A Corrupt Phony, a Closed Airport

Rarely do two of my peculiar interests -- aviation and Special Forces -- come together with the vigorous bang they did this week in Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

Atlantic City itself is a convergence of sorts -- a Mob convergence. It has a double dose of Mafia catnip: New Jersey, and gambling casinos. Accordingly it reaches stratospheric levels of mobbed-up-ness: a large part of the city council is under indictment at the present time. (Just like any other time, apparently). And bribery is a way of life. 

Enter the mayor. Bob Levy been one of the guys working to turn oceanfront airport, now-closed Bader Field, into a cash cow for one group or another of connected mobsters, er, developers, er, gaming executives. Er, sorry about the threedundant stutter there. After all, he was a man of proven integrity, he told us, based on his Vietnam service in Special Forces. 

Stop me if you've heard this next bit before. As it turns out, the Mayor's Special Forces history is as phony as a casino's intimations of easy money. After an attempt to have city employees threaten the reporters working on the story, he's done the usual criminal politician thing: lawyered-up and decamped, apparently, to "rehab." 

Good luck. You can rehab addiction. You can't rehab crooked. Claiming you were in an elite military unit to dip yourself in their hard-earned respect -- a phenomenon now called Stolen Valor thanks to this eye-opening book -- is ipso facto crooked.

Levy was busted, as most of these guys are, by real veterans. The culture is too peculiar, and its alumni far too connected these days, for a ringer to operate for long undetected. A local vet, James H. Simmons, first wanted Levy to talk about his war experiences to a veterans' group, but began getting that queasy feeling we all have when we meet nine tenths of the would-be "special forces" guys out there. 

Simmons contacted veterans' organizations, outfits that specialize in phony-busting like Chuck and Mary Schantag's POW Network, and the local media. It turned out a former mayor of a small Jersey township was the decidedly not-mobbed-up Tom Waskovich, a recent leader of the very, very small Special Operations Association. (How small? Consider the membership requirement, which even excludes many real Special Forces vets: proven, documented experience behind enemy lines in war). 

The investigators soon had Levy's public military records (available from the National Archives and Records Administration). He responded with evasiveness (he couldn't remember any of his team members from Vietnam?) which became unwillingness to answer questions, which then became dark threats against imaginary enemies. So the truth did what truth does, and shone a beacon on Levy's lies. 

Levy was never in Special Forces. He never attended Special Forces training. The local paper went public with the news on Veteran's Day, 2006. Levy evaded, threatened, blustered... and finally, confessed and ran like a rabbit. If you needed any more proof of his bogosity, there it is... the guy is practically radiating free bogons. 

The very peculiar thing about this case is that Levy is actually a Vietnam veteran. He's actually an Army retiree and served honorably and creditably for twenty years. At least one of the Bronze Stars he claims (for service, not valor) may actually be genuine. But his Special Forces claim is proven bogus, and his Combat Infantryman Badge also appears to be. 

Before the Internet, it was likely that many, many thousands of these guys were never exposed. 

So Levy's career is in ruins. And so, as it happens, is Bader Field. It was one of the unique urban airfields in America, and, until the city stopped maintaining it in an attempt to drive traffic away, was a delightful place to stop. (Especially delightful if you like polluted beaches, or playing slot machines in dense clouds of cigarette smoke... but those problems were fixable, it was all a matter of focusing public interest). 

Bader Field was closed so that mobsters could make money, not the city. And it stays closed because the mobsters can't agree on the apportionment of the spoils.

AOPA, which represents a remarkable two thirds of licensed pilots in the USA, has a peculiar interest in keeping airports alive. "A mile of highway gets you a mile," AOPA President Phil Boyer is fond of saying, "but a mile of runway gets you anywhere." Intelligently promoted, Bader Field could have been an incredible font of cash for the city. Bizjets full of high rollers could have reinvigorated the tawdry casino strip; nothing brings in big-spending people like fun, exclusivity, and easy access. Big-spending people nuy definition leave a lot of money behind when they leave a playground. Much of that money goes to municipal and state coffers (in taxes and fees) and to regular, working-class citizens. 

But in Atlantic City, the question in city government is never what's best for the city. It's what's best for the organized crime and gambling (at the risk of repeating myself) interests that own the city's corrupt politicians. So Bader Field is actually, in their view, a parcel of land best handed over to whatever development don can whack his way to a quorum on the city council. 

Right now, the alignments in the Atlantic City crew, er, city council, are constantly shifting with the balance of power -- as they rat one another out to Federal prosecutors (no sense wasting time informing New Jersey cops or prosecutors, who are mobbed-up themselves) and decamp to Club Fed to work on their golf swings. So exactly which crime family or casino developer (there I go with the repeating myself again) will get the prime parcel of land that was once Bader Field remains unknown. 

It just won't ever be an airport again. 

And Mayor Levy? Well, he won't ever be Special Forces again. Of course, he never was.