Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 137 - Adam DeRito

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Adam DeRito is a former firefighter, EMT, and search and rescue technician from New Jersey who was a member of the Air Force Academy Class of 2010. Since 2012 he has worked in the energy industry, and after completing his Master's Degree, he became a paratrooper in the Colorado national guard. Soon after that, he discovered his medical records were falsified by the United States Air Force Academy after reporting incidents of sexual assault as an undercover informant for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations during his time as a cadet. He has since made it his mission to correct his records, hold those officers accountable, and ensure that legal precedence is established in our legal system to uphold the constitutional rights of our nation's service members who are sworn to protect those very rights.

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about my guest today and i'm not going to lie to you it's a tough one for me to describe my guest today is named adam dorito he reached out to me on email after hearing the Eddie Gallagher podcast that I did. And he has a very interesting background in personal experience inside of the military. Prior to the military, he did some firefighting, EMT, search and rescue. And then he became a member of the Air Force Academy in 2010. Now, the story of what happened to him in 2010 to me is fascinating. And I'm going to stay in touch with him because I want to see how this resolves itself. And I'm going to murder the story if I try to tell it or even in a broad or concise essence. So I'm going to let Adam speak for himself. Episode number 137 with Adam Dorito. Enjoy.

Okay, copy. Where's to the smoke? I'm looking at danger close now. I don't even know how to start. Either do I because, you know. So when you reached out to me over email, I'm looking at it. I'm reading the email. And in the back of my head, I'm just kind of how do you describe the military in general? It's abnormal in many ways. And, also completely like everyday life until you start explaining things about the academies then you started mentioning you know working for the you know undercover for the criminal investigation type I'm like oh fuck here we go this is an interesting story it's a rabbit hole and it went down and down and down from there so I don't know how to start I'm going to let you start wherever you want to make you introduce

yourself yeah so my name is Adam Dorito I was born in Pekipsy New York I grew up in Jersey typical Bruce Springsteen Blue Collar family. My parents raised me right, they raised me on the Eagles and whatever else, classic rock I'm required to listen to New Jersey. Although... I thought you meant the football team and for a second I was going to say, I don't... See, that's why I didn't wear my hat today. Because I am a Giants fan

by default, because I guess the last time they won the Super Bowl minus 2007 was 1987 with Phil Sims. Okay, fair enough. So my parents required me to be a Giants fan. I didn't have an option for it, so it is what it is. but yeah I mean grew up in a small town 90 square miles of woods so most people think of new jersey and they think of like pharmaceutical factories and you know the armpit of new york

so to speak but i lived in the woods in in farm country which is what most of new york actually is i for a very long time just assumed that new york city meant the empire state building it meant uh time square which i've been to uh new york city many times i love it yeah And then you realize that the entire state is massive. And when people say, oh, New York, they don't actually mean they're from Fifth Avenue. It could be all over the place. I mean, the city is a very small portion of New York, and I visit often when I'm at home. My grandmother, actually, she's 95.

God bless your heart. But she has lived in the same house that her father built in 1921. It's one of the few remaining original houses in Edgewater, New Jersey. And it actually is a mile from the George Washington Bridge. So it's kind of cool because I can still go down there. and you could see the city, you can see the bridge, you can do all these things as we were kids. But the amount of change I've seen in, what, 32 years of my life? Yep.

Swing that sucker close to your mouth, too. Don't be scared. There you go. It's been, yeah, you've got to see this my first podcast, right? So. Is it first time ever? Yeah. All right.

Yeah. So, I listen to a lot of them. Crazy, given your story. Yeah. So, you know, that's how I found you. You know, I listen to Joe Rogan all the time. And as do a few people I've been told. Yeah, like four or five or something like that.

A million. Yeah. Yeah, so, and I started listening to you, and I was like, wow, Sandy Stump guy sounds pretty interesting. So I look up your podcast and I start cycling through who I want to listen to and I saw Eddie Gallagher's case. And Eddie Gallagher really hit hard with me because although his situation is far different than mine, how he was treated by NCIS, how his chain of command reacted to his situation. It was just like, wow, yeah, that sounds rather familiar in how things were handled. And I mean, I should start with the ending first. So people really know the rabbit hole we're going to go down.

However you want to describe it. You know, so yeah, I went to my dream school. I had wanted to join the military since I was in third grade. This was before I even knew what the academies were. But I love going to air shows in Jersey, I saw fighter jets. I'm like, that's what I want to do. So you wanted to fly? That's all I wanted to do.

I still want to do. What was your preferred airframe? You know you had one. What was it going to be? Oh, F-16s, by far. And I was very fortunate to get a few rides in my. on while I was at the academy and we'll get to that later. It was a blast. But yeah, so 2006, 2010, I went to the Air Force Academy. 30 days after graduation, I was discharged off of active duty

with a general discharge under honorable conditions. So general under honorable, okay? And then I finished another undergrad degree at UC Denver, finished my master's degree in 2015 and found a loophole that I was able to get back into the military. The conditions were I had to go into a special unit. I had to pick a mission critical MOS, and I had to re-complete basic training in the Army. Those were the conditions that I was given by the governor's office for the state of Colorado to go back. That seems in and of itself very bizarre. One of the reasons was is because my initial discharge paperwork was signed by the Secretary of the Air Force, and no one wanted to touch that to even attempt to try to get me back in. Your discharge paperwork was signed

by the Secretary of the Air Force? Yeah. Way high. That doesn't happen. Mine was signed by a civilian at PSD. Yep. Yeah, the personnel support detachment. I think his name was Bob. Yeah. Mine was General Schwartz.

Okay, so that's atypical in and of itself. Right. And especially with a general discharge under honorable conditions. Like, this isn't, you know, anything bad. This isn't criminal. Yeah. This isn't, you know, highly vindictive. Is there a, so I'm familiar with dishonorable, obviously, honorable.

I know that there's other than honorable. Yep. Does your discharge, is that a subcategory under honorable? Yeah. Or is it just an honorable? It's a general discharge under honorable conditions. So it's like- Fuck, that sounds vague in and of itself.

It's vague. But it's like that, it's that medium between honorable and then all the other bad ones. Okay. But, you know, typical of, you know, since I had received a few disciplinary pieces of paperwork, which we'll get to, and that was how they categorized it. Okay. Even though I have no criminal record, no nothing. That's not one that I had actually heard until you said that. Yeah.

General under honorable discharges. under traditions. Okay. Right. So, yeah, so back to that. So I got into the Army and started serving at the Colorado National Guard and found something I really enjoyed doing with the unit that I'm assigned to and still do that now. And I got really lucky about two years after I got in. We were doing a training in Utah with the battalion. And I met some Apache guys when we were out there. And vaguely, ironically they kind of knew my story which was weird because I have like this just like oh you're that Dorito guy right you're the guy that's been in the news they're like you should talk to our commander so I go and meet with a chief

warrant officer who leads that unit out in Utah and he offered me a position as a chief warrant officer to go fly Apaches he's like you want your that would be bitching and he said you want your dream back he's like you know I'll help you get there he's like I go he's like just go back to your unit tell him what you want to do and transfer over to this state and I go back to my unit, and my unit kind of makes fun of me, because I'm like this weird oddity in the unit. They address me as major staff tenant because they're like,

well, technically you should be a major, but you would be a staff sergeant in the NCO world, and you technically were kind of a lieutenant, so we'll just leave you at that. But my battalion commander and my company commander have been massively supportive with this case over the years. At your current command? At my current command.

They have been so helpful on everything that I've done more than I've ever been exposed to beforehand. and they signed all my letters of recommendation, did the PT test, got everything good to go, went past the SIFT test, which is a requirement in the Army for aviation. It's like an aptitude test for aviation. Okay.

Go down to Fort Carson with the active duty guys and go do my final checks to get my orders to go to Chief Warren Officer School, Warrener Officer Candid School, and go to flight school at Fort Rucker. I get to the final station, and the doctor goes, sorry, soldier, I can't sign your paperwork off.

And I'm like, why? You know, he goes, there are seven major psychological conditions listed on your medical record. And I was like, well, pump the brakes there, bud. You know, how does that happen? Because I went through MEPs. Nothing came up. I've been serving in this certain unit, you know, and obviously I hold the security clearance of that unit. Nothing's ever come up.

Yeah, where was he getting a hold of your record? I mean, I had my medical record with me. We're going to get to that, Andy. I was going to say, because what system is he looking into that you don't have the ability to look into? It's fascinating, right? It's a question we still don't have answers to. It's weird that I was able to get into the Army and none of this stuff populates. But magically, when I go to get my commission back and go fly,

that this stuff magically populates two years after I'd already been serving in the Guard. Yeah, because I would assume going through MEPs, which is, what does that stand for? Military Enlistment Processing Station? Yeah, military entrance processing station, yeah. Close enough. We all went through it. But yeah, they're doing a review there. They do a background check?

Yeah. And you do the duck walk. They will find things if there's something on you. And nothing came up in there, which is what we found odd. So at the end of the day, it's according to the records shown, I shouldn't even be in the military. But so when you got discharged, didn't you leave with your service record and medical record? Nope. They wouldn't give them to you.

Oh, we'll get to that. Okay. Fuck me, man. It's very weird. Okay. But when you're 22 years old and you're just doing what you're told and you have no idea what's going on, I didn't know any better. Yeah, it's tough. I was just like, yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am.

And I'd imagine you probably, and again, without knowing the story yet, didn't have many people you could bounce off of what was going on. Hey, does this sound reasonable? Zero. Yeah. Zero is probably the right answer to that. So you're isolated with a lack of information. Okay, that paints a little bit of a picture for me.

And it begs the question of how did we get here in the first place, right? And, um... You got a full dossier. Holy shit, dude. That's some perfect mind shit right there. Well, this is actually, this is, yeah, this is actually 10 years condensed into a timeline that makes sense for people. Okay. I have 10 file boxes that this came from.

Wow. And a lot of interviews and people that we've done over the years. Okay. Fire away? Yeah. So, you know, like I said, I joined the military because I've always wanted to join the military. And I think I have a unique situation where when 9-11 happened, I was an eighth-grade history class. And at first we thought it was a joke.

you know like oh plane hit the building oh you probably were in school right east coast time oh yeah i was there i mean not there physically but i mean 40 miles northwest yeah over the city and you know they hear about it and uh my school was interesting because they shut all the TVs off you know they didn't play anything so we didn't know what really had happened until i got home and i get off the school bus and like man who took us sessna and hit the world trade center man that must have made a mess You know, I'm an eighth grade. I don't know any better. And I walk down and the streets are quiet.

There's no cars driving around. And I live in a small lake, woodland community. And a lot of the people from my hometown worked in the city too. You know, so it's weird. Normally after school time, parents are out, cars are everywhere. I have no idea what's going on. So I walk into my house and I just see. Just eerily quiet.

Really weird. Yeah. And get back to my house. My sister's already home. They were younger than me. And take my headphones off. I was listening to some really cool, like, CD player with, like, those 10-second skip things on it, you know?

Like, you got a change of batteries every five minutes. And I get up there. My mom's bawling her eyes out staring at the TV. And they're sitting in a chair, like, four inches away from the screen, just sat there and watching it. And I can see, because this is, what, two in the afternoon? I was just going to say, I bet you was on the perpetual repeat cycle. It was on loop.

And all you're just watching is the towers fall over and over. And the hard part was is that one of my cousins, or on my dad's side worked for Candor Fitzgerald on the 101st floor of Tower 1. And my mom's brother worked in one of the buildings right across street from the Trade Center. And there's no communication with them. Yeah. And their cell phone towers are dead. Or overloaded, probably to say the least.

Well, they disabled everything in our area. The government shut everything off. You could hear fighter jets ripping over my house going toward the city. There's no air traffic in the air, but all of communication. lines were shut down because they were just they didn't know what's going on nobody knew what was going on and the next three days later we ended up able to go down to my grandmother's house because she lives right across the street from across the river from the city and you could see the giant burning billowing smoke still coming from Manhattan Island uh it's we're not far away maybe like two miles

as a crew flies and there's military helicopters flying up and down the Hudson river and there's jets rip it up and down harriers everywhere you know f-16s 15s And all of the signs going to George Washington Bridge, you know, entrances are close. That's never been seen before, you know. And it just was like, wow. You know, and I would never wish for another 9-11, but I will always hope that this country could see another 9-12. Because I have never seen more people in this country united than at that point. It didn't matter who you were, where you were from, race, religion, creed, background.

everyone just wanted to go into the city and help. We had our volunteer fire department in our hometown, like, whatever, 40, 50 miles away it was. They were packing up trucks and driving them to the city just to bring in help everywhere. And cities across the U.S., I mean, I was living in San Diego at the time, and there's a bunch of overpasses on the freeways, the 5 and the 15, the 163, the 8, and they were covered in like red, white and blue, flags everywhere. It was the most cohesive that I can remember. in that time period, 912, to probably 919, maybe 9, 25, and then it tapered, right?

It rounded and people started to go back to normal. It probably was harder to do so in New York. But for that short period of time, it was amazing. Yeah, it was, I mean, the amount of patriotism was unseen. And still, I mean, I haven't really seen that level of. I haven't either since. You know, and I wasn't a boy scout or anything like that, but there's something called the Civil Air Patrol.

And I had joined that when I was 12 years old. And it's like the auxiliary, civilian auxiliary of the Air Force. And, you know, you wear BDUs and you learn how to march and you learn all this stuff. And they actually offer a bunch of fun schools you can go to. The one I thought I really liked was a Hawk Mountain Ranger School in Pennsylvania. And it's a search and rescue school because they do most of the inland search and rescue missions for the Air Force, which I wasn't aware of until I joined. And it's basically a cheap way of the Air Force getting civilians to do their job for them unless

they need extra assets like helicopters or something, which are obviously expensive. Yeah. So you go to the school and you start learning, like, how to pack a rucksack, how to hike in military combat boots, you know, how to skin a rabbit, how to start fires. I mean, and a lot of the instructors at that school were like former par rescue guys, former rangers who joined the Civil War Patrol with their kids and like now they're just like, they can beat teenagers into the ground. Yeah.

And they beat us into the ground, man. It's also known as a power trip. Yeah. I didn't know any better. I was like, I'm going to take all this. You know who did? They did. Yeah.

You know, you're freezing. You know, and it's not like we had high-speed stuff. You have all this like LC2 gear from like the 90s and NOM and you're right. Probably more from NOM than 90s. Yeah. And you're just hiking around in the woods in Pennsylvania with like crappy Ultima all-weather combat boots, you know, and getting blisters. I actually support that. I mean, again, as long as they don't get absolutely out of control, like there's a lot of growth that can come from young men and young women experiencing that type of stuff.

To be honest, it was a, it's something if when I have kids, I want them to go to. Yeah. Because to this day, that place has not changed. I bet it hasn't. I still talk to a lot of the guys who I went to Rangers or somewhere which will Hawk Mountain Ranger School with. And they're like, man, it's just, it builds character because kids don't get a lot of exposure like that.

When do you get to go out in the woods with a pocket knife and go kill your own food and eat it, you know, at very few. Very few. Yeah, very few people can say they've done that. They would bring in Medevac helicopters. We learned how to pack stoke. baskets. I got certified at 15 years old to do high angle rescue with the Pennsylvania State Fire Department and certification program out there. So I'm doing figure H jumping off cliffs,

packet stoke baskets, you know, ruck marching. I'm like, this is a good way to prepare myself for the real military. Yeah. You know, and shortly after that, my aunt got killed in a really bad car accident. And my little cousin was in the backseat when a tree fell out of the woods, driving down some road in New Jersey and they just got hit by a tree. Are you serious? Randomly. Like talk about worst timing ever. Fuck.

So it killed her instantly and my cousin who's in the rear of she didn't die immediately. And that was really hard of my family. And to this day, it's still really hard on my mom because it was her sister. Yeah. And that's when I'm like, I need to expand how I can serve my local community more. And that's when I got inspired to join the fire department and go to EMT school. And this is all when I'm in high school at the time. So I joined the local fire department at 16.

You can be a firefighter, junior firefighter at 16 in my hometown. And I started at EMT school at the same time. I didn't even know you could go to EMT school at that age. Yeah. Yeah, you can. You can get your license by 17. That's awesome. Yeah.

And the really unique position about where I lived in New Jersey is everyone loves to drive into trees. I mean, we have really long winding roads, lots of car accidents, lots of extrication, lots of house fires from old, you know, lots of fuel around these houses in the woods, right? Yeah. And I didn't know any better, but man, I got exposed to house fires, extrication, car accidents. And I'm 16, 17, 18 years old going in my later years in high school. And I've already done severe trauma treating in this cases. So I felt good about what I was doing.

I felt like I was really participating in my community. And I was, I think I was kind of smart in high school. But I'm like, man, to get into the academy, you have to have, like, like this well-rounded, you know, aptitude. And I'm like, I think my community service will help balance out my, I didn't have a 4-0, but I have like a 3-6. I'm like, I were close. 36 with some pretty serious life experience and skills.

