DenverPost.com - Air Force brass 'well aware' of assaults: Leaders at the "highest levels" of the Air Force knew for years there was a sexual assault problem at the Air Force Academy, but they didn't respond effectively, an independent investigating commission has found. And when problems boiled over into a scandal, the Air Force's top attorney omitted mention of those prior warnings in her own investigative report to spare top leaders public criticism, the panel said. "We found a deep chasm in leadership during the most critical time in the academy's history - a chasm that extended far beyond its campus in Colorado Springs," said former Republican U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler, chairwoman of the investigating commission. "Sadly, we believe this chasm helped create an environment in which sexual assault became a part of life at the academy." [...] "They mentioned some specific names here," said U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo. "They also implicated the previous administration before the current one. They traced it clear back to 1993." According to the report, there were 142 allegations of sexual assault at the academy between 1993 and 2002. Many of the victims say their allegations were met with official indifference and often retribution.
It's really sad that the Air Force thought it was more important to protect its officers than to protect its cadets. It's worse that, when public awareness of the problem forced the Air Force to investigate, they still thought that protecting their officers was so important that prior instances of attacks being reported and the brass being warned were omitted from their internal investigation report. It's even more embarrassing that one of the things they did in response was to strip the victims of any expectation of confidentiality, thus further ensuring -- perhaps deliberately -- that future attacks would be severely underreported.
One wonders what this will mean for Air Force Secretary James Roche, who is up for confirmation as Secretary of the Army. (How on earth does that happen? Wouldn't the army object to being guided by someone from one of the other services? But I digress.) While he wasn't responsible for the initial lack of responsiveness by the academy, it was due to lawmaker's frustration with his lack of responsiveness after the investigation began that caused the appointment of the Fowler commission. This would not seem to augur well for his selection.
An interesting side note, somewhat buried in the report: more than 25% of the male cadets don't believe that women should be admitted to the air force academy. To be sure, it's probably not entirely unexpected. One of the things that some men expect on joining the military is that there will be a certain type of manly vigor, a certain type of male camaraderie. For them, you see, war is a Manly Art. The simple presence of women as equals ruins this picture for them.
Proud to Be: My Life, the Air Force, the Controversy by Kelly Flynn (Book Review by Florence King): ..... [Kelly Flynn's] Class of '93 had a high female attrition rate due to a gang rape on the athletic field, several "forced sex" incidents, and indecent exposure in parachuting class, but Flinn, taking strength, she says, from Anita Hill, hung on and graduated. [...] "True, women do pose a problem for the Air Force brass. But that problem isn't rooted in the fact that we are women per se. Rather, we're a problem because, in the Air Force's collective imagination, we're identified with sex." The Air Force is stuck, she believes, in a 1950s morality that makes it associate sex -- i.e., women -- solely with marriage and brothels. "But when the objects of their affections started accompanying them into battle, the whole system seemed to fall apart. . . . For if the men of the Air Force are no longer traditional macho warriors, upholding God and country by day and whoring at night, who are they? Sentimental soldiers who risk falling in love with their crew? . . . The fear isn't just of women distracting men in the Air Force from their work. It's of women feminizing men altogether."
Leaving aside Ms Flynn's notorious dismissal, this indicates that at least as far back as 1993, the academy should have been aware of the sexual assault issue.
I don't particularly agree with the reviewer that this is an argument against women in the military. I do think, however, that when this attitude is encouraged, as it clearly was at the academy, it is a recipe for disaster.
Posted by iain at September 23, 2003 10:59 AMComments
