A Web of Truth

The Corps kicked her out of her job weeks later.

In Greenhouse's dismissal letter, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock said her removal was "based on her performance and not in retaliation for any disclosures of alleged improprieties she may have made." She was moved to a lesser post in the civil works division. She says she was "totally" removed from contracting and was banished from the Senior Executive Service. She also says her yearly salary has been cut by $2,000.

"They stuck me in a little cubicle down the hall, took my building pass," she said. "It's all about humiliation."

Her dismissal made national news, played out in editorials and news stories as a whistle-blower done wrong.

"She was aware she was taking considerable risk," says Marty Linsky, author and professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, who taught Greenhouse in a leadership seminar a few years ago. "She cared a lot about the values she believed in and was prepared to take risks that a lot people would not have."

The merits of her allegations about contracting, about her treatment in the Corps, remain unclear.

A Corps spokesman declined to address the specifics. Instead, the Corps issued a written statement that says the agency followed the law in its dealings with Halliburton. As for Greenhouse's EEOC complaint, the statement said the agency "takes seriously" its employees' right of privacy, and thus could not comment.

Any further investigation appears to be minimal.

This, from another DPC hearing last month, after Greenhouse was demoted:

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.): "Ms. Greenhouse, has the Inspector General's Office made any attempt to interview you?"

Greenhouse: "None whatsoever."

Dorgan: "None?"

Greenhouse: "None whatsoever."

Dorgan: "That's unbelievable to me."

* * *

It is 11:20 on a recent weeknight in Greenhouse's million-dollar home in Reston, a picture-perfect manse in a picture-perfect development.

In the formal dining room, elegant napkin holders, a shade between bone and gold, match placemats that match chair cushions that match picture frames that match just-so floor-length drapes. Moonlight floats across the manicured lawn outside.

It would be domestic perfection if not for the masses of white paper heaped on the dining room table, great reams of files held in place with black binder clips. Crumbs from a takeout chicken sandwich are on a plate. A couple of glasses of melted ice and Dr Pepper are leaving a ring on a stray document.

Greenhouse is still dressed in her office suit, going through files that she says will prove that she's right. The kids are grown and gone; Al is away on business most of the time. Cheryl, her daughter, says the family has tried to get her to find another job, but she has refused. She says her mom is very, very disappointed.

Alone in the house, Greenhouse sits at the table and considers the fight of her life, and perhaps if she's lost it, or whether she should elevate it to federal court.

"I learned very early that everything you did in life you did with every fiber of your being," she says, her voice a mix of pride and fury. "Why would I sit here now and let them tell me that I'm something I'm not? Why would I do that? I'm Bunny Greenhouse first, then I'm in a government position. I will not compromise who I am."

In that sentence, in the expansive, quiet house, you hear the echoes of her parents talking to her and her siblings in that sleepy, cotton-picking delta town, a place where the world told you that you were second-rate, second-class, an afterthought of humanity. You wonder how this is all going to end up, here in another place and another time; you wonder if the lessons of youth can always hold sway over the lessons of the world.