AF Instructor sentenced for trainee abuse
ChipNASA sends a link from Military.com in regards to Staff Sergeant Annamarie Ellis, a basic training instructor at Lackland Air Force Base who was sentenced Friday for trainee abuse;
Her punishment also included dropping her rank to airman basic and a bad-conduct discharge. She was taken to a lockup at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
The San Antonio Express-News reports Ellis pleaded guilty earlier to three charges, including the maltreatment of recruits, and 24 allegations of misconduct. She had faced a maximum prison sentence of 43 years.
Who knew that they were abusive to trainees in the Air Force? Well, I’m glad they got this one because abuse isn’t training. Since she was looking at 43 years, I guess she’s pretty happy today.
Category: Military issues
Well she may not have gotten that much time but that Big Chicken Dinner just bends her over for the rest of her life.
No grumpy cat here…just a rapey Ewok
http://i.imgur.com/aj1Us.jpg
Hey, she can always make up a new DD214, awards, and BAM she’ll be a high speed low drag operator whose service is super seekret!
She wouldn’t let them have ice cream for desert at the Dining Facility.
From earlier in the trial:
When court resumed, Ellis recounted how she ordered recruits to do physical training at night in a shower, naked, and that she told a recruit to bark like a dog and made her display her underwear to fellow trainees. Ellis said she did that after the recruit failed to properly fold her underwear.
Her violations of training rules spanned the spectrum of things forbidden by the Air Force and occurred over a series of training flights spanning 22 months starting in 2009. The incidents included cursing recruits, telling one she would shove a guidon down his urethra, and threatened to “beat the crap out of him.”
In one case, she gathered a flight of male trainees into a circle and challenged them to fight her. The incident, sparked by animosity between two trainees, led to a fight between the men.
One had a black eye. When investigators sought to learn the truth about it, she tried to cover up the incident.
So who among us didn’t feel a bit “threatened”, or at least intimidated by our Basic Training instructors. But naked PT in the shower? In a post-Abu Ghraib, post-Lackland sex scandal world, as an NCO she clearly should have known she was crossing a line there. And once AETC starts investigating you, and they get the feeling you are trying to cover things up…yeah get ready for a world of shit. I knew one of the MTI’s involved in the earlier scandal. When they found out he was coaching former trainess on what to tell investigators, he was DONE.
I am not justifying what she did by any stretch.
But when I went through IN OSUT, her infractions would have been considered relatively minor.
Just an observation.
Yeah GT, but in 2000s, SQ commanders for these Basic training Squadrons I hate to say it got real soft. Prime example was my Basic training unit, 322nd.
We had a bible going commander who told our instructors to ease up and use less profanity. He wanted instructors to resolve things using calmer approach. I remember being 1st week of basic and I actually saw some sad shit like a guy going up to the desert rack and getting cake. No instructor chewed him out or told him to stop.
While the 331st commander believed in getting in the face of the recruiter to set them straight. Which I have no issue with and should be that way.
But thats just how much things changed in the Air Force over time. Got pretty soft.
I went through Infantry OSUT in 1976 at Ft. Polk. Our Drill Sergeants smoked us like cheap cigars, but were never abusive. We might do grass drills until our “Drill” got tired, or do a billion pushups, but the activities were never anything we couldn’t accomplish.
I credit my Drill Sergeants with showing me how to properly soldier. My admiration for them grows as I get older.
We a marginal “asthma ” soldier in OSUT.
Dude was full of it and always fell out, whined and rode profile.
Simple solution: Make him the “Platoon Medic”.
They would line us up, drop towels before shower (first three weeks {total control}) and bend over. “Doc” had to eyeball and inspect two-holes of 40 odd men. Rough. So was my back, by the way from waiting on his slow ass.
After about the second time (I think) he figured it out.
Quite the turnaround, I might add. Dude actually got his shit together and graduated.
I am not saying it was justified, but hey, shit, smelly asses and hazing suck.
Odd form of discipline.
Unorthodox, but effective.
I did Engineer OSUT at good ‘ol Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, MO in 1991. By the time we graduated, I was almost certain that my given name was Meathead, slick, or HEY, YOU!”. We had a DS the size of either an NFL Linebacker or “Pro-Wrassler” that NEVER smiled or complimented us until the day we graduated, then he said “Welcome to the Army, glad to see you made it!”, but during Basic & AIT, forget it! He stormed through the barracks one night demanding that we had better be the *BLEEEEEEEP* outside NOW or we were gonna be doing PT all night. This was Fort Lost-in-the-Woods in February, forty degrees, melting snow, and he had us doing grass drills outside in the dark while he drank coffee and smoked cigarettes! He and the other “Drills” were rough as hell on us, but we were never threatened with castration or otherwise. I think she crossed the line a few times, especially interfering with her Trainees’ mail, that alone is a Federal offense.
Honestly, depends on what flight and unit she was in. If this was the 331st aka Alcatraz…they encouraged to berate and humiliate trainees as much has possibly. I remember going back to Lackland and seeing how some of these kids looked like they were living in fear. I bet it was hell to pay for some of kids in her flight.
