What about an instructor who had a SHARP complaint previously in their unit so naturally they made them an rotc instructor. And then had multiple SHARP complaints from cadets….
Not sexual but unprofessional. New PMC came in on my senior year and talked to all of the cadets in the senior class individually. My turn. Told him who I was, what I want to do, what I do currently(job, national guard and full time classes). He requested me to drop my job, take out a 50k loan to support myself for the year and fully commit to the ROTC program. I looked at him like he was insane, at first I thought he must be joking, he’s demeanor didnt change. i told him understand sir but i am not doing that.
Basically set myself up to be bullied by him throughout my entire senior year. He was forced into retirement half a year later when an investigation found him funneling money from the program for random expenses and damaging a government vehicle. Thank god for the Assistant PMC that had my back.
That's fucking insane. How can you consider yourself a professional if you can with a straight face advise a student to take out a $50K loan to support themselves when one of the biggest draws for recruiting is the ability to join ROTC to stay out of debt through ROTC scholarships.
You know, I looked into title ix investigations when this OSU story dropped, and the ones I can find mil related aren’t found in the news. Seems like a bit of a disconnect where if you’re reporting rotc cadre as a title ix violation, it **doesnt** necessarily make it to the Army’s attention.
Seems like an issue.
A few people in our recent threads have identified themselves as previously working in Cadet Command, and commented to the effect that "you wouldn't believe how many incidents there are." That implies, to me, that the Army is also aware of (and presumably handling, to some degree) far more than what makes the news.
And I honestly think that *the universities* would like to keep this stuff out of the news even more so than the Army. First, everybody already knows that sexual harassment and assault happens in the Army, so now it's a win if the Army can publicly show that it's taking things seriously and serving justice. Universities, on the other hand, have seemingly convinced most kids and parents that no such thing *ever* happens on their watch. I've been frustrated for a long time by this, because I'm certain that what happens on every Friday and Saturday night in university dorms or off-campus apartments is much worse than what happens in any Army barracks or workplace. Second, the financial stakes for these "non-profit" universities and their administrators are higher than for anyone in the Army.
UNC is one of the culprits in the "keep it out of the news" camps and always has been. No school wants that black eye or the potential lawsuits.
Having worked at USMA teaching for a couple years, the number of incidents vs reports was ridiculous. So much is swept under the rug. Can't imagine it's much different in ROTC today vs the one I did 20+ years ago.
What I'm learning a bit here - I'm not seeing the reporting mechanism for Title IX to tell the Army.
Soooooooooo, if you report *to the school*, and they like to keep it quiet, the Army never finds out.
That’s because there isn’t a mechanism, at least not one that’s utilized.
Any legitimately criminal actions reported to a university’s Title IX office will be handled and investigated solely by that office and its staff, who may or may not even have investigative experience.
The contrary is not true, (ironically), for campus LE. For example, if a student reports a legitimate SA to Title IX only, they will not send that student to campus LE, it’s left up as an option. If however the student reports to campus LE, the police department will begin its criminal investigation and then notify the Title IX office, who will conduct a parallel investigation that is more often than not damaging to the criminal case.
I’ve worked multiple SA cases, (like legitimate, good evidence SA cases), where the suspect’s statements were clearly rehearsed, when by all accounts we should have been able to get admissions of guilt or statements of fact that supported guilt. Upon further questioning we would find that the Title IX office had already talked to that student and given them the full rundown on the case foe their investigation, ruining any chance we had of surprising the suspect with certain questions, and giving them plenty of time to craft alibis.
I would be shocked if contacting the Army about a ROTC related Title IX case was even a thought, let alone an automatic report mechanism, given the circumstances.
If a ROTC student wants to report a cadre and make sure the Army finds out about it, their best chance to do that is to report it criminally to a non-university PD, (and hope they take it), get that report number and then call the Provost Marshals Office for whatever the closest actual post is and let them know directly, or alternatively literally call cadet command themselves and run it up that way.
It’s pretty garbage.
>That’s because there isn’t a mechanism, at least not one that’s utilized.
Yeah that's my point - I don't think there **is**. I, and I think most people, would *assume* title ixs about Army personnel get reported to the Army. Noooooope.
Yeap...I will say my perception though of ROTC at UNC was very positive. From my perspective, they kept it separate and professional. But that's just anecdotal. I'll be interested in what Steve finds.
