USAF: The Sex Scandal problem problem

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

IANMTSU. On December 3rd, Pentagon Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz wrote to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in a report on a string of some 150 sexual assualts at the US Air Force Academy, that his task force had reached the “conclusion that the overall root cause of the sexual assault problems at the Air Force Academy was the failure of successive chains of command over the past 10 years to acknowledge the severity of the problem.”

That’s right… the “root cause” of the problem was a “failure… to acknowledge the severity of the problem”.

:dubious:

PS: No cite because the link is ephemeral. See the AP story by John Lumpkin posted 7 December 2004.

2

I can actually see this as being a severe problem. What they are saying is that people, both administration and students alike did not put enough attention on combatting the problem from the git-go.

In a college environment, a lot of “college” things happen: drinkin’, drugs, debauchery, you get the idea. Given the strict, disciplined regimen of the USAFA, a lot of things happen, not so much as to the extent as a civilian college, but they do happen.

What Gen. Schmitz is saying is that not enough effort by the institution was put into dealing with these sorts of reports. At the lower (cadet) levels, they may have been dealt with one-on-one and nipped in the bud, but at the higher levels, where school administration is fairly isolated from the day-to-day goings on of the student body, it may have not appeared to be a serious problem to address.

And I think that’s what they’re addressing now: the administration has a greater “feel” for what the student body at large is doing.

Tripler
The root cause is agreeably hormones + stupidity. The root solution wasn’t on the scopes of the administration.

3

My sister is a cadet at USAFA. We’ve talked a lot about this.

According to her: It is not as big a deal as many news stories have made it seem. I recommend taking all of this with a grain of salt, as she’s repeatedly while discussing this said that she doesn’t want the Academy to look bad. Regardless:

The root of the publicity recently was, for the most part, when several female (former) cadets were on a talk show (I want to say Oprah, but I’m not certain), and essentially gave a heartbreaking sob story about how they were sexually harrassed and/or raped while at the Academy. This, naturally, began a flurry of investigations and (mostly civilian) finger-pointing: “Look what’s going on at our military academies! The horror!”

According to the congressional final report, 80% of the sexual assaults between 1993 and 2002 went unreported. This figure was found by compiling results of annual surveys. This, to begin with, isn’t exactly a scientifically accurate measure.

Another issue raised by the investigation was that female cadets who had been victimized felt intimidated or afraid to go to the authorities. I can give an example of this, but must preface it: THIS IS ALL ALLEGED. I cannot definitively say it is true or not. Allegedly, first semester one year, there was a freshman girl. She made friends with one of the upperclassmen in her squadron. They possibly had a “thing”, though fraternization between freshman and upperclassmen like that is very against the rules. She was in his room one night (also against the rules) and they were drinking (also against the rules: she was underage, he was providing to her, alcohol is not allowed in the dorms). She got more drunk than he; he allegedly raped her. She did go to the authorities, and the situation was dealt with: including her being punished for blatent violation of several regulations. There was outrage at this: “How dare they punish this young victim?!” Basically, that’s the reason why many women were afraid to go to the authorities. They, too, had broken some regulation or another and didn’t want anything on their record.

More opinions continued below - don’t want hamsters to eat this.

4

Tripler: Yeah, I know what he meant to say. The phrasing was just absurd.

What gets me, though, is how someone can reach high levels of administration, put hours of study into a serious problem, write a report (which he knows will get press attention) for the Secretary of Defense, and not be careful enough with phrasing his conclusion to avoid claiming that a problem was caused by a failure to recognize the problem itself.

Of course, if you’re going to hold the leaders responsible, as they do (and, I believe, should) maybe you do have to find a way to assign causative status to their failure to deal with the situation.

But really, it makes no sense to claim that failure to recognize the problem caused the problem.

I understand saying “The house burned down because I didn’t know the Christmas tree had caught fire.” But I can’t understand saying “The root cause of the fire was my failure to recognize that there was a fire.”

You’re still left wondering, “Well, what caused that fire, which you failed to recognize?”

So, on a more serious note… I haven’t read the report, but if this section of the report was the summary, the “quotable” portion intended to find its way into the press, then there’s a real problem. Because it sidesteps the true core issue – what conditions made the sexual assaults likely in the first place? – at least in the AP stories.

5

If you read the final report I linked to above, you can see that they’re calling for restructuring, overhaul of the administration, and re-emphasis of the building of character. In order to explain the changes, let me give some background about how it used to be.

When a freshman (‘cadet fourth class’ or C4C) would arrive at the Academy, it was late June, and very, very, very stressful. They would, their first day, be filed through lines, sign paperwork, have their heads shaved (for men) or cropped short (for women), and be issued uniforms. That inproccessing, I believe, is still the same ‘hurry-up-and-wait’, and the same ‘stand in line, no talking’. They got a short (one or two minute) phone call home, no more than “Hey mom and dad, I’m here, I’m fine, write to me.” It’s the last phone call they get for several weeks.

Then, all the kids were loaded onto a bus, and the yelling began. Sit on the front 1/3rd of the seat! Feet flat on the floor! Back straight! Head up! Eyes forward! They’d drive cross-campus, and be lined up on the footsteps - literally, footsteps printed on the concrete. This is their intro to standing in formation, and if everything is not perfect, they’ll hear it. There are 7 basic responses (I don’t recall them right off), and unless prompted, those are all the ‘Basic’ is supposed to use.

The first half of the summer is learning basic military procedure. They memorize facts, names, ranks, insignia, how to march. They get yelled at a lot, they do lots and lots and lots of physical training, and they get hazed a lot. It’s not fun and it’s not supposed to be fun. The second part is more combat training, out in Jacks Valley. THey live in tents, learn to shoot a rifle, do lots and lots and lots of PT, get yelled at a lot, and it’s not supposed to be fun. However, the principle was: Break them down the first half, and rebuild them (example: one of the Jack’s obstacle courses is the “confidence course”) to be good, strong, confident leaders the second half.

Later in the year, towards the spring, they had Recognition. This was, I believe, a weekend of hell. All the hazing and training and getting yelled at culminated that weekend. The C4Cs come out of it triumphant but dead tired. The upperclassmen are just as exhausted, as they’ve spent all weekend being the intense, scary presence.

That, for all intents and purposes, is now gone. It’s been replaced with a “warmer, softer” Academy. They’ve done away entirely with the “fourth-class” system, and done away with all the yelling and hazing (affectionately referred to as Training). The problem? According to many people, the new freshman who are beginning under this ‘softer’ system have no discipline, and are not, essentially, anything like the typical USAFA cadet.

The whole thing, in short, is a mess without a simple cause or solution. Changing the administration and raising awareness is, indeed, a step in the right direction. Getting rid, essentially, of military training at the military academy? Not so much.