And the AF wonders why the Army and Marines make fun of them… my football coach was meaner than this … we lined up heel to toe (literally) to shower for the the first week of BCT.. got smoked just b/c the Drill was bored and yes we gave blanket parties out if needed to correct behavior that got the rest of us smoked..
Smart of her to pull her hat over her eyes so people won’t recognize her.
What, you mean no one is going to recognize a 3 and 1/2 foot Filipina Angry Troll?
I knew a few Filipino CPO’s in boot who would have been more than happy to try to shove a guidon down someone’s urethra.
Then again, I pissed off more than a few guys when I asked them to say, “fluffy puppy.”
It usually went, “Pluppy fl…plff…aw, puck you, man.”
Heh. One of our duty sections always had an inport fire drill when one of the Filipino guys was standing Petty Officer of the Watch. And it was curiously always a Class Bravo Fire in the Galley Deep Fat Fryer.
Okay, she’s an idiot and unfit for command. I get that. But some of the complaints are pretty silly. She threatened to ‘shove a guidon down his urethra’? I’d be embarrassed to complain about that! It’s obvious hyberpobole and physically impossible and intended to intimidate. It may be stupid, but if that’s abuse then the recruit has no chance of functioning in the real world. ‘Ooh, she was nasty and spoke meanly to me’. Give me a break. I have to think some old drill instructors from combat units are just laughing too hard to breath over some of the complaints.
But medic09
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. It could be a life threatening condition!!!
“But some of the complaints are pretty silly”
No shit. Bunch of candy asses. My DI made a point to tell us all that he starched the brim of his Smokey Hat and that if we “fucked up” he would throw it and cut our head off ala Odd Job from the James Bond movie Goldfinger. When someone screwed up he would run up to them with his hat in hand all wound back ready to throw and he would scream “That’s it, I’m gonna cut your fucking head off!”. We had all we could do to keep a straight face as all 5’6″ of him was in the throwing position and he’s cutting holes in you with his eyes.
When I was a Platoon Sergeant I had a strict no throwing candy to the Iraqi kids policy. I didn’t want them to get run over chasing candy. During one convoy I noticed candy flying. I got on the radio and said “the next mother F’ers that threw candy I’ll break your frigging fingers”. They all knew I wouldn’t do it but they got the point. Turns out the one that I threatened was the Chaplin. My Commander thought it was hilarious.
It’s been over twenty years since I was assigned to instructor duty, but, I doubt things have changed too much.
One of the things that gave me fits as a tech school instructor was some of the officers, including some of the Generals, looked at the Airmen as their children. These children needed the officers’ protection from the cruel NCO’s. I once had a student who flunked out of two separate tech schools; so I recommended discharge. Nothing personal, but after so many months of failure and so much time spent trying to get the student on task, it was time for the “maybe you can come back and visit us” speech. The Colonel tore me a new one; how dare I say this student wasn’t able to do the job. Just because I had done the job, that gave me no right to decide this student couldn’t.
The one thing all military instructors should remember, “No matter how angry you get, you can’t hit anybody if you put on your Air Force gloves”.
That naked shower stuff was sick in a bad way. All the other stuff? Oh well. I got whacked with a clearing rod. I dry-shaved with blood running down by neck. Was that abuse? By today’s standards probably so. But, I never ever failed to be 100% clean shaven again and I never again emptied a magazine with a single trigger pull when we were supposed to be doing three-round bursts. Abuse? Hell no. It was training the stupid out of me.
Hell, we got “thrashed” in the showers a time or few, both butt nekkid and in full cammies.
The wet thrash in full cammies was the worser of the two, because it was immediately followed by us falling out into the sand pit outside the barracks to *worship the dirt god, and that was followed by a long slow run and lots and lots of chaffing.
* Worshiping the dirt god:
In close formation (jammed into the pit), we’d be ordered to kneel and “pray”. Praying meant grab handfuls of dirt and place where the litany demanded, down our pants, down the front of our blouses, inside the blouses and into the armpits, thrown up into the air to rain down upon our heads, etc and so on.
Just a E-5/SSgt…the AF has been making a regular habit of pulverizing SMSgt/CMSgt types all the way back down to E-1/AB.
Not defending what she did, but every time someone gets in trouble in the AF the brasses idea of corrective action was not to punish the wrongdoer, but to make “training tougher”. Hell, the MTIs heat stroked a kid on a training march in San Antonio in summer heat around 1999. Guess they didn’t want to get up at 2:00 am to march when its cooler.
The last AF chief of staff who promoted accountability was General Fogelman. When I went through instant officer school for medics in 1997 we got an earful about the Blackhawk shoot down and accountability in our training. Well, he didn’t last long under that CiC. Go figure…
Gen Fogleman resigned as CSAF to protest Brig Gen Schawalier being denied his 2nd star after the Khobar Tower bombing.
Interesting. I live in San Antonio and there has been nary a burp on the local news about this. When the male instructors were getting hammered for the same things (and worse in a couple of cases) the local news couldn’t get enough. Are things different today because it’s a female instructor; no sexual abuse; or no one cares anymore??
lol @ possible 43 years punishment gets less than 8 months.
