The reason I say go to the IG, rather than the commander of the person's unit, is that many times, the commander might like the servicemember (SM) so they might just sweep it under the rug.
I just exposed my military WW last night, and I have to say that this is great advice.
I did a bad thing back in late January, I partially exposed. I told a few very close relatives of mine, and her 1st Sgt, but no one else. Here's how that went down:
- WW's 1st Sgt tells me he is going to issue a no-contact order, but tells her that he does not have enough evidence to do so (since I never gave him any)
- A whole lot of nothing....
I didn't go to the IG when I exposed last night, but I did involve a lot of her coworkers, as this was a workplace A. Once her Chain of Command realized that I was willing to expose to this level, their tune changed.
Today, a mere 12 hours after sending the facebook exposure messages, her 1st Sgt buys me lunch and asks me if I feel they are not doing enough. I said I needed him to issue the no-contact order, in writing and asked what I would need to provide him to make that happen. He tells me it will be taken care of by Monday, though he doesn't feel I needed to expose to this level (that seems to be the general consensus from people...other than this site of course.) Now, they are in CYA mode, and things are going to get done.
If you don't go to the IG, at least make sure that more than just her 1st Sgt and CC know about it. If they are placed in a position where it looks like they didn't do enough to prevent a CRIME, they could be held accountable.
I truly feel blessed to have this happen while in the military. I don't know how I could do this if I didn't have some guarantee that there would be no contact...God bless all you civilian BSs out there!
Edit: Missed some of the quote
