A Great American: Deserves a Congressional Medal Of Honor
With the help of the new, revived, robust and thoughtful Office of Special Counsel (more on that later), Franz Gayl will get his job back.
You say, "Who is Franz Gayl?" First, he is a true American hero. Mr. Gayl, a civilian advisor to the Marines, had the guts to harshly criticize his bosses in the military for their failure to deploy heavily armed vehicles known as MRAPs in Iraq. Through his persistent advocacy (a lone voice really) he prodded the military into finally making sure that our troops in harm’s way would be driving through war-torn Iraq protected to the best extent possible. MRAPs protect soldiers from IADs, mines and other forms of attack that cost the lives of too many Americans and leave even more scarred and maimed for life.
What did Mr. Gayl get for his courage? Not a medal. Nope. He effectively got fired; he was stripped of his security clearance, placed on leave, and told if he didn’t shut up he would lose his job permanently. So much for standing up for the safety of our troops.
But thanks to Carolyn Lerner, the new Special Counsel, who has revived a moribund and corrupt federal agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers, Mr. Gayl will obtain his job back.
Thank you Mr. Gayl for likely saving the lives and limbs (literally) of hundreds if not thousands of troops deployed in Iraq during that difficult and very expensive war. We can’t give you a Congressional Medal of Honor, but we can make you our Person of the Week.
And kudos to Carolyn Lerner and her staff for righting an important wrong.