Notice old balls carrying the heavy stuff and basic instructor having to use a luggage stroller for who knows what. Those things grind my gears.
The luggage may hold the items she’ll be allowed to have at the prison. Once she’s taken into custody she will not, normally, be allowed to go home and pack a bag.
Damn when I went through boot, I had a male CC. He would come into female berthing when it was shower time and make us drop naked. It was awful but if we complained we got IT. He eventually got in trouble for it and got demoted then sent to Alaska, which at the time was considered a lousy duty station. But my point is that we didn’t go crying to JAG about it.
After all the crap that’s gone down at Joint base Lackland she should have known better. I’m not sure what had to happen for me to have turned in my DI’s. We had a puke party/gas party more then a few times. One DI got pissed one night, walked out of the hooch…looked around and punched our guide in the chest and blew him back into the wall. We laughed and went back to cleaning weapons.
Anyone of those things could have gotten her ass in a sling in any service Boot Camp, even “Back in the Day”,
It looks like she really pissed someone off to have them dig back almost 2 years to get shit on here.
In my day, if caught doing that shit by company staff she probably would have gotten an asschewing and a 5X8 card in her DI jacket.
My daughter had Ellis one day last year when she filled in for their usual MTI. Said she was mean (aren’t they all?) but not abusive. Seems she saved that for the men.
My son, who was there a year earlier, says ‘man up’. He had a great time in BMT but had a terrific MTI who was strict and tough, but not abusive or demeaning.
My kids think would think for themselves enough that they would refuse to do something like PT naked in the shower or rub Ict Hot on their genitals. Especially since they got Death by Powerpoint on sexual harrassment – over and over and over. Instead, those MTIs would have been immediately reported. But then, my kids haven’t been helicopter parented.
Wonder what they would have done to the great Lackland Air Police School DIs who drove car loads of us down to “Boys Town” for an afternoon of adult recreation, for a reasonable fee of course (1958).
Well, the MIl com story does say she threatened someone with castration and refused to allow others to eat, but there are no specifics, however, she is, from this report, a screaming bitch who let her ego go to her head, not a leader or trainer.
On the other hand, the women who were senior POs at Bainbridge put the fear of God in us just by looking at us with venom in their eyes.
Wasn’t there. Don’t know exactly what happened. That said, “training” involving nudity and/or showers just invites all sorts of abuse perhaps even safety issues. Pitting trainees against each other in fisticuffs doesn’t sound right either, altho I can see circumstances where it could make some sense.
All to say, there is sometimes a very fine line between appropriate corrective behavior and abuse.
…My son was interviewed by the prosecutors, as he had witnessed a couple of incidents involving SSgt Ellis and her troops when he was at Lackland. He simply said that he had the impression from the questions that they were just letting her keep digging…
Mike
“….the fuckin’ cable’s out? I’m filing an abuse complaint!”
http://www.blackfive.net/.a/6a00d8341bfadb53ef0133f53f6769970b-pi
Hah. I was a Marine in the early 80’s and this stuff was daily. Hell, I left my rifle unsecured once and dropped it another time–needless to say I have 2 sets of stitches that resemble the front sight post of a M16A2.
Doc in the BAS-“What happened to you recruit?”
Me-“Umm, this recruit fell.”
Doc-“uh huh [rolls eyes]”.
Yeah, that gettin’ naked thing would have pissed me off. I do recall some moments that leave me scratching my head, but I didn’t consider it abuse. Just “basic training”. The one thing I am still ashamed of is that I knew that some of the drills were (forgive my choice of military verbiage) shagging trainees and I am sure I could have spoken up.
I had to low crawl with an M-60 across and around a parking lot for three (3) hours. In 90+ weather. I had bad burns on my face and hands.
But I learned.
As I have stated, these infractions, while wrong, are minor at best.
Some of it does seem a little to far of a stretch to actually be something to consider harsh, but seeing some of the Airman come in straight from Tech School and hear about Basic Training. You’d think we were running a resort. No yelling, no swearing, only doing any type of “PT punishment” in PT gear, The T.I. is only allowed to be there between specific hours for training, pretty much allowed base lib after zero week. They can carry their cell phones around on the weekend. Not a single one of them has the same discipline that you can see from those who went in way back. Not a single one addresses anybody with respect unless it’s an E-6 and above.
I’m also consistently told that I need to be a nurturer and not a disciplinary individual. I’m seeing way to much pampering and not enough John Wayne mentality from the higher ups, and they wonder why so many young supervisors are failing as well as the newer Airman walking all over everybody. Treat them like adults and punish them accordingly, put the fear back in and they’ll straighten up.
Many times, back in the 1960s, a particular and very fine Navy Commander said to us sailors :” Shape up or ship out!” . He led with a by the book example. Even in his fifties, the Commander could do fifty push ups and really pump iron.
We shaped up..We did not have to ship out.
AF instructor Ellis did not follow the book and was a poor example. That is what she is really being punished for.