The State - News from April 6, 1989

One of the highest ranking and most decorated black officers in the California National Guard has been cleared of allegations of sexual and financial improprieties. Lt. Col Ezell Ware Jr., 48, succeeded in retaining his commission and is working full time as a staff assistant in the California Guard headquarters. A panel of four officers recommended last year that he be stripped of his reserve commission. But the California National Guard commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Thrasher, overturned the panel’s decision. Top-level officials at 6th Army headquarters and at the Pentagon have endorsed Thrasher’s action, said Ware’s lawyer, Robert Bernstein. As a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Ware was shot down five times. He received an Air Medal with 21 oak leaf clusters, three Meritorious Service Medals and two Army Commendation Medals.