Clearing the Fog of War

List of those linked to Lackland scandal gets longer

Two more Lackland instructors are being investigated for possible illicit relations with trainees, bringing the number of trainers caught in the ever-widening sex scandal to 30 and the number of victims to 56, Air Force investigators said Thursday.

No details of the new cases were released, but commanders said Thursday that two more Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland instructors are accused of liaisons with women in training, including one in which an instructor is accused of having sex with a recruit in boot camp.

The Air Force previously had said 28 instructors were being investigated for alleged involvement with 54 women, all listed by the Air Force's training command as victims of the sex scandal that first came to light one year ago.

“Of course, it will always grow if they keep looking,” said Nancy Parrish, founder and president of Protect Our Defenders, a group that has lobbied for profound changes in the way the military justice system handles sexual assault and harassment cases.

“From the (Defense Department's) own reports, we know that this is still just the tip of the iceberg,” she added. “There are many more women and men who simply don't report for fear of reprisals and because they realize that in the vast majority of the cases, there is very little done to punish the perpetrators.”

Five boot camp trainers have been convicted in courts-martial since last summer, with one-time Staff Sgt. Luis Walker handed the harshest sentence — 20 years for rape and sexual assault.

Seven more cases are headed to court-martial, including that of Staff Sergeant Christopher T. Jackson, who faces up to 13 years in prison for allegedly having sex with two women and obstruction of justice while assigned to Lackland, home of Air Force basic training. His trial starts next Thursday.

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Latrine assault is recalled during trainer's hearing

At the end of a long day in which they drank a lot of water, Mark George Lacava II and another Air Force basic training recruit were so desperate to use the bathroom that they violated orders.

After only a few seconds, both heard Staff Sgt. Ryan Deraas bang in his way into a dormitory latrine at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

In his rage, Lacava said, Deraas grabbed both of them, causing Lacava and Senior Airman Charles William Wiley Jr. to tumble to the floor.

“I was very angry. I was a grown man denied the right to use the bathroom. That wasn't fair,” Lacava, a Pittsburgh, Pa., lab technician, testified Tuesday in a military hearing for Deraas.

Deraas faces charges that he had unprofessional relationships with five technical training students, willful dereliction of duty by maltreating recruits, and assault and battery on Lacava and Wiley.

A hearing officer will decide whether Deraas should be tried in a court-martial.

He's the ninth basic training instructor to be charged in a sex scandal that has rocked the Air Force. So far, 28 trainers have been or are being investigated for incidents dating to 2008, with the Air Force revealing Tuesday that 54 women now are listed as victims.

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Airman: Trainer sent sex messages while on duty

Four women testified Monday that an Air Force trainer struck up Facebook friendships with them, one of which ended in a sexual relationship.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Deraas also was described at the hearing as sadistic, ordering recruits in their first hours of training to fill their canteens with toilet water.

During that same week, three days after Christmas in 2010, in the same training unit at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Derass pulled two other recruits from a dormitory latrine after they defied his orders and went to relieve themselves after they drank large amounts of water.

“‘They did what!'” Airman 1st Class Robert Bowman said he heard Deraas scream. “And he gets up and runs out. You can just hear him yell, “‘Shut it off! Shut it off!'”

Bowman testified that one of the recruits had blood in his urine but got no medical help.

The incidents are among two charges and eight specifications of wrongdoing lodged against Deraas, whose evidentiary hearing continues today. An officer will decide whether Deraas should be put on trial in a court-martial.

The Air Force said he could get up to 11½ years in prison if convicted of having unprofessional relationships with five technical training students, willful dereliction of duty by maltreating recruits, and assault and battery on two others in boot camp.

The reported trainee abuse was described by Lt. Col. Mark Hoover, an attorney for the Air Force's training command, “as well below the standards that are expected of any training instructor.”

“I've not seen any other cases like this,” Hoover said.

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Convicted trainer facilitated illicit relationship

Before he cut a plea bargain, an Air Force boot camp instructor introduced a woman about to graduate from basic training to a buddy — a fellow trainer.

The woman testified Thursday that then-Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado told her she had a call after she was summoned to an office. It was Tech Sgt. Samuel Wicks.

“I got on the phone,” said the woman, identified as Airman 1, who's now at an installation in Georgia. “It was very short.”

Prosecutors say Wicks was trying to establish a romantic liaison, with Vega-Maldonado putting Wicks' phone number into her duffel bag just before she graduated from basic training in September 2010.

