By Mike Rose, USAFA ’69 (pictured above)
USAFA AOG Member
I invite you to consider my comments below about certain events at the AOG BOD meetings I attended on April 25, 2025, and July 25, 2025, and related matters.
At the BOD meeting on July 25, 2025, Director Rod Bishop introduced the motion, attached as Exhibit #1, that the BOD endorse “the recommendation of other organizations that the President of the United States grant pardons/amnesty to all those who have been negatively impacted by the military’s anthrax or COVID vaccine mandates.”
In support of this motion, Director Bishop asked Chairwoman Almand to recognize me as a subject matter expert to explain why the BOD should support this motion. Chairwoman Almand refused to recognize me, so I did not speak.
If I had been allowed to speak as Director Bishop requested, I would have explained, within whatever time allowed, the following:
1. On August 3, 2018, the AOG BOD passed a Resolution, attached as Exhibit #2, proposed and explained to the BOD by me at a regular BOD meeting and stating in part the following:
“The Board of Directors of the [AFA AOG] wishes to express its support for the recommendations of the Air Force Board for the Correction of Military Records regarding the promotion of Terryl J. Schwalier . . . a 1969 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy [who] has twice had his case reviewed by the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records. Each time, the Board for Correction has recommended his promotion, yet this effort has been unsuccessful to date.”
2. B/Gen (ret) Hans Meuh voted for that Resolution, as a member of the AFA BOD, and exclaimed to the other BOD members in my presence during the BOD meeting: “It’s about time someone did something about this!” By coincidence, B/Gen Meuh happened to be attending the July 25, 2025, BOD meeting when Director Bishop asked that I be allowed to speak regarding his above referenced Motion. B/Gen Meuh would have confirmed the above, if given an opportunity.
The adoption of the Resolution supporting Terry Schwalier by the AOG BOD greatly influenced other organizations and individuals to whom I sent or gave the Resolution to adopt similar resolutions supporting Terry Schwalier. Those included the Air Force Association, the Military Officers Association of America, and numerous dignitaries.
That the opinion of the AFA AOG BOD was respected and influential was evident.
3. Thus, Chairwoman Almand refused to honor Lt. Gen. (ret)/Director Rod Bishop’s request that I, an AOG member in attendance with knowledge relevant to Director Bishop’s motion, be allowed to speak briefly in support of Director Bishop’s motion. Chairwoman Almand thereby deprived her and the other BOD members of receiving the above information for their consideration.
4. I heard Chairwoman Almand exclaim “Who is Terry Schwalier?” as she presided over the 7/25/25 meeting after she refused to let me speak to educate the BOD about him. The realization she did not know who Terry Schwalier is and his significance in the history of the Air Force and the Air Force Academy (including the role in causing General Ron Fogleman to retire early as AF Chief of Staff) is surprising. You and she are invited to learn about Terry, and why on 8/3/18 the AOG BOD voted unanimously to support him with the above referenced Resolution, by reading Exhibits #3 (Letter 9/28/18 by former AF Chief of Staff Mark Welsh), #4 (Resolution 2/9/29 by South Carolina Republican Party), #5 (“The Scapegoat,” Weekly Standard 11/24/97), and #6 (“The Second Sacking of Terryl Schwalier,” Air Force Magazine April 2006) attached. If you read only one document, I suggest reading Exhibit #3 by Gen. Mark Welsh.
5. This 8/3/18 AOG BOD resolution asking then President Trump to promote Terry Schwalier shows that the AOG BOD can and has requested action by the President about a clearly “political” matter to support an AFA graduate. Similarly, the AOG BOD should support the requests by other organizations for President Trump to provide amnesty/pardons for AFA graduates and other military members harmed by the admittedly illegal COVID vaccine mandate, given that several federal court decisions have ruled the denials of religious exemptions by the Air Force and other services were illegal, the written finding by the Secretary of Defense that the COVID vaccine mandate was “illegal as implemented,” and the Executive Order by President Trump stating the COVID vaccine mandate was “unfair” and “unjust.”
6. Very importantly, Chairwoman Almand should not be allowed to effectively kill motions made and seconded by Directors by shutting off debate and the presentation of evidence in support of a motion, as she did by not allowing Director Bishop to provide evidentiary support for his motion as stated above. Chairwoman Almand also avoided fair consideration of Director Bishop’s motion by allowing, after denying Director Bishop’s request to allow me to speak for his motion, a different visiting AOG member to comment on Director Bishop’s motion who Director Bishop had not asked to be recognized to speak about his motion. Thus, Chairwoman Almand used her position as gatekeeper of communications to avoid Director Bishop’s evidence supporting his motion to be considered by the BOD while allowing other evidence not sought by Director Bishop to be considered by the BOD.
7. In my opinion Chairwoman Almand also has compromised irreparably her ability to lead the BOD by the aggressive, hostile actions of her husband, once in her presence and obviously based on her communications to her husband, toward Directors Bishop and Walker, and about all Unity BOD members, and her failures to have stopped, apologized for or commented on them. Nor has her husband apologized for his actions. She and her husband have created a toxic environment in which Directors Bishop and Walker, and other Unity BOD members, know their hostile attitudes toward them and must fear what her husband might do next. Will the Unity BOD members be attacked in the future? Will they or their families be doxed? Is security needed to be present at BOD meetings and breaks, to ensure there is no repeat or escalation in the future? How do we know?
8. I personally object to Director Lowe’s having made gratuitous, irrelevant, derogatory, on-the-record comments about me in his capacity as a member of the AOG BOD during the BOD meetings on July 25 and August 25, 2025, respectively. There was no opportunity for me to respond to Director Lowe’s denunciations. His comments as a BOD member denigrating me while I was merely attending BOD meetings were unprofessional, inappropriate, unethical, unfair, and not worthy of an AOG BOD member, especially when I was unable to respond. I should be welcomed at AOG meetings as an AOG member and the founder and ten-year President of the AOG Chapter in South Carolina, which I led each year to be an AOG “Distinguished Chapter,” not attacked verbally in a BOD meeting by a BOD member, again especially when he knows I cannot respond. That disrespectful conduct by a BOD member is contrary to the provision in the AOG’s Articles of Incorporation stating that a purpose of the AOG is “[t]he fostering of fellowship and brotherhood among graduates of the United States Air Force Academy.” The AOG BOD should pass a Code of Conduct for how BOD members treat each other and other AOG members during and in conjunction with BOD meetings.
9. The AOG Board of Directors should try to influence decision makers to act in the interests of the Air Force Academy and its graduates, as it did by passing on 8/3/18 the Resolution supporting Terry Schwalier referenced above. The AOG BOD appears to support and to oppose some political ideas that it likes or dislikes, while inconsistently avoiding doing the same regarding other political ideas. Its (a) support of DEI in its AOG publications while opposing/limiting communications opposing DEI in those publications and its (b) support of appointments and AOG affinity groups based on DEI but opposing even discussing/questioning the propriety of doing that are examples of the BOD’s inconsistent application of its professed rule, applied when and as convenient, not to support or oppose a political idea.
Mike Rose AFA’69
Exhibits (all PDF)
Exhibit #1- USAFA AOG Board Resolution 9-24-18
Exhibit #2 – Pardon and Amnesty Motion
Exhibit #3 – Letter fm General Mark Welsh, former AF Chief of Staff 9.28.18
Exhibit #4 – Terry Schwalier Resolution by SCGOP 2.9.19
Exhibit #5 – Scapegoat article Weekly Standard Terry Schwalier
Exhibit #6 – Second Sacking of Terryl Schwalier April 2006
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