Kelly Flinn Incident - Charges, Media Coverage, and Disposition

Charges, Media Coverage, and Disposition

On May 20, 1997, following an adulterous affair with a civilian soccer coach at Minot Air Force Base who was married to a female enlisted subordinate in her chain of command, First Lieutenant Kelly Flinn faced a court-martial after being charged by the military with conduct unbecoming an officer, disobeying a lawful order (in writing, to stay away from the married man), and for making a false official statement in which she lied to her superior officer, falsely telling him she had ended the affair.

Flinn's case, due in part to her high visibility in Air Force recruitment advertisements, drew national attention, eventually creating a media circus. Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Ronald Fogleman testified at a congressional hearing that, "In the end, this is not an issue of adultery. This is an issue about an officer, entrusted to fly nuclear weapons, who lied." The media, however, largely treated the case as though Lt. Flinn were being tried by the military for the crime of adultery, and castigated the Air Force for allegedly firing her on moral grounds; a New York Times editorial on the case emphasized the adultery, rather than the actual military charges with which she was charged, and blamed the military's "antiquated adultery rules and their consistency in administering them, as well as their management training."

Following the media outcry, Lieutenant Flinn was allowed to resign from the Air Force by Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Sheila E. Widnall with a general discharge instead of facing a court-martial. She later wrote a book recounting her experiences, entitled Proud to Be: My Life, The Air Force, The Controversy (ISBN 0-7567-5753-3, ISBN 0-375-50109-6).