Fort Benning drills investigated
A number of folks have sent us links to the news that more than one drill sergeant has been charged with sexual assault at Fort Benning, Georgia, the Maneuver Center where the Army trains infantrymen and tankers. From the Washington Post;
The cases are under investigation by Army Criminal Investigation Command and the service’s Maneuver Center of Excellence, Army officials said. The investigation began after a female trainee accused a drill sergeant of sexual assault, and it expanded after that allegation “revealed indications of additional allegations of sexual misconduct involving trainees and drill sergeants,” the Army said in a statement. It declined to say how many drill sergeants are now under investigation.
I’ll withhold judgement until the investigation is complete because I have doubts about the situation. Like I said, the Army trains tankers and infantrymen at Benning. Traditionally those jobs were strictly for men. Women didn’t go to basic training at Fort Benning. I suspect this is the result of culture shock for one or more of the people involved.
Category: Army News
The only females I remembered at Sand Hills when I went through OSUT back in ’79 were some older civilian ladies working at the mess hall and ONE female E-4 assigned to same said mess hall. That was it; times have changed…
When I was in Basic Combat Training in the Winter of 1968 at Fort Lewis, Washington, there were NO females anywhere, not even in the mess hall.
There were no females anywhere when I went to the Southeastern Signal School at Fort Gordon, Georgia.
There were no females anywhere at my duty station in Kleber Kaserne in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Females at Fort Gordon, Georgia were in the Womens Army Corps, i.e., the “WACs”, and they were in a separate compound, out of sight, surrounded by barbed wire, and guarded by armed Military Police.
In the old Republic of Viet Nam, if we were lucky, once in a blue moon, the “Doughnut Dollys” (female Red Cross volunteers) would come visit with Kool-Aid and cookies.
There were no females in my unit in Korea, but I saw females when I went to church and when I was in the hospital.
There were no females in my unit, the Combat Developments Experimentation Command, at Hunter-Liggett Military Reservation in California or at Fort Ord, California, although I dated a civilian female I met at church.
At Fort hood, Texas, the Army slowly began phasing out the WACs, and gradually began putting females in Signal Corps units.
Okay, before any of you pile on this, assault is defined as verbal abuse. Battery is defined as physical abuse, illegal physical contact. If you don’t understand that: 1) saying “I want to f–k you” is assault aka verbal abuse; 2) rape is battery.
Therefore, I, too, want to know more about what happened before I actually get into the ‘j’accuse’ state of mind.
Since the article says ‘sexual misconduct involving trainees and drill sergeants’, I prefer to wait and find out what actually happened.
Not sure (sure as hell I am not a lawyer) but I think you are differentiating between simple assault (as used in ‘asault and battery’) and sexual assault, defined as:
“Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.” Either way, heads will roll. If the squid who took classified pictures couldn’t plead a Hillary, these guys at Benning won’t get to plead a Donald.
https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault
Also remember, in a position of authority over the victim. My money says consensual in exchange for training favors which became unwanted advances when exposed. Regardless, how F-in dumb can these accused NCO’s be, or hard up, to even get into this situation.
CM, as a wise Chief once said, “A stiff dick has no conscience.”
Couple that with Robin Williams quip about the brain and penis, but only enough blood to run one at a time.
Goes a long way to explaining the sheer magnitude of stupidity some will display for a little piece of strange.
Why don’t we wait for the investigation?
My money says snufy jane didn’t want to do push ups and accused the DS without anything actually happening.
Millenials know their “rights”, you know.
But I will wait for the results before I open my trap.
I’m thinking they already did an “informal investigation” and they are now doing a “formal” investigation.
This isn’t just one Drill Sergeant. This is multiple Drills being investigated which is indicative of a larger issue than just one female troop saying, “he touched my butt!”
Been there, seen it, dealt with it in this environment. It is a news release which means a much bigger deal as well.
Okay, smartasses – like I said elsewhere, there’s a wide width of difference between saying or doing something that is just good-natured teasing, and saying/doing something that is rude, undeserved, and in this case, possibly criminal.
