General Lavelle

I got to Thailand for my second Southeast Asia Tour about eight months after General John D Lavelle was fired and demoted two grades (from four star General to two star Major General) and retired.♠  The reason he was fired was that he had ordered bombing attacks into North Viet-nam.  There were also allegations of doctoring the mission debriefings to avoid showing that bombing in North Viet-nam had happened or to suggest that the enemy had fired first, provoking a protective reaction.

General Lavelle was relived as commander of Seventh Air Force in late March of 1972 and the scene shifted to Washington, DC.  This was such a hot issue in the Summer of 1972 that when I got to Korat in December of 1972 I was sent down to an office on the main base to sign the "integrity statement" before I was allowed to fly missions.  This was a sheet of paper where all the fighter pilots signed that they had read the "integrity statement".  The interesting thing is the clerk handed me the clipboard with the signature log, but not the "integrity statement" itself.  I had to ask for that.  I admit that I was a little cynical when I said that if I was going to sign that I had read the "integrity statement" I needed to read it first.  Standard stuff.  No false reporting allowed.

The good news for the Lavelle family is that President Obama, on the advice of the Secretary of the Air Force and the Secretary of Defense, has requested the Senate to advance the late Major General Lavelle to the rank of full General on the retired list.

Here is the article in Thursday's edition of The Washington Post.

Here is the report from the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records.

And, here is a web page from the law firm that supported this effort. This case included pro bono work by former (retired) Air Force JAGs Brig Gen Ed Rodriguez and Col Gordon Wilder.

Wikipedia has a long rundown on the controversy.

I am hoping the US Senate moves this along quickly.  General Lavelle's widow is 91 and it would be nice if she lived to see this happen.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  In a way that isn't the correct characterization.  Generals never advance beyond the "permanent" rank of Major General, so this was just allowing the General to revert to his permanent rank as he went into retirement, since the US Senate thought that he had not earned retirement as a four star, due to his actions as Commander of Seventh Air Force.  This Senate vote is what is hoped will be reversed.