CAPTAIN WEST USN (John M. Jackson), in A Few Good Men, was head of the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps office at the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. He held that position when the case of US v. L. Cpl. Harold W. Dawson USMC and Pfc. Louden Downey USMC fell into his lap.The case came to his attention when Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway USN, Special Counsel for Internal Affairs, requested an appointment with him to discuss it. He received her, together with two other Navy officers. Cdr. Galloway laid out the case: Dawson and Downey, on or about midnight on the night of 6 September 1991, entered the barracks room of Pfc. William T. Santiago USMC, and then and there committed an assault that resulted in Santiago's death. All three Marines were members of Rifle Security Company Windward, Marine Ground Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.The problem, as Cdr. Galloway explained it: Dawson and Downey were recruiting-poster Marines. Santiago was a chronic screw-up. I was thinking it sounded a lot like a Code Red. Code Red. West knew that phrase, knew what it represented, and hated it. A Code Red was, quite simply, a hazing attack.Then Cdr. Galloway came out with her proposal: move Dawson and Downey to the Yard and have Division assign them counsel-- someone with a great familiarity with the inner workings of the military. In short, she very much wanted to represent Dawson and Downey herself.West suggested, and then ordered, that Galloway leave the room so they could talk about her behind her back. She had this irritating way of forcing a superior officer to say out loud that which said officer would infinitely prefer to leave unsaid.As soon as she shut the door behind her, West barked out to his subordinates, I thought that Code Red [stuff] wasn't going on anymore! He also suggested they needed to find out exactly what had happened before the rest of the world did.Next question: was Galloway the best defense counsel? Answer: no. She'd been in Internal Affairs for a year. Before that, she disposed of three cases in two years. Three cases in two years? Who'd she been handling? The Rosenbergs?!? (He learned later it wasn't the Rosenbergs. She tended to over-litigate the simplest misdemeanors.) The consensus: she was an excellent investigator, but had no talent for litigation. All passion; no street smarts.He ordered the two to ask Galloway to rejoin them. Then he announced he would move Dawson and Downey to the Yard--and have Division assign them a different counsel.He assigned Lt. (jg) Daniel A. Kaffee USN, a young defense counsel who had, in his nine months in the JAG Corps, disposed of an incredible forty-four cases--all by plea bargaining. He was not prepared for Kaffee to plead his clients not guilty and insist on a general court-martial. He was even less prepared to see the two defendants' barracks XO, Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson USMC, commit suicide, and their commander, Col. Nathan R. Jessup USMC, disgraced and charged ultimately with murder in Santiago's death, and Dawson and Downey convicted only of conduct unbecoming and sentenced to time served and dishonorable discharge. He might, however, have predicted these results--for he still has the memo that crossed his desk informing him that Galloway had gained the confidence of Pfc. Downey's nearest living relative (one Virginia Miller) and, by that means, won assignment as Downey's attorney-of-record. Show less «