What you’re not labeling sexual assault is dragging sex reels of prun into the work space and asking your female coworkers what they think of it, and making them watch it.
Forcing yourself on someone physically, as in ass-grabbing as she walks by you, is sexual battery, or as a male police officer did when pulling a strip search on a female driver in public, for no reason, and recording it. That has happened in Chicago. The cop was charged for it.
You can mince words over this, but I did sit through a freaking, boring semester of contract law, in which the two terms were defined in legalese. I don’t care what the popular usage is. The correct use makes a difference.
Fair enough.
However, UCMJ would have the applicable definitions in this matter, versus civilian legal terms and interpretations.
There often are -vast- differences between the two.
EX-PH2,
I don’t think times and legalise have changed that much, but IIRC There was never anyone charged with assault for what you described.
Talking dirty, showing dirty pics etc, was considered Sexual Harrassment, and fell under article 134.
Assault was putting your hands or a weapon ( or even spit) on a person. (Article 128)
Battery was causing physical harm, however slight.( Still Article 128 with a subparagraph)
Sexual Assault was charged under the rape article(120).
I’ll take your word for it, Old Dog. There seems to be a vagueness to the whole thing.
BUT in regard to this: Assault was putting your hands or a weapon ( or even spit) on a person. (Article 128) – that does include making threats of bodily harm of any kind, as well as stalking someone, making phone calls, obscene or otherwise, and sending mail to someone in which threats are made or implied.
ExPF2-What you’re talking about is what we call a ‘fear assault’.
I don’t think the UCMJ has that.
Agreed.
The Army divides sexual misconduct in two: sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Sexual harassment is anything non-physical.
Sexual assault is anything physical.
Tell a sexual joke? Sexual harassment.
Touch the hand of a private ? Sexual assault.
Jonn, was scratching my head on this one as well and thought maybe the article was about Females at OCS or Airborne School until I found this FT Benning news published 17 May 2017:
“Fort Benning graduates first gender-integrated Infantry One Station Unit Training”
https://benningnews.org/2017/05/19/fort-benning-graduates-first-gender-integrated-infantry-osut/
18 Female soldiers completed Infantry OSUT with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 198th Infantry Brigade in that timeframe.
Damn if I would have known 10 years ago what I know now I would have done 11B a good friend of mine who’s son is a drill there said the standerd has done South. Way South…
Of course.
What did you expect with Ashton Carter?
Its going to take years to fix what he and Obozo did to the Army.
The perfemed princes at the Pentagon are in no hurry to fix this.
In OSUT at Benning, we had a female Specialist assigned as Armorer. One day she was about to open the arms room, and four lines of us blocked her path. As was usual for telling folks to get out of the way, someone bellowed “make a hole!” Only two or three men moved, so of course, some helpful genius bellowed “make a BIG hole!”
Did I forget to mention that the Specialist was rather hugely pregnant? Oops.
Nothing happened right then and there. 2am that night, the whole company was woken up, ordered to assemble in the company area, and smoked to dead dog meat for “harassing” the specialist. Seems she filed a formal complaint against everyone. At the time, no one could remember who, exactly, said “big”, so the smoking was endless and epic.
The matter was eventually dropped, as no one rolled on the dumbass with the mouth. We were advised privately, later, that we had better learn fast that there were explicit double standards, and that some folks have zero sense of humor.
Comment widely granted “Roger that!”:
“If she can’t handle -that- bullshit, what the fuck is she doing in the Army?”
I learned a long time ago to holler ‘make a hole, make a hole’ if I had arms full of junk and too many people were ahead of me in the passageway.
However, there’s a huge gap between good natured teasing and just plain bad manners or rudeness, which is what you’re describing. There was no reason for anyone to make a crass remark like ‘make it a BIG hole’, other than looking for a chance to be an obnoxious jerk.
I was there. What I heard could -easily- have been ordinary grunt-speak for “move out of the way dumbasses”. Or, it could have been a cheap-shot on “fatty”.
