Army General’s Promotion Pending After Congressional Staffer Claims He Called Her “Sweetheart”

Maj. Gen. Ryan Gonsalves, a general in the United States army that was up for promotion, is now facing repercussions for calling a female staffer “sweetheart.”

After an inspector general’s probe into the situation and a report of the findings being reported to the media on Friday, the report concluded that the “preponderance of the evidence” indicated that Gonsalves did in fact refer to the female staffer as “sweetheart.”

As a result of that language, Gonsalves violated Army Command Policy, which says that everybody must be treated with “dignity and respect,” it was recommended that the judge in the ruling take “appropriate action” against the general.

The Army has declined to state what will be happening to Gonsalves in the future. In July, Gonsalves was nominated for a third star, but his nomination was formally withdrawn Nov. 27, after the sweetheart incident.

The report redacts the names of the female staffer, and the 10 others who were in the meeting. Apparently what happened in the meeting is that Gonsalves took issue with how young the woman was in the meeting, and he told her to take detailed notes on military spending “since she was a Democrat and did not believe in funding the military,” the IG report stated.

Members of the meeting describes Gonsalves’ remarks as “sarcastic and unprofessional,” the report states. Another male staffer described the remarks as “sexist, inappropriate and unprofessional,” according to the report.

At one point during the meeting, the female staffer passed a note to a colleague that read: “Did this guy really just call me sweetheart?,” the report states.

This language is not acceptable in the work place, and Gonsavles should know that, but does that one word really prevent him from being promoted as a general? I want the best generals out there, if he deserves the promotion on merit and this is the only thing holding him back, he should be promoted.