Yeah, and this is all before I'm even like 18, you know, and I thought that that was a really good way of doing that. And my friends always made fun of me because they're just like, you know, I'm not going to lie. Like back then I'm drinking beers and smoking's weird. And I'm like, I was terrified of that stuff because I'm like, if I do that, I'm not going to get into the academy. you know cops are always arresting kids in our town and you know messing with them and it is what it is

so i earned the nickname like designated dorido because i had the blue lights in my car and on my truck at the time and they were like if anything bad happens we just called dorito and he comes and bails us out and i'll never forget there was this one party at a camp and uh i get a phone call like hey you need to come down here uh Zach got hurt there was a fight and i'm like what and it's like we don't want to call the cops or whatever and I get down there and you know it's like your typical height you know it's like American pie there's like there's people running everywhere and like beer cans all over the place I'm like oh there's young people having their first drinking experiences yeah something like that and I'm I'm down there and I turn the lights on my truck and everyone just

scatters like roaches into the woods because they think I'm the police and I'm like no and I get there and there's this kid like unconscious on the ground and he's not breathing and I just your training kicks in yeah grab I always carried in my town you always you carried your trauma bag in your in your vehicle so in case it was faster for you to get there and meet the ambulance there that's how we would split up on pages and radios because our town was so large so i just grabbed my bag and went to work go to work and this kid whoever he got in a fight with he got hit in the face with like a golf club and that split his face open from like here to here and then they i don't know who it was but they stuffed his throat full of dirt and like tried to suffocate him

you think they were trying to suffocate him or stop the bleeding well i don't know having dirt shoved down your throat, I would say, I don't think they were trying to stop the bleeding. That's a weird move. Yeah, I don't, I wasn't there. So all as I know is that's what I saw. Yeah. And yeah, that's going to stop you from breathing for sure. So I cleared out his airway, did, gave him a couple breaths, resuscitated him.

He came back. Yeah. Within about a minute and starts coughing and his blood starts pouring out of his face. And I just, they're like, Dorito fix his face. And I'm like, I mean, I learned about sutures, but I've never had to give sutures. Yeah, put a bandage on there and get him to a higher level of care. I pulled the suture kid out of my bag and I put his face back together as best I could and we got him to the hospital. And to this day he's like, dude, you like save my life.

Like we are at our 10 year high school reunion. Accurate. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, it was cool. Like, I'm glad you're here. You know? And so that was my first major trauma incident I saw. And then I had my first suicide, you know, and that was weird.

And you're 18 years old and I get called to a person who fell in the shower. And I get up to the house. and I just told my partners, hey, grab the ambulance, I'll meet you there because I'm closer. And I go into the house and, you know, it was this elderly woman and she had fell in in the shower and her daughter had called. And I think she was just too scared to go downstairs

and see what happened. You know, her mom was on hospice at the time and everything else. And I go down there and just started doing CPR, you know. But that was like my first experience with like dead body by yourself. Yeah. Everyone's staring at you. You know, please save grandma. and, you know, my partners get there, and I'm just, you know, you're breaking ribs at that point, doing CPR.

You know, when you're actually doing CPR, you're just breaking ribs on a dead body, unfortunately. And I couldn't do anything. And it kind of hit me hard. And it just made me realize that you can't save everybody, you know, and I got my appointment later to the Air Force Academy. And I was like, I just want to get as far away from my hometown as possible. I know, I got appointed to West Point, Annapolis, you know, all the schools I wanted to go to. And I was like, I just want to go to Colorado. I love skiing.

I heard the skiing is better out there anyway. Better than in Annapolis, to my understanding. Yeah, I don't think they have a lot of mountains near the ocean. I don't think they have any. And I live pretty close to West Point, too. Swing the mic over towards your mouth a little bit. Just swing it this way. There you go.

There you go. You know, I live pretty close to West Point, but I was like, oh, I just want to go far away. I just want new friends, new life. Yeah. Start over. So I go out to the Air Force Academy, and we call it our dualie. year and you start basic training. Dooley?

Yeah, so when you're... Like a truck duly? So like, yeah, it's like D-O-O-L-I-E. Why do these schools have to have stupid fucked up, like, plebe summer or all that stuff? Yeah, so like they could have plebe, or sometimes they call them like smacks. I don't know. It's some arbitrary acronym that I don't understand. It's like, yeah, I'm just steeped in tradition and nonsense.

Yeah, I'm just going to sit down and let you call me whatever you want to. Copy that, sir. So... And the first. And the first thing you notice is the air is really thin up there. And it takes a while to acclimate. Colorado Springs, right? Yep.

Yeah. So far, far of that above of West Point, Air Annapolis, and also far, far above my hometown. So I think we're at 700 feet sea level above sea level in my hometown, and we're at like, you know, 50, 700 or whatever it is. Fuck, if not higher. Yeah. So they're running you every day.

They walk you into it, you know, because a lot of kids are hypoxic. They feel, you know, they're gasping for air when they're running. and you adapt to it. And basic training was good. You know, I mean, it was pretty standard. You know, you go through, you get yelled at. And it was kind of interesting because back then we were still wearing BDUs. So you were pattern, though.

Oh, Woodland. Okay. Yeah. So you hadn't gone digital yet? No, no. That was actually after I graduated. Okay. We were one that, we were the second and last class that had BDUs.

2011 had BDUs too. But yeah, so we spent a lot of our time shining boots and using starch and making increases and learning how to do all those fun military things. I honestly don't know how they do it now because it's like, well, we don't shine boots. We don't wear our uniforms anymore. So what do we do with all this time? You know, I obviously. They find other mundane tasks. Yeah, I experienced that later on. Obviously, when I went back with the Army, I was like, wow, so this is what we do now. This is interesting and fascinating. And, you know, so your freshman year, you can't go anywhere. You don't have a car. You can't wear civilian clothes. For the entire year. For the entire year.

recognition. Recognition is just like a three-day fest of you just getting beat with push-ups and just running stairs and whatever the upperclassmen want to do to you. A right of passage, if you were. Yeah. Yeah, right of passage. I'm sure you're familiar with those. Yeah. And yeah, and then you do, and then after your freshman year, you get assigned to your permanent cadet squadron. So I was in Cadet Squadron 25, my freshman year. And I moved to Squadron 18, which was across the Toronto, which is that area between the two dormitories. Okay. I am not familiar with the Air Force Academy at all. Yeah, so there's two dormitories, Cadet Dormantorsors, there's Saigon, the chapel, and then there's Vandenberg, and then

school, like the... Just a massive school building? Yep, yep, and then you had your, your Chow Hall over at Mitchell Hall. So I went from, I went from Syjohn to Van denberg, so a quarter mile move or whatever it was to get over there, and, and the first thing they tell us is like, welcome sophomores, you know, welcome the hell, and I'm like, what are you talking about. Like, I'm an upperclassman now, so you kind of have a little bit more freedoms as a sophomore, but you're still bottom of the barrel, right? It's like you're a freshman with privileges. And the interesting thing about the academy is you get different AOCs from different service branches that will go there. What's an AOC? So an AOC is an air officer commanding. So it's

like the commanding officer of the cadet squadron. Okay. And there's 40 of them. There's 40 cadet squadron. So there's 40 air officer commandings. Each one has their own AOC. Yep. And that would be like the cadet wing. Okay. So like squadrons 1 through 10 is group 1. Group 2 is, you know, 11 through 20. Yeah, and vice versa. So on and so on. So I, squadron 18 at the time, was under the command of an army officer.

And I remember my first day in that squadron. I, like, have my cart with, like, my cadet trunk full of my effects. And I around the corner and I just hear yelling and screaming. And I see this army guy knife handing everyone down the hallway and everyone standing out there in service dress, including the senior cadets. senior cadets, the juniors, the sophomores, and the freshman. So he's just getting in all sorts of ass. Oh, yeah.

And I go like, oh, no. I'm like, man, I'm just like, man, I just finished. Not again. I just finished freshman year. Like, why? And I'm just like, all right, whatever. I guess this is how it's going to be. Because everyone's like, oh, man, I just want a cool Air Force officer who just like

wants to hang out and like help the cadets and just leaves us alone. So we have one of those military inspections, you know, in the, first quarter of the school year. You know, you're familiar with those, but then where you have like that one pair of underwear that you never wear that's like perfectly starch and creases and seven inches in your t-shirt. It's like that drawer in your room you never touch. Intentionally. Yeah, and then every other drawer has a bunch of shit crammed into it and into your laundry bag to hide all the other stuff. You just didn't feel like folding. And you also don't want to go do laundry because it's like seven stories down and you're just going to get yelled at. So you just

save it for like three weeks later when no one's around. Yeah. And so we get into, this is like before smartphones, right? And before like real social media, like Facebook was kind of a thing back in 2007 and eight, but not really. And we kind of get into like an arbitrary meme more within our class. So you're sending out, you know, like philosopher memes or those old school memes

that like nobody even knows what they are anymore. And it was a clogging up the everyone's inboxes because everyone's hitting like reply all like on purpose. So our commander just gets infuriated because all these people are getting mad at us. So you're describing an email war. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I just don't know if people know what email wars are anymore because I don't even know what they are, but what you're describing sounds like a pain in the ass. Yeah, it's just a lot of people sitting at the computers holding down their delete button for like an hour straight because they have like a 3,000 emails in their inbox. And basically you shut down the Air Force interwebs because everyone's overloading it. I can support that. So I can understand why people are getting pissed. Yeah. What?

You're 19, like whatever. With limited ability to fight back in any way. This is your source of fun. Yeah. When you're a cadet. Like, this is how we have fun. And so our command, I was supposed to go to Arizona that weekend. You know, you finished the inspection.

You guys pass. You guys have a pass for the weekend. And I was going to- Oh, Liberty. Yeah, well, we thought that. And that was smited away. So he goes, well, all you people that were involved in this email war, he's like, you're all restricted.

Damn it. All right. And I was supposed to go to Arizona. I'm like, come on, sir. Like, I'm getting an airplane. I'm broke. This is like all the money I had for the month. And I was going to see my mom and my sisters, my dad, uh, who were in Arizona at the time. My dad's family, a lot of them live in Arizona. And, uh, he's like, nope, you're not going anywhere. And I'm like, obviously I was like really

disappointed. Like, what am I going to do? Well, I guess I'll just sit in my room and stare at a book and do homework because that sounds fun. So some of the people are allowed to leave like some of the upperclassmen and the rest of us are just moping around like life sucks. This is what being a cadet's all about. Yeah. And I get a knock on my door. And it's the major. And he goes, Dorito, come to my office. Roger, that's her. Sit down. Okay. He goes, you want to leave this weekend? I was like, yes, sir. I would. He's like, when you're not going to Arizona? He's like, why don't you come over my house for dinner? What? This is the Army guy. The guy who was yelling and screaming, having everyone in service just throwing stuff down the hallway,

restricting everybody. The guy that all the cadets in my cadet squadron didn't like. Okay. Or at least that was the impression that I got because that's what was instilled in me when I first got there. And I kind of had that macchiavellian attitude towards it. I'm like, well, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? I'll take him up

on his offer. He drives me to his house because I don't have a car. And I sat there with his wife and him. We have a fantastic dinner. I haven't eaten that good. Probably like almost a year and a half at that point. Yeah. You had an other than Air Force other than Chowal meal or Kudoba burrito, which you occasionally were able to get off base,

which is... That's a fine burrito. It was a fine burrito. Let's be careful what we talk about Kodoba. There's nothing wrong with Kudoba. I think I if I bought stock in Kudoba back then, I'd be a rich man today. Yeah, I spent all my money on burritos though. Yeah, yeah, that's all you could get. I mean, this is before like, you know, food delivery and stuff too. We're not talking

Uber Eats and DoorDash. No, that wasn't a thing back then. So, we sit down, and I knew nothing about armor uniforms back then. Like I didn't understand school badges. I didn't understand tabs. I was like, dude with fancy Velcro and the old ACU pattern, right?

And I did not know that he was a basically the equivalent to an AOC at West Point. They're called TAC officers there. Okay. For three years before he was selected to come to the Air Force Academy. So this guy had been a cadet

commander at West Point for three years before he was hand-selected to come to the Air Force Academy as the Army liaison officer. It seems like a weird career path. It is. It seems like you would go from West Point back to an operational or joint billet. Yeah, and when I found out was that he had been in like three combat tours between Iraq and Afghanistan, and he was combat. He was combat wounded. Okay.

So he kind of like took his West Point time as a, like a recovery period, you know. Okay, fair. And he tried to go back to a deployment schedule and the doctor's like, you're not going anywhere. Oh, so he may not have had a choice and his career path beyond that. Okay, I understand that. Infantry guy, military police, whole nine yards. I mean, and my level of respect for him completely changed because I saw the other side of him. And he sat me down and goes, Dorita, do you notice how, you know, yeah, we gave you letters of reprimand for an email war, like all you guys, right?

he goes but did I do anything besides basically give you some so-called wall-to-wall counseling? Well, no. Did I do anything other than chew your ass, tell you to be a better cadet so you can be a better officer? No. So then fucking figure it out. I was like, Roger, that, sir. He's like, oh, and by the way, you have extra staff to do next weekend. Fuck.

He goes, and I'm sitting there and we were like talking to each other. So I'm sitting at the staff duty desk, like, and his office is right next to me. Dorito, M.T. Dew, stat. I'm like, yeah, Roger that, sir. It goes in, how's your day going? That's great, sir. He's like, to finish your homework? Yep.

All right, cool. Still thinking about what we talked about last weekend? Yep. He's like, you're going to fuck up anymore? I'm like, going to try not to. It's like, good. And I didn't realize the value of that leadership experience because I realized is that you can really make an impact on your subordinates

without ruining their lives with paperwork. and I didn't understand that until our next commander came. You know, this guy was his time to leave, time to leave the Air Force Academy, time to go somewhere else. And this new Air Force commander comes in. Non-combat guy, you know, non-combat MOS. Still in your sophomore year? Yeah. So transitioning into almost our junior year at this point.

And he comes in and he's one of those by the book. Well, the book says you should get this, so I'm just going to give you that. without any, it appeared at the time, any critical thinking of how to apply that punishment. You know, the cadet site picture in the UCMJ says, you did this, so you're going to get this punishment. So you're just getting stacks of paperwork. God, you didn't tie your shoes, right?

Well, you know, you failed to follow military uniform protocol and you're going to have an extra 20 hours sitting in your room this weekend. Like, what? Keep in mind, when you're a cadet, you are massively overloaded with work. I mean, you're taking six to seven classes at a time per semester. I mean, you're just praying. to God, you pass your class to make it on the next semester because if you fail, you go on

an act pro, you know, and then they might kick you out. So on top of complete that, your military duties, and I played rugby at the academy, and doing practice and getting back to your room at 7 to 8 o'clock at night, doing homework till midnight, and then getting up at 4 a.m. I'd go do pool work and work out in the morning before class starts.

So, I mean, you're working on constant sleep deprivation, and you're just addicted to caffeine at that point. And so I get a really weird knock on my door. Like it was like slow. I'm like okay.

It's our new Air Force officer. And he goes, hey, you need to go to Air Force OSI's office. I'm like, what? Like I didn't really know what Air Force OSI was. What is OSI? So OSI is Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Is that similar to NCIS?

NCIS. Okay, so the Air Force version of NCI. NCID is Army, correct? Yep, CID is Army. Okay. So I get a ride down there and I go meet with them and these two agents walk in, Agent Munson and Agent Samanski. And they sent me down and I'm like in the mirrored room like, here's a steel chair and here's the mirrored wall. And I'm like, what, 19?

I'm like, okay, cool. And they go, so you're all like online dating websites, right? I'm like, yeah. And to be honest, like most cadets back then, like use online dating websites because you can't leave face. You can't go anywhere. What's the difference now? Most people are using apps. Tinder is way easier.

Well, it's still an online via your phone. So back then it was all email, which is, you know, how we communicate with people. I'm so glad I missed this phase. I did not participate in any of that shit. Yeah, I envy you on that. And to be honest, like, I didn't have a car. We couldn't leave most of the sophomores in the class. Everyone, like, was on random online dating websites that don't even exist anymore.

Like, they're not even things anymore, right? So and they start asking me about, well, is this your civilian email address? Because obviously you'd use your civilian email to communicate on this. You wouldn't use like your dot-nill military address to like you. I feel like I know a few people who would, but most people wouldn't think better of that. Yeah. And it was kind of weird because I'm like, well, how do they, okay, yeah, like I sent those emails. And yes, I was talking to this person on this email.

So they were already, they were in your system. They were looking at your emails and monitoring your traffic. the traffic yep sure that's what and that's what it said and like well did you say these things and I'm like well obviously it's written there you know whatever I'm going to say to some person I've never met online right yeah and uh and then they asked me this really weird question well did you know that well did you know that this person was underage and I'm like stop what and they're like well yeah well this email address is this person was underage you didn't know that and I'm like I don't know what you're talking about and I just like lawyer yeah I'm like I don't know what you're talking about

I want a lawyer and like no no no you don't need to lawyer. Famous fucking last words. And like, you don't need a lawyer. And I'm like, okay. And they're like, okay, so you didn't know. Yeah, they're like, well, well, we got a report from my Colorado Springs Police Department that this person you were talking to could have been underage. And, you know, we were sent your email address and we just wanted to make sure. And I'm like, okay. Now, here's the weird thing. I was never questioned by any civilian agency. To be clear, everything you've just described up to this point is very weird. Yes, it is. And it doesn't make any sense. And to be honest, we do have investigators right now working on this because we have never been able to prove if it actually happened.

If they were contacted by anybody on the outside. Yeah. Or if this person existed or if OSI was doing this on their own. Okay. And the reason I say that is because right after that conversation, nothing happened. They're like, oh, you didn't know? You never met this person in person? Nope. You just talked to my email. Yep. That's evident. I mean, you can't, I can't get off base. You know, we had a flip phones back then, and you could type like 100 and, what, 40 characters. Yeah. You know, that was the extent of my technology used back then. And they go, cool, man, no problem.

We'll let everybody know. You're good to go. You're cleared. I'm like, okay. And they go, oh, wait, by the way, do you know anyone else who might be doing illegal things at the academy? Did they read you your rights when you went in that room? Nope.

