Judge: USMC must reconsider forced O-6 removals - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Judge: USMC must reconsider forced O-6 removals

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A federal judge in New Hampshire ruled Friday that the Marine Corps must convene a new panel to reconsider a 2008 board decision that forced the retirements of 99 reserve colonels.

In a 22-page decision, U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro found in favor of Col. Gary E. Lambert, a New Hampshire patent attorney and 30-year reservist who had lost previous appeals following the Fiscal 2009 O-6 Selective Retention Board. The board selected 99 unrestrictive colonels for retirement, including Lambert.

While Lambert is the sole plaintiff in the suit filed in 2009, Barbadoro ordered the Marine Corps redo the entire board. That opens the door for the reconsideration of as many as 600 colonels who at the time when the board convened in October 2008 were Reserve Active Status List and who were in the above-, in- and below-zone categories for consideration at the time.

“It looks like it affects the 99...and all the colonels who were on the list,” Lambert said Friday. “Essentially, (the judge) says, ‘Do it all again.’”

The Marine Corps had convened the board in order to thin the ranks of its reserve colonels, which then was over statutory limits, and sought to retire as many as 99 colonels from among those with 20 years or more of service. But before the board convened, further instructions to the board called precepts, approved by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, shrunk the pool of officers to 254, which in turn upped the odds of forced retirement for the remaining colonels the board would consider for early removal.

“The secretary’s refusal to correct his illegal action on the special board’s recommendation must be set aside,” Barbadoro wrote.

Mabus must issue a new precept that requires the new selection board consider “all colonels on the RASL” when the original board convened, as of Oct. 17, 2008, the judge wrote in his order. That potentially could include colonels who were selected to remain in service or as well as those told to retire.

“If Lambert is not selected by the reconstituted selection board, he is entitled to reinstatement and attendant benefits” allowable under law, the judge wrote.

Lambert, a judge advocate who was mobilized and activated after the 9/11 attacks and later deployed to Iraq, served 30 years on active and retired service before he was ordered into retirement on Oct. 1, 2009.

He did not know Friday whether the Marine Corps or Department of the Navy would appeal the decision, which potentially could involve the consideration of 600 or more colonels for retirement or reinstatement. “It was just an egregious wrong, and I wasn’t going to let it go,” he said, calling it “one of the biggest mistakes the Marine Corps did administratively.”