* CASE STUDY
“SFC Sharp and the SECRET Papers”
Recently, you received an assignment as the communications and electronics staff NCO of the 99th Infantry Battalion. You are replacing SFC Sharp who is on the promotion list to master sergeant and is departing for his next duty assignment in two weeks.
SFC Sharp’s welcome was impressive and he has done everything imaginable to ensure you’re getting off to a good start. Your Soldiers appear well trained, and your section sergeant, SGT Day, seems to know just about everything. You know you have big shoes to fill when SFC Sharp leaves because everyone seems to like and respect him. You’ve heard people say that he knows more about infantry operations than most infantry platoon sergeants.
SFC Sharp has cleaned out his desk and tells you to make yourself at home. Later this afternoon he is receiving an award for his service to the 99th. His farewell party is this evening at the club.
As you are setting up your things in your new desk, you discover some papers wedged between the wall and the side of the desk. You pull them out and discover that they are pages from a communication security book and marked “SECRET.” You attach a cover sheet to them and go into the security vault to talk to SGT Day.
SGT Day checks the inventory and destruction certificates and discovers that SFC Sharp certified the destruction of the book these pages came from two weeks ago. Both you and SGT Day search the vault and the outer office for any other pages but you don’t find any. SGT Day turns to you and says,
“Sergeant, I don’t know about you, but the way I see this is that our section area is secure every evening. The civilian cleaning team doesn’t even clean our area. Only our people ever come in here. From the look of these pages they’ve been behind that desk for some time. These pages are from an alternate communications security book