Although Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach has spoken often on Rachel Maddow’s show about his Don’t Ask Don’t Tell hearing, I still didn’t know all that much about the Air Force pilot. But in a lengthy profile on The Idaho Statesman on Fehrenbach’s pending discharge the circumstances leading up to his investigation under DADT make his story even more heartbreaking:
Fehrenbach, stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base, was in a Catch-22. To clear himself of the claim he’d raped a man, Fehrenbach could tell police his side of the story. But admitting he’d had consensual sex could get him kicked out of the Air Force he loved after 18 years.
. . . Fehrenbach then told the detective he had sex with Cameron Shaner on May 12, 2008. He’d met Shaner, 30, on a gay Web site and invited him to his southeast Boise home. Fehrenbach was soon cleared by police and the Ada County prosecutor’s office. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations subsequently found no violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. AFOSI concluded that Fehrenbach and Shaner had consensual sex, and that Shaner was an “unreliable source of information.”
But the Air Force wasn’t done: Fehrenbach’s admission he’d had gay sex was a violation of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.
In order to defend himself against false accusations, Fehrenbach had to come out. And face discharge. The man who was was awarded nine Air Medals, five Commendation Medals, logged 2,180 hours of flight time, including patrolling Washington, D.C., after 9/11, and 400 hours in combat over Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo was being investigated because he told the truth. Twice.
The final decision in Ferhrenbach’s DADT case is pending.
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