The law requires a BCMR Review to be accomplished
in 10 Months
My Board took two years!
August 24th, 2021 to August 21st, 2023
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Tue, Aug 24, 2021, 5:05 PM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
It takes a week or two for packages mailed to the BCMR to work their way through several sorting facilities and security checks. I’m unable to email you when it arrives, but feel free to email us in two weeks to see if we have received it.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 9:53 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
We received your application on 9/7/21 and will send you a letter as soon as we docket the case, which should be within 30 days. Once docketed, it will take between 10 -16 months for the Board to issue a decision.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Wed, Nov 3, 2021, 10:37 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
Your application is with the Chair of the Board and will be docketed as soon as we receive your military record, which we have requested from the Coast Guard. Once docketed, the case will take approximately 10 – 16 months to be decided by the Board.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 8:01 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
We have received your email and will attach the new information to your application.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Fri, Feb 4, 2022, 8:27 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
The additional information will be added to your casefile.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Wed, Mar 2, 2022, 9:58 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
The Coast Guard informed us that you had your PDR mailed to yourself at the time of your discharge. This would explain why the CG has been unable to provide us with your PDR. The Chair of the Board informed me that we are going to go ahead and docket your case without the PDR, but if you have it then you should definitely submit a copy to the Board.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Mon, Mar 7, 2022, 8:30 PM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
The CG is entitled to receive a copy of everything you submit to the Board, so I cannot keep things from them. But I will give them an actual copy and not the version that you mailed to the Board.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 2:52 PM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
The Board has received your 5th supplement. Please note that after your case is docketed you should not submit additional information, as doing so will cause even more delay.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Tue, May 17, 2022, 11:26 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
I have forwarded your email to the Chair of the Board.
Please note that the Chair cannot docket an application until it is complete, so you should refrain from sending additional documents after the case has been docketed.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Tue, Jun 7, 2022, 7:14 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
Please print all of the documents you attached to your email and send (mail) them to the BCMR. We are unable to print more than ten pages and several of your attachments are more than ten pages.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR <CGBCMR@hq.dhs.gov>
Date: Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 7:17 AM
Subject: RE: BCMR Application ICO REDACTED
To: REDACTED
I have forwarded your email to the Chair of the Board and asked her to take a look at your application. I agree that it should not take this much time to docket your case.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2022 2:43 PM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: Formal Complaint regarding the DHS Board for Correction of Military Records
I have forwarded your email to the Chair of the Board and asked her to reply to you. She is the one who orders records and decides which cases get docketed. On behalf of the Board, my apologies for the delay – I agree with you that it shouldn’t take this long.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2022 10:25 AM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: Formal Complaint regarding the DHS Board for Correction of Military Records
Your application has been docketed as REDACTED. A copy of this application will be forwarded to the Coast Guard for their review and their JAG office will submit their recommendation to the BCMR within 120 days. As soon as we receive their recommendation we will forward a copy to you and invite you to respond within 30 days. After your response is received the case will wait its turn in line to be drafted and presented to the Board.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2023 10:27 AM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: DHS Board for Correction of Military Records docket REDACTED - USCG Advisory Opinion?
The Board received the Coast Guard’s advisory opinion on 3/13/23, and we will mail you a copy as soon as it is reviewed by the attorney assigned the case. Upon receipt, you will have 30 days to submit a response, but the Board is happy to grant more time if needed.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2023 2:13 PM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: DHS Board for Correction of Military Records docket REDACTED - USCG Advisory Opinion?
The Board attorney must review the AO to ensure that it does not contain any PII. The CG is pretty good about redacting that stuff, but we have to go over it again to ensure that we are not sending out any privacy protected information.
Applicant’s response to the AO may be submitted via e-mail if it is less than 10 pages in length.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2023 10:08 AM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: DHS Board for Correction of Military Records docket REDACTED - USCG Advisory Opinion?