Nothing. No rights read to me, no nothing. It was very informal and very, And keep in mind, this is also my first experience with any law enforcement agency, if you want to call them that. Yeah. And I had no idea what was going on. I was 19. Like, granted, yeah, I know a lot of 19-year-olds do dumb things.

And if that was the extent of my stupidity back then, talking on an online dating site to someone I didn't know, assume me. You know, but it is what it is. So like I said, nothing happens. And they go, but we're trying to find some people at the academy. Apparently they had problems with prescription drugs going missing. There's a problem with sexual assault, rape. And they were like, you know, if you could just be our ear, you know, it would help us out. So I was being told without being told, like, you're going to work for us now.

And that's how I became an undercover informant at OSI. And I did discover a lot of weird things at the academy, a lot of prescription drug cases. A lot of those came from cadets in the, we have a jump program at the academy. so kids blow their knees out all the time. And, you know, painkillers go missing when leave them on your cadet desk because cadets walk by and take them, and that's what it is.

And the Air Force Academy is going through some hard times with sexual assault and everything else at the time. And I didn't really know much of it, but, all right, it's the end of my sophomore year. I wrote basically what I would do is I'd have these email addresses that they would give me,

and we'd go on Craigslist and try to find cadets soliciting for selves for sex on the line. How would they just, do that themselves. Yeah, here's the weird thing is that I'm like, so I get called in for, you know, online dating. Okay. But now you're having me go after cadets who are like doing criminal things and then just forwarding UIP addresses. And then they would go after them after that. It was much easier to have somebody on the inside to get cadets to talk than it has an agent getting someone to

get called in. I guess I could see that, but they could just see the, you know what I mean? They could see the information clear as day on Craigslist. Sure. As opposed to you finding it and then forwarding them what you saw so then they could see it and then trace it backwards. Yeah, and 10 years later, I agree with you. It's easy to see things that way. But when you're 19, you're being told by some federal agents to go start taking down cadets within your own squadron, your own group, your own wing. How many people do you think they had doing that? I know of at least four.

Your class? Not my class, but collectively throughout the years at the academy. I know there's more. A lot of them won't talk. Yeah. Did you, I mean, so what was the benefit for you doing that? Why did? Well, they said, well, you know, we'll just, we'll just make this little thing, you know, get scrubbed away from your record.

I'm like, well, I didn't do anything. So here's another wild thing. I get back from that interview. And my commander hands me in LOR for misuse of government network, letter of reprimand. I'm like, well, you use the internet for online dating and that's what Air Force OSI said. I'm like, yeah. Okay.

So I accept this letter of. reprimand for misuse of government network. Got it. Yes, sir. Move on. Like not trying to be confrontational with our commander. You know, like I said, he's a paperwork guy. Yeah, probably a good call. The Air Force says, I need to give you this. So I'm going to give you this. Got it. And it was at that time, I'm like, all right, getting ready for summer period. So it's my first year being like cadet cadre. So you're going into your junior year from your sophomore year. So you get to come in with the basic cadets. But before that, you get to go on something called OPS Air Force. And Ops Air Force, and Ops Air Force, and OPS Air Force is when you get to deploy to an active unit in the Air Force,

and you get to hang out with them for a few weeks and, like, do big Air Force things. It's like midshipman cruises at the Academy. Yeah, yeah, basically. So I got assigned to the 85th Tethan Evaluation Squadron at Eggone Air Force Base, which is all 16s. And I go down there, and it was like rock and roll, bro, get in the back seat, let's go. And I'm like, what? And so we're- Fucking jackpot. It was fucking awesome.

I mean, like, we're pulling Gs, we're doing air-to-air maneuvers, we're doing casts. you know, we're dropping into bombs, we're shooting the fake A-9s, we're doing the laser lock-ons, and I'm in the back. He's like, hey, you want to fly? I'm like, do I want, yeah? He's like, no, I don't want to. And the fun thing about it,

some crazy major, obviously the guy's got like over two, three thousand hours in this jet. I didn't know how touchy those things were. You know, you play those flight simulators when you're a kid and you're like, oh, yeah, cool, Microsoft flight simulator. You don't want to do that on an actual fly-by-wire aircraft.

Well, I learned that the hard way. So I grabbed- You bounce your head off the canopy? A few times. So I grabbed the stick and I was just like yeah this is like top gun bro you just like grab the stick and just do this right boy and we were doing aileron rolls like like six or seven in a row within like I don't know I felt like four seconds and he goes dude stop you're gonna make throw up and I'm like sorry so then you

realize you're just doing this with your hand right and he let me do loops he let me fly around we flew back to base and then he takes over and he lands and everything else and man we did that forever and then they showed us the the new f35 facility getting built at egg one because that's a joint training facility for the Marines and Navy and the Air Force. And I'm like, that's what I want to do. He's like, well, the Marines are supposed to be the first ones to get the F-35s. And I'm like, I want to go fly in the Marines and I want to go fly the F-35. That's what I want to do. So I didn't realize that. So I get back to the Academy and I realize that when you go to the Air Force Academy, you have the ability to cross-commission to another service branch. Really?

It's an unknown rule. It's like a gentleman's agreement that you go to the Air Force, you go to the Air Force. You go to West Point, you go to the Army. You go to Naples. You go to the Navy and the Marines. Yeah. I didn't know that was an option. So I find the Marine liaison officer there, and I talk to him about, you know, how do I do this process? He goes, well, I'll sign this piece of paper and we'll start you with Marine Screeners. So you can go to Officer Candidate School. And I'm like, so I have to go to Officer Candidate School?

They're like, yeah, none of your training here is going to count. You have to go to Marine Officer Candidate School in addition. So if I had passed the screeners, then I would go to Marine Officer Candid School in Quantico, my junior summer into my first year. So you still, at the end of your four years, you would have been ready to go. You would have had to just do basically a summer's worth of OCS.

Well, actually, I did that before my final two semesters. Oh, perfect. Yeah, so I would just walk right into the Marine Corps, basically, if I had passed. It actually probably makes sense to have you do some Marine Corps training. Well, we're going to get to that. So the Marine Corps is fantastic,

but I get back from that summer. From your sophomore summer. Yep. From flying jets and doing. cool things with the cool guys. And I was like really inspired. I'm like, man, this is great. Like, life is cool. Like, I like the academy. I have made good life choices. I love being here again, even though my commander definitely hates me, you know. And so it's, I'm getting ready for OCS. I pass all my marine screeners. It was just basically just giant

hayes sessions. Flip this tire up this hill. And then we're going to kick the tire from the top of the home. You're going to go chase it in the snow and do it again. And these are all kids from the class of 2009 that already graduated OCS. So they were like, the class of 2009 that went to OCS and they come in their your cadre for 2010. Likewise, I was cadre for the class of 2011 coming in. So I have 30 of us, six of us were selected, and I was picked as the first person to go. So I had to give up going to ring dance, which is like at the end of your junior year, you get your class ring.

So I skipped the whole. Seems premature, but okay. Yeah, so you walk into your first year with a ring basically. But I skip the whole ceremony. I'm like, I don't, you know, I'd rather go to OCS than go to ring dance. so and this is the slot I was allotted so let's go so right before I'm getting ready to go to OCS my roommate and our next door neighbor we're going to go run the Fort Collins marathon so like hey you want to drive us up there I'm like yeah you can hang out for the night and I'm like oh yeah like uh I kind of know some people

on Facebook up there you know that you met through CSU civilian women you've met online or whatever to go up there um so we go up there and we go to this house party and it's like my first college party ever as a cadet and uh so my my roommate and my next year they leave they leave me there and i'm like okay and i'm looking around and uh i'm like well i'm just going to enjoy the rest of the night i guess and i was staying up we had a pass for the night so i was just planning on staying up there with another one of my friends who i knew up there and uh i blacked out around midnight one a m i don't remember anything and i'm a pretty big guy like i'm not i'm not a tiny guy i'm also Irish. I know my alcohol tolerance. And I never was really a big drinker, but something

didn't feel right about this one. I wake up the next morning. I have no idea where I am. And I recognized by looking down my boxers that something was wrong. And I'm in a room with a bunch of people. I have no idea who they are. I just find my keys. I find my cell phone and it's dead. And I didn't know what to do. I had no one to call. I didn't know where I was. and I know everyone had left me there. So I get in my truck and I go back to the Air Force Academy. And I'm like, dude, why did you leave me up there? He goes, well, you were at the party.

You looked like you were having fun and whatever, man. Like, thanks for being a wingman. Like, you left me up there. And immediately I realized, like, this isn't right. And I go to try to talk to my commander about it. I'm like, I think, you know, I think I was sexually assaulted last night. And he goes, there's no way. you play rugby, you're just a liar, you went out and got drunk last night, and you didn't report back on time.

You just don't want to get in trouble anymore. And I'm like, no, no, I was definitely sexually assaulted and something bad happened. Ironically, he gets a phone call from this person who I ended up being in that dorm room with. And this person is claiming that they're pregnant. And that wasn't true. She couldn't prove it. and I actually called Colorado State University Police Department because I knew... The dorm room that you woke up in. Yeah, because I was at CSU at the time. Okay.

I actually called the civilian authorities because I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with the Air Force. And they actually launched an investigation and realized that she wasn't even a student there. She apparently was a problem person up there. And they said, hey, did you go get a rape kit done? Did you get anything else done? And I said, well, to be honest,

it's like a week after the fact. I said, no. And they said, okay, so we don't have any physical evidence. We're going to help you with this. She ended up getting banned from the Air Force Academy. So ironically, the guys I was working with at OSI gave me a call. Hey, we're going to help with your sexual assault case. I'm like, okay.

And had you told them about it or did they hear about it? They heard about it from the police department, civilian entity. And they were great. I mean, honestly, the Colorado State Police Department, they really cared. They believed me. They took evidence as much as they could. They documented everything. They found who this person was.

We found that she was just lying and, you know, she apparently was a predatory woman, you know, at CSU. You know, but that kind of takes an emotional stake on you because you're like, I was completely taken advantage of and I was left up at this place in the middle of the night by my so-called friends. And my commander doesn't believe me. So I made, I filed an official report

with the Air Force Sexual Assault Response Coordination Center and that's where I met my victim advocate. And they believe me 100%. And they helped me, you know, I went to some counseling sessions there at the peak performance center, you know. And we just talked about, you know, how you feel, you know. And for me, it was like, I'm okay with this because like I can't change what happened. Like there's, did I make maybe a bad decision by going to a civilian party with a bunch of unfamiliar people? Sure.

You know what I mean? But retrospectively, you can't hound on the past and expect something to change now. You can just be okay with what happened and move on move forward with your life and My biggest problem with it though is that like my chain of command really didn't believe me they just thought I was like the worst cadet ever You know you went to a civilian party and you're just trying to say these things and make these reports so you don't have to sit in your room for 30 hours for showing up late And I'm like no it's not true But unfortunately because I had misuse of government network and you know the email war on my record at that point.

They were just like, well, we're just not going to believe anything you say. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to OCS now. So got my orders reported into Quantico, and I just smirk when I said these things because it was the best life-changing experience I've had. So you're like three years into the academy at this point, right? And you're like, oh, I'm not in March. I know stuff about the military. and I show up and you're in polos and khaki pants.

And they're going around at OCS and you're in the squad bay. And they're like, all right, say your school and what your degree is and what contract you have. Now I had an air contract. I was going to go fly. I took all the tests and was pushing for a pilot slot in the Marine Corps. And they get to me and I'm just like, you know, you present your rifle and you're like, you know, candidate Dorito, Colorado Springs, air contract. and they're like wearing Colorado Springs

you know that really deep frog voice this animal just giant biceps I'm like I'm pretty sure the vein coming out of his bicep was going to choke me just by looking at it because he was wearing a children's t-shirt god and these people scared me like legitimately scared me and that's why they

have that job and it was awesome and I sit there and they're like wearing Colorado Springs like Colorado Springs Colorado Springs Colorado Springs Colorado Gunnery sergeant he's like no UCCS UC Denver where and I'm like

Usafa and they're like the fuck is Usafa and I'm like the United States Air Force and before I could even say Academy the other gunnerys aren't sprints across squad bay picks up my foot locker sprints to the door and completely ejects it out of the barracks and on into the mud

where my stuff exploded all over the ground so this is how this is going to be great I am the only Air Force person there everyone that was there was either prior service or NROTC so immediately they're like oh fuck we have the one Air Force guy in our on our platoon and immediately

I was promoted the fire team leader I don't know what a fire team leader is I know nothing about infantry tactics or anything like that I failed miserably you know when I was at the Air Force Academy when you're like a what they call them element leaders sure what was it kind of like a fire team leader equivalent hey cadets did you like do your homework and show up and clean your room great job i'm not going to interfere with your life but in the marine corps they expect you to do hands-on instruction you know lead your marines you know be in a forced

leadership position and learn how to lead by fire basically it's a different mentality for sure it's a very very different mentality and uh we're on our first three mile hike you get in a rucksack and the good thing about the academy though was that i prepared myself well for oCS like in terms of fitness-wise, right? So you could ruck march around the academy with a bunch of heavy shit. And when I got to sea level, I was ahead of the game. Yeah. And I was killing. And Gunner-Star Alessio. I'll never forget this. I remember every, I don't remember any of my basic military trainers except the Marines. And Gunner-Starn Alessio gets in my face. And you're not ruck-marching and you're not sprinting, but you're basically kind of half-running. You're rucking up this hill,

this entire time. Rucking is its own speed. It really, yeah. And I see Gunn-Ruck-Marching. And I see Sergeant Laced who gets in my face, he's like, Canada Dorita, are you a blue falcon? And I'm like, thinking in my head, I know nothing about the Marines. I know. I'm like, Blue Falcon, Air Force Academy mascot is a blue falcon. Yes, I, Gunnarri, Sarn.

That is not the answer he wanted. He meant buddy fucker. See, I didn't know that. And I'm going to resort, this candidate is a blue falcon. He goes, what? And I'm like, Blue Falcon, what? You know, you're just repeating yourself. And when a Marine doesn't know what to say,

you just say, I'm going to restart the entire time. And he's just like repeating himself, like thinking I'm going to get it, and I'm not, because I don't understand what's going on. Two different languages. So he goes, commence satellites. I'm like, okay. So my three-mile rock march ended up being like a six because I was running around the entire company yelling this candidate is a blue falcon for like, it seemed like an hour and a half. And I get back. And thank God, one of the prior enlisted guys, who actually was a D.I and who's there to go to OCS.

guys, he pulls me, said, Derrito. He goes, all right, I'm here to help you, man. You just said that you were a buddy fucker for, like, the past hour and a half. And I was like, ugh. Like, you know, I was like, man, I'm an idiot. I was like,

just a different vernacular. Yeah, and I didn't know what a deck was. Yeah. When they said, Royd Marines, we're going to have a field day. I'm like, oh, sweet. That's like, tug of war and shit, right? No, it means I'm going to clean with brasso until I get cancer. And so we get back after our ruck,

and they're like, you need to go see the battalion commander in the morning. And I'm like, shit, like the battalion commander of OCS. I'm like, I'm fucked. And they sit me down, and Colonel Mancini looks in my face, like, why do you want to be a Marine Derrido? And they don't want to hear that you want to fly. They don't want to hear any of that stuff. And two of my friends enlisted in the Marine Corps

after we graduated high school while I was on the Air Force guy. But there was one person from my hometown who I'll never forget. His name was Lance Corporal Brian Porello. And he was one of the first Marines. He was a small watercraft company, boat driver. And he got shot in the Euphrates River when they were invading Baghdad in that area. And he was killed, and he was the first person to die from our hometown in the global war on terror in 2005. It was right on New Year's Eve, too.

And our town took that hard. I mean, we named a fire truck and a post office after this kid. I mean, he was in the shit. and he was in the heat right at the height at the beginning, you know, of Iraq. And I told him that story. And I said, you know, I want to do my hometown proud. You know, I want to follow in that legacy, you know, and I feel like I can contribute more to my country in the Marine Corps than I can if I had stayed at the Air Force Academy.

You know, I just felt like I was going to, I was going to do more there. Because I get out of my office. Copy that, sir, salute him hand out. I get back to the barracks, and there's every single, drill sergeant or sergeant instructor staring me in the face get the fuck in the van and pack your shit up i'm like what they're like pack your shit up you're done i was like fuck so i go in the barracks i once cleaning their rifles and i get back to the barracks uh squad bay i have no idea what to do with myself i pack all my shit up out of my thing throw it in my a bag getting this e 350 van by myself

with two sergeant instructors now keep in mind quantico is like an hour away from like Reagan International, right? I'm like, I failed OCS, that's it. And he didn't like my answer. They drive all the way to Reagan International Airport. They get to the gate. Now, I also don't have a plane ticket or anything. I was running through my head.

I'm like, did you book any travel here? I have nothing. I don't know anything. I'm just doing exactly what I'm told. Gunnerner's Sergeant Clay turns around, snapped back, opens up his flip phone. Candidotorito.

Commander's giving you another chance. I am so confused. at this point, they turn that bitch right around and they drive me all the way back to Kwano make me unpack my shit and commence cleaning the rifle like nothing happened and everyone in the barracks is like... What a fucking intricate headhead?

What? Talk about fucking with me. I really support what they did. You know what? I look back on it now. It's a high level shit. And like I said it made me... It lit a fire under my ass. Like I sat there and read every single MCDP won, like war fighting. I mean

I was reading everything I knew that they gave me, memorizing everything. And, you know, one thing that really stuck with me from MCDP1 was, you know, Marines are going to make mistakes, and they are meant to learn from their mistakes, and you must allow your Marines to learn from their mistakes in order for them to be effective Marines. And that's something that really, like, stuck with me. And I probably misquoted that. You know, it's not exact, but it sounded good. It's stuck with me. I get called into the gun insurance office. He goes, Derrido, congratulations you've been promoted.