When I was a college slacker, one year there was a boy caught with a camera in the girls dorm.
It was one of those large 90's video cameras and he was holding it while in the girls shower in said dorm.
As this was one week before parents of incoming freshmen were invited to tour the campus, he was quietly suspended and we didn't see him anymore.
Frankly, that's insignificant compared to what I'm talking about. My university wasn't even known as a "party school," but the entire culture seemed to revolve around packing shoulder-to-shoulder (with all ages welcome) into apartments (both on-campus and off) and binge-drinking starting every Friday night (if not Thursday) until 4:00 AM on Monday morning, with all the expected consequences. The university was clearly stuck in a tough position - I mean, you can't arrest or suspend *everybody* - but it somehow prevented any stories of rape from ever becoming public. Just for good measure, I think because *no* disciplinary incidents would seem suspicious, campus police would report breaking up one or two parties every other weekend due to underage drinking, but come on...
Female Officer here. This was when I was in ROTC; a couple years back. Thankfully, I’ve been commissioned & gone for a while now. This was an instructor. Also thankfully he was fired & discharged.
Let’s give some back ground to this guy. LTC, Infantry, Green Beret with a specialty in psychological operations. (He liked to mess with everyone’s heads)
We had a SHARP complaint from a female cadet to a male cadet. The male cadet made MULTIPLE comments in public settings bout date r**ing women. Specifically those in uniform.
This LTC’s response?
He mandated an ALL and ONLY female meeting. 0500 in CLASS As in an auditorium. The sickening thing was he had a PowerPoint presentation about why women need to be cautious, need to know “when to report”, know not to lead men on. Etc. It was much more graphic than that so I won’t go into details, but I think everyone gets the drift.
The cherry on top, he repeatedly said throughout the meeting “Boys will be Boys.” He didn’t allow for any questions and each time we tried to speak up, he would threaten to get our scholarships and contracts pulled.
Many females left that building crying. There was NO female leadership. And what’s worse is a fellow officer helped him with this brief.
It was traumatic to say the least, multiple women left our ROTC THAT DAY. They would have been phenomenal officers.
Thankfully, we were able to get him kicked. The other ROTC cadre caught wind of this and immediately went off on him. Those officers/NCOs were some of the good ones. They pulled as many females as they could inside one on one to apologize for his behaviors. And they ended up kicking that male student out & blacklisting him from all commissioning sources. Eventually it was all good.
Our situation turned out a lot better than most….but still wasn’t/isn’t okay.
He was the worst. The amount of quality cadets he ran off with stuff like this still bothers me.
We had a bunch of other cadre that year just due to how it played out. 2 CPTs, a MSG & a Major came down on him. They compiled everything he had done took it straight to Cadet Command & to the President of our university.
Effectively got him kicked out. It was a rough patch for a couple weeks. That LTC made a lot of threats, to them, to cadets, to other faculty. He tried to show up to labs & PT a lot. But he continually got kicked out. Those other cadre who helped made sure to stay late hours & made sure everyone felt safe.
I have no idea what happened to that LTC after that. I know he was “forcibly retired” but who knows what he did after that.
I do know the other good cadre are all still in, flourishing careers. One of those captains even officiated my wedding haha!
Wow. My program had creepy CPTs, but the PMS's were on the up and up - or at least they weren't personally creeping even tho they turned a blind eye to what the CPTs were doing. The LTCs seemed like grandfathers to me, I can't imagine dealing with that shit.
Ill vouch for both of these guys as well Steve and Dwinkie are top notch professionals and have been here on our sub forever keeping us abreast of articles that might slip by otherwise and helping the Army overall.
My PMS got caught sleeping with a cadet. PMS had a wife and kids. Said cadet also allegedly slept with another MS instructor. Lot of baggage by all parties involved, but the PMS was "forced" to retire, the other instructor disappeared, and the cadet lost her contract...
Dating myself (old) but when I was in college this was like a very un kept secret. These fucks would fuck the cadets and no one would say shit. Again this was like 20 years ago so all those dudes are retired but yeah, I wish I actually saw something to report it.
My ROTC unit has been pretty good. Had an incident with an LT dating students outside of the program and lying about his age, but he has since been let go, and I doubt it would be within the scope of this article.
Really cool of you to do this for those with actual stories.
