Chief Fischer

The circumstances that led to my involuntary separation did not begin until almost a year after my arrival at the Base Elizabeth City Servicing Personnel Office (SPO) and not long after my highly competent, long-serving E-8 Division Officer retired without named relief.  This detailing error left two E-6s to jointly supervise the remaining Yeomen in the office, which led to near constant bickering between the co-Division Officers over a host of personnel and production issues, exacerbated by the presence of other E-6s in the office who didn’t respect their authority.  Predictably, the SPO’s efficiency and overall production deteriorated.  In response, the Base Administration Chief, YNC Jennifer Fischer was detailed by CDR Randy Meador, the Base Commander, for additional duty as the temporary SPO Division Officer.  Her methods were heavy-handed, and did not reflect modern management or leadership principles.  Further complicating the office environment, YNC Fischer named her best friend and confidant the SPO “Leading Petty Officer” (LPO) although she was not the senior YN1 in the office, and, within the USCG, the position of “LPO” exists exclusively in sea-going commands.  

For unknown reasons, I immediately became YNC Fischer‘s “bête noire” as she demonstrated - and later verbally expressed - her dislike of me, began to berate me on a weekly or more frequent basis, and forced my immediate supervisor to lower my performance marks far below what he felt were fair.  In response to my lower-than-average enlisted performance evaluation marks, I drafted an official Enlisted Evaluation System Appeal Request questioning the comparatively low marks I received from YNC Fischer.   Four days after I submitted the Appeal Request, YNC Fischer presented me with a negative Page 7 (CG-3307) entry - a career first - for supposedly departing work 15 minutes early; but in realitiy, in retaliation for questioning her decision to lower my evaluation marks .

In response to this and other abusive behavior by Chief Fischer, I and several other junior enlisted members of the SPO reported her through the chain-of-command to the Command Master Chief who simply ignored our complaint.  Two months after her arrival in the SPO, in apparent response to our complalint to the Master Chief and my Evaluation Appeal naming her to the chain-of-command, Chief Fischer formally and falsely accused me of narcotics use, stating that I had “red eyes” on reporting to work one morning.

False Accusations

Approximately three weeks later, YNC Fischer and the Command Master Chief related to MEC Thomas Hess, the Chief of Police, that my eyes were bloodshot and glassy and “consistent with someone using narcotics”.  MEC Hess then “remembered” his having seen me using a cell phone while driving on base the previous day , an event I did not recall. However, as the Chief of Police he was required to stop and reprimand me.  He did not and there is no written record of this event haven taken place. MEC Hess further claimed that, later that same day, he initiated a conversation with me (that I also do not recall) in order to observe my physical appearance and demeanor.  He subsequently testified to Special Agent Jarrett Swann of the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) that I had “exhibited the signs of someone who used narcotics”, noting my bloodshot eyes and constricted pupils. (Bloodshot eyes are also an indicator of lack of sleep or allergies; and constricted pupils are an indicator of being outside on a sunny day.)

Later the same day, I was called into a room at the SPO where MEC Hess, his Deputy, and YNC Fischer awaited with an audio/video capture device.  I was read my Article 31B rights for “wrongful use or possession of a controlled substance”. Innocent, I waived my rights and consented to a urinalysis. When Chief Fischer was out of the room attempting to arrange for a urinalysis, MEC Hess told me that he knew I was “not guilty by my demeanor and my willingness to voluntarily submit to a urinalysis”.  Inexplicably, CDR Meador chose not to administer a urinalysis nor any other drug test. (In three years in the USCG, other than in boot camp,I was never given a urinalyis; despite USCG regualations that require periodic testing.)

With the Command unwilling to administer a drug test and summarily dismiss Chief Fischer’s unfounded accusations, and with the CGPD having gathered no evidence of my using illicit drugs, Chief Fischer changed course and began to document my “inaptitude” with two additional negative “Page 7” entries and abusive “informal counseling”. 

Generating “Evidence”

At YNC Fischer’s behest, near the end of the month, Chief Hess requested CGIS assistance in further investigating my alleged narcotics/drug abuse.  In response, SA Swann conducted a cursory desk-bound investigation, simply accessing and collecting all available digital data, including juvenile Police Response Reports that he subsequently illegally disseminated in his Record of Investitgaton (ROI).  None of the inconsequential juvenile incidents he accessed and illegally disseminated resulted in detention, charges, an arrest, or a court date; and only one involved a single marijuana cigarette that was found in the possession of a companion.

As a direct result of the near-constant pressure detailed above and Chief Fischer’s incessant badgering, I sought assistance through “CG Support” (once per week counseling sessions) and was ordered by my Department Head to sick call for work-related stress.  My concerns were validated by the physician, who after noting my high blood pressure and racing heart, diagnosed “acute chronic stress/anxiety”.  Further, he naively recommended that “the patient’s reported work environment should be looked into by his command”.  I was given two days “sick-in-quarters” and two weeks “limited duty”; the latter which CDR Meador reduced by half.

Early the next month, CGIS seized computer logs of my activity on the Coast Guard-administered “Microsoft Exchange and Skype for Business” software. Additionally, SA Swann interviewed my recruiter by phone, receiving no negative comments. The next week, SA Swann reviewed the seized logs mentioned above noting several digital texts in his ROI that I authored in a “locker-room conversation” with another Coastguardsmen related to pre-USCG juvenile marijuana use.

