West Point Must Come Clean

West Point Must Come Clean on Cocaine-Fentanyl Cadets’ Fate

By law, federal entities, including West Point, must respond to a FOIA filing within 30 working days; mine was intentionally stuck in limbo for more than a year. The Army’s “Initial Denial Office” in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, then arbitrarily and illegally dismissed my FOIA filing without explanation.  Many other FOIA requests involving West Point have been treated with equal disdain.

• A West Point education now costs an estimated $250,000 per cadet, funded by our federal tax dollars;
• Drug abuse is a disqualifying factor for military personnel, especially officers;
• Taxpayers are entitled to know whether the offending cadets were permitted to graduate and serve as military officers;
• The U.S. military, by law and tradition, is subordinate to civilian control and therefore should be especially diligent when it comes to transparency and following federal law.

But West Point, under its current “leadership,” apparently believes otherwise.  Superintendent Lieutenant General Steven Gilland and his public affairs officer have repeatedly stated or implied that taxpayers and graduates are not entitled to know the fate of the overdose cadets.  Moreover, they have said that fulfilling my FOIA request would violate the cadets’ privacy, even though they know good and well that I explicitly did not ask for the names of the cadets involved, only their punishment.  Such duplicitous behavior, called “quibbling,” is prohibited by the Cadet Honor Code and cause for separation from the Academy.  But apparently setting such a bad example for cadets is now permissible by West Point’s leadership.  (By the way, this is the same public affairs department that, in a blatant political move, attempted to derail Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Secretary of Defense by falsely claiming he had never been accepted to attend the U.S. Military Academy as a cadet.)

• Demonstrations over concerns that laser rangefinder testing and use might damage the eyesight of West German citizens;
• Saving my company’s nuclear power program after the Three Mile Island accident;
• Explosions, fires, oil spills and toxic gas releases, employee deaths and injuries, workplace violence and civilian evacuations.

• The fate of the overdose cadets, including whether they were permitted to graduate and serve as commissioned officers;
• If separated from the Academy, whether and how any were required to repay their educational tuition and boarding costs;
• Whether, how and why cadets and cadre—but not taxpayers and graduates--were selectively informed of the offending cadets’ final disposition; and
• Why West Point failed to follow federal FOIA law.