Question: When a self-described "informal" Army Regulation 15-6 investigation is convened by retired military leadership and many employees then say that they want to remain anonymous for fear of retribution because they believe that the leadership has shown a propensity to retaliate against those that speak out or against the leadership, what should be the next step?

Does a very real feeling among a protected group--a "federally-recognized class"-- that leadership practices borderline (if not enters into open) discrimination, with organization members feeling very apprehensive about raising specific allegations for fear of retribution, mean that those even higher in the command leadership (i.e.: flag officers) should become actively involved?

If so, how?

Also, what does it mean if the senior-most officials are made aware of the problems but choose not to become involved, despite recurring complaints which in fact may only be a proverbial tip of an iceberg of even greater lawbreaking (i.e.: gross violations of human rights abroad or of the civil rights of federal employees)?

And if they don't, what does that mean about their leadership skills?

Then add to that a situation where several current or past employees are allowed to operate with impunity, causing significant angst after several senior leaders were not held accountable for their actions, and also were unchallenged for using derogatory and offensive language with colleagues, as well as highly-inappropriate sexual gestures when others spoke in meetings.

Or when contracts are awarded--for significant amounts of money with very little in the way of deliverables having been given--to outsiders based on their personal relationships with senior-most staff of the organization in question.

Or when the person charged with conducting the AR 15-6 tells a witness that he is under no illusions that there will be any changes resulting from his work, as it was commissioned by the institution's retired army leadership, that the results will be handled at that leadership's discretion and that they are not binding.

And what possible conclusions can one come to given the fact that the investigator himself agrees with the potential witness that the institution's leadership was well versed in DoD bureaucratic intricacies, and thus is able to make themselves appear to be highly effective and efficient, despite serious problems of mismanagement and abuse of authority?

In a "theoretical" scenario such as the one outlined above, surely the use of an AR 15-6 investigation would be not unlike Vito Corleone being able to appoint the district attorney charged with investigating The Family, no?

Especially if fellow serving and retired military officers, rather than saluting military strategist Col. John Boyd's roll call, "To Be or To Do," engage in the ancient Old World tradition of omertà.

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"Judge not a man by the quality of his answers but by the quality of his questions." -- Voltaire