Hero punished for criticizing vaccine

Recent case of unfair treatment.


Special operations sergeant reprimanded for going to surgeon at DAFB
By LEE WILLIAMS / The News Journal
10/31/2004DOVER -- Jason Adkins is a hero.

On May 13, 2003, the technical sergeant was on the first C-5 flown into Baghdad. The aircraft and the runway were blacked-out. Adkins, the pilots and the crew wore night-vision goggles, casting a green tint on the gunfire that filled the skyline.

His next mission was even worse.

On Jan. 8, 2004, after another C-5 had an engine shredded by a surface-to-air missile, Adkins was picked to help fly the crippled aircraft out of Baghdad on its three remaining engines - a bold feat even airworthiness experts didn't know was possible with a 374,000-pound aircraft.

"We knew if [the plane] took another missile, we'd be riding it into the dirt," he said.

C-5s don't have ejection systems or parachutes for pilots or crew.

Adkins and the entire crew were recommended, and are still in line, for the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the nation's highest awards for bravery.

Now, despite medals, special operations missions and an unblemished service record spanning 14 years, Adkins says commanders at Dover are making an example of him because he complained about his medical issues linked to the anthrax vaccine. Adkins believes he's being punished to send a warning to other personnel that they shouldn't call attention to the most controversial issue to hit the base since the Vietnam War.

Adkins' former commander, retired Col. Felix Grieder, is enraged that an airman of Adkins' abilities is being singled out for speaking the truth.