IF REQUESTE8AM DED No information is released after the Senator KEMPTHORNE. Thank you, Mr. Casto. In that spirit, we appreciate all of the comments that are being made here today. Colonel, if you would hold just a moment, I would like to acknowledge that Senator Thurmond, who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has also joined us. Mr. Chairman, are there any comments that you would like to make as this hearing continues? STATEMENT OF SENATOR STROM THURMOND Senator THURMOND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, I just dropped by to show my interest in this matter. I have another matter going on that I have to go back to. But I just want you to know you are welcome here, and it is appropriate that you have a right to present your cause. I want to say the military will also be welcome here, and they will have a right, and it is appropriate for them, to present their cause. The Armed Services Committee is a very important committee. We have many matters to act upon. I am very pleased that Senator Kempthorne is the chairman of this subcommittee. He is one of the ablest and most dedicated members of the Senate Armed Service Committee. I have great faith in him and what he does. Again, we welcome you here, and anything that the Armed Services Committee can do, I am sure Senator Kempthorne will take charge of it. Thank you very much. Senator KEMPTHORNE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. We do appreciate greatly your leadership and interest on this issue. Also, Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania. Senator Santorum, any comments that you wish to make? Šenator SANTORUM. No, I will listen to the testimony and will have my chance to ask questions. Senator KEMPTHORNE. Thank you, and we are very delighted that you are here. Now Colonel William Cavanaugh. Colonel. STATEMENT OF COL. WILLIAM J. CAVANAUGH, AUS (RET.) Mr. CAVANAUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the members of this important subcommittee for this opportunity to appear before you. For the record, my name is William J. Cavanaugh, Colonel, United States Army Reserve, retired. I currently reside in Natick, Massachusetts with my wife Virginia, who is here with me today. Again for the record, I would like to briefly state my military and professional credentials. I received my commission in the United States Army Corps of Engineers following my ROTC training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon graduation from MIT in 1951, I served at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri from July 1951 to July 1953 during the Korean conflict. In 1982, after just under 32 years of continuous service, I retired from the United States Army Reserve. In my civilian profession, I am a founding partner and senior principal in an acoustical engineering firm in Sudbury, Massachusetts. I am here today reluctantly to testify with regard to the issue of what appears to be continuing jurisdictional confusion on the part of the military with respect to off-base deaths of suspicious origin. I am painfully aware of this problem as a result of the anguish and frustration that still linger 14 years after the death of my son, Lieutenant William J. Cavanaugh, a U.S. Air Force drug and alcohol abuse counselor who was found shot to death in April 1982 in his apartment outside the boundaries of Williams Air Force Base. I wish to highlight_my experience in dealing with the United States Air Force, the Pentagon, and most recently the office of the Department of Defense Inspector General so that you can clearly understand the frustrations of so many other families facing similar circumstances. My family and I have been through a 14-year odyssey of increasing military bureaucracy and insensitivity and, yes, even deceit, simply because we wanted to know answers to basic questions about my son's death. If I, as a senior officer familiar with military procedures, cannot get straight answers and action, then I am sure you can imagine the difficulty of so many families without military experience or the same resources. The refusal to assist a bereaved family member at this critical time with a “not-in-my jurisdiction" response is unconscionable. Let me outline some of the difficulties my family has experienced, so that you will have a clear idea of the picture of the frustrations of other military families when questionable death occurs off-base. While I have boxes and boxes of correspondence from the Air Force and the Pentagon, I will endeavor to be as brief as possible in the interest of your time. On Easter Sunday evening in April 1982, a United States Air Force officer visited my home in order to inform us of our son's death. This is the most dreaded experience of a military family. The next day I flew to Williams Air Force Base with my late brother and two surviving sons, in order to determine first hand the details of what happened. After meeting with the base_commander and members of the OSI detachment, I was assured that although my son's death occurred off base, the Air Force would closely monitor the local police investigation, and demand a thorough investigation, including the most sophisticated forensic tests available. Satisfied with the word of a fellow officer, I returned home for our son's funeral. Weeks later, after reading the report from the local police department, I discovered that essentially no criminal investigation had occurred; furthermore, there was no monitoring conducted by the Air Force OSI, no autopsy was performed on my son, the bullet that killed him was never recovered, and a shell of a different caliber was taken into evidence. There were no fingerprints on the AR-15 rifle located next to his body, no powder burn tests were conducted on his hands to see if he even fired the weapon. Key roommates, coworkers, family, and friends were not interviewed. Within a few hours, the crime scene was released, and the apartment was professionally cleaned, hours before the Air Force had even notified us of his death. In short, the Air Force failed to follow clear and specific OSI regulations and policies regarding close and continuous liaison with local investigative authorities. The Air Force simply relied on a civil medical examiners one-sentence report that my son's wound was self-inflicted. The sentence was written by a county medical examiner who did not even visit the death scene, nor did he remove my son's clothing for a postmortem examination. To this date, we still do not know what day my son died. I have estimates that span 3 days during that period. Outraged, I complained to the Air Force, the Pentagon, to my congressional representatives, and over and over again I received the same response: