Col. Deborah Liddick took command Friday of an Air Force basic-training program tainted by a sex scandal involving 18 instructors and dozens of women.
The ceremony on the parade field at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland put the spotlight on the Air Force's decision to place a woman in charge of the 737th Training Group, but her new boss said she didn't get the job because of her gender.
“Col. Liddick was the best-qualified officer that I think I could have made a recommendation for,” Col. Mark Camerer, commander of the 37th Training Wing, told the San Antonio Express-News.
“She's a former commander, she has experience in command leading airmen, and that's what I wanted,” he added, calling her “an experienced, decent commander who could deal with this situation.”
Standing before a crowd of 3,500, Camerer handed the group's flag to Liddick in an assumption-of-command ceremony.
In a short speech, Liddick told those in the Air Force's largest training group “to focus on the mission, to transform civilians into motivated, world-class airmen.”
“We need to continually instill pride and demonstrate respect for each other,” she told the crowd, and called on the airmen “to live the core values – integrity first, service before self, excellence in all we do.”
Liddick made no mention of the scandal in her four-minute speech, but both she and Camerer, who oversees basic and technical training, are part of a sweeping leadership change.
Replacing a pair of colonels who left after relatively short stints, they were brought here to transform training in the wake of the scandal, one of the worst in the U.S. military history.