Dan McGrew
My book is a diary about the steel-reinforced concrete roadblocks put in my path, and the paths of others, to prevent me (us) from making a career of Air Force Civil Service because I (we) became disabled on the job. It also shows the problems laden upon disabled employees as time progresses. I did everything in my power to overcome these obstacles but lack-of-knowledge, on the part of people called specialists at our civilian personnel office, basically nailed my feet to the ground at the opening of every single door.
I'm 6' 6" tall, 270 lbs, a little on the muscular side. I have grayish/dirty blonde hair, deep blue eyes, a mustache and beard.
I lost my job (retired) in the Air Force reserves in 2003 and Federal Civil Service in 2006 because of a workplace injury sustained at Altus AFB, OK.
I've worked as a data switching networks manager, system administrator, system engineer in charge of network/computer security, avionics sensor system specialist, licensed practical nurse, secure communications specialist, a communications/navigations specialist, chopped wood, book store clerk, appliance repairman/salesman, ice cream truck salesman, and general handyman.
Currently, I’m stuck at home editing and trying to get my diary published because I firmly believe that it might stoke some fires and help others. This is my first book and I hope that it does great things for me and for others.
Three problems with Civil Service
1. The Training Problem
Monday, November 03, 1997
My resume is accurate. I have worked on VHF, ADF, UHF, GPS, Radar, HF, TACAN, IFF, KY equipment, the KIT1C. I have worked these pieces of equipment when configured for C-141, C-5, and C-17 aircraft. However, I have no experience with AFIN equipment. I have no formal education and/or on the job training with INS, Auto-pilot, FSAS, or cock-pit voice/data recording systems (flight-line or shop).
I hereby request that I be given formal education and on the job training, concerning this equipment. This education and training will enable me to completely perform the job that I was hired to do.
I have accepted your request to move to dayshift until my training (including formal education) was completed. I have remained on dayshift for four months awaiting formal training. I have received no formal training at all, in the AFIN career field.
I have ventured up my chain of command to Colonel Sparks, our logistics commander. He has assured me that no formal avionics training has been planned for Altus AFB at all. "I have 1.3 million dollars budgeted for training, here at Altus, over the next 3 years. I have every intention of training my most essential career fields first. They are - engines, hydraulics, and electrics”, said Colonel Sparks.
Tuesday, January 27, 1998
æ½¼ - Mr. Greenwood asked me to meet him at lunch to go over my 90 day initial evaluation, over 120 days after I’d been hired. I said, sure.
?@Noæ½¼ - Met with Mr. Greenwood to discuss my 90-day evaluation, Mr. Richter was present. I got fours and fives out of possible nines, which I hear is about average. I asked him about a trainer, riding the truck, and the KY batteries. He said, "We told you to begin with that we do a kind of self training thing here.", "You are getting better about your wandering", and "I haven't heard anything about the batteries." hanswers are mentioned in the same order as the question, from left to right. I still don't understand the self-training stuff. I've never read about it anywhere before, I can't find anyone else who knows. At any rate I re-emphasized the fact that I needed more training in the AFIN department. I just find it absolutely amazing that I worked on comm/nav equipment in the backshop never stepping foot on a C-141 or C-5 before. Now, all of a sudden they put me on these aircraft and tell me to fix them. Thank GOD for books. Otherwise, I’d be 100% lost instead of a measly 95%.
2. The Environmental Problem
Wednesday, January 14, 1998
æ½¼ - Dawn tells me that Mr. Praetor (C-5, dayshift) wants me to make up a list of security problems with the KY and KIT units. My personal concern is two-fold.
Î Anyone could just walk onto the flight-line & take some KY-58s and no one would ever know, because they are not inventoried. None of the a/craft have 781Ls.
Ï The mercury batteries will go bad, either here at Altus, or at Davis-Motham (the bone-yard) and will destroy the equipment that they are in and leak into the environment.
