* Thirty-two drill instructors convicted, charged or
investigated
* Fifty-nine victims identified and offered care
* “How could this have happened?: House panel chairman asks
By David Alexander
WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The sexual assault of 59
military recruits by drill instructors at a Texas air base was a
“stunning” case that cannot be allowed to happen again, the top
U.S. Air Force general told lawmakers on Wednesday as he
testified before Congress about steps to address the problem.
But victims groups at a hearing on the attacks at Lackland
Air Force Base in San Antonio said the incident was just the
latest example of a sexual assault problem that has bedeviled
the military for decades. They said the military had failed to
fully address the problem for far too long.
The Armed Services Committee in the Republican-led House of
Representatives agreed to hold the hearing on the unfolding
scandal at Lackland after being urged to do so by nearly 80
lawmakers.
“How could this have happened? How could the system and in
particular the leadership have failed to protect the men and
women who serve our nation from sexual predators?” asked
Representative Buck McKeon, the panel’s chairman.
“The events at Lackland are the most recent example of
sexual assaults that have plagued our military for far too
long,” he said.
The military has been grappling with the issue since the
1991 Tailhook scandal, when dozens of Marine Corps and Navy
aviators were accused of sexually assaulting 83 women and 7 men
at a convention in Las Vegas.
The latest Pentagon report on sexual assault in the
military, released in April 2012, said 3,192 cases were reported
in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2011. That was a 1
percent increase in reporting from the previous fiscal year.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who has tried to make
curbing sexual assault a priority, has said there could be as
many as 19,000 cases a year, a number he called “unacceptable.”
The Lackland sexual assaults came to light in June 2011 when
a female recruit reported that a drill sergeant had sexually
assaulted a fellow trainee. The resulting investigation found
that the instructor had attacked 10 victims between October 2010
and June 2011.
During the course of the investigation, three other drill
instructors approached their squadron superintendent and said
they knew of other instructors who were engaging in
inappropriate conduct with their trainees, prompting another
investigation.
General Edward Rice, who is responsible for recruiting and
training Air Force personnel, said so far eight drill sergeants
have received disciplinary action for sexual misconduct, nine
have been charged and are facing courts martial and 15 are still
under investigation.
Rice said 59 “victims or alleged victims” had been
identified and offered support services, which all but two had
accepted.
The Air Force chief of staff, General Mark Welsh, said the
scope of the Lackland scandal was shocking.
“This collection of events at basic military training has
been stunning to most of us in the Air Force,” he said. “There’s
simply no excuse for it, there’s no justifiable explanation and
there is no way we can allow this to happen again.”
RESPONSE CALLED INADEQUATE
He and Rice said the Air Force had implemented half of the
46 recommendations made by Major General Margaret Woodward, who
investigated the Lackland situation at the commander’s request.
Another 22 recommendations will be completed by November
this year and the final one – for a shorter basic training
period – is being considered separately.
Victims’ advocates who attended the hearing said the
military’s response to Lackland was inadequate and was unlikely
to stop the problem of sexual assaults in the military or even
to ensure impartial investigation and prosecution of the crime.
“The military is not able to solve this problem,” said
attorney Susan Burke, who has represented victims of military
sexual assault. “They have had decades. The definition of
insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect a
different result.”
Burke and other victims’ advocates have called for lawmakers
to change the way the military justice system handles rape and
sexual assault charges.
“We need to have legislation passed by Congress in this
session and we need that legislation to take justice, … the
judicatory power, out of the conflicted and biased hands of the
chain of command and put it in impartial hands,” she said.
Lawmakers also heard directly from victims of sexual
assault, including retired Air Force Technical Sergeant Jennifer
Norris, who told how she was raped once and assaulted three
times in her first two years in the service.
She said she had a difficult time listening to the testimony
by Welsh and Rice. While they may genuinely care about changing
the system, they still rely on military justice that depends on
commanders to “do the right thing,” she said.
“In my eyes, that means, OK, commander, you’re the judge,
jury and executioner,” she said. While the civilian legal system
has different courts and routes of appeal, “in the military we
have one person that may or may not help you,” she said.
(Editing by Christopher Wilson)
