Clearing the Fog of War

In scandal's wake, Air Force recruiters get a message

SAN ANTONIO — More than a year has passed since Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez got one of the longest prison sentences in the history of the Air Force's training command. Now, his case is being used as a training tool for recruits at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

At the start of a class at the recruiting school, Tech Sgt. Christopher Hilfer, an instructor, put photos of Rodriguez and Airman 1st Class Elizabeth Jacobson, a 21-year-old killed in Iraq, on a screen.

“To me she's a true hero, somebody I think everybody should look up to,” he said. “Does anybody know who the person on the left is?”

“Sgt. Rodriguez?” a student asked.

“You might even have heard about him a little bit,” Hilfer said before detailing the outcome of Rodriguez's trial, where he was sentenced to 27 years in prison for sexual abuse of recruits. “How would you feel if this person had been recruited by this person? It's not acceptable.”

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Bergdahl's lawyer knows the military, media

SAN ANTONIO — The civilian lawyer for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl says his profession isn't about the big cases, and the most important ones often involve obscure attorneys and fly below the public's radar.

But Eugene Fidell is one of the nation's best-known military lawyers. A Harvard Law School graduate who teaches at Yale, he's an expert on U.S. military justice and is touted by other attorneys as someone without peer in specialized military law.

Bergdahl was released in May after five years of captivity in a controversial swap for five Taliban prisoners. He was quickly vilified by many after his release in Afghanistan and eventual transfer to Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, where he remains while his case is investigated.

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Bergdahl read his rights at Fort Sam session

SAN ANTONIO — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl met Wednesday with an investigator who is probing allegations of misconduct while the soldier was in Afghanistan.

Flanked by a military defense attorney, Capt. Alfredo Foster, and Yale Law School visiting lecturer Eugene Fidell, who is his civilian lawyer, Bergdahl sat in an office at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.

Fidell said his client was read his rights as part of an interview with Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl. An audio recording was made during the question-and-answer session at the Army Criminal Investigation Command's office on the post.

“We've met all morning, we're on a lunch break and then we're going to resume the interview,” Fidell said, declining to say what questions Dahl asked. “But I can tell you he's been entirely cooperative with the process and has answered all questions.”

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Female Lackland trainer gets jail sentence

A female Air Force instructor who had sex with a recruit was sentenced to three months in jail Thursday, but will remain in the service for now.

The judge, Col. Donald Eller Jr., also gave Staff Sgt. Emily Allen 30 days' hard labor and busted her to airman first class.

Allen is the first woman to be tried in an ongoing sex scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The Air Force could move to discharge her after she's released from jail.

Allen maintained her military bearing as she stood at attention and was sentenced.

During a sentencing hearing earlier, she broke down as her father talked on the stand.

“I can't say enough about her,” said Anthony Allen of Essex, Mass. “She's ... always been a good kid.”

Prosecutors sought harsh punishment for Allen, telling the judge she had no business being in the Air Force.

But Allen's military defense team bashed the prosecution's call for six months in jail, a bad-conduct discharge and reduction to airman first class.

They asked for restriction to base or hard labor but no jail time, and that Eller give her a chance to rebuild her career.

Allen pleaded guilty to having sex in 2011 with an airman in training at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Miss., seeking to have a liaison with a second airman she met in basic training and having unprofessional social relationships with a pair of female airmen.

Capt. Lauren Shure, one of her attorneys, stressed that Allen's record was a mix of good and bad, of highs and lows.

She pointed to Allen as a sterling trainer who earned a top performance rating after leaving the Air Force's instructor corps. Allen also had been named “Dental Airman of the Year” by the U.S. Air Forces Europe.

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Female trainer guilty in Lackland scandal

The first female basic-training instructor charged in the ongoing sexual misconduct scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland pleaded guilty Wednesday to having sex with a technical school student.

Staff Sgt. Emily Allen wiped away tears after Col. Donald Eller Jr. accepted her admission that she had a tryst with the trainee on Independence Day weekend in 2011.

Allen pleaded to that charge and three other specifications that included an attempted sexual relationship with another technical school trainee, as well as improper social relationships with two women in the Air Force.

“I have no excuses for my choices, and I'm aware of everything that I've done,” she said.

A 10-year Air Force veteran, Allen is the only woman among 33 boot camp instructors who have been charged with illicit contact with 63 recruits and technical school trainees.

Eller will reconvene court Thursday to decide punishment in the case.

She could receive 12 months in jail, a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of two-thirds' pay for a year and reduction to the Air Force's lowest rank.

It's rare for female training instructors to be tried for having consensual sex or being involved in improper relationships. The last case at Lackland was in 2001.

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Ex-Lackland leaders disciplined

Five former commanders and a senior noncommissioned officer at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland have been disciplined for their roles in the worst sex scandal in Air Force history.

As the first woman accused in the instructor misconduct scandal prepared to go on trial Wednesday, the Air Education and Training Command revealed that the former commanders had been punished as part of an investigation ordered last year by its top leader, Gen. Edward Rice Jr.

The command didn't identify the individuals because they were dealt with administratively, outside the military court system.

While the identities of those punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice typically are kept secret, some had been high-level commanders at Lackland.

The training command, responding to a San Antonio Express-News query, said the five were a former wing commander, a group commander and three squadron commanders.

The Air Force also fired Col. Glenn Palmer, who headed Lackland's 737th Training Group, as well as a training squadron leader.

“It was found through the command-directed investigation that there was culpability among members of the supervisory chain in terms of informing the commander in a timely manner of an issue that the commander should have been aware,” AETC said. “Further, it was found that there were times when a commander was made aware of an issue but did not take appropriate action.”

