Viewing page 19 of 30

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY -- PRIVACY ACT OF 1974

Unsuitability; Misconduct, Personal Abuse of Drugs; Resignation or Request for Discharge for the Good of the Service; and Procedures for the Rehabilitation Program. It did not further specify which basis applied at discharge. DP2STM's efforts to locate the 1955 version from its archives and the Air University archives were unsuccessful. Consequently, AFPC/DP2STM could not determine a specific basis for discharge or whether or not it was the sole reason for discharge and that there were no other aggravating factors.

A complete copy of the AFPC/DP2STM evaluation is at Exhibit C.

--

APPLICANT'S REVIEW OF AIR FORCE EVALUATION:

Through counsel, the applicant argues that her discharge should be upgraded in light of the Record Correction Memo which directs the Board to "normally grant requests" for discharge upgrades where the original discharge was based solely on homosexual conduct and there are no aggravating factors. In the alternative, the Board should upgrade based on her post-service achievements which demonstrates the discharge is an injustice. The applicant was harassed, interrogated, and ultimately expelled from the Air Force based on a predecessor policy to DADT, and her service record contains no aggravating factors counseling against an upgrade.

Counsel mentions a similar case (Exhibit F) where the Board upgraded despite the unavailability of records due to the same 1973 fire that destroyed the applicant's records. The facts and circumstances of the similar case demonstrated the veteran was targeted and ousted from the Air Force because he was gay. It would be entirely unjust for the applicant to receive anything less than the same outcome the Board reached in this similar case. The applicant's discharge was based solely because she was a lesbian by a predecessor policy to DADT that actively targeted gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals for expulsion from the Air Force.

The destruction of the applicant's records were outside of her control and cannot be held against her. The presumption in the Record Correction Memo demands that, unless there is actual evidence that an application fails to meet the Memo's upgrade criteria, the Board should find in favor of the applicant. Moreover, the Air Force failed to meet its duty of care to preserve the applicant's military service records, therefore, the applicant is entitled to the benefit of an inference that the destroyed records demonstrate the ground for her undesirable discharge was "homosexuality," by operation of the spoliation of evidence doctrine.

The fact that the applicant was discharged because she is a lesbian does not implicate the "presumption of regularity." The applicant does not argue that the Air Force discharged her in violation of

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY--PRIVACY ACT OF 1974