Should They Have Noticed Reports Of Rapes From Female Cadets?

They've already been reassigned - leaders at the US Air Force Academy. But that may not be the end of it. They may still face judicial or non-judicial punishment in the wake of a sex scandal that rocked one of America's most prestigious service academies earlier this year.

"We are judging commanders. We do that all the time," said Air Force Secretary James Roche on Wednesday. Roche and his chief of staff, Gen. John Jumper, are now reviewing an investigation of the scandal to determined if USAFA commanders properly handled complaints from cadets and those outside the Academy.

Already, Air Force Superintendent Lt. Gen. John D. Dallager, Commandant Brig. Gen. S. Taco Gilbert III and three other leaders from the Academy have been assigned elsewhere. At the time he announced the reassignments, Roche said, however, that the atmosphere which allowed to sexual misconduct to take place had been years in the making.

An Air Force investigation uncovered 57 reported cases of sexual misconduct between 1990 and 2003. Forty male cadets were punished in one way or another as a result of those reports. But several female cadets say their rape complaints were ignored. In some cases, the female cadets themselves say they were harrassed or even disciplined for reporting the incidents.

Amy McCarthy graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1982. McCarthy, now an airline pilot, is a member of an independent panel now investigating the various rape allegations, one of four ongoing investigations. She is skeptical about a large number of of the allegations from female cadets. "Due to the fact that many of the women making the allegations were involved with drinking, partying, strip poker, what I call high-risk behaviors, my personal opinion is that a number of these allegations or the veracity of these allegations may be suspect," she said in an interview with AP Radio.

A Less Joyous Occasion

The four separate investigations cast a pallor over Wednesday's USAFA graduation ceremonies. While both Roche and Jumper addressed the graduating cadets, they had been warned by parents not to bring up the scandal. Many parents wrote e-mails to the Air Force leaders, threatening to boo or turn away from the podium had such remarks been made. In the end, neither Roche nor Jumper said a word about the investigations. "We've said everything we have to say to the corps of cadets," Roche said later. "There is no reason to continue to berate them."

FMI: www.usafa.af.mil