I'm like, what? He's like, you are now the candidate company commander, which is like the highest billet. It's like, oh, so move up and fuck up. Got it. Got it. Roger that. So now I still have no idea what I'm doing,

because now I'm in charge of all the Marines, like all 400 of them. I'm supposed to get them to PT. I'm supposed to make sure they get to their classes. I'm supposed to make sure they're at a tactic school or whatever the heck we're doing that day. Are most of these people older than you too? Yes.

I am probably one of the youngest people there as an academy guy. Most of them are prior service. I was going to say they probably four to five years on you at least. At least. So I think they were just like, oh, this fucking young kids. He's just fucking getting his ass lit every single day. But from there, I mean, I took, I mean, my PT was great. I mean, I ran my three mile in 1940 at OCS. I ran my 800 during the Marine Corps Combat Fitness test in like 204 in boots and nudes. Like, I was in good shape. It was the best shape I've ever been in my life. I dropped 20 pounds at OCS. I don't think I've ever been 200 pounds again in my life. I've always been like a healthy 225, 230, but like, Jesus. So they, they, uh, Then never let me sleep after that. So I became the Canada Company commander and everything was my fault, no matter what it was. So I was like double firewock Dorito. Like, oh, double firewatch got it up.

So I would do the first two shifts. I'd sleep from like midnight to like three. Get up. PT was at 3.34 o'clock. And there was this one night. I hear somebody drop kick the door into the squad bay. And like you can see like every Marine just takes like their whole blanket. I'm like hide it over their face.

Like I am not here. I am not involved because I 100% know they're going for that Dorito kid again. And I'm just to pretend I'm sleeping soundly and I don't hear or see anything. And like four, one on the front, one on the back, one on each side, or just knife-handing me, like, from the inside, get your ass out of your fucking rack. And I'm like, okay. And like, get on your face and like, start low crawling. I'm like, okay, I can't see anything.

It's pitch black, black, dark. They have me low crawl down the squad bay, down the stairs, start low crawling in the mud. And the way our squad bids were set up, like, I was in, like, Platoon 4. So platoon 1 is like all the way down the end. I am low crawling in the drainage ditch the entire way in my skivies. Like this is like before the Marine Corps band the really short sexy silky shorts. So we still got the short ones. I'm covered in mud.

I believe they're called Ranger Panthers. Yeah, Ranger Panis. But I didn't want to say that. I didn't want to like further exclude myself. I called your PT shorts figured out. Yeah. You know, and I'm low crawling in the drainage ditch all the way to Platoon number one. Now, I know the guys in my squad bay.

But in general, I don't know who anyone else is as OCS, as long as they show up the formation and their candidate company commander is like good to go like whatever or their candidate platoon commander so i get to squad bay one and they're having me low crawl and everyone's like getting woken up by like four gunnerous orange just yelling and screaming at me the entire way i'm low crawling look at this marines go fasters running shoes right whatever and i'm like what and they're like you're going to sit here and do push-ups until you tell us what's wrong with these go-fasters and i'm like i have no idea what's going on they're like his laces are laced left over right and they're supposed to be right over left and I'm like what like how am I supposed to know this one specific person with this in particular set of running shoes on the other side of OCS had them lace backwards and I get it they were fucking with me and they're like you are responsible for the behavior and the actions of every single person here does person fail to lace your shoes correctly you will figure it out and you'll fix it so I addressed the company the next day and said

please guys make sure it's placed correctly. Thanks. And we finally get to graduation. And I knew how to march. You know, you're on this giant black top thing. And you're doing your final inspection before the graduation parade the next day. And this is when I actually thought

I was going to get murdered. So you do an open ranked inspection and the battalion commander, Colonel Mancini, the one who apparently sent me to rigging an international airport to fuck with me. I'm like, shit, I've got to make this look good. So, you know, you pop your rifle up for that inspection so he can look at the chamber. And as I do this, the tip of my rifle hits his cover.

That's not going to go well. Cover is a hat, by the way. So he's talking the brim of the hat. It hits a gust of wind fluttering over the high heat coming off the radiating asphalt. You're so fucked. You're so fucked. And I see this cover from this colonel who has like upteen, you know, combat deployment. This guy was probably in flusia, you know, whatever, flying down the hall.

And I, which you just popped his hat off with the barrel of your rifle. I'm, like, getting his nose, like his actual face. Like my front, my eight, my front site, my front, my front site post. What kind of gun was it? It was an M-16. Okay. Like standard M-16. Because they don't have M-4s in the Marines, you know.

Yeah, I thought it might have been at M-14. Oh, no, no, no. Okay. It was M-16. So I'm like, thank God I didn't hit him in the face and cut his nose off. And I just take his cover. And in the background, Gunners-Sart, Clay, Gunners-Sart, Lesio, the guys who made me look around the ditch,

who drove me to Reagan International Airport. I can see them screaming, but with no words. Like, they're like, oh, you've got to die. And there's this small tree on the side of the blacktop. And that's the only source of shade near the parade deck. And I see Gunnar and Charlie turn around and start punching this tree until his hands bleeding and just looks at me and say,

I'm going to murder you. And I'm just like, mm-hmm. I've never heard of somebody pop up. the colonel's hat yeah and the the front of the entire OCS class the entire 400 of them how the colonel take it was just gonna get he turns to me and goes Dorito congratulations snaps left face walks away like nothing happened complete badass so he took it like a champ awesome then you know command sergeant major just turns and looks to me and goes just looks at me and shakes his head in complete disappointment we get back to the barracks and nothing happened like I

honestly thought I was going to get murdered. Like I'm like, this is it. It's my last night alive. So we graduate the next day. And it was honestly, it was the proudest day of my life. Like it was like, I accomplished something. Now, granted, I know most people's experience at OCS is like, yeah, he just fold closed to what you were told and go to this place and go to this place. But for me, it was just a much different experience. Well, it'll be a different experience for them, too, if they're coming from previous service because they've probably gone through boot camp type setting. For you, I bet you left with a totally different understanding of leadership. Absolutely. And what really encouraged that for me was Gunnar and Lessearned

the man who wanted to murder me every day of my life came up to be smiled, which was weird, with my mom who was there. And he goes, I just want to let you know that if there was ever a Marine lieutenant that I had to fall into combat, it would be you. And he goes, the amount of shit you just took for the past like six weeks, most people would have quit. And he goes, when you get back to the Air Force Academy, you send me an email on the global and I'll write your letter of recommendation to cross commission. And like, I still have that letter to this day, you know. It's like framed my house because, as it should be.

It, uh, it hits deep with that because I felt like whatever had happened to me at the academy, all this stuff didn't matter anymore. And it was like what, that Army major, that way of leadership was finally, oh, that's why we do these things. It made sense for me. Yeah. And I went back to the academy and, you know, I'm not going to lie, I had a little bit of an ego. I just completed, like, one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life that, you know.

And you came back to start your junior year? Finish off my first year. So your senior year at the academy. Okay. Your final year. Hold on. You said your first year are there. So they call your senior year at the academy, your first year.

There's a. Firsty. Yeah, this is arbitrary terminology at the Air Force Academy that no other service has. Okay. But it is a four-year school, right? Yep. Okay. Yeah.

So, yeah, your first year is actually your senior year. Gotcha. Yeah. So that makes absolutely no sense. Yeah. So therefore it should be in the military. system somewhere. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So I get back and this is kind of a weird time at the Academy. So this is going on with the modern times with the pandemic and everything is there was the swine

flu outbreak in 2009. So this is the summer of 2009. I have no recollection of that. So there was a swine flu outbreak at the Air Force Academy. Really? Yeah. And I had just came back from Marine OCS. I'm in my Marine uniforms because all my Air Force stuff is in my cadet room at the time. And no one knows who I am because I have 20 pounds. I look, you like, I'm in a Marine uniform and no one knows who the heck this guy is. And they go, hey, oh, Dorito, hey, welcome back. I didn't know you needed loose skin surgery after this, but, you know, I was like, gee, thanks, sir. And they're like, hey, well, here's the problem is that you can't come be cadre because you have to, they didn't, the Air Force Academy doesn't consider Marine Officer Candidate School as part of your leadership credits for the summer, which

of course they do. It doesn't make any sense. So I was still required to go back and be a basic training cadre for the incoming class of 2014. Yeah. So I get back there and like, okay, well, you can't go because everybody's quarantined, everybody's sick and throwing up their guts. They're like, you are not a prep school because we have the Air Force Academy prep school as well. I was a direct entry. So instead of doing the five-year program, I did the four-year program. Oh, the one-year on-ramp, followed by, okay, gotcha. Most of them are prior enlisted, recruited athletes or people who just need a little help with academics to make the SATS schools, right? That's good they have that.

And, but most of the time when they send cadre or basic training cadets, uh, instructors over to the prep school, it's kids who went to the prep school. Um, I was a direct entry guy. I have, I know nothing about the prep school like at all. And I get there and, uh, it was interesting. You know, it was, it was a really great experience. Um, I love fitness at that point because being with the Marines, you just run everywhere all the time. And, uh, so my cadets, uh, cadet candidates, uh, cadets, uh, they were like in the best shit. We were running everywhere all the time. They hated me. the entire time I was there but then after that they were just like damn sir they're like my Air Force PT scores like way higher now because you may just run everywhere and I'm like yeah well you know if we're gonna be here and do this you might as well do it right uh they we even got t-shirts made uh it was like you know like you're like graduating basic training graduation t-shirts and they put me on it and it was me and my marpats driving around on a lawnmower running over puppies because the one thing that stuck to them was they're like like why he looks so sad there's nothing sad you know what's sad puppies getting hit by lawnmowers

If you want to think about that, stop look like sad, keep marching. So that's like the one phrase I said during Basie Trainton that stuck with them, that Air Force Basey Training isn't said. It's bizarre visual. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I learned a lot of these things from like the Marines because the Marines have extremely creative insults without actually cursing. Correct. You know, and I picked up on that vibe. And I guess that was like the first thing that popped into my mind was, you know, I can't say curse words.

I can't be unprofessional. But I can definitely tell you that puppies getting hit by lawnmowers is sadder than marching on the parade deck for the next three hours. All right. And they agreed with that. Yeah, I can support that. I still have the T-shirt, and they even wrote me like a thank you card,

which is kind of weird. And then, you know, I told them at the end of their training, I said, if you guys ever have any issues or you feel like something's not right, here's my, you know, find me on the global,

let me know what's going on. And we should explain to people, the global is basically the military internet server. Yep, military internet server. So they were like, all right, fine. I get an email, probably like September timeframe, from one of these cadet candidates.

And they say, hey, Cadet Dorito, I just want to let you know that there's a lot of, like, drinking going on here, and there's a lot of, like, at the prep school? Okay.

And I'm like, God damn it. And I'm like, fine. I call my OSI handlers. Because I was now back working for them. Now I'm off my summer duties and whatever else. And things had died down over the summer because I was out of the state the entire time.

How would they communicate with you? Email. Purely over email. Through civilian email. So that way it couldn't be tracked on their server. So we'd find a backdoor. we'd email them through these civilian email addresses they would sign me, and then it was a way for the 10th communication squad

and not be able to track cadet communications with Air Force OSI server. Wouldn't they want to be? Oh. See, the thing about Air Force OSI is that... I was going to say, wouldn't the 10th communications, what would be the negative of them tracking that? They didn't know that there were people working for OSI? Correct.

Gotcha. Okay, got you. So that's one thing I think cause a big disconnect with my chain of command is no one knew I was working for OSI. and OSI keeps themselves separate. They are above the chain of command because otherwise how are things going to get properly investigated

if there's an influence from the chain of command on investigations of their own cadets, right? Okay, that makes sense. You know, and for me, I could never tell anybody I worked for OSI that would defeat the entire purpose of me being an undercover informant. So we formulate a plan.

They're like, well, we need to find out more about this underage drinking or whatever else is going on at the prep school. Well, it's right, it would be underage, wouldn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. And I'm a senior, so it's like, there's like this fraternization thing. Like you can't communicate with any lower classmen, basically, as an upper class cadet.

Right? So I'm like, well, I can't just go over to the prep school. Like, why is our first E from the Air Force Academy going over to the prep school or talking to the freshman, right? So we came up with this plan of I was going to do a CrossFit program at the prep school. So we got my commander to sign off on it. Dorito as a Marine officer candidate graduate is now going to lead PT at the prep school because his PT scores were much higher during basic training. So that was able to, we were to fly under the radar with that. I meet up with them like once or twice a week in the morning like 4 a.m. or whatever.

We just go run around in circles and do push-ups. It just gave you an excuse to physically go to the prep. Exactly. Okay. So it seemed legit, right? And I start getting these stories of like, well, this person's bringing drugs into here. And this person's bringing booze. And these kids are having sex and they're getting raped and all these things are happening.

I'm just like, okay. I'm like, this is going way above my pay grade. like way, way above. So we tell OSI what's going on, and they're like, keep collecting information, keep doing these things. And it got to the point where I stopped hearing from a lot of the Cadet Canucks,

I figured OSI was taking care of it at that point. Like, I just direct them in the direction of where they're going, and then they take care of the law enforcement, you know, actual. Talking about OSI. Yeah, OSI. They take care of the actual punishment

and law enforcement aspect of... So you're a conduit for information for them. That's all it is. I'm just a funnel of information. So... we go home for Christmas break and I come back and like oh things are dying down I am a couple months out from graduation now it's time to play the gray man I understand a lot of the cadets of my squadron couldn't stand me because like there's this marine guy you know you know he always does is like work out and you know that's a hard lesson I had to hear and was keeping my ego and check yeah right as we all do and uh you know 20, 2 years old you're still a dumbass so you know I go out and uh This is like probably my favorite story as my experience as a cadet with this particular commander. I was getting ready for the basic school or TBS, as we call it.

And so I'm like, whatever, I just kept to myself, be the gray man. Just be the gray man. As much as I wasn't at that time, I still tried to be the gray man. Like I moved my cadet room as far away from my commander's office as possible, so I wouldn't even have to walk past his office. Just go to class, go play rugby, work out, graduate. Get to graduation. I'm like, what?

It's February, March, April, May. I'm three months away from grad. Like 90 days, right? a hundred night had happened at that point. I found out I was getting my Marine Cross Commission. I did get my job. And in my backup, if for some reason I didn't go in the Marines, I was assigned to the 350 second air commandos

as an aircraft maintenance officer in Milden Hall, England. So if I had stayed in the Air Force, I still had a pretty sweet gig. Yeah. I would have gone to England and hung out. Okay, cool. So I had my orders. Like, everything was ready to go.

I'm like 90 days. 90 days, just make it. So I'd go out in Ruck Mark marks. I put all my kit on, my Marpats, everything else, my rucksack sack, and I'd go out in March. And I'm out marching one night. It's like on a Friday night. My commander never let me leave base, so I just subjected myself to personal torture and just work out, watch movies and hang out. That was my life as a senior. I never went out, never went to bars, never did anything.

And all of a sudden, three security forces officer cars come flying up the road, lights, sirens, everything. They get out of the car that get on your news and drop your rifle. And I'm like, what? Cren, I'm wearing marquettes, but I'm still in a military uniform. And I have a rubber ducky, like it's blue. It's not a rifle. You're talking about a rubber. Yeah, a rubber. Yep, a fake toy that's just there for weight.

And also, blue means inert. Yeah. A far visual indicator that it's not actual. Well, I guess you could paint a real M16 blue, but you'd be an asshole if you did that. Yeah. It's a far indicator that it's an inert weapon. Yeah. So, but these dudes get out of the car and they're like pointing their rifles.

I'm like, all right. Okay. Yeah. Whatever, dude. And they're like, where's your military idea? I'm like, get in the car. I'm like, okay. and I get all the way back to my squadron.

Who called them? We'll get to that. So I get back to like, hey man, sorry, somebody called in to the security forces office, and they said that there was a person in a military uniform with military equipment running towards a cadet chapel with a satchel full of explosives. With that exact terminology, satchel full of explosives. And I was like, who carries a satchel? What is this?

What is this the hangover? It was like a mailbag? Indiana Jones. is like saving private Ryan, we're doing sticky bombs on tanks? Like, I don't know what you're talking about. And I'm like, the cops actually apologize.

They're like, hey, man, we just got a phone call. I can get it post-9-11 era. They should probably error on the side of safety. And we actually ended up talking about it. Like, yeah, man, we just got back from Iraq. This is our first duty assignment after Iraq. So, you know, we're just doing what we're told and trying to lay low.

These senior airmen, right, their Air Force enlisted guys. So I get back to my room. I'm like, hey, man, you guys have a good night. I'm like, well, I guess I don't have to finish my Ruck March. I'm just going to stay in. hour up and get back to my room. I kind of knock on the door like two hours later.

It's like 10 o'clock at night now. Bang, bang, bang. And I'm the only one in the room because I'm the only one in the squadron who is a first class cadet because I couldn't leave. And it's my commander. And you stand there with the same two cops with a canine unit. And they say, get in the car. And you could see the airman behind him rolling their eyes like this.

