The Case Of CDR Benjamin Strickland, Response to A Book Review

 

The Author responds:

To: LT Fredd Milbry, USCG (Ret.) 
  You are truly a member in good standing of the "Long Blue Line" of retired Coast Guard Officers. It is obvious how much you love the Coast Guard.
And you are a moral person who still holds sacred the "core values" we were taught as officers; duty, honor, honesty, truth, loyalty, respect, obedience to your oath of office and support for higher authority; follow the chain of command.
All of this is apparent in your review of The Case of CDR Benjamin Strickland.
 http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-CDR-Benjamin-Strickland/dp/1514682737
You are a leader; you started the Facebook Page Black Coast Guard Chronicles. You see things first and are frequently on the cutting edge of hot social and professional issues. This is all the more reason I am touched by your insights into The Strickland Case and the book outlining it.
You are middle America; you are the Coast Guard's moral majority; you are the voice of our conscience.
 When you speak people listen. And I hear you. It was for such an awareness as yours that the book was written. It was to highlight such gross arbitrary and capricious divergence from good order and proper procedure that the book was written.
When the most senior officers in the CG can completely disregard morality and sacrifice a decorated officer and his innocent family for no rational reason, it makes me shudder for the security of my fellow officers in the lower ranks and I fear for the future of our Coast Guard.
Is this behavior typical of the entire senior officer corps? I hope not.
Can this type of thing happen again? I pray not.
How did it happen this once? I fear there is no single answer.
What is clear is that a great wrong has been done! One of the best and the brightest of the fair haired boys has been sacrificed on an altar of arrogance, deceit, malice.
And why? All for doing his job; and doing it by the book; all for reporting a case of sexual assault in an Area (the Pacific Area) where no one wanted to rock the boat at a time when the next Commandant was being chosen.
And any whiff of a scandal, and any wide scale investigation might jeopardize the desired decision making. And so this case had to go away; and, anyone pushing it had to be silenced, even if it meant sacrificing his entire family.
This is a story that had to be told. Your review of the facts in the book makes that abundantly clear. Thank you my fellow retired Coast Guard Officer.

This is BIG! This is historical. This is a Case of First Impression. Maybe this is not the first time something like this has happened in the Coast Guard; but, this is the first time it has been thoroughly documented. This Case and this Book are the result of hundreds of man-hours of research, eye witness interviews, and analysis. The actual players in this tragedy were painstakingly interviewed and interviewed again. The facts were checked and re-checked. The facts are absolutely accurate and indisputable. The Time Line is accurate right down to the day, the minute and hour.
Two people can understand and analyze the same facts and come to different conclusions. We are all different in some ways. We are what we were then and when and where our characters and personalities were shaped; BUT, we cannot dispute the FACTS.
You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. The Facts are absolute. They are black or white; they cannot be a dirty shade of grey. Not one shade , nor fifty shades of grey.
This is a piece of living history. What price can you put on History? We are living in History, at a pivotal moment in history. Owning this book, is like taking a "selfie" in the Flow Of Living History. Imagine being able to capture yourself at The March on Washington, The Collapse of the Berlin Wall, at The WTC on 9/11, or some other historic event that took on epic proportions as time went by.
How would you be able to describe it to your children and get the facts right? How else would you be able to set the stage and get the passions and the emotions just right to explain and to understand what was happening in the country and the world at this crucial time in our history?
This Book captures it. It hits the nail right on the head. It nails it dead center. There has never been a Ben Strickland in the Coast Guard Officer Corps, and there will never be again. What happened here will probably never again be repeated, partially because it was recorded and exposed. Just like the first time a Coast Guard Academy cadet was court-martialed (Cadet Webster Smith). It too will never happen again. The book about that case exposed the fallacy, and the stupidity, and the utter futility of it.
The Case of CDR Benjamin Strickland will go down in history as being one of a kind, unique. The story will be told again and again. Rumors will abound. People will embellish. But, if you have the book, you have the facts, the Truth, the piece of living History. It is eternal. It will live in infamy. How can you put a price on that?