the military has no jurisdiction in your son's case. Parenthetically, this contradict's DOD's more recent positions in the do not ask/do not tell hearings in which the Pentagon has asserted unequivocally that military rules and regulations apply off base. Thoroughly frustrated, at my own military retirement ceremony in December of 1982, I returned my medal of meritorious service to the President, praying that somebody in the executive branch would look into this matter. Nothing was done, and my medal remains buried somewhere within the bureaucracy. To make matters worse, in January 1983 I learned that my son had suspected illegal drug activity on his base, and he planned to disclose this information on a scheduled IG inspection; however, he died before the inspection began. I delivered this information to the Air Force, and again, no action was taken. Until Congress passed section 1185 of Public Law 103-160, the amendment to the 1994 Defense Authorization Act, directing the DOD/IG's office to review and reinvestigate questioned military deaths, I had little hope that anything could be done. Once again, though, I dutifully completed the necessary documents requesting a review. Even here I waited 18 months, only to have two members of the IG's office finally visit me, expressing that my son's case was not within the jurisdiction of the Air Force. My wife and I then received a terse letter from the DOD Inspector General dated on my deceased son's birthday and received by us on the approximate anniversary date of his death. This letter again asserted that the military had no jurisdiction in my son's death, and that we had failed to provide any new information to change the status of the case. I respectfully ask you members of Congress who wrote the 1994 legislation, did you intend that the bereaved families of deceased military service personnel conduct their own investigations in order to convince the DOD/IG's office that such cases should be reinvestigated? I remain appalled at the insensitivity and callousness of the Pentagon, most recently the conduct of DOD Inspector General Hill. Our family and those of the many other families whose sons and daughters serve our country deserve more. The DOD/IG report, Department of Defense Policies and Procedures for Death Investigations, prepared in response to part A of section 1185 is inadequate. While there is considerable discussion of the problems faced by the military departments criminal investigation organizations with respect to out-of-jurisdiction cases, there are few if any specific recommendations for cooperations with those other authorities having jurisdiction. Furthermore, the DOD/ IG report seems to accept as a fact of life that there should continue to be independent criminal investigations in each of the military departments, each with their own separate policies and procedures. The confusion that exists today in military death investigations with respect to terminology such as administrative versus criminal type investigations, facts and circumstances investigating officer, line of duty investigating officer, court summary officers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, are in my judgment principally due to the lack of uniformity among the services in handling casualty matters and dealing with family members. In every sense, I believe that DOD fails to adequately respond to Public Law 103-160's mandate for improved policies and proce dures in general, and is totally unresponsive to the individual bereaved families such as ours. The military services can no longer hide behind the jurisdictional shield of other civil authorities. Ďespite the incredible advances in military technology and equipment, the military personnel serving our Nation both in war and peace remain the ultimate weapon in its defense. Some words of General Douglas MacArthur may be appropriate here: "The unfailing formula for the production of morale is patriotism, self respect, discipline, and self confidence, within the military unit, joined with fair treatment and merited appreciation from without. It will quickly wither and die if soldiers come to believe themselves the victim of indifference and injustice on the part of their Government, or ignorance, personal ambition, or ineptitude on the part of their military leaders.' I believe General MacArthur meant these words to apply to the extended military family, as well, and in particular, to the family members of service members who die in its service. Please note that my son, as well as many of these other families, are basically very patriotic. Lieutenant William J. Cavanaugh, Jr.'s family has served this country over several generations. His grandfather, U.S. Navy Commander Owen Huff, was a decorated World War II hero. His mother served in the United States Army Air Corps during the latter part of World War II. I spent 32 years of my life in the Army Reserve as a citizen soldier, and I encouraged my son to pursue a military career. All six of his uncles are military veterans, as are many of his cousins, one of whom paid the supreme sacrifice in the Korean War. For my family, and for all the other grieving families who have submitted written testimony here today, please ensure that the Pentagon is held accountable to the General Accounting Office of the Congress. The time for excuses and insensitivity towards the families of those who die while in service to their country must end now. I deeply appreciate this opportunity to share these thoughts, and thank you for your time and patience. Senator KEMPTHORNE. Colonel Cavanaugh, thank you very much. Again, we have a vote on the floor of the Senate, so we are going to take a brief recess while we cast our votes. When we return, we would like to open this to questions and again, I admire how you are approaching this and the information that you are giving us, and in that spirit we will make this a positive experience. [Recess.] Ladies and gentlemen, I will call the hearing back to order. I hope that you find the break a little more relaxing than I do, running back and forth. With that, let me ask questions of the members of this panel. Mrs. Shults, if I may, I would like to begin with you. In your testimony you said that we have read the reports of all investigations and reviews and closely attended to the report issued by the Inspector General, and despite how it may be presented, it will not change the most basic fault in current investigative procedure, the behavior of the investigator. Linda, what I would like to ask you is in a constructive spirit, what insight could you give to inspectors today that would improve that behavior as they proceed on future investigations? From the insight of a family |