Letter to Editor - TACOM Harassment of Iraq War Vet

Dear Editor:

Your article, 'Decision to stand in Iraq vet case' (Thursday, p 4A), about the Iraq war vet "ridiculed about his disability" caused by Sgt. James McKelvey's service to the country, loss of his hand due to a roadside bomb, is the tip of the iceberg of the policy of harassment at TACOM. TACOMers ridiculed him, refused to provide adequate door handle, ostracized him from meetings, isolated him in his office for months.

TACOM harassment policy is aided and abetted by the US Attorney Office in Detroit, and by the federal judges in the case. Their policy of ridiculing and harassing employees goes to the extreme of demanding he go back and suffer additional harassment and ridicule!

TACOM has pulled this type abuse before, as there has not normally ever been consequences, discipline, against abusive supervisors and managers.

At TACOM, abusive and harassing supervisors and managers when sued, do not have to pay for an attorney out of their own pocket, unlike in the private sector. When supervisors and managers have to pay to defend their abusiveness, that can have a deterrent effect. Not so in the government. The abusers force the taxpayers to pay, and the Detroit US Attorney Office is only to happy to oblige, to defend the abuse and harassment. And federal judges are only too happy to oblige, thereby to enable, aid and abet, provoke or promote additional abuse incidents in the future.

Please do a follow-up article. Ask the jurors whose verdict against the abusers at tACOM was overturned what they think of the federal judges' disrepsect for their verdict. Ask other TACOMers who've been abused. Ask the so-called EEO staff at TACOM why they look the other way at abuse and harassment. TACOM's own rules say that when a supervisor is "unsatisfactory" in his job on EEO, he is to be rated "unsatisfactory." Ask if that happened.

Ask about other prior cases at TACOM, including the case of the Jewish engineer, David Tenenbaum, harassed and humiliated in retaliation for his inventing armor for the troops vehicles in Iraq. The Pentagon's own Inspector General verified that TACOM had lied in federal court! Did anyone at TACOM go to prison for that? Did the Detroit US Attorney Office prosecute, or laugh at what they'd got away with?

Ask our senators and representatives why they enable the continuing abuses at TACOM by forcing the taxpayers to pay for the supervisors' legal fees, the opposite of private practice.

Please do a follow-up, even a series, on the incidents at TACOM. You'll be serving the country and public itnerest, to know how TACOM mistreats and abuses people serving their country.

Sincerely,

Leroy J. Pletten
8401 18 Mile Road #29
Sterling Heights MI 48313-3042
(586) 739-8343