Make a big hole. People then moved.
If that had been a man trying to get to that door, no one would have said “boo” about “make a -big- hole”. If the kid we called Bumblebee (Fatty upon arrival, most weight lost by graduation – good man) had been subject to that, I rather doubt he would have blinked.
Why do girl-soldiers get special feelings protection versus none for boy-soldiers? I thought we were supposed to be peers and equals?
That is an -explicit- and -unmistakable- double standard, enforced.
I was there and it was as I said. And it was in no way unique.
This is just one reason why we don’t need these over-sensitive bitches in the combat arms, period.
Why do girls get special feelings protection? Probably because they get bullied in school more than boys do, usually over nothing. They go into the military thinking they’ll be in with grownups and it’s 1st grade through 12th or worse, and some girls just can’t deal with it.
Maybe someone got called a pussy. Can’t have that, ya know.
According to that UCMJ thing they may have looked at wrong, that’s all it takes.
Welcome to the new Army. I kind of liked the old Army better, old Air Force during my enlisted time as well. WAR STORY ALERT: I fondly remember moonlighting at the NCO Club when I was young and tender and the first shirt’s wife grabbing my ass on occasion.
Who did not see that coming?
I see your hands over there – Pentagon REMFs.
You know, Graybeard, when parents do not teach their kids decent manners and common courtesies before they are six, the kids grow up thinking it’s okay to be jackwagons. Then they find out it isn’t that way at all, and the result is what we have now.
Yep.
Which is why my grandkids get swats when they need it, and hugs all the time.
It seems like every one of them has That Moment when Oma or Opa swat them the first time, and they realize that they have to follow the rules regardless of whose house they are in. The shock and despair on their faces is actually hilarious.
But the older ones are turning into some young men and women of whom I am mighty proud.
If the allegation is true, hang the rat-bastard. If not, hang the lying bitch.
Better idea: one or the other jilted, so let them sue each other over it.
TOW, I have no choice but to agree with you.
No excuses.
I was just at Benning over this weekend…
I swear I dint borrow a brownroun’ and go merrily squeezin’ those young semi-ripe fruits.
All jokes about deviant a-holeish behavior aside, when you get young mid twenties hormonally challenged, knuckle dragging Soldiers around fresh smelling civilians who don’t know how to assertively say ‘no’, bad things are going to happen. No question about it. And it don’t matter if it’s dude on chick, chick on chick, or dude on dude.
It ain’t a ‘culture’ thing, like some c*nt senators from NY or MA say, it’s just the way it is. The fear of death, training to extinguish the fear of death and massive amounts of stress/physical training raise testosterone levels. Unfortunately, lapses in good judgement are going to happen.
When they do, and there is proof, and a gross violation of Army Values, nail the bastards’ balls to the Red Book and throw both out the window.
I left out chick on dude…
Maybe I have some hidden fantasy about some female DS harassment aimed at me.
If you know someone…
What – you didn’t see that WM boot camp video I posted Sunday with the female DI yelling at men?
I confess, no I didn’t. Green Mile was on, then Heartbreak Ridge.
We had a female drill at 12B OSUT in 97 [no females in 12B then, she was an 88M, if I recall, there over something to do with Clinton’s (Slick Willy-version) idea of politics]. Her first day, she threatened to skull-drag the next guy she saw walking to/from the latrine in a towel. Gotta admit, it kinda got my interests up. Then again, it was week 5 or 6 and I hadn’t been addressed by a female in a while.
It’s amazing how primal we are. It had been months since I’d seen a non-burkaed woman til I’d seen some Air Force women types walking in tight PTs about 500 meters away. Being amazed I thought it a good idea to check out the situation through the leupold on my M14. After my PL took a look he suggested that we probably shouldn’t be pointing that thing at friendlies. I begrudgingly agreed.
For the one that we do hear about, there are 5+ we don’t hear about. Having been in the Initial Entry Training (IET) environment for 4 years, I know all too well.
