An Inverness woman, who admitted sipping alcohol, will not be expelled for disobedience.
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
Published December 18, 2003
Cadet Christina Fifer hasn't lost the chance to fulfill her dream of having a career as an officer in the U.S. Air Force.
Air Force Academy cadet Christina Fifer will not be expelled.
Fifer, 19, of Inverness refused to identify the senior female cadet who gave her a sip of whiskey three months ago. Academy officials said that refusal was a violation of the oath Fifer took to obey orders.
The academy's superintendent finished a review of her disciplinary case and decided to retain her, spokesman John Van Winkle said Wednesday.
"It's been a long day," Fifer said.
Reached at her quarters, Fifer could not manage too much excitement about the news.
For one thing, she still hadn't received official word of the decision. Plus, she's in the midst of final exams.
Fifer has said she feels caught in the cross-fire. In the wake of the cadet sexual assault scandal that has rocked the Colorado Springs school during the past year, academy officials have taken a hard line on alcohol infractions.
"Just so we all understand each other, we are in the Air Force and you will be held to Air Force Standards," Brig. Gen. John Weida, the academy commandant, wrote to cadets in a September memo. He said any underage cadet who drinks faces forfeiture of pay, restrictions and probation.
Fifer, who admitted sipping and then spitting out the whiskey during a visit to a campsite, already has endured those punishments. She came forward because she knew she felt bound by the academy's honor code to admit the transgression.
But it was the potential for expulsion that was most troubling for Fifer, a Citrus High School graduate who had dreamed of an Air Force career from the first time she stepped into the school's Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps class.
Fifer and her attorney, John Buckley, argued that she had been assured by her immediate superior that she would not have to reveal the identity of the person who provided the alcohol. Fifer then promised the other cadet that she would not reveal her identity.
But when higher-ranking academy personnel heard about the incident, they ordered Fifer to provide the senior cadet's name. Under the school's rules, such an infraction by the senior cadet could result in dismissal.
Fifer refused because she felt she had made the mistake and no one else should lose their career over her violation of rules. Then she was told that she could be expelled.
Buckley had argued that the cadet was taught about teamwork and honor and had counted on the assurance she got from her immediate superior.
"We just hoped that the academy would do the right thing," he said Wednesday.
As word of the cadet's plight spread, her family and her attorney received supportive calls and e-mails.
Then last week, U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-New Mexico, an academy graduate, asked the Air Force to reconsider the case because of the cadet's willingness to come forward and take responsibility for her actions.
"She's tough as nails," Wilson wrote to Air Force secretary James Roche. "If we do not want this young woman at the academy, who do we want."
- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Barbara Behrendt can be reached at behrendt@sptimes.com or 564-3621.
