Piety.

The world is so easy to manage, monitor, run, lead when we fill the ranks with pious, meek, fearful, obedient followers.

Black and white.  The world is so easy to run when we break it up into "black" and "white".

White is "our poster boy/girl".  Perfect, happy, shining people.  Young.  Handsome.  Unflawed in any way.  If they are flawed such as maimed in battle, we turn them into a new kind of poster boy/girl.  We make them into a courageous hero.

Black is someone who does not fit.  Black is messy.  Black means more work, more counselling, more boards of review.

Kelly Flinn was a poster girl.  She made serious errors in judgement.  Mainly, she got psychologically isolated and extremely lonely and probably horny.  How else can you explain getting involved with a pathological liar and married man claiming to be unattached.  All parents know that your kids will be hugely influenced by their peers.  If a woman gets involved with a persuasive pathological liar and she feels lonely and yearns to be wanted and needed and loved, It is a very powerful combination.  The Air Force works hard to make remote bases like Minot active and positive.  That is what MWR is for.  The Chaplain helps to form a parish community.  The commanders do their share by forming squadron "families" who work and socialise together.  But it is touchy when you have a single unattached female in your unit.

I understand how Kelly may have been affected by her environment.  I understand how her base community may not have been able to fill all the voids for her to feel supported and a strong member of that community.  I think that her search for a man-lover-mate could lead to a bad selection as Minot was probably not as rich in pickings as a major population centre.

I also understand that big organisations like IBM, General Motors and the US Air Force, don't like poster boys/girls that could cause them embarassment.  In marketing it's call damage to the brand.  Air Force leaders don't want to admit that their poster boys/girls may have issues with being socially immature.  They want their poster boys to marry former Miss USA's and their poster girls to marry other members of the government, corporate business, civil service, or military of equal rank so as not to cause fraternization issues.  Then they become poster couples.

In ten years, we will find that the Kelly Flinn incidents will be handled with much more finesse and aplomb because society and the military leadership will catch up to new behaviours in our society. There will be more interracial couples; more gay and lesbian couples; more single parents; more blended families.

No USAF Academy graduate on graduation day could have designed the mess that became Kelly Flinn's life.  She was hugely affected by the circumstances in her life.  Chuck Yeager tells a great story about how his wing commander pulled him out of an squadron commander's job in Europe after his squadron tore up an Officers' Mess on a drunken spree.  The Wing commander explained to the protesting Yeager, "If I didn't pull you out of there, the base brass was going to issue punishment".  Now that is leadership!  Kelly Flinn's leadership should have been in constant communication with her and talking through her personal matters as they affected her professional performance.  She had two or three senior officers who could have fulfilled that role.  But she did not get that kind of support.

I say, be balanced in your opinions of Kelly Flinn and count the impact of the environment.