Crash and Burn

By TAD BARTIMUS

Former Air Force Academy superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Dallager, says he is "very disappointed" that he's been stripped of one of his three stars for allegedly being unaware of widespread sexual abuse of female cadets during his tenure.
So am I. This year, dozens of female cadets, current and former, reported that they had been raped by male cadets and ostracized when they tried to get help from superior officers.

Instead of just losing a star and $13,000 from his annual $136,000 retirement, effective Sept. 1, Dallager and other high-ranking officers under his command at the academy should immediately be busted to the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, and either court-martialed or dishonorably discharged from the United States Air Force.

Only by setting zero-tolerance examples that include the drastic loss of pay and rank can the "good old boys" network be scared into halting routine harassment of females in the military. Such examples would proclaim, in unequivocal language, that dire consequences await any and all who perpetuate an officially outlawed culture of machismo in the armed services.

I grew up the daughter of an honorable military officer. I know the difference between a good soldier and a bad one. A good one puts the welfare of his or her troops first. A good one knows what's going on, bottom to top, in the unit. A good one takes full responsibility when anything goes wrong and credits the troops when something goes right.

My father once risked his own court martial by taking control of a crippled airplane as it struggled across the Pacific Ocean toward San Francisco with a panicked pilot at the stick. As a mere co-pilot seizing command from an officer who outranked him, my father knew he was committing professional suicide, but he later said he had no choice - it was his duty to try and save his crew.

By ordering them to dump everything that wasn't tied down out the cargo doors, and skillfully guiding the aircraft to a safe emergency landing, my father saved 11 officers and airmen that day, including himself. But for months afterwards, he had to defend his actions at disciplinary hearings brought by the panicked pilot. My dad was eventually exonerated, but never promoted again. He soon retired.

As for Dallager and his subordinates, their dereliction of duty is inexcusable, their failure to take responsibility for their actions unacceptable, and their continued attitude of aggrieved denial of any wrongdoing unforgivable.

Congressional hearings are revealing ever more evidence of rapes and assaults committed by male cadets against female cadets. These dramatic accounts leave no doubt that, despite the Pentagon's boasts that new rules and regulations are preventing sexual harassment, military women throughout the services are still in harm's way merely because of their gender.

Adding insult, the protests of female cadets are routinely ignored. "We were beating down their doors, trying to get meetings," said former cadet, Sharon Fullilove, to The New York Times about her attempts to complain about being raped by a male cadet. "They didn't want to hear about it."

The men and women who serve this nation in our armed forces deserve the finest leaders we can train and promote. Dallager and his ilk are not among them. Neither are their bosses, all the way up the chain of command.

President George W. Bush, as the husband of a professionally accomplished wife and the father of two daughters, now needs to stop this buck.

It's a shameful reflection on his administration that Secretary of the Air Force James Roche has merely slapped Dallager's hands by taking away his star and a few hundred dollars. Instead, Roche should have said, "Never Again" by making every officer involved in this latest military sex scandal an example of what will happen to the next one who lets such a travesty occur on his or her watch.

As commander-in-chief, Bush needs to set the bar for exemplary behavior as high as it will go. By stopping, once and for all, sexual harassment in the military, the president would leave a far greater legacy than our memory of his photo op swagger across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

© 2003 The Women Syndicate

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