Makes Mistake in AIDS Test.
The Army makes a terrible mistake (on purpose?) and diagnoses a Soldier with AIDS. Ft Bliss, TX, CID is investigating the case of SPC Dwayne Moorehouse, the training NCO for 4th Battalion, 6th ADA Regt and his Battalion’s Soldier of the year, he was diagnosed wrongly five times with AIDS.
Each trooper in the Military must take an AIDS test every two years. This is a routine test and very few troops come up positive. SPC Moorehouse took his scheduled test and was called within days to report the post hospital.
The horror began within minutes of diagnosis at Beaumont Army hospital; doctors were showing Moorehouse graphic photos of men in the advanced stages of the disease. His Company Commander, CPT James Leary, and the Battalion chaplain LTC Robert LeRoe were present during the notification. COL (Dr.) Theodore McNitt, the deputy Commander of Beaumont said graphic photos are part of the official notification process.
The mistaken positive AIDS test result prompted the man to attempt suicide and ended his eight-year marriage in divorce. It took the Army 11-weeks to correct the error and inform him he never was infected.
All the blood samples were tested by Corning Clinical Laboratory, in Irving, TX. The last two tests came back negative for AIDS but Karen Linen, chief of epidemiologic and disease control at Beaumont told Moorehouse the results were positive. Linen refused to comment on why she lied to Moorehouse.
Medical investigators blamed the mistake on mislabeling the samples.

1996-0727, Gender, Race
70 percent of black females complete their first enlistment while only 50 percent of white females do.

1996-0806, Accident, Soldiers Stomp on Ground to Find Lost Grenade.
One killed, 11 wounded. HHC, 1st Bn, 187th Infantry Regt, 101st Airborne Div, were at a hand grenade range on 3 Aug during a live ammo exercise a 1LT discovers the “pin” of his hand grenade in his ammo pouch but no hand grenade and no explosion. Training stops, the range is closed.
The next day Ft Campbell chain of command, hold a meeting to decide what to do about the lost grenade. The officers decided to send Soldiers into the impact area to find the grenade, some had metal detectors.
Two days later, they find the grenade when it is stepped on. SPC Ryan Bower was killed; the Bn Commander LTC Lloyd Miles was critically injured. The Bde Commander, COL Bill Martinez, received a letter of reprimand. This reminds me of a "Polish minesweeper joke.”
LTC Miles spent a year at Walter Reed Hospital. He lost his left leg. Two years later he was promoted to COL and commanded the 187th Regt. He retired in 2012 as a MG.