It was one of four prohibited personal relationships they say Wicks had with women after they graduated from Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the home of Air Force basic training.

Unlike some of the 25 training instructors that have been or are being investigated for misconduct, Wicks did not have sex with the women and never met them after graduating from Lackland.

So far, 49 women have been identified by the Air Force as victims.

Testimony from three women in Wicks' Article 32 evidentiary hearing, however, revealed that he aggressively pursued them, inviting Airman 1 to his home just two days after she graduated from basic training in February 2011. The fourth woman has said she doesn't want to testify and cannot be found.

“‘Why don't you come over to my house and we can watch movies there?'” Airman 1 said, recalling the phone conversation.

“Is that allowed, sir?”

“‘No,'” she said Wicks told her, “‘but nobody needs to know about it.'”

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Lackland trained jailed after release from mental health facility

A former basic training instructor who threatened to jump recently from a Loop 410 overpass was in jail Tuesday night after being released from a mental health treatment facility.

Staff Sgt. Craig LeBlanc remained in the Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland lockup after a hearing Tuesday afternoon in which the Air Force said he committed four new violations, one of them threatening to commit suicide at the overpass after he told an NCO he was going to the gym.

“The interesting thing about where he was going to jump was that it was actually on the way to the gym, and he was in his gym clothes,” said LeBlanc's defense attorney, Joseph Jordan. “He wasn't in violation at all. A suicidal, tortured mind is what he was, and he may well have been on his way to the gym but in the course of going there he decided he was going to stop and jump off the bridge.”

LeBlanc, 27, faces 53 years and seven months in prison on charges of misconduct with three trainees. He's one of 25 instructors at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland who have been or are under investigation for improper relationships with 49 women in basic and technical training.

LeBlanc threatened suicide two days after Thanksgiving. He left his car on a ramp linking the eastbound lanes of Loop 410 to U.S. 281, a height of 85 feet at its tallest point, and was taken into custody after 45 minutes. It was his third suicide attempt of the month.

The Lackland hearing Tuesday was an administrative proceeding led by a military officer who is not a lawyer, said Lt. Col. Mark Hoover, an attorney with the Air Force's training command. Pre-trial confinement, he said, is ordered if a military defendant is a flight risk, continues to commit serious crimes or is a threat to public safety.

A pre-trial confinement review officer heard evidence in LeBlanc's case and will decide if he'll continue to stay in the jail, where he is separated from convicted airmen.

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Sex case witnesses depict Lackland trainer as a true friend

An Air Force instructor facing up to 13 years in prison for having sex with two women in San Antonio was described Thursday as a true friend in a time of crisis.

Testifying at an evidentiary hearing, one of the women she said she sent a text message to Staff Sgt. Christopher T. Jackson after having problems in technical training.

“He was easy to talk to, and at the time I didn't have anybody else to talk to,” said the woman, now in the Air Force Reserve.

Jackson is one of 25 basic training instructors from a number of squadrons at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland under investigation on allegations of misconduct with 49 female trainees. He is charged with having sex with the women while they were in technical training school, as well as having improper intimate relationships with them.

The Air Force also charged Jackson with obstruction after authorities said he asked one of the airmen to lie if investigators asked questions, a charge that carries a maximum five-year sentence.

He is one of nine instructors from Lackland's 331st Training Squadron who have been charged or are under investigation in the scandal, the Air Force's training command said.

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Lackland instructor's legal woes cited in apparent suicide tries

A former Air Force instructor facing 53 years in prison on charges of misconduct with three trainees threatened to jump from a local overpass last weekend after becoming overwhelmed by his legal problems and travel restrictions.

Staff Sgt. Craig LeBlanc left his car on a ramp linking the eastbound lanes of Loop 410 to U.S. 281 on Saturday, backing up traffic and prompting a negotiation with police, who talked him down after about 45 minutes.

His attorney, Joseph Jordan, said the incident was LeBlanc's third apparent suicide attempt this month and is part of a pattern of “self-destructive behavior” he's exhibited since being charged with having improper personal relationships with the trainees.

Now in Laurel Ridge Treatment Center, a local mental health facility, LeBlanc was denied a pass to see his 5-month-old daughter, Ellie, last weekend in Dallas.

Commanders have limited him to going to work, the grocery store, gas station and Laurel Ridge for outpatient care.