I believe the AO was mailed out yesterday.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 12:17 PM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: DHS BCMR docket REDACTED: Over 13-months and counting on a regulatory 10-month suspense; just part of a now 52-month Discharge Appeal Process
The Board convened to hear your case last week, and are currently in deliberations regarding the final outcome. Apparently, there were some legal issues raised during the Board meeting that the Chair needs to work out before the Board can sign the Order and wrap-up the case. I was told by the Chair this morning that the final decision should be ready by the end of the week.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2023 9:05 AM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: DHS BCMR docket REDACTED: Over 13-months and counting on a regulatory 10-month suspense; just part of a now 52-month Discharge Appeal Process
I will mail you a copy of the Board’s decision on Tuesday, 8/8/23.
Duane Hale
---------- Original message ---------
From: CGBCMR [mailto:CGBCMR@HQ.DHS.GOV]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2023 1:14 PM
To: REDACTED
Subject: RE: "Congress Blasts U.S. Coast Guard In an Unprecedented Hearing" and more!
We have received your emails concerning the Board’s decision in your case. Under 10 U.S.C. 1552(a)(3)(D), an applicant may receive reconsideration of a BCMR decision if he submits an application with new evidence of the alleged error or injustice that was not previously submitted to the Board.
Duane Hale
The BCMR’s Bullshit (Part 2)
Ms. Julia Andrews, Lawyer,
GS-15
DHS Office of the General Counsel
Chair of the DHS BCMR
No military, law enforcement or criminal law experience !
Why were they disinterested in new evidence of the Coast Guard’s corruption?
Don’t tell me… tell her! She’s the one at fault. It’s her!
Mr. Jonathan Meyer,Lawyer,
SES
DHS General Counsel
No military, law enforcement or criminal law experience !
Would you trust this man?
The Dangers of Dramatically Unqualified Personnel in Positions of Authority
Defining “Alleged”:
alleged /ə-lĕjd′, ə-lĕj′ĭd/
adjective
Represented as existing or as being as described but not so proved; supposed.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
In the BCMR’s final Decision Document that upheld my ineligibility for the GI BIll, there were 83 factual errors or misrepresentations. Additionally, the document’s authors (Julia Andrews and Duane Hale) used the word “alleged” 37 times in reference to my factual statments and assertions supported by documentary evidence. Despite my providing 56 exhibits, nothing I stated or asserted was treated as factual.
Incredibly, the authors also used “alleged” twice in reference to the Coast Guard. However, in these instances, they used “alleged” regarding my innocense of two separate accusations that I had used illicit drugs while in the Coast Guard. Yet, those accusations were proven false by both the USCG PD and CGIS and thus should have been presented as factual in the document.
Thus, in the BCMR Decision Document, everything the Coast Guard “asserted” was presented as factual except when it concerned my innocense of certain charges. But everything I stated or asserted and backed up by documenary evidence was represented as “alleged”.
In truth, the Coast Guard proved nothing that they asserted, and provided no evidence other than my CGIS Report of Investigation (ROI) that the BCMR did not have authorization to access.:
Per paragraph 14.c. of “USCG Instruction 5520.5F - Coast Guard Investigative Service Roles and Responsibilities”: “A copy of an ROI is never to be included in a member’s personnel records, Administrative Separation Package, packages submitted to the Board for Corrections of Military Records (BCMR), or similar administrative proceedings unless authorized in writing by Director, CGIS.”
In response to my FOIA Request, neither the BCMR nor CGIS could produce a record of any authorization allowing the BCMR to access the ROI. In addition to the Privacy Act, a primary reason that CGIS does not allow an ROI to be provided to the BCMR is because it includes unproven material such as hearsay, rumors, gossip, conjecture, theories, hypotheses, presumptions and speculations.