Oh, God. But he's a lieutenant colonel. whatever rock paper rank yep rock paper rank that's exactly what it is and like I said paperwork officer right oh you were you were arrested I wasn't arrested I was picked up by the SS security forces guys and then they dropped me off at my cadet dorm like nothing happened so we get all the way to the security forces office and I get brought into an interrogation room and I'm like beside myself because I'm like you know I'm like that hint of sarcasm of like you got to be fucking kidding me like what where is this going where so

this two senior airmen are standing on the other end of the table. My commander's sitting there. And now the security forces commander, who's a major, comes in. And they sit there and start screaming at me. What did you think that you were doing on a military base and a military uniform with military issued equipment running around like a madman? And then I turned to him, I said, I'm like, well, sir, if you'd like me to grab my equipment and run on Powers Boulevard with the civilians, you let me know. Probably not the best response. Yeah, that's not going to net the results you're looking for. No, but at that point, I'm just like, it just felt like pure harassment at this point. point like this every open door that my commander could take to crush me with paperwork he took it

i get it we didn't get along he hated the fact that i completed marino c s he hated the fact that like i had an ego about it i get it like that was my personal failure from an emotional standpoint right but i even said sir i just want to graduate and just never see you again to be honest like let's just let's just leave each other alone which is probably what he wanted too for you to graduate and then never see each other again. And it became his mission to destroy my life after that. And I get back. How did that night end? I got back to my room at midnight. I normally get it before o'clock in the morning. So I'm like, great. I guess I'll just get up at four o'clock in the morning and go work out and whatever again. And I get back and, you know, I actually didn't get another LOR, which is surprising. I figured I was

going to get another one, but they actually rewrote the cadet site picture after that, which is like the the kiddett rule book of the base that said, no one can rock Marshall loan anymore. So I'm like, Hey, look, I changed policy. At least I changed something so far. Hopefully we'll change more in the future. Yeah. So nothing happened with that. A month later, it hits, February hits.

And I get another knock on my door. I'm like, all right, this is like after Christmas time. I thought we were good. Like, no. Get in my office. Yes, sir, Roger. Get in the office. Is it the same AOSC?

Same, same commander. You need to report to OSI. I'm like, okay. I go to OSI and they're telling me, me like, hey, you know, there's some other things going on at the prep school we need you to look into. Okay, fine. And basically, OSI was telling my commander, they needed to talk to me because I was kind of like being quiet because I didn't, like, I kind of don't want to be involved with whatever you guys are doing anymore because I just want to graduate. Yeah.

So that was the way that getting me to the office. Oh, yeah, what did OSI want to talk to you about? I'm like, hey, sir, nothing's going on. Like, it is what it is. Because I can't tell them. About two weeks later, I get a phone call, and there is a cadet female on the other line, and she's crying, and it's like midnight, and it's like a Friday. Obviously, I'm by myself. There's a couple other cadets in the squad, and everyone's out on the weekend. I'm not. Hey, sir, I know I shouldn't be calling you, but I'm in trouble. And I'm like, what's going on? She goes, I know you said, if we ever needed help to call you. And I'm like, all right, what's going on? She's like, I just got raped.

And now I'm like, all right, well, let's do this thing. I'm like, where are you? She's like, I'm in Denver. I'm at a hotel. I'm with a bunch of other cadets. We're drinking. You know, we're not supposed to be here. We're not allowed to be out.

We're off pass. Like every checkmark in the box of things you're not supposed to do as cadet, they were doing. Yep. And I'm like, well, everyone already hates me and I'm already fucking screwed. So fuck it. I honestly felt that it was my duty to go. get her. She didn't trust her chain of command. I called the sexual assault response coordination center. I called my, uh, my victim advocate at the time. I told them what was going on.

And, uh, I said, I'm going to go get her. And they're like, okay. And the SAR kind of keeps things separate from the academy chain of command for that reason. They try to keep things separate. So I go, I grab my truck, I leave base. I go all the way up to Denver from Colorado Springs. I pick her up. I bring her back. No questions asked. I just go, you already have a victim advocate on the way. She got her victim advocate. and I hope she got the help she needed at the time but you know it's really scary thinking about especially in modern times what's been going on now

is when chain of commands failed their soldiers when they get sexually assaulted and it gets really scary about like what maybe could have happened if someone didn't go get her you know I tell OSI all this and I write this report and they're just like okay we need to keep digging on this we need to find out who was there who was doing this who was giving out the drugs who you know who was in the rooms

So this same person ended up calling me a week later. And she goes, you know, the vice commander of the prep school is bringing everybody in, asking them questions about you. You know, because then they found out like I was talking to the cadet cadets. Like there was obviously the rumor mill got along that. Yeah. Cadet Dorado brought back this person, right? Why is Cadetter Redo talking to candidates? And then they start bringing people and they start questioning them.

And they go, you know, they're telling us to just say that you're a bad cadet. This is the vice commander of the prep school. He's a lieutenant colonel. And I'm like, why? they're trying to start a frat investigation on you. Fratterization? Yeah, fraternization. And I'm like, whatever, I'll roll the dice.

I mean, I work for OSI. Like, whatever. I'm not worried about it. They know everything that's going on. So about four days later, like the next Monday or whatever it was, I can nod their knock on the door. And it's my commander. Hey, you need to get in my office.

You're being investigated by OSI. I'm like, yeah, sure, sir, sir, got it. I'll report down to OSI. I go down to OSI. Same agent. Same guys I've been working with for years. All right, Dorito. Tell us everything that went on.

You got it, right? Like an 11-page statement. I get there at 4 p.m. You buy me dinner. Got my standard, you know, double whopper with cheese because I'm broke. I'm a cadet. They took all my pay anyway, so whatever. Oh, so I bought you dinner?

Oh, yeah. I bought me dinner hanging out. And we're just very casually. These two agents, we're just hanging out talking like we have been for the months I've worked for them. And we're going over every detail, every cadet, every phone contact I've had, every email. What happened that night in Denver? Where we thought the alcohol and the drugs might have been coming.

from and they're like great awesome and we're gonna take this we gotta get you out here soon man it's like 11 o'clock at night i got class the next day i'm in the room by myself for like an hour and a half now it's like 11 30 at night i'm like okay whatever and they come in hey everything here looks good but you forgot the part where you like were having sex with like cadet candidates and i'm like yeah because it didn't happen and you guys know this they're like well here's the problem we got five statements saying that you did from all these people at the prep school and you have no alibi to that because you were by yourself and I'm like yeah you guys know these things like I even told you they were trying to launch a frat investigation before this even even happened you guys knew that this

like so-called commander's investigation from the prep school was coming before it even happened they're like look man we can't blow cover about all the investigations we're doing we can't just start telling everybody what you've been doing because we need to keep going with this because they haven't made any arrests yet. And I'm like, okay, so what do you need me to do? They're like, look, frat is frat. Whether it's sex, whether it's you talking to a lower-enlisted person, that's how the UCMJ reads.

No, it doesn't. Exactly. I have no lawyer. I'm not being read my rights. I don't know what's going on. And I trust these people with, unfortunately, I trusted them. I didn't know anything. And these guys have always gone to bat with me in the past,

And I thought what we were doing in the academy was a good thing. I felt like the impact we were making at the academy was going to make some real changes, you know, because the academy had a problem at the time. And they go, look, forget this 11-page statement you wrote. They scooted over. They come in with a pre-written confession. And they sit there and go, did you have sex with a cadet candidate? They wrote, just write yes.

All you got to do is write yes. We're going to go to the superintendent's office. You'll be good to go. You might get late grad. it's an article 15 dude like it's not a big deal just sign it you're good to go and I'm like so if I sign this like you people are just going to leave me alone because now we're like what two months off from graduation maybe I don't care please the love of God just leave me alone I don't want to be involved with this stuff anymore I'm done I'm burned out I write it was

really weird it was like you're hesitant you're snick I'm like Y E E S and the second I finished writing that s. They ripped the paper from the table. They lift me up from the chair. It's like two o'clock in the morning at this point. I'm tired. I don't know what's going on. They walk me out. They fingerprint me. They take my mugshot. There is a enlisted NCO standing there. Eskors me back to the academy. He goes, hey, just won't let you know you're on suicide wash. And I'm like, what is going on right now? My commander meets me back at the squadron. He goes, hey, I just want to let you know. You have a no contact order. You're not allowed to contact anyone past, present or future who's ever been associated with the prep school. He's like, you are on official investigation for

fraternization and you're going to be getting an article 15 by the commandant, the one star this week. You know, he's like, you're just a failure. Is there any record of what happened in that interrogation room? Audio or video? No, we have FOIA requested them. They didn't exist. Or they got rid of them. We've tried. We can't get anything from them. And, uh, Yeah, it blows my mind. Like, looking back on it now, knowing what I know about the UCMJ, criminal investigations, you know, interrogations,

I didn't know what's going on. I was completely taken advantage of. And it was a way for them, all the sexual assaults, all the investigations that I had been doing, it was away from them to put them all under the rug and just focus on me. Who's they when you say they?

The chain of command at the Air Force Academy. The Air Force Academy found out that all about all my investigations. Prior to you sitting in that room? Yep. And they were pissed. They were like, why is this cadet working with OSI? And he has like 30 generated reports he's sent to OSI, like official MFRs. And I have a lot of them still, all the investigative work I was doing. And it made them look bad. Now, all these cadets under criminal investigation. Some of them might have been athletes. Some of them, you know, might have, you know, worked on whatever, you know, the flying club or whatever it was. I mean, all races and faces were involved with this. There was not one section of people or population at the academy that was immune from committing. assault or crimes, unfortunately. You know, but it was our goal working for real-size to make sure these people don't become officers. You know, that's, that was the whole point, you know, like some of the experiences you've had,

some bad apples make it through the pipeline. Yeah. You know, and it's our, it was our job to try to help that. And I honestly thought what I was doing was for the greater good, and I was just completely taken advantage of. So I get back, and my commander also tells me, you're not playing rugby anymore. So he took away the only social outlet I had, and I was embarrassed. like I couldn't play rugby anymore.

The only thing I was allowed to do is go to the bathroom, go to my cadet room and go to class, and I had to sign in and out of my room every time and present a copy of that roster every day to my commander. And no one, everyone was completely isolated from me. Like there was no participation. Did they know why they were isolated from you? No, but my commander just pretty much inferred that.

Cadet Dorado is pretty much getting kicked out, so no one talked to this cadet. You know, and, you know, the really weird thing about all of this was it was so well coordinated. From the time that I was asked to go down for that interrogation that I completely thought like, I was just like, here, here's my typical report, I'm going to leave, see you guys later like I normally did. I was in there for like almost 10, 11 hours.

I get back to the unit or the squadron, and I'm automatically given all these things. Like they were pre-prepared. It's like they knew exactly what they were doing. It was like, we finally have a way to get him out. We finally have a way we can hammer his ass because, between the ruck marching, between, you know, misuse of government network, whatever was. We finally have something to pop his balloon and make sure he never becomes a Marine.

And I honestly thought that I was going to graduate. So my biggest mentor at the Academy at the time was a colonel. He was the Department of Aeronautics and Astrophysics or whatever. And I said, sir, I'm going to be honest with you. What do I have to say in this article 15 reading? you know, what do they want to hear? I mean, I'm at a loss. Just tell me what I need to do.

He goes, you know, Cadetorito, just be honest. Like, just take responsibility. For everything you did and did not do, all they want to do is here you take responsibility so you can move on with your life. And then MCDP1 comes off my mind again. Oh, Marines need to learn from their mistakes. You know, they must, you know, learn from that to be better Marines.

Thinking that trying to combine Marine doctrine with Air Force philosophy was not a good idea, right? So I go in there that a one star, I said, sir, I take responsibility for everything I did and did not do. And I'm just ready to be a Marine officer and move on with my life. You know, I'll accept the Article 15 and I'll take it. I should have went to trial by court martial 100%. I mean, that's what I should have done. I had terrible legal advice.

I was assigned an area defense counsel, which is like your military appointed lawyer. And it was like a paperwork. Oh, okay. Well, you're accused of fraternization. And yeah, what you do, just accept it, sign this, fill out this. Yeah, you're fine. it is what it is. I had no idea what I was doing.

And I obviously, I was a cadet. I couldn't afford a lawyer. I couldn't afford anyone to actually review what was going on with me at the time. So I did that. And we get to the next week after that. This is now we're two weeks out from graduation at this point. Cadetorito, I'm going to need you to go take a psychological evaluation. Otherwise, if you don't voluntarily take it,

I'm going to direct a command directed medical review board on you. I'm like, okay. So that initial psychologist I went and talked to after I'd gotten sexually assaulted, I go talk to him. I'm like, sir, you and I both know they're doing this just to try to find a reason and kick me out.

And he goes, just go take the test. If it comes out negative, I'll tell him to leave you alone. You know, they're just trying to find paperwork to follow you. They're just trying to do whatever they can. I'm like, okay, fine. So I agree to go take the test. And I go to the cadet hospital.

I meet up with like some senior airman. They sit me down in front of a computer. They had me click through this test. Okay. Results come back. Major Todd comes back and goes, yeah, you're good to go. Nothing came up on your diagnosis. My commander's like pissed. He's like he was trying to find that, he was trying to prove that I was crazy, basically. And everything he tried just wasn't successful. And so, okay, nothing comes up. No psychological diagnosis, no nothing. We get to the graduation ceremony week. Thunderbirds are there.

Everyone's getting ready. I'm like, man, I'm made it. This is it, man. Like, they gave me an article 15, whatever, but I'm not out. I finished my classes. I finished all my finals. I finished all my requirements for graduation.

I'm like, they would never let me get this far if they had a real reason to get me out. You know, so there's a parade the day before graduation and put on my parade dress, my family's out there, my mom, my grandma, my sister. and do the parade. We march. And my mom,

you know, General Gould saw us to make a decision whether I'm going to graduate tomorrow or whether I'm going to get that 30-day late grad period,

which is like your standard. If you kind of fucked up to the academy, they'll give you 30-day late grad. And then instead of getting 60 days to leave, you get 30 days of leave, and then you report to a duty station. At this point, I'll take 30 days.

I don't care. She goes up to Lieutenant General Michael Goulden. Right to his face. My mom, Jersey woman, do the right thing. Right to his face. Did she have any idea of what was going on behind the scenes?

She, trying to explain this to your family as I trying to explain quantum physics to a monkey, you know? Especially if you're doing it much later on and they don't have the buildup or understanding. Everything was so fast and so furious at this point, like even I didn't understand what was going on. And it took me, it's taking me almost 10 years to understand what was really going on behind the scenes down there. And, you know, I'm like, Mom, I'm kind of, you know, they say I'm in trouble, they say I did this. It didn't happen. and regardless, the general has to make a decision whether I'm going to graduate tomorrow or 30 days from now.

That's kind of like how I summed it up to her. And she just, like I said, in the badass jersey woman she is, just goes right to this lieutenant general, points out and goes, do the right thing, and walks away. Next day goes around, and we're getting ready for graduation.

I'm putting my parade dress on in my room, and my commander comes up to me and goes, you're not graduating today, take your shit off. Wow, talk about an emotional roller coaster, right? So they make people put my service dress on, and my grandmother gets out of her wheelchair. and tries to slap my commander across the face. It's not a good move.

Yeah, and he took a step back and just acted like she wasn't there. Whatever. What is this old woman going to do? Right. Okay. I can understand my family's upset. If anyone should be upset, it's probably me. But me, I'm just trying to, like, hold it together.

Hey, all right, look, 30 days, I'm fine. Like, let's just go to the graduation ceremony. See the Thunderbirds, whatever. All right, mom, see you later. So one of the guys I went to Marino's he has with, he was also on a 30-day, you know, if toes orders kicked in and he couldn't afford to fly home. So he's like, I'll just stay with you at the academy and we'll just hang out for 30 days. So we get a sign to go build a

gazebo at the airfield. You know, I had soloed and did my five jumps in jump school there. So I was like, yeah, I'll go work at the airfield for 30 days as a fake non-second lieutenant semi-cadet, right? So we get on there, we build this gazebo and I get a call, 30 days comes up. I get a phone call. Hey, you need to report to the superintendent's office, you know, for the lieutenant's room. Copy that. Put my service dress on, report in, sits down. He's like, you know, you learn your lesson.

Yes, sir. Roger that. Okay. I leave his office. About 20 minutes later, someone comes to my room. You are hereby disenroll from your force academy. You have four hours to leave base.

You now owe the government over $200,000. You will be escorted off the space as fast as possible. I'm like, what? First of all, what I don't understand is, and now I understand this. You can't kick somebody out of military in four hours. I didn't hand in my military ID card. I did not get my medical records?

They pretty much said, are you going to kill yourself? No. All right, cool. Here, sign this letter saying you're now allowed back on base for seven years, and that's how we're going to handle that. You know? Yeah, they have to administratively separate you as well. You can't just say, hey, get out of here.

I didn't even get a DD-214. I didn't get a DD-214 until that following September. And it was backdated to, like, June 26, 2.000. 2010. So they just throw me off base. Since I had their article 15, they took all my pay. And they threw me on the street, literally, with my cadet trunk, whatever I had on my back, and said, figure it out. What day did it have on your DD-214 is your last day in service? June 26, 2010. Was that the day that they threw you out? That was the day they threw me out. It was literally four years to the date because I in process in 2006.

I wonder how they were able to get that thing signed on that day, because it takes a while to get somebody out of the middle. military. Like I said, every person I've ever talked to says, there are pedophiles who I've escorted personally around with the MPs who at least have to go to a transition class before they go to prison or whatever it is. You know what I mean? It just seemed like everything was pre-set up. It honestly seemed very staged. And even when I got my DD-214, it wasn't even like filled out, right? And the thing was, I still had orders in my Air Force assignment. They blocked my TBS orders to the Marine Corps, but I still had NATO orders to report to Milden Hall. And I was getting phone calls that summer. Where are you? Hey,

second lieutenant Dorota, where the hell are you? Like, I'm not in the military anymore, like not according to our orders. You weren't. I'm like, what? And then none of that made sense to me until about five or six weeks ago. And I'll explain that later. But so I had family friends in Parker, Colorado, and they took me in, and I moved into their basement. I couldn't afford to go home. And I had no money. I had nothing. So I started going to the gym every day, and I eventually got a gym, working out there at the gym, I got a job as a personal trainer. And started working out and met with a bunch of people, started making some more money. And one day, this guy walks up to me.

