US Army...More Scandals!

Local Editor

Scandals continue to chase the American army every once and then.

This time, Top Air Force officials described a persistent culture of "undue stress and fear" that led 92 out of 550 members of the military's nuclear missile corps to be involved in cheating on a monthly proficiency test on which they felt pressured to get perfect scores to get promoted.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Thursday that at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, roughly half of the 183 missile launch officers have been implicated in the cheating.
The cheating scandal is the latest in an array of troubles that now have the attention of senior military officials, including War Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The Associated Press began reporting on the issue nine months ago, revealing serious security lapses, low morale, burnout and other issues in the nuclear force. The Air Force recently announced the cheating scandal that grew out of a drug investigation.
Meanwhile, a retired Army officer reprimanded for bullying his staff and belittling subordinates is getting his tarnished reputation burnished online.
Army Times reported Wednesday that retired Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, the former chief of the Missile Agency, apparently hired OptimizeUp, which specializes in "reputation management" by getting Google rankings to display certain content higher in its search results.

In O'Reilly's case, Army Times found a glut of positive information posted in blogs, releases and YouTube videos is now interspersed in Google search results of O'Reilly along with a withering May 2012 Department of inspector general's report recommending corrective action. The report blasted O'Reilly's leadership style - described by one subordinate as "management by blowtorch and pliers."
Former War Secretary Leon Panetta allowed O'Reilly to retire and keep his rank, but issued a reprimand, the newspaper reported.

The Army Times noted OptimizeUp's press release is the second search result for O'Reilly on Google, two above the first news report about the DOD inspector general's probe.
On Yahoo!, the first page of search results has just one reference to the scandal.
Beal told the newspaper he would estimate the cost of the online reputation rewrite as $10,000 to $15,000.

O'Reilly declined to comment to Army Times.

Business Insider reported Thursday that reputation management is becoming a lucrative and growing industry, noting a 2010 Microsoft survey found 70 percent of companies have rejected job seekers because of their online reputation.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team