We had multiple drill sergeants go to prison years after I left there because it caught up to them. A Drill Sergeant later became the 1SG and was banging a trainee who decided to end it. That turned into an investigation of “what was going on while he was a Drill?” and included all the Drills he worked with at the time. There were 3 or 4 that were punished, the 1SG went to leavenworth for a long time and 1 or 2 other Drills did as well. 1 or 2 others were relieved and careers were ended.
There was even a Drill Sergeant, I heard of back in the 90s that allegedly wasn’t doing anything with a female trainee, but took leave after the class graduated and he went to her place for leave. His company found out, cancelled his leave and he was fired 2 seconds after he returned. They couldn’t prove he was having an inappropriate relationship with her during the cycle, but it didn’t matter. The perception of it was enough to fire him and end his career progression.
Integrated training vs segregated training for males/females is a tough call because it still happens with the Marines and they have separate boot camps as I understand.
It will still be happening in 10 years. Short of keeping trainees on video 24/7 until they graduate and are at the next duty station, it will happen.
I remember when I was in OSUT in 1991 when our DS’s told us about a Female DS who got busted for “servicing” the Joes under her for $50 a pop, an E7 reduced to E1 with at least a Big Chicken Dinner, it goes both ways!
Oh yes, one of those Drill Sergeants I was referring to was a female Drill who was banging a male trainee. I still don’t understand that with an entire infantry division 5 minutes up the road, she decides to hook up with one that will destroy her when she could have her pick of 10,000 dicks with no problem.
Given my daughters less than enthusiastic reports from Basic such as soldiers given “time out cards” which they could just hold up when they were tired or stressed or whatever and could immediately sit down with a drill making sure they were ok or troops objecting to strong language by a drill as it offended them I’ll withhold judgement on this one
So, are you saying, jonp, that today’s recruits are wienies because, even though they themselves may have used coarse language and thought nothing of it, now that they run into authority figures using it, they are unhappy and wounded?
Geezo Pete, where the hell is PN Fenstermacher when you need her?
It also trains the MOS that makes sure Tankers and Grunts don’t get lost, Cavalry Scouts! Scouts Out! (unless they’re from 5-15 CAV, then blame it all on the grunts and tankers)
I went to PLDC at Knox and was endlessly amused by the 19D and 19K constantly almost coming to blows over who was the better MOS. I remember a particular sore point was the branch crest that the scouts insisted on wearing – irritated the tankers to no end. I just sat back as an Engineer and laughed at the mayhem 🙂 .
I’m thinking some poor female noob trainee didn’t want to do what the drill said (MEAN NASTY YELLING SWEARING DRILL SERGEANT — yeah, the kind that turn children into adults and Get Things Done), and said the first thing out of her ignorant mouth.
Even I learned (and I was no Drill), that in dealing with females, you ALWAYS leave the door open, and you are NEVER, EVER alone with one. ALWAYS have a “co-counselor” as a witness.
Oh, you’ve run into the vengeful, spiteful bitch, have you?
While that may be a good CYA approach, it is not at all conducive to respecting the individual in-question as an honorable soldier and holding every soldier under you to the same standard, which can have catastrophic effects further down the road.
Since before 2000, all Initial Entry Trainees are required to have a “buddy” with them, a fellow trainee. Especially when they are talking to Cadre. It doesn’t matter if it is a counseling in an office or in a corner of the classroom with the whole platoon present.
If there are an odd number of female trainees, then either they are 3 buddied up, or if absolutely necessary, 2 male trainees. But 2 males with one female was rare for more than just a temporary situation as far as I experienced.
TRADOC Reg 350-6 is a bevy of “do this, do not do this!” examples that basically tell Cadre, “if you follow this regulation, you won’t end up in leavenworth.” Some Cadre are just too dumb to realize that it isn’t worth it.
Though yes, there are trainees that try to abuse the power position to become a professional victim OR to make things easier on themselves. But, abiding by the treatment of IET personnel makes it easy to avoid that kind of crap. As a former CSM used to say, “No Pussy in the world is worth 30 years.”