I had a Marine Corps, one of those stupid recruiter key chains on my truck keys. And then this guy walks up to me and he goes, hey, we're in the Marines? I was like, eh, well, I mean, I finished those yes. And long backstory to that. I have no idea who this man was. He goes, well, I was in the Marines and he started talking. This guy was a flusia veteran, you know, was in Afghanistan. well, and he goes, well, I'm a lawyer. And he goes, if you train me for free, I'll trade you hours. This is a good deal. And I'm broke.

So I'm like, this isn't even better deal. I will 100% take this. He goes, if you train me for free and help me fix my knee because he needed to fix his knee enough so he can get surgery from the VA because he got him blown up a few times. He goes, what the VA says, I need to lose some weight and be conditioned right for surgery. You help me get there and I'll help you with your case. and did you even realize you had a case at that point? No.

I was just trying to file for the Air Force Records Review. Air Force Board of Military Corrections, right? So I'm going to file to this and then hopefully get an appeal, right? And obviously it was getting denied, denied, denied, like, oh, you're just a terrible person. Okay, well, that's what the Air Force Academy says, and I guess forget doing an investigation. Tried getting Congress people involved. They didn't want to get involved. Congressman Scott Garrett, the guy who appointed me, didn't even acknowledge.

knowledge my existence, right? So I was kind of in between a rock and a hard place of what to do. So we start digging and find out like, well, you know, they didn't really follow correct procedure on anything that they were doing here. You know, and then some things are coming out of woodwork. I tried getting back into the military because putting $200,000, $1,000 from your credit report completely crushes you. You can't borrow $5 from anything, right? So it's like very intentional. Like, you can't recover for that. I don't, like, what do you have a mortgage? I'm like, no. I completed a degree that I don't have. So I went back to school and I was like,

I'm going to just knock out another undergrad. I'm not going to wait for the Air Force to correct himself. I'm just going to move on. I'm going to push forward as fast as I can on this. So I got a knockout an undergrad degree at UC Denver in psychology while it was personal training. So I had personal training in the morning, go to class in night and everything else.

And it was actually kind of cool. So I'm like the older guy in class. And I'm like, wow, this is what civilian college is like. I'm like, this is awesome. I'm like, I was like, it was actually. It was actually a lot of fun. I really enjoyed my two years at UC Denver. And basically what I had to do

is complete a bunch of classes that didn't complete at the academy. We don't do a lot of humanities courses at the academy. It doesn't surprise me. They're like, yeah, you need to finish some humanities courses. I'm like, okay, well,

I'll just knock out some humanities courses that doesn't involve figuring how to put a rocket in a space. I mean, that was not Elon Musk. Believe me, I could barely calculate with two plus four was, right? So I finished that off. And, you know, my life changed,

little bit more after that. Things started getting better. So I see an ad in the newspaper to work in the energy industry. I have no idea what that is. And my family friends who I was living with at the time, they were in the energy industry. They're like, Adam, if you want to talk about a fresh start, go for that interview. And I go for this interview for this company. And they sit me down. You have any experience? Nope. Do you know what this is? Absolutely not. Do you know what you? Welcome aboard. Do you even know what you're trying to do? And I'm like, like, do you, can you hand handle being with a bunch of guys in the middle of nowhere and really bad weather conditions. I'm like sounds like the military. Like you're hired. Yeah, welcome aboard sir. So overnight, it was like $15,000 a year

to way more than that. And I'm like, I finally have the money to go hire a competent legal team. So Mr. Gryphy is still on my case. He's still my main lawyer. Now I hire an NSA whistleblower guy named Herb Rubinstein in New York. I start my master's program immediately. And I'm like, well, you know if I'm going to be doing this type of work I want to get a degree in that so I got a master of science specific to the energy industry and it was great experience that actually was like learning stuff instead of be like drinking from a fire hose from both ends at the academy now I'm like I'm older I know how to write I know how to you know understand what I'm actually doing and uh 2015 rolls around to have my master's done I've been in the energy industry now for three years things are going really well on that side and I'm like I'm going to give this military thing one more shot none of the act you know navy marines army air force guys are like we're not touching this this is signed by the secaf bro you're going to have to go figure this out and your dd214 was the honorable general discharge under honorable conditions right they're like okay like look your discharge isn't bad like we can get you back in but the problem is to override this

we have to go above the secaf because it was signed by the secaf yeah who was classmates with the lieutenant general who was a superintendent the academy and this is where that, you know, good old boys club thing unfortunately comes into play. So I know a lot of people give shit to the National Guard. I walk over into their office. And I'm like, here's my stuff. I tell them the story I just told you. And they go, you're that, like, Dorito guy.

Like, we've heard about you. My first public thing I went with the news was with Dave Phillips. And I guess I had to backtrack a little bit on that. In 2013, the undercover informant program became exposed at the Academy. Okay. By another informant, his name is Eric Thomas. And I'm like, this guy had the same exact OSI handlers I had and took over all of the cases I was working on after I left.

So he had the same OSI handlers. So my cases never got finished, right? They were on. So I left. So they did nothing with what you started? They were trying to, but they couldn't complete the investigation because I was gone. And all those cadets were now. moving to their next class year, right? So it's kind of like, we're going to lose it in the fog of war,

so to speak. So they, once the next year started, they continued following on with those investigations. And Eric Thomas was investigating the same exact cadets that I was investigating at the prep school and the Air Force Academy with the same exact OSI handlers, which was weird. And Eric blew the whistle on it? Yeah. Why did he decide to come forward? So he came forward because he had the same exact situation as me, but I thought, I'm just going to go through the appeals process. I'm not just going to go to the media. No one cares about my story.

And they didn't. So they were trying to railroad him out as well? Oh, they did the same exact thing to him. Except they kicked him out six weeks before graduation, and he couldn't finish his degree. Fuck. They think they learned their lesson from me. They're like, ah, this kid, we let him finish his degree. What do he get kicked out for?

So he was kicked out, I believe, for demerits. You know, like, oh, you did these bad things? We're going to kick you out for demerits. Like a cumulative count of demerits? Yeah, cumulative count of demerits. How often does that? happen at the Academy? Well, every time you get in trouble or whatever, like, here's five demerit. No, no, I mean, how often does somebody get kicked out on the basis of demerits alone?

I honestly don't know the statistics on that. I mean, I would say more than a few a year. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, it's, uh, yeah. So he would, they would basically classify that as extremely poor performance. Sure. What that would end up working like. You know, and I don't, I can't speak to Eric's case personally. I'm not him. Me and him have been in contact over the years because it is really odd how closely connected our cases are. How they mirrored? So he went to the news. Yeah, he went to the news.

I'm like, I need to call that reporter. I was involved in Operation Gridiron, which people can look up online. He went on ESPN and did this little video short, and it's like, yeah, that's what happened. That's exactly what happened. It's Operation Gridiron. The agents that handled Eric and I were removed from the Air Force Academy on an investigation, and they were sent to God knows where. and a new OSI handler, Eric Einos,

took over for Eric Thomas at that time. Are they, are the OSI investigators? Are they in the military or are they civilians? They're in the military. Okay. Yeah. I believe Mike Munson was a tech sergeant and Dave Samansky was a captain. Okay.

At the time. So things just start getting weird. I'm like, wait a minute. This isn't just me. There's more people involved. And then Eric starts getting contacted by people. hey, I was working as an informant too. Soon we started discovering that there was a large ring of informants,

and we didn't know about each other at all. Probably by design. By design. You know, you watch enough of these crime shows after all. Oh, all this stuff is starting to connect the dots. Now we're starting to connect the dots. Something's not right. They all go public.

They all start trying to talk about what they're doing, and the Air Force Academy denies, oh, that's not what it was. Oh, you know what we're going to do to solve this problem? We're going to disband OSI at the Air Force Academy and just move it to Peterson Air Force Base in the Springs. So what you did was, is the people who were finding all these wrong things at the Academy, you got rid of them so they can no longer investigate

at the Air Force Academy. Well, that's convenient. Bam, another sex assault scandal hits the airwaves. So Dave Phillips, who has been writing a lot of articles in Eddie Gallagher, was my first reporter who reported on my case. And I told Dave all of these things. It goes public in the Gazette. He was working for the Gazette at the time before he moved to the,

I think he's in New York Times now or whatever it is. I believe so, yeah. And we get a little bit of traction, but they're like, yeah, nobody cares about your sexual assault. No one cares that you reported rape. No one cares that you worked for OSA because you're a guy. And I was like, okay. And, but then I start getting contacted by other cadets at the academy.

Hey, you worked for OSI. Can you tell my story? And these are cadets that are currently at the Academy. Who want what happened to them to come out? Yeah, because their chain of command isn't doing anything. And it's like, this stuff is still going on. It hasn't stopped. You know, I started my investigations for OSI from 08 to 2010.

This is now 2013, 14, 15 time frame. And it hasn't stopped. All these things that are going on at the academy are still going on, and nobody's doing anything about it. The only thing they're doing is hiding it. hiding it from the media. I mean, God forbid if these statistics get out for having to report sexual assault

to the DOD, it just makes the academy look bad. And, you know, that's the cost of loyalty. The cost of loyalty at the academy is it is expected that you protect the institution at all costs, by whatever means that may be. And when I graduated from OCS, I'll never forget what my platoon commander said to me.

He said, when you graduate from here, when you go back to where you come from, you owe the institution something. Now it started to click with me. I'm like, this is my mission. I love the Air Force Academy. I still do. I have nothing against what happened to me there. I get it. Some of it was by my own action. I drew attention to myself. I get it.

But helping resolve the problems of sexual assault and all the things that were going at the academy, it is imperative that we fix these issues. Because if we don't, who is leading our middle? military. How pervasive was it? I investigated personally about 30 people. Twenty-eight of them were serving as officers today. And if we're talking about what we need to help, what can we do to fix this place? Like I said, I love the Air Force Academy. I am proud to have so-called graduated from there. I would never change my experience for anything. It made me who I am today, and I have a massive respect for the graduate community. Most people,

who graduate from these academies are great officers. They're great people. They do good things. You know, and unfortunately, you get involved in the machine, in the military. And some people, by the time they hit captain, if they're not going to make the major board, they decide that they're worth more in the civilian world. Yeah, they self-select. And those great officers who really are making a difference in their units, they get out. And then some of the people who make it through the system, not all of them, but they're the people who say yes. They're the people who, the reports don't go forward. They're the reports that nothing is done about.

And I think that draws a parallel to what happened with specialist Vanessa Gillen. And obviously I was never stationed at Fort Hood. This is the woman that was just killed, correct? Yeah. And it's weird because if you start drawing parallels to different things that I have seen on the sexual assault side and what this person or this soldier apparently

reported this, nobody did anything about it. Can you lay the parallels out? Because I'm not incredibly familiar with her case. Yeah, so her, from what I understand, from the little bit I've read, you know, is this particular soldier had reported sexual assault. She did. She did. Okay.

And her chain of a command kind of put it by the way said as, eh, whatever. You know, there was no formal complaint process started. There was never an investigation. This person kept harassing her. And I would have guessed in the military that it would be a mandatory. reporting event. It is. And I think what really,

and like I said, we don't know all the details of the case. I know none of them for clarity for people listening. The only thing that I can say is what I've read, right? But what was weird

is parts of her chain of command reported her present for formation. She wasn't there. You know, part of her chain of command, you know, maybe didn't do everything

they could have done to stop it. Possibly. We don't know. And what I can see my parallels to the academy is there was some instances where I did intervene and I did stop it and I did report it and nothing was done to help that person.

You're talking about the victim. The victim. Yeah. Some of those people never graduated from the academy. Some of them just quit. They couldn't mentally take it anymore because they were sexually assaulted and they felt like everyone was against them because they were trying to report sexual assault and they were railroaded out of the academy.

And that's that's not the type of. officers that we want. You know, if you're going to be an officer, you know, you take a solemn oath of the greater love concept. If you're not willing to do what is right for your people, because you do in fact love them as your commander or whatever it is, then what are you, what is your true objective point at being an officer? You're going to complete the mission, but you need to make sure that your people trust you and want to follow you and want to do those things. But if that essence of careerism is pervasive in the ranks and, And now things aren't being done to help those soldiers or those airmen, Marines, sailors complete the mission.

They have a lack of confidence in their chain of command. What kind of environment is that creating for us? And I think that's a dangerous threshold that has been brought to light more recently. I lucked out. So when I went into the National Guard's office, they were aware of my case, you know, and they sat me down and said, well, here's the thing. we can get you back in, but you have to do a few things. I said, what is that? They said, one, you have to go into this specialized unit, okay?

Two, you have to have this specific MOS. Okay? Which is a military occupational specialty, job title for people. And I had jump experience at the academy, so I decided I was going to go be a rigor for this unit. And they said, on top of that, since you had a three-year break in service, since I got out in 2010, you're going to go be a basic training. Copy that. So they put me at the highest rank they could,

and they threw me into basic training. I report to Fort Jackson in 2015, and I go do basic training, and it was kind of funny because even the drill instructors were like, why is this dude here? And they pull me into their office one day, and they're like, hey, Dorito, we looked you up, and you working for CID?

I'm just like Valid question at that point Sir No actually I'm actually here to serve my country And I just want to do my job I'm here to get through the training required From the unit that I'm assigned to Yeah whatever man

We got our eyes on you Copy that staff sergeant whatever Cool man Let's just drive on with our fucking day We don't care man It's basic training man They don't care It's a factory down there right

So we I go to airborne school And you know Because my wings from the Air Force Cadbury don't count in the real military, even though you did five freefall jumps, they don't count in the Marines of the Army. Free fall jumps or static line? Yeah, free fall. Five free fall jumps should count for exactly two things. Jack and shit. Let's be very clear about that. So I'm glad you went back to Benning. Yeah, I think that someone like you would probably know the factors on that. A lot of

Air Force cadets who go from the Academy actually do graduate and wear their wings because they're authorized by the Air Force Academy. After those five jumps? Yep. And I'm just like, I wouldn't tell anybody in the Army. Fuck those people. Five jumps. is not a good amount of experience. No, and I'm not going to lie. I still have the videos for my free fall jumps. They're terrible. I'm like, I don't even know how I...

You basically, it sounds like you went through AFF where people were holding on to you. Oh, no. You just jump out with a shoot with no, with no one with you. Your first time ever. So my first time ever jumping out of an airplane was by myself with a free fall shoot, and I had no idea what I was doing

and I was hoping to God that didn't die. It was... Only in the military. Does that training pipeline make sense? It was green blue, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, pole. And hooray. I survived.

Okay. So I go to Benning, and the cool thing was when I was at Benning at Jump School, was it was all Special Forces Support guys, Marsock, SEALs, and a few other cool dudes. Right. So they're all in their training pipelines doing whatever. So it was fun. It was cool. I hung out. Most of the time I hung out with the Marsok guys, and I hung out with the SEALs. And we go out and we get ready for PT and we go do this thing. And we're on Jump 3. And the weather just fucking sun. and we run to the airfield in the morning and we sit in that shed for like 15 fucking hours probably jocked up too oh dude we can't pee they won't let us take our shit off because they

won't they don't want to give you another JMPI no absolutely not this I see this like sergeant first class whip out of plastic bag and just I'm pissing myself right now he just sits there and does it hey man solve the problem you have in front of you yep and so the entire shed and smells like piss and poop because I'm pretty sure people are pooping themselves at this point. It's 15 hours sitting in that shed. Yeah. C-130 shows up that's breaking the weather. Bam, let's go to jump. Third jump, we have like two more days to finish our five so we can go to our next training assignment, right? So they're just trying to get us out of the goddamn airplane. And we get in the C-130 and we go up and four hours. We're doing circles. They can't,

they can't find a window. You know, they, and like, all right, we got a window. And the person next to me, leans over to one of the seals and just throws up right in his lap. And he just goes, oh, bro. And just like, oh, bro. And then everyone down the plane just starts dwelling up. So we've been in this plane for four hours. Everyone's throwing up. It's like an old C-130 that just sounds like burning hydraulic fluid. That's because there's a hydraulic fluid of burning. Yeah. And I'm on the first stick. Thank you, God. I don't even care if the shoot opens at this time. Just get me out of the plane. I hook up and we're like sprinting towards the door to get out.

And the second I hit the door, red light, red light, red light, hand in front, I'm like, nope, I'm gone. I committed. Hey, I committed. I've taken my life into my own hands at this point. I turn and I jump. And as I did that the plane hit bad turbulence. So the right wing comes up.

I'm going out the right side door. My shoe instantaneously comes out of the deployment bag, but then like slinkies back on itself. And I'm out the door and I kind of feel an opening shock. And I'm the last guy out the door. And it's like, look around for your fellow jumpers. And I'm like, I am way, way below everybody else. And I look up and I have like a partially inflated shoot.

And I'm like, and I see like the Humvee driving towards me and they're yelling on the megaphones. Probably time to deploy your reserve. And I'm like, oh, yeah, ground. Okay. Pull my reserve. And it like slinkies out because I'm like, just not going fast enough or it won't instantly deploy.

But then it finally deploys and it takes the tension off my lines. my shooting flights and I hit the ground with two full shoots. I lucked out. I got really lucky. And then I got yelled out for opening my reserve and I'm like, that's the jumpers call. I made my decision. I pulled it and I didn't break my legs. That's the jumpers call. If you want to pull your reserve, you pull your reserve. There's a time and place to not do that, but it's your decision as the jumper. I would agree. And so great. I go finish rigor school. I come back to my unit.