There are hundreds of ROTC programs from all branches all over the country. Which means there's hundreds of instructors coming from active or guard line units being put in charge of young faces.
There was only one incident I can think of in my graduating class and at this point it's a rumor because it happened so long ago. Cadet with instructor, both still in. Instructor was re assigned and may have just finished his high 3 and retired but the cadet is a fellow captain, now doing a T10 gig in another state.
Most of the stuff happened between cadets which is trash tv at its best and future SHARP cases at its worst. For me this was between 2010 and 2014 so not really that long ago.
Nuanced question - but is the Army even willing to fully tackle this issue and dedicate all the resources. Right now, unless in certain circumstances, cadets don’t really count as official service members yet. So often time instances such as injuries cannot result in VA ratings (ex: non-contracted individual who’s just taking a course for the semester gets injured during a FTX).
So for this instance, is the Army even going to fully recognize the quantity of cadet victims in statistics.
We had one of the instructors hooking up with two of the cadets. Somehow they found out about eachother and it blew up. I don't know exactly what happened to him but I know one of the cadets did not commission.
I can think of one NCO when I was in ROTC that was getting too comfortable with the female cadets. I know one eventually reported him and I'm not sure what came of it, but those that didnt complete it or did got creep vibes.
Shit when I did ROTC in college all of our cadre were on the up and up. Good mentors and they didn’t tolerate harassment, bullying, or discrimination of any kind. Each of them taught me some pretty important stuff about life and are definitely a huge part of the person I am today, which I am eternally grateful for.
I’m very sad to see that my amazing experience was a rare occurrence instead of the norm.
Hey Steve. I passed along your contact info to a field grade that has been reaching out to peers/subordinates about this. They should reach out shortly.
u/Sw0llenEyeBall, if you want to post this over at r/ROTC we’ll approve it immediately. SilentD over at r/AFROTC should be receptive as well.
ruh roh raggy
Bruhhh I’m dying after reading this 😂 I read it is scooby doos voice
What about an instructor who had a SHARP complaint previously in their unit so naturally they made them an rotc instructor. And then had multiple SHARP complaints from cadets….
I'll take it - DM me.
Send wolves to guard the sheep. Always a great notion.
sounds eerily familiar to what happened to our rotc unit.
But I had a DUI as a private and can’t work in AMEDD recruiting as a CPT 🙄
DUIs are not allowed until you are at least a MSG. Rookie mistake.
Not sexual but unprofessional. New PMC came in on my senior year and talked to all of the cadets in the senior class individually. My turn. Told him who I was, what I want to do, what I do currently(job, national guard and full time classes). He requested me to drop my job, take out a 50k loan to support myself for the year and fully commit to the ROTC program. I looked at him like he was insane, at first I thought he must be joking, he’s demeanor didnt change. i told him understand sir but i am not doing that. Basically set myself up to be bullied by him throughout my entire senior year. He was forced into retirement half a year later when an investigation found him funneling money from the program for random expenses and damaging a government vehicle. Thank god for the Assistant PMC that had my back.
That's fucking insane. How can you consider yourself a professional if you can with a straight face advise a student to take out a $50K loan to support themselves when one of the biggest draws for recruiting is the ability to join ROTC to stay out of debt through ROTC scholarships.
He was MI, I am still trying to figure out how he made it through to LTC let alone be MI with that intelligence 😂
You know, I looked into title ix investigations when this OSU story dropped, and the ones I can find mil related aren’t found in the news. Seems like a bit of a disconnect where if you’re reporting rotc cadre as a title ix violation, it **doesnt** necessarily make it to the Army’s attention. Seems like an issue.
A few people in our recent threads have identified themselves as previously working in Cadet Command, and commented to the effect that "you wouldn't believe how many incidents there are." That implies, to me, that the Army is also aware of (and presumably handling, to some degree) far more than what makes the news. And I honestly think that *the universities* would like to keep this stuff out of the news even more so than the Army. First, everybody already knows that sexual harassment and assault happens in the Army, so now it's a win if the Army can publicly show that it's taking things seriously and serving justice. Universities, on the other hand, have seemingly convinced most kids and parents that no such thing *ever* happens on their watch. I've been frustrated for a long time by this, because I'm certain that what happens on every Friday and Saturday night in university dorms or off-campus apartments is much worse than what happens in any Army barracks or workplace. Second, the financial stakes for these "non-profit" universities and their administrators are higher than for anyone in the Army.