I was USAF, but did tech school at Leonard Wood. Since we weren’t permanent party, sick call was with the basic trainees/AIT kids. I went once.
I thought it was super strange, and very uncomfortable, when it was three of us with the male PA hearing our complaints, Me, one other male, and this female trainee. She had to discuss her lady problems with us two in the room.
This must have been why? It felt like a horrible invasion of privacy for her, and even for us, to discuss medical probs with other people in the room. At the time, I just thought it was the Army way. Would have been early ’03. Since it would have been a new-ish policy, maybe they’ve ironed out such kinks,
Time and the investigation will tell if this is the result of misconduct OR it was some little girl Enlisting for that expecting to get her ass kissed no matter what because SHE was one of the first Females to get that MOS.
Concur, Jonn. I’m taking a wait and see view.
Women have been going to Infantry OSUT for a while now I believe. Not sure of the numbers.
A typical scumbag Drill Sergeant move is to keep females PAST normal training completion or making them “holdovers” for some reason, female soldiers they are having sex with/relationships/etc.
The army like society has dirtbags in it. Prosecute those breaking the rules.
Recruiters are boning females all the time too out ‘in the field’.
Women have been going through 11 and 19 OSUT for several months now, mostly without incident. If you consider the sheer numbers involved (we train about 16,000 11B/C each year alone; roughly 250 Soldiers a cycle with a cycle beginning every two weeks or so. This being the summer surge, its probably higher than that.), it is pretty impressive that this is the first allegation. Not sure what the female numbers are looking like these days, but it is relatively low- especially since the OPAT is screening out recruits (mostly women) that can’t score in the Black category. This has also cut female attrition in training- women were dropping at roughly twice the rate of men prior to the OPAT; with the screening in place their rate is about 5% points higher. WRT the allegations, since the Aberdeen scandal all Basic Training and OSUTs are under what the Army calls Safe and Secure. OSUT barracks have separate living quarters for m/f, alarmed doors, and cameras everywhere. Male drills can’t go into female barracks without female cadre, and vice versa. There are female drills in both 11 and 19 series OSUTs, and the female drills are in charge of the female bays. In other words, it is very likely that there are either witnesses or video footage of both the Drill and the trainee at the time of the alleged incident. The cameras were put in place to protect trainees, but in reality they are used in evidence in favor of cadre more often- in other words, to exonerate a falsely accused drill. In other words, while it is certainly possible, I find it VERY hard to believe that a Drill under this kind of microscope decided to roll the dice with a trainee. We’ll see what the investigation determines, but I have a feeling that it turns out to either be a false allegation or a case of a Drill slipping up and improperly touching a troop or saying something coarse that was interpreted as harassment. Of course, we are all assuming that this is a female trainee and a… Read more »
Meant to add that all Drills and Recruiters go through a screening for what we call POSTA (Positions of Special Trust and Authority). POSTA screening is more stringent that the investigation for a SECRET clearance- this is one of the reasons that Drills are managed at the nametag level by HQDA.
Red is their anything in the system to officially address false allegations. I have personally seen a soldier who was being groomed for Group CSM and he was the victim of a false sexual harassment allegation. He was exonerated and promoted to SGM but just the stench of the allegation IMHO stopped him from ever making CSM.
Sorta but not really. The official answer is that if the allegation is false it does not appear in the Soldier’s record. It won’t be in the ORB/ERB, official file, and it is like it never happened.
Reality is that once it gets out there people draw their own conclusions. The more senior you are, the more people know you or know of you. When I pinned on major, a mentor told me that being a field grade officer meant that the degrees of separation reduced geometrically- instead of being one nameless, faceless captain in literally thousands, I was now one of three field grades in a battalion of several hundred Soldiers- everyone in the Army either knew me directly or by reputation with at most two degrees of separation. I was no longer anonymous.
There are typically 10 or more captains and 3 field grades in a battalion, but only half that number of 1SGs and only one CSM. When one of them is accused of something, all of their peers and potential board members know about it at the speed of beer call (in the old days) and Facebook (today)