We go out to Utah and we were training on the new RA1 system. So we're replacing the MC4. Yeah. So we're replacing the MC4 at this time in our unit. So we have to go off to do our new pack training. So we go out to Utah with the battalion out there. And we're out having a good time on the town that night after training class. And I meet up with a bunch of Apache guys.

And there's an Apache unit out in Utah. And I sat down. I was telling the chief foreign officers my story. Like, you know, I've kind of heard about you. Like I'm like this mystical unicorn somewhere in the military. I don't know why, but I guess my name comes up every once in a while. you know, you should come talk to our commander. So I go in an interview with him and he goes,

I want you to put in your packet. He goes, you want to be an officer? I'm going to let you come in as a chief warrant officer. I'll let you, I'll give your dream back and you can go fly. Now, it's going to be Apaches. You know, but hey, Patchy's in Apache. Yeah, still off the ground. Fucking cool shit, right?

So I go tell my unit this and my battalion commander, my company commander, full support, especially given the circumstances. From your guard unit. Yep, from my guard unit. So since everything has been going on for the past two years, I've been in the unit for two years at this time, they're just like, man, I'm glad it's all working out for you.

And I'm really glad that you're going to get your shot. And I go down to Fort Carson. And like we said before, get to the final duty station with the doctor, and I have seven psychological conditions. What doesn't make any sense is, why didn't this come up in MEPs, you know, like we've mentioned before? Why wasn't any of this caught until I wanted to put in a commissioning packet

to go fly? And it seems really weird and vindictive and on purpose. But the Army has no control over this. They're like, hey, man, this is done by the Air Force. Were the doctors names on there who put down those conditions? Yes. Yes, they were. So the Army goes, all right, because of the nature of your work and who you work with,

we're going to go give you a third independent evaluation because we need to be sure. Yeah, this is what your record says. We got to go be sure, man. Copy that, sir, Roger that. Go take my evaluation, nothing. Nothing comes back. Negative.

So the Air Force and Colorado was told by the Colorado National Guard, well, he's our soldier. He is in our unit. He holds, you know, this clearance, and his records are inaccurate, and we need you to change them. No. Why?

It begs the question of if you know the record's wrong if we demonstrated the records wrong why won't you change them? Well, how did they get in your record in the first place? We don't know. Did you ever go see Sykes and Shrinks to have those evaluations done?

The only time that I ever had that experience was at the academy and I did the initial click button test with that senior airman and they came back negative and there was nothing there. That was the only time I ever somewhat of an interaction of a psychological test done in the

Air Force. That seems like a stretch to say that seven conditions would come from that click test. And they were very descriptive, you know, and all these conditions that we have. So, I do a FOIA request. I'm like, I want all of these records. And for people listening, that's freedom of

information. Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, I want all these records. I want everything. And no response. Okay. So we show that these records from the Army are showing these psychological conditions from the Air Force.

My lawyers draft a letter, and I march literally, this is seven years, so I can go back on base. Put my uniform on, I marched right into the superintendent's office. And I said, you are being given this letter. And what it states is, we know that you falsified my medical records. Now, the guy you're talking to obviously was not involved with this. No. Okay. It was the vice superintendent at the time.

We are aware that these medical records have been falsified. we are requesting that be changed, and if you comply with that order, also from the request of the National Guard, we will not file a federal lawsuit. Two weeks later, we get a letter back. No. Interesting. It doesn't make any sense. I'm like, why do you guys want to fight this? Like, granted, I understand my story at the academy. It's confusing. It's not pleasant. Most people could care less. Let's forget about all of those things. The fact of the matter is is that my medical records were falsified there's no refuting it

they're in black and white with names, dates, and timestamps and the thing to make it worse is that those records were date and timestamped a year after I was discharged from active duty. What? Exactly.

They were making entries in your medical record a year after you had been discharged? Yes. Okay. And I can prove it. because I have them right here. Yeah, I don't doubt it. Yeah.

Now it's starting to make sense why I was pushed out so fast. I was given four hours to get off base. I was never given my records. Nothing. I was given a DD-214 that listed 26 June 2010. My medical records were modified in 11 June, 2011, without my knowledge.

Or anything. Not even a phone call. Are they saying that you, saw a doctor in 2011? They were saying I saw that doctor and not only did I see her, I saw her at Fort Carson, which is an army base. That's impossible. I was never stationed at Fort Carson. Does she even actually exist? Have you tracked that down? So we did look up her medical license. We need to find who this person is. Yeah. Dr. Kristen Nicole Henley-Price did not have a medical license to practice in the state of Colorado until 2012.

What the fuck, man? So this person who I have never met, I have no idea who she is, went into my medical records a year after I was discharged, lists seven major psychological disorders without a medical license. And I did not even find out about this until I had tried to apply to be an Apache helicopter pilot in 2017. Was she working on Fort Carson in 2011? No.

she was an Air Force doctor apparently or maybe an Air Force doctor in training we don't know it's a hard pill to swallow and like I said you can take everything that happened to me at the academy sexual assault whatever

you could throw it out the window what it comes down to is a person who I had never met who never properly diagnosed me who didn't have a medical license put in detrimental information that prevented me from

commissioning and flying And does the government admit this? Yes. That's where it gets even worse. So we applied again to the Air Force, you know, military records review board. We have the evidence. He's not, he doesn't have these disorders. The Army fully supports him.

He's serving in this unit so that he definitely can't have those disorders. And this unit wants him to go fly. And the only thing that's stopping him is the Air Force. You know, because Fort Rucker's not going to take me for the second, even though the Army's in full agreement. They need them to be taken off. Yeah. So we file with the 10th District Court.

We file the federal lawsuit with the 10th District Court. And they came back with a motion to dismiss granted to the Air Force Academy. And they said, because there is no rule, procedure, or law defining if the U.S. military can or cannot change your records as a civilian, and there's nothing to rule on, we are not going to rule on it at this. time. And that sounds like an incredibly legalese answer. That is incredibly scary. Two weeks after that motion to dismiss was granted. I get my FOIA request after three years from the Air Force Academy with my medical records. Not only does it list that the date and timestamps even in more detail about how she changed it, the entire narrative of these psychological things is not an actual psychological evaluation of me. It's simply my commander's words.

my commander stated that apparently the reason why I was given that initial test, right? Well, Cadetor Rita wants to join the Marine Corps, join the infantry and go kill people. So we're going to make them take this test. And I'm like, well, that's funny because I never wanted to join the infantry. I had an air contract. So right then and there, we know that, you know, someone's putting words on paper and this thing. And that was for the reason to take that test. But even after I had taken that test, it shows in the chronological sequence.

There was no diagnosis at all. Even the Air Force Academy said, yeah, there's no diagnosis from your official cadet record. But then you look at the next page and you flip through it and you go, 2011, mental diagnosis on XYZ. And not only that, I'm listed as a major as my rank. That's awesome. Do you get any back pay for that? See, that's why I ask. So right here it says Adam Dorito, rank major.

and then right after that, it lists all these false diagnoses. So they were, let's let me see if I can figure this out. Yeah. So the doctor was taking the word or was receiving information from your AOC about you, without ever speaking to you and made a medical diagnosis a year after you left the military. Correct. What's even more odd to me about that is that I can't imagine that your medical record, was at this top of some pile

a year after you had been gone because it's a machine, right? They have a whole class after class after class. Exactly. And that's the really concerning part is. I don't know who this doctor is. Who is she? And better yet.

Have you been able to find her or tried to find her in person? So we were able to find her with a private investigator and apparently she stationed down somewhere in Texas. And when he originally served this lawsuit, I had the Sheriff's Department server at her house. And she got really scared from what I was told.

And she initially contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office and demanded protections as a government employee. So my case went from Adam Dorito versus the United States Air Force Academy and John Doe's 1 through 50, being the people that may have been involved in my investigation, to Adam Dorito versus the United States of America, which is ridiculous because I love this country.

I think I would want to do more than be involved in a court case. That's an interesting move, though. It's interesting how everyone involved in my case has demanded protections from the U.S. Attorney's Office at this time. They won't talk. For example, that vice prep school commander, who I know influenced unlawfully, you know, unlawful command influenced his cadets to say these things to write those statements against me. We offered him an out.

Tell us who told you to do that. tell us who told you to write those statements against this cadet. Told this doctor, who told you to change the records? I know it's not you. We don't even know each other. You know, who is involved? Who else is involved? No one will talk.

And a lot of the people that are involved in my case, and I'm still great friends with a lot of people at the academy, and some of the people that were really important in my case either speak out loudly and agree with the academy. cadet Dorado was a terrible person and everything they say about him is true even though I don't even know who they are or I maybe knew them for five minutes in passing in the hallway or they go Dorito I'm going to be honest with you man I have a kid I have a wife too much I got a pilot slot I'm not going against the machine man

it sucks what happened to you but I wish you the best and when CSNBC got involved Jennifer Janish and Nora Rodanel started interviewing some of those cadets I had brought up who were telling me information afterwards, right? I can give you all the OSI information you want. Here's you need to contact, who you need to interview, let's talk about it. And this is when sexual assault became important again at the academy. And even the lieutenant general came on the news who was talking about, you know, trying to solve sexual assault at the Air Force Academy.

And what was really bothersome was that they didn't want to get me involved because, like, once again, like your case is old and you're a male and no one's going to listen to you. Even though I've been compiling this information, like I said, And at this point, I realize it's not just me anymore. You know, and there was a pattern of behavior. All of these other cadets who had reported sexual assault were having their medical records changed, saying that they had psychological conditions. And the reason that we can only speculate of why they were doing this is because it delegitimizes the investigation. Well, if this person is reporting sexual assault, but this person obviously is deemed psychologically incompetent,

And that sexual assault never happened, and we don't have to report it. How many people do you know of that have had that medical condition? I know six for a fact who have come to me over the years, and they were raped or they were sexually assaulted. They reported it, and they had mental diagnoses put into their medical record that either, one, made them leave the Air Force, or two, reclassified them into a different job that prevented them from flying or doing something with a clear insertion. or something to that effect. And three, lowered the reporting requirements of sexual assault. Not the reporting requirements,

the reporting statistics at the Air Force Academy. It just makes the line chart a little bit lower. You know, oh, the Air Force Academy's got 30% reduction in assaults. Well, do you? Or are you just hiding something? And I'm not just speculating when I say that. There was a DOD IG investigation

that came out in 2018. Sexual Assault Response Coordination Center that I worked with, some of the members there. They were all fired in one day. This person was a whistleblower and they came forward. Civilian or a... Civilian.

Okay. Civilian. They came forward and said, some of these records are not being reported. Some of the... Something's not right here. The DOD, IG investigation came back and said, well, we did find that some of the reports

were not being reported properly, but there is no way that people who had reported sexual assault were retaliated against. And unfortunately, that's because they're investigating themselves. If the Air Force Academy IG is coming back and saying, well, we did nothing wrong and what we did giving out those punishments was correct,

you know, but yeah, we hit some reports and didn't put the numbers up there. That's concerning. It's very concerning. What you're describing is a complete and utter shit show. It's, and like I said, when I first showed up at the Air Force Academy, you walk around that place

and you see these monuments of men and women who came before you. I mean, the brushed steel and aluminum all around that place is. It's fantastic 1950s architecture. It's all inspiring. You get there and you're just overwhelmed with like, I am to take charge and be the next generation.

And what the Air Force Academy stands for really holds a purpose in this nation. We need the academies. We do. We need those places to uphold the values of our military and lead our men and women in combat or whatever assignment they may go to. But what it comes down to is that there's only a small percentage of people that when it starts to affect their careers, it starts to affect their image, or it may affect maybe their

next PCS station, that it seems that vindictive actions are taken. And it's dangerous because, I mean, there's three things I can think of at the top of my head, just isolating it back to my case. You know, if an Air Force affiliated doctor is doing this, then what else are they going to do. The funny thing is, is we ended up getting a letter back from that Air Force Records Review Panel. And there was an Air Force affiliated doctor who even stated, the evidence does not substantiate these diagnoses and they should be removed. However, he should not be given his duty to career commission. That is what the final Air Force Record Review Panel said. So they admitted to falsifying my records, but they said, yeah, well,

well, we're still not going to give you anything back that you earned. Which in your situation would still be okay because that would allow you to continue your dream and go fly. At this point, I have my master degree. I have another undergrad. And what I've learned over the years is, well, a degree is a degree and a commission is a commission, honestly. Yeah. You know, and I just want to go fly. That's all I want to go do.

And all I had to do is get this one medical record changed. And I'm with the Army now. The Army's been very good to me. They have. They've allowed me to work my civilian job. and they've allowed me to have fun on the side and still contribute to the mission. And they won't do it.

And if an Air Force-affiliated doctor is admitting that I was wrongfully diagnosed with several psychological disorders, then why won't the Air Force fix them? What would that look like? How does the Air Force fix your medical record? Someone goes in the computer and deletes those files and makes an annotation and sends it back to the Army.

It's literally someone maybe taking 10 minutes of their time. So it's not a Herculean effort on the Air Force's side. No. But why won't they do it? It doesn't make any sense. And do you know of anybody else who's had something like this happened to that's prevented them from? Yeah. I know of, I won't mention their cases or names specifically because they are still dealing with it as well.

But I know one person in particular where it pulled their pilot slot, it put them in a job they didn't want to be in and made them miserable for five years. and they just five and dived and got out. It prevented them from ever deploying and prevented them to doing anything. They were stuck stateside in a desk job for five years and took away their dreams of anything they wanted to do. And another thing to this is, why did the Air Force change my medical records

a year after I was discharged? That's scary. Because does this mean that they can do this to any veteran? And can a service component change them without notifying you or the VA? because the first rule of being a doctor is first due no harm, right? Why are they doing this? I mean, I left with my medical records.

I didn't. So I'm saying, like, I don't know how they would modify my medical record. I don't, you know. That's concerning, right? Because according to the motion to dismiss that Chief Justice Bremer had given us, the military can do this because there's no policy saying that they can't, which is an arbitrary legal jargon way of getting out of, have taken responsibility and holding accountability to the executive branch because, you know,

the executive branch falls under the military. We tried getting Congress involved. We tried getting Cordy Gardner. We try to get Michael Bennett, Kristen Gillibrand, Scott Garrett, Jackie Spears, all these people that are projecting change in military sexual assault. And not one of them will do anything for my case, despite the fact that I have overwhelming evidence that I was retaliated against for reporting sexual assault. overwhelming evidence.

Like this isn't arbitrary. This isn't he said, she said. And even if you take my personal sexual assault case completely out of the equation, if you take the Article 15 and fratting completely out of the equation, I have a black and white document that states a name, a date, a time, and a place of a person who changed my medical record when I was a civilian and I never knew about it until I tried to go fly for the army six years later. What do those people say when you approach them, all the names you just listed?

No reply. Really? I have gotten a few emails back from staffers, and then at the end of the day, it's male sexual assault. You're not a sound bite, man. I can't imagine that's their actual response. That would be a dangerous email for somebody to send. They don't say those exact words. It's either the Air Force Academy says you're a terrible person, and we believe them,

and good luck to you. And those emails I do have. What other options do you have at this point? Like what avenues can you still explore? And that's the last thing I really want to talk about, is who will hold them accountable? You know, according to the motion to dismiss, the military has no civilian oversight, apparently.

The judicial system can't come in and say, what the military did was wrong, and we're going to correct this. I have always heard as a service member, you cannot sue the military. And that comes from the Ferris Doctrine. And the Ferris Doctrine has been made in my case as a statement saying, well, there was medical malpractice. We're not responsible.

And according, I believe it was Sergeant First Class Stichel. He's recently gotten the law change where now you can appeal Ferris Doctrine decisions. Interesting. Yes. Good on him. Very happy for that law being passed. And now you can file medical malpractice claims against the military. But they are still being handled internally, which you're just going to be.

get stuck in a quagmire of paperwork and whatever else. We did file a petition with that section of the military now. Obviously, we haven't heard anything back. But then it comes into, is the military just going to do whatever they want? And apparently the courts and the legislator are not going to get involved because the military is projecting this, that it's going to harm, you know, undue influence in your chain of command and, you know, You know, it's going to disturb the ranks. You know, if you successfully sue the military, then everyone's going to sue the military, and it's going to get rid of good order and discipline.

I would disagree. I would disagree, too. I think the number of people who would actually have a suit against the military is very, very, very small, but the people that do have a suit against the military have so for legitimate reasons. Absolutely. And that's, and like I said, after all these years, after 10 years, the only thing I've ever wanted to do, and I still do, is to serve my country. I'm not asking for much.

The only thing I've asked for is someone to care is for someone to sit there and go, well, maybe we should just change his records and let him move on with his life. You know, I've never asked for anything more than what I've earned. And the last avenue we have right now is we're going to the 10th District Court of Appeals. And there's two ways that can go. The tenta court of appeals can come back and say that Chief Justice Bremer was wrong in his decision and that the judicial can get involved, even though the procedure may not be specifically listed as in, well, we don't have a law that says we can't falsify your medical records, so we're just not going to rule on it.

That seems like a very dangerous precedent. Very dangerous. And like I said, who are the people that can afford to do this? I have been blessed and I've been very fortunate that I have had a very successful crew in the energy industry. But I promise you, I have put all of my financial being towards this case. Yeah. And it has been extremely expensive. And even if you are afforded the opportunity to fly, you're not going to get that money back.

