Ten of the 38 women listed as victims in an ongoing Air Force sex scandal described their encounters with instructors in San Antonio to investigators as “unwanted.”
Just how many women were raped, however, isn't clear in the new information the Air Force released about the scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. An instructor at the installation was recently convicted of raping one woman, but Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason could not provide exact numbers.
As those details emerged, the top commander of Air Force training met Monday with a New York advocacy group that has closely followed the Lackland scandal. Gen. Edward A. Rice Jr. spent 75 minutes with Service Women's Action Network executive director Anu Bhagwati and policy chief Greg Jacob in SWAN's offices.
SWAN said it asked that the Air Force punish sexual assault perpetrators and hold officers and senior NCO leaders accountable — including those at Lackland when the assaults occurred.
“We also pointed out that in order to create a real change in the culture at Lackland, substantial increases in the number of women (instructors) and women officers are needed to teach trainees that good leadership is not a function of gender,” said Bhagwati, a former Marine Corps company commander.
One in five trainees at Lackland, home of Air Force basic training, is female, but only 11 percent of the nearly 500 instructors are women.
Rice could order changes in training once a probe led by Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward is done. Woodward, based at the Pentagon, was ordered by Rice to look at the possibility the scandal was caused by command-climate issues — an atmosphere that fails to discourage bad behavior.
The Air Force has identified 38 women as potential victims and is investigating 15 instructors. Dozens of investigators are looking into allegations that Gleason said date to 2008.
There are questions about the numbers given by the Air Force. Nine women said they were the object of unwanted contact with Staff Sgt. Luis A. Walker, convicted in July and given 20 years in military prison.
One trainee in that case called her encounter consensual but testified that she was shocked at Walker's advances and feared him because of his irrational behavior.