An ROI also includes law enforcment verbiage and phrasing that are unique to the profession and ripe for misunderstanding by the uninitiated. Neither Ms. Andrews nor Mr. Hale have any law enforcement experience or qualifications. Predictably, they completely misunderstood a police response report cited in the ROI, and subsequently wrote in the BCMR Decisioin Document that I “had been arrested for Breaking and Entering”! It required exactly one phone call to the germane “Juvenile and Domestic Court” to correct that gross error; but the BCMR refused to correct their mistake. I was just an USCG E-4 afterall; an inferred moron in their elitist opinions.
Regretfully, Ms. Andrews, Mr. Hale and the various ad-hoc BCMR board members have become lazy and lackadaisical, and are now in the habit of just “phoning in” their decisions. Without law enforcement or military experience, professional vocabulary, or even a casual familiarity with the Coast Guard, the lawyers of DHS OGC are unqualified to man the BCMR. As a result, the BCMR’s decisions are simply rubber-stamps of the Coast Guard’s muddled, adulterated, error-filled conclusions provided to the BCMR in JAG-authored Advisiory Opinions; and in surreptitious phone calls between Ms. Andrews and USCG JAG leadership on how to procced, wholly based on the Coast Guard’s potential legal exposure vice the actual facts of the case.
The Law:
“14 U.S. Code § 2507 - Board for Correction of Military Records deadline:
“(b) Ten months after a complete application for correction of military records is received by the Board for Correction of Military Records of the Coast Guard, administrative remedies are deemed to have been exhausted…”
“(b) (2) …”if the Board has not rendered a recommended decision, agency action is deemed to have been unreasonably delayed or withheld and the applicant is entitled to—(A) an order under section 706(1) of title 5, directing final action be taken within 30 days from the date the order is entered.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
On July 13th, 2011, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the military BCMR’s (Board For Correction of Military Records ) were arbitrary and capricious, committed multiple abuses of discretion, and violated matters of law. - Wilhelmus v. Geren, Civil Action No: 09-662, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75020
Nothing has changed!
Below is the entirety of communication I received from the DHS’ Board for Correction of Military Records… All authored by paralegal Mr. Duane Hale between August 24th, 2021 (aftersubmitting my BCMR Application on 16 August 2021) and August 21st, 2023 (after receiving the Board’s Final Decision). The “underlines” and “bold” comments are mine.
Seriously? You not allowed to e-mail the applicant when their application arrives in your office? Why not?
As noted above, the law requires the board to issue a decision within 10 months!
I repeat, the law requires the board to issue a decision within 10 months!
The Coast guard was unable to present any evidence of this bald face lie. They made up this excuse , blaming me for their loss of my service record.
At their behest, I sent the BCMR the few pages I had copied from my PDR in anticipation of my discharge. The BCMR then gave them to the Coast Guard (PSC) who gave them back to the Board claiming they had found my record.
Backwards bullshit: If the BCMR had docketed my case, I would not be permitted to submit additional evidence.
One couldn’t possibly make this shit up. This is simply bureaucratic disinterest, malaise and outright laziness .
The Chair of the BCMR (pictured above), who takes home $180,000 of taxpayer dollars annually, never once communicated with me.
One year and two months after I submitted my application, the BCMR docketed my case. They subsequently stated that the 10 month timeline starts upon docketing; but the law does not say anything like that.
Five months after the BCMR docketed my case, the Coast Guard got around to submitting their requisite “Advisory Opinion”. Authored by a junior inexperienced JAG lawyer, the document had over 80 factual and grammatical errors.
I was never told what the “legal issues” were but, I suspect they were : 1) the USCG’s illegal dissemination of my juvenile court records; 2) the USCG’s illegal refusal to provide me with evidence critical to my case; 3) CGIS’ improper provision of investigative materials to the Board (which they also denied me).
They didn’t look at the “evidence” the first time. Without a complete overhaul of the BCMR, a second application is an incredible waste of time.
At this point, DHS -to include the BCMR, the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of Investigations, and the Whistleblower Protection Unit - stopped communicating with me.