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A career undone, unfairly

Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach hoped to retire in a few years. He won’t get to.

Fehrenbach, 39, grew up in the Air Force and followed his dad into the profession.

The Air Force, he says, is “my life.”

But another part of his life, a part he had kept hidden from the service for years and even from his parents, is no longer a secret.

A year ago, a person Fehrenbach describes as “a civilian acquaintance” outed him to his commanders at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Utah. Fehrenbach is gay.

Under the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” Fehrenbach is entitled to serve only if he keeps his sexual orientation hidden. He did a pretty good job of that until someone he trusted brought his personal life to his bosses. Under don’t ask, don’t tell, that constitutes telling.

For Fehrenbach, it means ending his Air Force career and, more painfully, sacrificing a $46,000 annual pension easily worth more than $1 million over his lifetime. His only reward for 18 years of exemplary service would be half of involuntary separation pay, which 2009 charts put at about $80,000 for a lieutenant colonel.

His case now rests in the hands of Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, who is expected to approve a disciplinary board’s decision to expel the veteran weapons systems officer from the service.

Compare Fehrenbach’s punishment with that of Col. Michael D. Murphy, who lied for two decades about his lack of a license to practice law and was charged, tried and convicted of multiple charges related to lying and passing off personal expenses as official business. And yet all Murphy faces is perhaps — perhaps — retiring at a lower paygrade.

That may be the law. But it’s not justice.