Never. And we are just hoping that we are going to help set true case precedent that says that military doesn't have, does in fact have civilian oversight. that they can't just do whatever they want because someone might have had too big of an ego and made those mistakes when they were younger. Like I said, I'm not perfect. I made my mistakes. As we all did.

And I regret those things when I was a cadet. I was a fuck wit in my late teens and 20s. Believe me, I did everything I could to tarnish the reputation of the SEAL community as often as I could. I understand, you know? And, you know, I've sought penance for what I've done.

you know but retrospectively I love the military I love serving this country and you know putting that flag on your uniform really means something and I I I shit you not man I hear the National Anthem I still get chills down my spine and I'm standing on I still cry half the time when I'm standing I'm saying I'm wearing fucking dark sunglasses so yeah don't worry about it yeah obviously geez one of the most disturbing parts of everything that you just described believe me it's very hard for me to sit here and absorb and listen to this and process this in real time. Like, I'm going to have-

As with most people. I'm going to have fucking follow-up questions for months on this. Please do. But the, no, I mean, like, my brain won't be able to shut off about it. No, you can just tell me about your, when your brain doesn't shut off, and then, like, I'll just, like, email you and go, it's okay, go to sleep. Yeah. But the medical record entry, I don't understand, I don't understand why they would do that

a year after you were out of the military. So when I left, I had my medical record and my service record. And I went and I got my DD214. Yep. None of that happened to me. Which I can, and again, I don't know how you got ejected in four hours. That is, I mean, you are enlisted in the military when you're at the academy, right? No, you have like this arbitrary thing in the UCMJ where you're not enlisted, but you're not an officer.

You're considered on cadet or midshipment status according to the UCMJ. So you are getting paid to be there. That might be how they were able to eject you so quickly. Because you weren't under an enlistment contract. Or were you? Well, you are under a contract. Okay. So you do sign a contract when you get there basically saying that if you don't complete your four years or you don't do your five years of mandatory service afterwards, you owe X amount of dollars back, right?

Which is not only what happened to me, but they also withhold the degree that I completed. Yeah. And so I leave the military, right? I left the last day of June in 2013. I would imagine that the military thought about me for precisely zero fucking seconds after. I left. Precisely. Because nobody gave a shit because the military is a wheel that is moving down the road. Exactly. And I think you've, like you said, you've addressed this before, you know, is there's another guy to pick up your spot and keep on moving. Oh, we have shit to do.

They tell you that they don't want you to leave and it's, God damn it, you are the weak. You know, if you leave, it's going to be the weak lake. And they're like, oh, do you have a heartbeat? Get over here. And the wheel keeps going. Exactly. I understand why they do that. And I, to a degree, you know, you can kind of appreciate it because it plays towards your ego. But I don't know why they would take the time to add that. It's the timing aspect of me that doesn't make any sense. Yep. It's like someone has put this file.

And I, you know, there's a part of me that still believes that, you know, that degree of that fancy diploma I paid for it. They still haven't given me the money back for that either. It's sitting on a wooden plaque and it's still sitting in the superintendent's office out of file cabinet. I don't think they ever made you a certificate. I paid for it, you know? So they obviously made it.

They just, we just don't know where it is. It might be in very small pieces in a landfill. Probably. You know, they took my $90 and ran with it, right? Fuck. But what bothers me is the amount of effort that the Air Force and the Air Force Academy and the officers that were involved in my case have gone through for a decade to make sure that this is squashed and is not talked about and is delegitimized in the eyes of the public. That AOC you had, is he still active duty? Yes, he's actually assigned to the Pentagon right now.

and he was promoted. Okay. I mean, we're talking 10 years ago. That's if the people stayed in the military, they have ascended the ladder from that time period. Yep. And like I said, it is not my place to call out individuals and who they are and what their names are.

That's not the purpose of me talking to you today. You know, I think it was a fear-induced action. I can speculate on who that person who may have directed those things to make those people do those things for whatever reason. But why a year later? Why?

Exactly. We don't have interest to that. Had you communicated with them in that year since you had left or were you just moving forward trying to continue on your life? Yeah, that's it, man. I moved on with my life and I was like, all right, I will follow the correct procedure. I will fill out the paperwork to make an appeal to the SECF whenever I can find the money to do that.

But for the most part, I left. I didn't even go back down to Colorado Springs until maybe 2014. That's four years. I stayed north of Denver in my own little world because I didn't even want to go back down there. What are your options if the Tenth Circuit appeals does not go your way? Supreme Court. And this is the strategy of the military and the Air Force and the U.S. Attorney's Office. They know it costs a lot of money to go to the Supreme Court.

And they know they can just wait me out. They're like, he'll run out of money eventually. He'll lose his support base. and he will go by the wayside and disappear. After our last motion to dismiss, the 10th District Court came back and they actually mandated mediation between the Air Force, the Air Force Academy and myself.

Really? Yes. Which is weird because they granted the motion to dismiss, but they still granted... And basically said you guys need to sit down and talk. Right. And what was weird was... Did you guys do that?

Yeah. And here's the thing. You know, I can't talk about specifics. I'm not allowed to. like I said I ask for nothing more than what I earned I'm like look I'll go away I have a career in the army I plan on commissioning in the army you know once this gets fixed you know whether I fly or not at this point you know it's hard for me to give up 60% of my pay to go back and go fly to be honest at this point I do you know fly a little bit in the civilian world still you know

belong to a flying club yeah you know keep the adrenaline going every now and then and I jump I've had a plane once a month, so whatever. You know, I have a great fiancé. She's been massively supportive of me over the years. You know, one of the reasons we haven't gotten married yet is because of this case. And this case is very expensive. You know, when you get a $15,000 legal bill and you're like, well, I guess I'm not flying this month or doing anything.

Yeah. You know, but, you know, work some more overtime. I'll make it work. If you end up being victorious in your endeavors in the courtroom, do they have to pay your lawyer fees? Can you get some of that money back? It would be nice. We've requested it.

Okay. But it's even gotten to the point where it's like, I have been willing to just like, hey, just give me what you owe me. Just change the record, man. Please. I think that's a pretty good deal. Yeah. Minus the hundreds of thousands of dollars I've put into this case. Who showed up from the Air Force at the mediation?

At a broad level, you don't have to give me names. I'm curious who they would send as a representative. So it was the U.S. Attorney's Office representing an unnamed person in the Air Force, and I can only imagine who that person was. And, you know, they talked to us for about an hour. We listed the case, the precedent, everything's going on. They go back, they talk to them for like three hours. And they come back, we're like, well, they talked to them for like a long time.

Hey, maybe this is going to be behind us. Basically, the short answer was kick rocks. We dare you. Keep going. And that's the scariest part of this is that I know they're doing this to me, but how many other people has this happened to or how many people have given up? how many people I got sexually assaulted or I might have had a record change and I need to change and I can't get this done because the military just changed it. And they just don't have the means to fight it.

They just disappear by the wayside. And I would tell you, I'd probably say like 99% of the people couldn't afford to do that. And it takes not only a lot of monetary investment, but the emotional investment that it has taken on me and my family. it hurts you know it's it's been a decade and it's like you're just the guy that wasn't good enough you know well the air force says this and that's what it is you know christmas thanksgiving sometimes can get awkward yeah you know fuck a bet and uh you know what we're what we're hoping with this is that people realize this isn't just about getting justice in my case or the case of those other cadets it's we need to ensure that this never happens again and

And we need to set a precedent to make people care because, you know, why should people care? Well, if we're going to give the military undue power to just change your records when they don't like you and then have a massive financial and emotional impact on that person's life. I mean, I know cadets who've committed suicide. Yeah. It doesn't surprise me, actually. You know, I know people who haven't made it through this process, you know, and I just hope that they can give. and the strength from, you know, listening to us talk that reach out to me. I can help point you in the right direction. I can get you in contact with the right people.

And I'm hoping that we can get a voice in Congress. I mean, I know the senators and congresspeople I've dealt with have not cared, but heck, hey, Dan, Dan Crenshaw, you know, shoot me an email. Maybe you can help us. Maybe get this on the table somewhere. Maybe launch an official congressional inquiry that, will get somewhere versus the simple response of where the military goes, now they were just bad people. Everything we said is correct. Everything they're saying is wrong. And then Congress goes,

yeah, we're not going to touch that because that's what they said about you. And that's what we've gotten to. You know, and that's what we want people to do is, you know, demand that Congress do a congressional investigation. Get these senators involved. You know, we've seen the big progress made with that specialist who lost your life down at Fort Hood. And we're hoping that, and it's starting to draw other people out of the woodwork now. There's all these other people. Tell similar stories. How long has this been going on? Yeah, it seems to be the way that it happens, right? The tree gets shaken a little bit and then stuff starts coming out and drows. And the Academy's response and the military's response to me in the past has been, well, you were just a bad apple.

You know, or these people that committed sexual assault over here, they were just bad apples. Well, they're all coming from the same area. So what point do we look at the tree and realize that we might have a poisonous tree? at what point are we going to find the root of the problem? At what point are we going to plant something different? At what point are we going to, you know, formulate a new way forward. So our military remains trustworthy within a chain of commands. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've seen people lose faith in a chain of command where it seems like they don't care.

Now, obviously, that doesn't apply to every unit in every situation. You know, my unit has been amazingly supportive at every level for me. You know, but I can't say that for some of the other commands I've been assigned to in the past. Yeah. You know, where... It's a mixed bag for you. For sure. It is.

And a lot of it has to do with personality. Yeah. How that person came to be, what grudges they may hold against other people. Or the command structure. You know, you got the enlisted leadership, the officer leadership, how they interface together, the bias or experience that they bring to the table. I mean, it's a mixed bag. I've worked for great leaders and for very shitty leaders, too.

Yeah. So we're hoping that, you know, if we can bring public attention to this, if we can get people of Congress who really care to take another look at this and the other cases that have been involved in this case, you know, it was. whether it's Eric Thomas, myself, or, you know, Special's Gillen or whoever else has similar situations where we report sexual assault, chain of command doesn't do anything, bad things happen. Why? Let's find out the reason why. You know, and public scrutiny on our court system is going to be important in this. We've seen a lot of critical Supreme Court decisions being made in the past

few weeks, you know, whatever that may be. We can only hope that people do the same thing with the 10th District Court. Chief Justice Bremer needs to be held accountable for giving that motion to dismiss. The fact that he didn't rule on anything that was mentioned in that brief, and he simply just ruled saying, well, there's no rule saying the military can't change your medical records, so we're not going to rule. He might not have had the legal authority to make a different decision. We don't know. You know? I mean, trust me, I'm no lawyer, but at the same time, who knows what his actual, I mean, because the law has boundaries as well. Sure.

You know, but like I said, I think that needs to change, because otherwise this is going to keep happening again and again and again. And I honestly believes it makes our forces less effective. People know that they're going to join the military. And they theoretically something bad can happen to them. And they have no recourse for those things. That what's going to encourage people who want to serve or the right people who want to serve? What kind of other people is that going to attract? You know, and we hope that there is a new superintendent coming into the Air Force Academy,

and he has amazing accolades. His name is Lieutenant General Richard Clark. And he seems like a much more open person to not being a public affairs officer, but helping those cadets develop into amazing officers and future leaders. Which is what that academy is supposed to be. You know, and part of me, I really still believe that that's at the places. You know, I think that certain people have been involved in certain politics that have affected its reputation, but it is not representative what the academy is at its core.

And that goes for every academy. Yeah. And we honestly hope that the SECF is going to finally take this case seriously, you know, and because they just keep denying it and the U.S. Attorney's Office keeps overriding it. And we also want people to contact the U.S. Attorney General's office.

You know, Susan Prost has been involved in this case and has constantly kicked it to the curb and is just waiting for us to give up and run out of money. That's all she wants. You know, and that's as scary as that's how this case is being treated. And like I said, going back to it,

is this is such a simple fix that will cost the government basically no money to go in and just change the record, man. just change it. Or I would even say, describe it as return it to what it was before. Sure. You know, the Army controls me now.

The Army, I am their soldier. I am in that unit. I serve my country in that capacity. They know who I am. They know what I'm capable of and they damn sure hell know where I'm going to be going. Let them have the authority to change that record to do whatever they want to do. The fact that the Air Force is withholding the Army from providing for their own soldier is ridiculous. Yeah, I'd love to meet with that female doctor, too.

I'd have some questions. We would love to meet with her, too, because we don't know who she is. I mean, we discovered this in 2017, and what we've gotten through the briefs in the court system is she insists she's met with me. She insists that she is correct. But there's no record of the test. There's no record or notes. As a psychologist, you have to keep notes. You have to keep session notes.

Like, all this is, like, legally binding as a licensed psychologist. physically been to the duty station that she was assigned to? Well, she was apparently stationed at the Air Force Academy, so technically I was there, but I never went anywhere to meet this person. But the medical record says I was met at Fort Carson by her. I was never assigned to Fort Carson at the Air Force Academy. I promise you that.

It's not in the Army. Yeah. And it's just, it's really weird. It doesn't make any sense. And we are hoping that, you know, through all of these things that the academy takes an initiative to help fix this situation, that the Air Force fixes this situation, and that not only can I move on with my life, but maybe all those other people that weren't involved, you know, over the years.

Maybe they'll find some refuge in justice in what happened to them and that they can move on with their life too. You know, like I mentioned before, putting that flag on your shoulder means nothing more to me. Like, there's nothing more important. Standing on the, standing on the door of a CH-47, get ready to jump out and go do whatever we're going to do. God damn, that's the best feeling in the world. I have to agree. So how can people get a hold of you? We are launching a website. That's Adam Dorito.com, D-E-R-I-T-O. Not the chips, people. Not the chips. People can follow me on Twitter as well. It's just at Adam Dorito. Rachel Brummer, she is actually starting a documentary on this series called Dark Sabre,

and it's about my experience of the Academy and the experience of many others involved in this case. And we're hoping that maybe, Andy, if this is going to get some traction places, that if people want to learn more and get more in depth about the case and the technicalities of it, you know, we might even start a podcast talking about the details. It's a good platform to spread information broadly for sure. Exactly. And if you want to email me, if you have been involved in a similar situation or something has affected you, whether it's from the Academy or even on the active duty side, you can email us at Dark Sabre Productions at gmail.com. And Sabre is spelled SABRE, to represent the Academy Sabre.

Sabre, not say, bear. Yeah. So like I said, we're hoping for some change. It's been a long 10 years personally. I'm ready to get married. And, you know, we have 12 acres of land. We live on our own little homestead out there. We were going to drive the bug out rig up here,

but we realized we would want to drive 17 hours to make sure we made it on time, right? It's a long drive. Yeah, it is. But, yeah, I worked in Eofo for years, driving back from Texas and Wyoming and Pennsylvania and whatever else. It's, you know, I am truly grateful for the people I've met over this past 10 years. They have been a major influence on my life,

and I believe it's made me a better person. And I'm hoping that when we do resolve this case is that we're finally going to make a real difference in the military, maybe establish new law and precedent so that other people can ensure that when they come in to serve their country, when they take the oath that they are going to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, you know, that those constitutional rights are going to be upheld. You know, my 14th and Fifth Amendment rights were violated and my right to privacy, my right to privacy, my right to. to do process, my right to self-incrimination. I took a note to defend the Constitution, and although we understand that as members of the military, some of those protections don't apply in certain situations, right? But I would expect that those rights,

that I had a right to a lawyer, that I had a right to due process, that I had a right to all of those things that we offer and that are offered to you as an illegal rights in the Constitution, is that those rights are going to be upheld to the members who are sworn to protect it. Yeah, I've got to be honest with you, man. Like I said, it's going to take me a few days. is to wrap my head around this.

That's an unbelievable experience that you just laid out. I know. And I hope that the podcast helps. I hope that it helps bring attention and it gets scrutiny or oversight or whatever term people would use to impact it in a positive way. So it helps so you can get some resolvement from it and drive your life forward instead of looking back at this for another 10 years. You know, it's, you know, when you go out in those long runs.

I don't run, by the way. Oh, yeah. Fucking hate running. Your army still made it. I said I run. So, you know, I have to force myself in the Army. Yeah, well, I don't blame you. You know, but some of the stories, you know, you've told, like, you know,

jumping tandem with that turf, I was like, yeah, well, that. Yeah, that's a ride, man, you know, smoke checking guys with javelins. I'm like, you know, we do what we have to do, you know, but we would expect that when we serve our country, we do the job that we're mandated to do that the military is also going to back us when we get out. It shows the cracks in the bureaucracy. You know, people are treated unfairly by the military. sometimes and they are the ones who are often without the voice because the military is so much

bigger, so much more powerful. It doesn't mean it's right though. I would agree. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. And like I said, Andy, if it wasn't for you and taking time to read my email, you know, I don't think that this story was ever going to get told for maybe another 10 years. Like I said, man, I hope that it helps. So stay in contact with me. I'm curious to see how all of this resolves itself. Absolutely. And once again, you guys can reach out to me, reach out to my legal team and us. And like I said, let's make some real change that are going to protect our members of our military and make sure that this never happens again. I can't think of better anything than that. Me either. Cool. Thanks a lot. Thank you again to Duke Cannon for supporting Cleared Hot.

I love this company. Their soap is awesome. The solid cologne is awesome. Their body wash is awesome. They make good stuff. You're going to get 10% off of your entire order at Duke Cannon.com when you use the promo code cleared hot all one word all uppercase plus free shipping on orders over 25 dollars like i mentioned at the beginning i'm a huge huge fan of working on your mental health if you are curious or you're struggling or you want to talk to somebody please go to betterhelp dot com slash cleared hot if you have a local option pursue the local option but if you feel like you might be limited, please check this service out. I don't think, regardless of things are going perfect in your life, that there's not a good time to talk to somebody. That objective neutral

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