Thursday, January 15, 1998
æ½¼ - Mr. Greenwood had a talk with me, as soon as I came in. He was visibly upset. He told me that Col. Sparks blind-sided Mr. Hilley & Mr. Francis about the KYs and the KITs. He said that I needed to use my chain of command. He said that I needed to let them know what my intentions were. I did tell Glenda. I told Mr. Greenwood. I told Mr. Richter. Mr. Richter is the highest person I know of in my chain of command. I did tell them that I couldn't find anyone responsible for the KY s or for the KIT s. I told them that I have talked to people in the Command Post. I talked to the Base Comm/Sec monitor and her assistant. I talked to all the C-141 comm/nav and AFIN troops for swing shift, dayshift, and midshift. I talked to all the C-5 and the C-17 comm/nav and AFIN troops for swing shift. I didn't tell them that Alice and Dawn told me good luck, finding someone who gave a damn, because they had tried this before. Apparently, I found some people who want to chew my butt up for their mistakes. Besides, Mr. Richter never told me anything about this Hilley and/or Francis person. They are on dayshift anyway. I never see them. I don't even know what they look like. I don't know where their offices are. There are no names on any of the doors. No titles on office doors. Besides, I told my bosses that I was going to look for answers to my questions. I did this on dayshift, while I worked on swingshift. For two weeks I came in early to find answers. I talked to the base comm/sec, command post, and QA people on dayshift. Because they only have a dayshift. I would come in at about 12 O'Clock everyday and went looking for information. I didn't look in my hanger, because I thought that I had exhausted all of my information sources there. All the supervisors that I knew of told me that they didn't care. So, I met Col. Sparks over at the training building. I was there talking to QA. I asked the Col. what his degree was in, because I have two degrees. We got to talking. I mentioned that I worked for Mr. Bradley, when he was a Col. at Charleston AFB in South Carolina. I told him that I was at Colonel, now Mr. Bradley’s retirement ceremony. We got to talking about the security stuff. I mentioned my concerns to him. He asked me to come into his office. He made a list of my concerns. He was the only person that I had found so far, who cared. Apparently he went and talked to Mr. Hilley and Mr. Francis. Mr. Greenwood told me, "Don't you ever go over and talk to those GI s again! They always blow things out of proportion. Use your chain of command. Tell them what your intentions are." I told him. I did use my chain of command. My intentions were/are to find answers, to protect AF people, AF materials, and AF equipment. They knew that. That's their job too.
Tuesday, January 20, 1998
æ½¼ - Asked Mr. Richter for permission to pursue the CCE thing. "I want to do some more investigating". I told him that we needed to remove the batteries from some of the CCE before they destroyed the CCEs they were in because the batteries were leaking. Most of the batteries are lithium, but some are mercury. He said, "Permission denied".
Wednesday, January 21, 1998
æ½¼ - I called and talked to a Mr. John Pavlov at NSA. He referred me to a Msgt. Stephanie Hornwell at Scott AFB. She is with AFSC. Her phone number is ###-###-####.
æ½¼ - I called and talked to the people from the EPA. I talked to a Tammy Johnson at Waste Management, at phone number ###-###-####. I told her about the leaking batteries.
3. The Security Problem
Wednesday, January 21, 1998
æ½¼ - Did some more investigating at lunch time. Read through the 00-20-5, page 3-19, para. 3-21 "AFTO Form 781B, Communications Security (Comsec) Equipment Record" and 00-20-5 pg. 3-3, para. 3-8 "AFTO form 781L. Record of removal/installation of controlled cryptographic items (CCI)." and KAM-337A. I read these and made some copies for Mr. Richter. I took them to Mr. Richter, and placed them on his desk. Glenda was sitting there, beside him. She immediately asked me why I kept bringing this stuff to Mr. Richter. Mr. Richter concurred, and added that he had already read all of the material that I placed on his desk. I started to explain that I wanted to protect AF equipment and the environment. I told them about the break in accountability and the possibility of mercury leaking from the batteries at Davis-Motham. He said that he had already thought about that. Glenda said, "What do you want us to do about it?" I said, play by the rules. Obey the AFIs. Mr. Richter spoke up and said, "We are not in the Air Force. We are civilians, and we are not going to play comm/nav at Altus, like you played comm/nav at your last base." I took that as my cue to leave. I said, "yes sir!" and left.
And what they do with problem solvers at the bottom levels, when they don’t want solutions.
Friday, January 23, 1998
æ½¼ - Came into work early to check a tool box and get some coffee. Mr. Francis caught me at the CTK window. He said, "Follow me." We got into his office, he left the door open. He said, sit in my chair and pick up the phone." I did. I dialed the phone number that he told me to dial. I spoke with a Mr. Ply on the phone. He told to come over; he would like to speak with me. I asked him to speak with Mr. Francis about my missing roll call in order to talk to him. He said that he had already talked to Mr. Francis. I told him that Mr. Francis was my boss; he needed to talk to him. He said, "Okay." Mr. Francis and Mr. Ply talked for a few minutes, and Mr. Francis told me to go over to talk with Mr. Ply.