Later that week, I returned to sick-call for continuing work-related stress resulting in high blood pressure and a racing heart.  After an extended discussion with the Doctor on “resolution strategies to relieve work-place stressors”, and his equally naive recommendation that I pursue “operational action” via the Department of Homeland Security, I was returned to duty without restrictions.  

A week later, shortly after arriving at work, I was escorted to a room where SA Swann and a second CGIS agent with a “Case Cracker” laptop audio/video recording device were waiting.  After reading me my Article 31B rights for wrongful use and/or possession of a controlled substance, SA Swann spent the next hour-plus grilling me.  With his foreknowledge of Police Response Reports that mentioned my name and my pre-Coast Guard marijuana use as admitted on my enlistment application, SA Swan attempted to coerce me into admitting to ongoing illicit drug use.

Accusations of “Inaptitude” and “Fraudulent Enlistment”

Later that day , I was given another “counseling session” and negative Page 7 entry by Chief Fischer.  A week after that, I was placed on “performance probation” - another negative Page 7 entry and a prerequisite for administratively separating an enlisted Coastguardsman for “inaptitude”.  These actions clearly demonstrate Chief Fischer’s revised plan to separate me from the Coast Guard for inaptitude or any reason she could get CDR Meador to agree to.

All of the negative Page 7 entries I received in 35 months in the USCG were initiated by Chief Fischer and administered by CDR Meador over a two and a half month period. This transparent retaliatory effort was done purely to justify separating me from the Coast Guard. Following the Christmas holiday, I received two additional Page 7 entries, threatening discharge:  The first ostensibly for “inaptitude”; and a second negative Page 7 entry solely noting my fijve prior negative Page 7 entries.

The next month, I was required to stand at “parade rest” in an “inspection-ready” uniform in front of almost all the members of the Base Elizabeth City Chief’s Mess (all E-7s and above) in what is known as a “Chief’s Performance Review Council”, an event organized by Chief Fischer.  Amazingly and completely inappropriately, Chief Fischer and other Chiefs involved in my persecution were participating members of the “Council”; a choice that prevented me from openly discussing Chief Fischer’s many failings. 

At some point following my CGIS interrogation and after completing the necessary administrative paperwork, SA Swann illegally (based on the juvenile information contained within) provided his ROI to CDR Meador and likely others.  SA Swann’s report inaccurately paraphrased both the Police Response Reports and his verbal exchanges with me during my 12 December interrogation.

Frustrated by the near-constant harrasment, the folloiwng month, with encouragement from several senior enlisted leaders (E-8/E-9) stationed at USCG Base Elizabeth City, in accordance with the U.S. Coast Guard Civil Rights Manual, the USCG Equal Opportunity Policy Statement and Anti-discrimination / Anti-Harassment Policy Statement, I filed a short, concise EEO Complaint for harassment and bullying, highlighting the hostile work environment, office favoritism, and  selective targeting of me by YNC Fischer.

Now armed with the CGIS ROI (replete with the paraphrased remarks noted above), and in direct response to the EEO Complaint I filed accusing Chief Fischer of harassment, the Command initiated my discharge for "fraudulent enlistment", an accusation I was unaware of until I was presented a “Notification of Intent to Discharge” by CDR Meador.   It is significant to note that the DHS Office of the Inspector General Whistleblower Protection Unit later found my complaint regarding this retaliatory action to be credible and significant enough to forward it to the DHS Office of the Inspector General’s Office of Investigations for handling.

The EEO investigation conducted by the wholly unqualfiled CWO Randy Whitehead was solely comprised of gathering written “witness statements” from members of the SPO. Following my separation, two personnel who supported my position - a YN1 and a YN3 - were targeted by Chief Fischer for separation.  The YN1 was later involuntarily discharged.  The YN3 was ejected from the Yeoman rate, demoted to E-3 and eventually separated from the Coast Guard based on his high tenure status.

CDR Meador endorsed CWO Whitehead’s cursory EEO investigation and its predetermined outcome - finding my allegations to be unsubstantiated and unworthy of any action - despite a near-duplicative EEO complaint that he had received previously from another Yeoman assigned to the SPO.  It is important to note that the Coast Guard’s Civil Rights Directorate affirmed that they had no record of either EEO Complaint having been submitted through the chain-of-command by Base Elizabeth City as required by USCG regulations.

Demonstrative of the Command’s attempts to find an excuse to separate me from the USCG are:

1. I was initially accused of narcotics use.

2. I was read my rights for suspected drug abuse, a much broader offense. 

3. All of my Page 7 entries were to support a charge of inaptitude, and

4. My Notification of Intent to Discharge cited fraudulent enlistment.

Consistent with her record as a supervisor in the USCG, during Chief Fischer’s 10 months in the SPO, her management style was directly responsible for two EEO Complaints, multiple Article 138 Redress submissions, at least two DHS OIG complaints, a Senatorial Inquiry, and the processing for separation of the only two males in the SPO when she arrived. Additionally, she was called-out by name multiple times in the overall negative marks given USCG Base Elizabeth City in the Defense Organizational Climate Survey (DEOCS). She has since been promoted to Senior Chief. CDR Meador was promoted to Captain, and retired in the fallout from the USCG serial rape scandal.