Air Force general: Sex assaults a 'cancer'

WASHINGTON -- Likening sexual assault in the Air Force's ranks to a "cancer," the service's top officer resolved yesterday to tackle the problem by screening personnel more carefully and putting an end to bad behavior like binge drinking that can lead to misconduct.

But Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, underscored the challenge by telling a House committee that the service recorded a disturbing number of reports of sexual assault last year, even as it worked to curb misconduct following a sex scandal at its training headquarters in Texas.

Dozens of young female recruits and airmen at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio were victimized by their instructors who sexually harassed, improperly touched or raped them.

Most difficult, Welsh said, is transforming a culture in which victims are often reluctant to report what happened because of guilt, shame or fear they won't be believed.

"Why, on what was undoubtedly the worst day of a victim's life, did they not turn to us for help?" Welsh said before the House Armed Services Committee. "We are missing something fundamental in the human-to-human interaction."

An Air Force veteran who was sexually assaulted, though not at Lackland, described how intimidating it is for young enlisted personnel to speak up.

"You're stuck," Jennifer Norris said. "If you want a career, you don't want to say anything because you get retaliated against." Norris, who said she medically retired in 2010 with post-traumatic stress disorder, said the Air Force and the other military branches have a sexual assault epidemic and a broken system of justice.

Six Lackland instructors have been convicted in courts-martial on charges ranging from adultery, rape and conducting unprofessional relationships. Nine more are awaiting courts-martial. Fifteen instructors remain under investigation.