“I think it's that and I also just think he recognizes that while he stands a really good chance of winning the most significant charges on the charge sheet, he knows that he's probably going to be found guilty of some of the other charges, which is going to require him to spend some time in jail,” Jordan said Tuesday.

LeBlanc is one of 25 instructors at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland who have been or are under investigation for improper relationships with 49 women in basic and technical training.

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Police talk Lackland instructor off highway overpass

San Antonio police shut down a busy portion of a North Side highway intersection for the better part of an hour Saturday afternoon after a man threatened to jump off a ramp.

Brent Boller, a spokesman for Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, later said the man is an instructor at the base — where 25 military trainers have either gone to trial or are under investigation on charges of having illicit personal relationships with trainees.

Police said they got a report that a vehicle had stalled on the ramp linking the eastbound lanes of Loop 410 to U.S. 281 about 12:30 p.m. They found a man who had climbed out of the car and was threatening to jump off the overpass onto the freeway below.

Authorities did not identify the man Saturday. But WOAI-TV reported that he had called a reporter and said his legal troubles were too much to handle. He was depressed that he couldn't visit his children over the holidays because he was under house arrest, the station reported Saturday night.

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Lackland trainers' misdeeds not just sexual

Elite trainers at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland have been busted in the past 10 years for DWI, assault, abusing trainees and for using heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy and marijuana.

The offenses, disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request by the San Antonio Express-News, show a pattern of misconduct since 2002 in a training corps that has been reeling in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal that has ensnared 25 boot-camp instructors, who are accused of victimizing 49 female recruits.

The Air Force documented 81 cases that were not sexual in nature over the past 10 years, with most of them handled in secret administrative procedures.

They generally resulted in sentences that included reprimands, loss of rank and forfeiture of pay — though commanders sometimes suspended punishment.

Nearly three dozen other cases involved sexual relationships, most of them consensual, underscoring a pattern in which military training instructors have become involved with their students, despite a code forbidding such contact.

Lawyers who defend soldiers point to broader problems with military discipline.

“Talk about more core values, who should have more core values than Gen. (David) Petraeus (who resigned as CIA director under a cloud of sexual scandal)?” said Frank Spinner, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who represented a soldier convicted of rape in the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground scandal in 1997. “So if he cannot ... discipline himself, then how can we expect (a military training instructor) to be (self) disciplined?”

Yet victims' advocates say failure to hold offenders and their superiors accountable perpetuates misconduct.

“A pattern of superior officers abusing their power, victim-blaming, intimidation and cover-up of criminal behavior has been well documented,” said Nancy Parrish, founder and president of Protect Our Defenders. “Unfortunately, this type of behavior is nothing new in our armed forces.”

Instructors are touted as top-flight noncommissioned officers, carefully selected because they mold civilians into airmen, a task that requires them to serve as role models.

But the sex scandal that has ensnared the instructors, two of whom were involved with 10 women each, has triggered a dramatic reassessment.

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Lackland leaders cited in scandal

WASHINGTON — A fractured command culture that included what an Air Force investigation called a “leadership gap” helped fuel a sex scandal at Joint Base San Antoni-Lackland involving instructors who preyed on trainees.

The investigation, released Wednesday at the Pentagon, found leaders were insulated from training and that barriers “at nearly every level” limited the flow of information about instructor misconduct.

A shortage of instructors, who were starting their days before 3 a.m. and leaving for home at 9 p.m., along with a lack of unit oversight made for a toxic mix that set the stage for abuses.

Related doocuments: Lackland recommendations; Lackland training flaws

One instructor, for example, had illicit encounters with 10 women in boot camp and now is serving a 20-year prison term.

Some were too immature or inexperienced to be in jobs that gave them so much power, the investigation concluded.

“In simple terms, what happened is we had a breakdown of good order and discipline among a relatively few but not insignificant number of our instructors,” Gen. Edward Rice Jr., head of the Air Force's training command, told reporters.

“How this happened is attributable to weaknesses and gaps in the institutional safeguards that are designed to prevent this kind of behavior,” he continued. “Why this happened is related to insufficient leadership oversight concerning preventing and detecting these gaps and weaknesses, and an inadequate level of self-policing by our instructors.”

The Air Force has investigated 25 basic training instructors and has identified 49 airmen, all women, as victims — a number up slightly from last week.

Rice earlier this year tapped Maj. Gen. Margaret Woodward to lead the investigation that encompassed 215 in-depth interviews and a survey of 18,000 people.

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