National Guard Col. Leslie Zyzda Martin Fired Based Upon Unsubstantiated Complaints Per Reporting

Fired WI National Guard Colonel wants answersPhoto byKenny Yoo for Wisconsin Watch)

Col. Leslie Zyzda Martin was terminated by the Wisconsin National Guard and wants answers reports Wisconsin Watch.

Wisconsin Watch in it's report alledges that Col. Leslie Zyzda Martin faced unsubstantiated complaints during her time leading Volk Field before now-interim Adjutant General David May got rid of her.

“Let me start by saying this is a one-way conversation,” said Gen. David May, her supervisor at the time and now interim head of the Wisconsin National Guard, reading off of a piece of paper.

“Colonel Zyzda Martin, I am removing you from command, effective immediately. Based on information presented to me in two command directed investigations, I have lost confidence in your ability to command.”

Zyzda Martin sat across from May in the air traffic control tower conference room at Volk Field that day, Nov. 8, 2021, flabbergasted and confused. She was not allowed to speak and was escorted to her office to collect her things and led off the base she briefly commanded.

She knew several complaints had been lodged against her, but she said May had never questioned her about them nor showed her any evidence supporting the allegations.

“Some of the things I didn’t even know what he was talking about when he was reading it,” said Zyzda Martin, 56, of May’s script. “It was very surreal.”

Three years later, the one-way conversation continues. According to Zyzda Martin and public records in her case, the Wisconsin National Guard has produced scant evidence of wrongdoing during her time in command of Volk Field.

Zyzda-Martin, now of Sioux City, Iowa, says she's never gotten adequate explanation and has now sued the Office of Information and Privacy of the National Guard Bureau. Her lawsuit contends the office has violated the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by not responding to her request for records about her employment by the statutory deadline, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in followup.

According to the lawsuit, all Zyzda-Martin received when she was relieved of command were letters of admonishment and reprimand that were based on "unsubstantiated allegations" against her and cite no specific factual basis for the demotion.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Madison to declare the National Guard violated FOIA by not replying to Zyzda-Martin's request and withholding the requested records, and order their immediate disclosure, for free.

Zyzda-Martin is represented by Lili Behm, of Hawks Quindel, S.C. in Madison. According to Behm, the records lawsuit follows a discrimination complaint with the state Equal Rights Division against the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs. (Wisconsin Air National Guard is a division of the department).

The lawsuit alleges Zyzda-Martin and other similarly-situated women were passed over in favor of certain in-state male counterparts, that May and the ANG's treatment of women officers shows a pattern of sex discrimination, and that May does not expose male ANG officers to the kind of career-damaging treatment Zyzda-Martin received.

That complaint remains pending in the administrative review process in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.