æ½¼ - I went over to see Mr. Ply. Mr. Ply (OSI) asked me about the Ky s. He also asked me if I knew how to make bombs. He asked me if I knew how to hide a bomb on an aircraft. He asked me if I had talked with anyone about these things. I told him that I did not talk about these kinds of things with anyone. I told him that I did not remember talking about these things with anyone. He said, "Do you remember talking about making land mines". I said, "Yes!" I talked about making land mines with Mr. Marvin Levitt. Mr. Levitt brought the subject up about making land mines. We had been talking about the Oklahoma city bombing and about the Waco siege. But, I told them that I never really thought about making bombs. I've studied things that blow up by accident, but not things that blow up on purpose. He just kept asking me if I could make a bomb. Finally, I told him that I would make, just as good bomb as he could, if you laid all the stuff to make one with in front of me. He said that he couldn't do that. I told him that without instructions, I couldn’t either. I should have asked him what his degree was in. At one point he told me that he was asking me all these questions because I was the expert on secure equipment. I just kinda' rolled my eyes at this. I am rather young here. Everyone I work with is close to twenty years older than me. They never listen to anything I have to say. I don't care. I just do my job the best that I can. They think that I am a know-it-all or something, when I try to tell them anything. So, I have just stopped trying to tell them anything. I have always been, and will always try to be a bigger/better person. That is, if you want somebody to do something/anything. I can/will find a better way to do it. Once I've studied the problem. Rather intensely of course.
Wednesday, February 4, 1998
æ½¼ - Mr. Richter called me over the radio. He wanted to see me in his office. I went in & he and Mr. Greenwood started reading me stuff about the "Fair Labor Practices Act". Stuff like, "Come to work at 1500 hrs, not before, leave at 2400 hours, not before. I told them that I came in for a pair of boots. I told them that my union rep told me too go and get a pair of boots. They were mad at me because I came in at 1300 hours to get a pair of boots. My old ones were falling apart. I was walking barefooted on the flight-line, because the bottom had fallen off my left boot. For months I had been wearing a size 11 and a ½ on my size 13 foot. I told Mr. Greenwood that. Mr. Richter was mad at me because I did not tell him. Well, I will not come in early again.
Thursday, April 9, 1998
Ô QUESION: I talked to Mr. Francis about getting paid '8 hours' of 'injury admin' leave for taking 1 hour to go to the ER. I said that it didn't sound fair, because I still came back and worked those other seven hours. I told him that somewhere someone's statistics about how much a work injury was costing the American public was sky-rocketing. Now, I know why...
Ô ANSWER: He said the same thing that Don Obriter said. They both said that 'injury admin' leave, must be like 'military leave'. It only pays out by the day, not by the hour. But, I still had to work, even as the government was telling the American people that I was staying at home because I was injured.
Sunday, August 27, 2000
024 - A Arnie Garner (My supervisor) assigned me to this aircraft at roll call. After roll call, I went into the office and reminded him that I was on “light duty”, and I asked him if he was certain about assigning me to the aircraft. He repeated the instructions for me to go out to aircraft 024 (C-5) and stated that I should not “…over-do it out there.” I assisted Vance & Anthony with checking tires. I climbed the ladder and got to the flight deck. Every other step up the ladder was like having a knife stuck into my left knee. Every step down the ladder was like having knives stuck into both knees, and my left shoulder.
The height of a C-5 is 65.1 feet making the ladder to the flight deck approximately 50 feet high.
Arnie had told me that my light duty excuse from Dr. Hullender didn’t say anything about climbing. Actually, it had a check mark in a block with the words ‘Light Duty’ behind it, signed by Dr. Hullender. I told Arnie that I couldn’t climb that ladder again
Next morning, 0810 Hrs.
I let Jan Spence know about this problem. She said, “Light duty employees are not to be assigned to aircraft!” She said that they had had this problem with Arnie before, and that she would remind him. She also gave me a gentleman’s name & number to call if he persisted.
I couldn’t do all of the tasks that I was required to do in physical therapy (PT), because my knee was hurt & swollen.
Next morning, 0805 Hrs.
Gina Fuller (union W/C rep) told me that my work hours could be arranged so that I wouldn’t have to pull an 8 hour shift and then tack 2 hours of PT onto it, 3X’s a week, for months. I told her that I had already asked Arnie, Steve, and Harvey. They told me to forget it. I told her that I would ask them again anyway. I asked if she knew a reference for that rule. She told me that she would look for it.
Wednesday, August 30, 2000
024 - L I asked Steve about the adjusted work hours. He laughed and said, “No way!”
I told him that both my knees hurt now. I told him that walking & standing hurt my knees, and would make them worse. I told Harvey about all this. I told Steve and Harvey that I just wanted to sit down and put a bag of ice on my knees. Harvey laughed and said, “Without a note from your doctor telling you to do that. You don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Steve assigned me to a jack job on 024. They hadn’t finished putting the gear on the aircraft,