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Female Lackland trainer pleads guilty to having sex with a male recruit

Earlier story:

 Defense lawyers for the first female basic training instructor charged in the ongoing scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland today accused Air Force leaders of illegally influencing proceedings against their client.

Maj. Willie Babor, lead attorney for Staff Sgt. Emily Allen, said there was reason to believe that some Air Force brass at Lackland were removed from their jobs because they weren't as harsh as they could have been in punishing people.

Babor said news accounts and discussions with other defense attorneys have led him to believe that Col. Glenn Palmer, commander of the 737th Training Group, and Lt. Col. Mike Paquette, who headed the 331st Training Squadron, were fired because they didn't act harshly enough against some airmen accused in the ongoing sex-abuse scandal.

“Do you have any evidence you want to present?” asked the judge, Col. Donald Eller Jr.

“Unfortunately, I do not,” Babor replied.

The judge ordered a 20-minute recess for the defense to gather material that apparently would include news accounts to help make its case. Upon returning, Babor continued to press his case, saying, “If you don't play ball, if you don't so what the (top command) wants you to do, you're going to get fired.”

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Sex, bleach dump leads to jail

A former Air Force instructor was given five months in jail and a bad-conduct discharge Thursday after pleading guilty to having sex with a woman in basic training and making recruits in his training flight ill.

The recruits coughed, became dizzy and had watery eyes after Staff Sgt. Robert Hudson dumped two gallons of bleach into a latrine he said smelled like urine.

One recruit collapsed, another suffered a bloody nose and a third fell into a spasm as he tried to vomit. Blood vessels in his eyes burst.

“I threw up at one point and just swallowed it back down,” the former recruit, Airman 1st Class Roman Arturo Chavez Jr told the court.

Hudson, who had asked the judge for mercy, was stunned at the sentence, shaking his head and taking deep breaths.

The 18th instructor to go on trial and 17th to be convicted, Hudson struck a plea bargain, saying he was guilty of six charges and 14 specifications. He pleaded not guilty to assault consummated by battery, but prosecutors dropped those charges.

Hudson, who is among 33 basic training instructors investigated for misconduct with 63 recruits and technical training students at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, tearfully told the judge deciding his fate that he'd erred.

Still, he asked the judge, Col. Donald Eller Jr., that he be spared a bad-conduct discharge so he could provide for his family.

“What Sgt. Hudson needs is a quick dip in the lake,” said his lawyer, Maj. Willie Babor. “If you are going to give Sgt. Hudson confinement, think of it as a matter of days.”

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Ex-Lackland instructor gets 6 months for abuse

A former Air Force basic training instructor who faced up to 33 years in prison for abusing recruits was sentenced Wednesday to six months in jail and a reduction in rank by a single stripe.

Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass was convicted Tuesday on multiple counts of misconduct with recruits four years ago at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He was acquitted by the jury of two officers and four NCOs of a rape charge involving an airman while in Kyrgyzstan.

The charges included abusive sexual contact, assault consummated by battery, maltreatment, dereliction of duty and violating a regulation prohibiting unprofessional relationships with recruits. In at least two cases, he shared alcohol with airmen, including recruits.

He was accused of making two recruits rub a muscle cream on their private parts, ordering more than a dozen others to stand naked against a wall, and kicking two recruits.

Bass faced more allegations than anyone so far accused in the Lackland scandal, where 33 instructors have been investigated in connection with misconduct with 63 recruits and technical school students.

“That's amazing,” retired Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn, a veteran Army attorney and professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said of the six-month sentence. “I don't know. I don't know how to explain it.”

Once spared from life imprisonment on the rape charge, Bass still could have spent decades in prison. But retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis cautioned that jail time often skyrockets when there are many allegations. Someone writing three $500 hot checks could risk 15 years in prison, he said.

“Some of my clients would come in and say, 'How much am I facing?' and I said 143 years,” said Davis, a professor at Howard University School of Law who led the Air Force's judiciary. “Once they regained consciousness, then you'd talk about what a realistic sentence was, which was often a fraction of the potential maximum.”

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Lackland instructor poured bleach on floor, sickened recruits

A former Air Force instructor pleaded guilty today to having sex with a recruit in basic training and also sickening airmen in a boot camp flight he led after pouring two gallons of bleach in a latrine.

Trainees in Staff Sgt. Robert Hudson's flight grew dizzy, coughed and got watery eyes after he dumped the bleach into toilets and onto the floor, complaining that the latrine smelled like urine.

One of the recruits collapsed and had to be dragged away by two airmen, and another became so ill he tried to vomit but could not, causing blood vessels in his eyes to burst.

“I should have pulled them out of that situation,” Hudson, a veteran basic training instructor, told Col. Donald Eller Jr., the military judge.

One of 33 basic training instructors so far investigated for misconduct with 63 recruits and technical training students at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, he is being prosecuted for having sex with a trainee, as well as adultery. But unlike many of those instructors, Hudson also was charged with abusing trainees under his command.

There was no explanation for why he abused them throughout a long morning of questioning by Eller, who is required to ensure that Hudson understands the plea agreement struck with the prosecution.

The 17th instructor to go on trial, Hudson admitted to rebuking the trainees as they choked on bleach fumes, using a pejorative phrase to describe them as weak. He even ordered some of the trainees to re-enter the latrine a second time, after telling them to put T-shirts over their faces.

The judge asked if he had training in dealing with hazardous materials. Hudson, an F-15 mechanic after joining the Air Force 12 years ago, conceded he did not.

But that didn't stop him from trying to force the recruits to continue cleaning up the bleach. He used a fan to disperse the fumes, and trained a water hose on the latrine as well.

Some of the trainees were given medical treatment after the incident, and one posted a subpar time on his next physical training run.

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