SAN ANTONIO — From a chapel pulpit at Lackland Air Force Base, where every American airman reports for basic training, Col. Glenn Palmer delivered his first order to nearly 600 recruits seated in the pews: If you are sexually harassed or assaulted, tell someone.
“My job is to give you a safe, effective training environment,” Col. Palmer said firmly.
What the colonel did not mention directly was a widening sex scandal that has rocked the base, one of the nation’s busiest military training centers. Reports that male instructors had sex with, and in one case raped, female trainees have led to criminal charges against four men. Charges against others are possible.
The most serious accusations surround an Air Force staff sergeant scheduled to face a court-martial in July on charges that include rape and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault. The other three defendants were charged with lesser crimes ranging from sexual misconduct to adultery.
All of the defendants were assigned to turn raw recruits into airmen in eight weeks of basic training.
A two-star general is now investigating alongside a separate criminal probe, which military prosecutors say could sweep up more airmen. Advocates for female service members and members of Congress have started taking notice.
“It’s a pretty big scandal the Air Force is having to deal with at this point,” said Greg Jacob, a former Marine infantry officer and policy director of the Service Women’s Action Network.
Yet there are signs the Air Force still doesn’t have a handle on the full depth of the problem. Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado pleaded guilty earlier this month to having sex with a female trainee and struck a plea deal for 90 days’ confinement. Then he acknowledged being involved with a total of 10 trainees a number previously unknown to investigators.
On Friday, after months of embarrassing disclosures, the head of the Air Force’s training command ordered Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward to lead an independent investigation. That same day, the Air Force gave reporters rare access to Lackland’s instructional headquarters in an effort to show there was nothing to hide.
Lackland has about 475 instructors for the nearly 36,000 airman who will graduate this year. That’s about 85 percent of what Lackland would consider a full roster of instructors, a demanding job that requires airmen to work longer hours than most for four years, at the expense of family and personal time.
Col. Palmer said that the slight shortage in instructors has not lowered the standards for applicants. In response to the charges, he said instructor training is being revamped and that he was accountable for problems within the training wing.
Leaders of the instructor program, however, said the responsibility falls on the accused.
“A person sitting in that seat, they’re going to do what they’re going to do when no one is watching,” said Master Sgt. Greg Pendleton, who oversees the training. “That’s across the board. That’s just them.”
So widespread is the fallout that Lackland halted operations for an entire day in March to survey about 5,900 trainees about whether they had seen or been a victim of sexual misconduct.
Nearly three dozen instructors at Lackland also have been removed in the past year, but the Air Force will not say how many lost their jobs as a result of the investigation that began last fall, only that the majority of dismissals were unrelated.
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