A retired one-star Air Force general who believes he was illegally denied his second star as a result of the 1996 attack on Khobar Towers plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to restore his promotion.
"Following the Khobar Towers attack, I was unjustly removed from the major general promotion list," retired Brig. Gen. Terryl Schwalier said in a statement Friday to Air Force Times on Friday. "By comparison, the 911 attack on the Pentagon and its subsequent investigation underscored the unfairness of the removal."
Schwalier was commander of the 4404th Wing at the King Abdulaziz Airbase in Saudi Arabia when terrorists attacked the Khobar Towers housing complex, killing 19 airmen and injuring hundreds more.
While two Air Force investigations found that Schwalier had taken sufficient measures to protect the base, a separate Defense Department investigation concluded that Schwalier could have saved lives if he had moved the base's blast walls or made the housing complex's windows more resistant to explosions.
Schwalier's promotion to major general had already been approved by the Senate, but President Bill Clinton took his name off the promotion list at the recommendation of then- Defense Secretary William Cohen. Schwalier retired as a one-star general in 1997.
Starting in 2003, Schwalier has asked the Air Force Board of Corrections of Military Records to restore his promotion. In 2007, he briefly succeeded when the Air Force declared he had become a two-star general in January 1997.
But the Air Force rescinded the promotion in 2008 after the Defense Department's General Counsel's office argued there was no legal basis to give Schwalier his second star.
Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in January that Clinton had the right to remove Schwalier's name from the promotion list. Now Schwalier plans to file an appeal with the Supreme Court on March 24, said his attorney David Sheldon.
Schwalier feels the Defense Department General Counsel's office "unlawfully intervened" to stop the Air Force secretary from "exercising his legal authority to correct my military records," he said in the statement.
"The DoD general counsel's actions were contrary to the law and raise significant Constitutional issues," he said in the statement. "Still determined to see justice done, we are requesting the Supreme Court to review my case."