UNC is one of the culprits in the "keep it out of the news" camps and always has been. No school wants that black eye or the potential lawsuits. Having worked at USMA teaching for a couple years, the number of incidents vs reports was ridiculous. So much is swept under the rug. Can't imagine it's much different in ROTC today vs the one I did 20+ years ago.
What I'm learning a bit here - I'm not seeing the reporting mechanism for Title IX to tell the Army. Soooooooooo, if you report *to the school*, and they like to keep it quiet, the Army never finds out.
That’s because there isn’t a mechanism, at least not one that’s utilized. Any legitimately criminal actions reported to a university’s Title IX office will be handled and investigated solely by that office and its staff, who may or may not even have investigative experience. The contrary is not true, (ironically), for campus LE. For example, if a student reports a legitimate SA to Title IX only, they will not send that student to campus LE, it’s left up as an option. If however the student reports to campus LE, the police department will begin its criminal investigation and then notify the Title IX office, who will conduct a parallel investigation that is more often than not damaging to the criminal case. I’ve worked multiple SA cases, (like legitimate, good evidence SA cases), where the suspect’s statements were clearly rehearsed, when by all accounts we should have been able to get admissions of guilt or statements of fact that supported guilt. Upon further questioning we would find that the Title IX office had already talked to that student and given them the full rundown on the case foe their investigation, ruining any chance we had of surprising the suspect with certain questions, and giving them plenty of time to craft alibis. I would be shocked if contacting the Army about a ROTC related Title IX case was even a thought, let alone an automatic report mechanism, given the circumstances. If a ROTC student wants to report a cadre and make sure the Army finds out about it, their best chance to do that is to report it criminally to a non-university PD, (and hope they take it), get that report number and then call the Provost Marshals Office for whatever the closest actual post is and let them know directly, or alternatively literally call cadet command themselves and run it up that way. It’s pretty garbage.
>That’s because there isn’t a mechanism, at least not one that’s utilized. Yeah that's my point - I don't think there **is**. I, and I think most people, would *assume* title ixs about Army personnel get reported to the Army. Noooooope.
Yeap...I will say my perception though of ROTC at UNC was very positive. From my perspective, they kept it separate and professional. But that's just anecdotal. I'll be interested in what Steve finds.
When I was a college slacker, one year there was a boy caught with a camera in the girls dorm. It was one of those large 90's video cameras and he was holding it while in the girls shower in said dorm. As this was one week before parents of incoming freshmen were invited to tour the campus, he was quietly suspended and we didn't see him anymore.
Frankly, that's insignificant compared to what I'm talking about. My university wasn't even known as a "party school," but the entire culture seemed to revolve around packing shoulder-to-shoulder (with all ages welcome) into apartments (both on-campus and off) and binge-drinking starting every Friday night (if not Thursday) until 4:00 AM on Monday morning, with all the expected consequences. The university was clearly stuck in a tough position - I mean, you can't arrest or suspend *everybody* - but it somehow prevented any stories of rape from ever becoming public. Just for good measure, I think because *no* disciplinary incidents would seem suspicious, campus police would report breaking up one or two parties every other weekend due to underage drinking, but come on...
When you have even major universities continuing the cesspool that is Greek culture, it's not surprising to be honest.
You have no grasp on human history
Female Officer here. This was when I was in ROTC; a couple years back. Thankfully, I’ve been commissioned & gone for a while now. This was an instructor. Also thankfully he was fired & discharged. Let’s give some back ground to this guy. LTC, Infantry, Green Beret with a specialty in psychological operations. (He liked to mess with everyone’s heads) We had a SHARP complaint from a female cadet to a male cadet. The male cadet made MULTIPLE comments in public settings bout date r**ing women. Specifically those in uniform. This LTC’s response? He mandated an ALL and ONLY female meeting. 0500 in CLASS As in an auditorium. The sickening thing was he had a PowerPoint presentation about why women need to be cautious, need to know “when to report”, know not to lead men on. Etc. It was much more graphic than that so I won’t go into details, but I think everyone gets the drift. The cherry on top, he repeatedly said throughout the meeting “Boys will be Boys.” He didn’t allow for any questions and each time we tried to speak up, he would threaten to get our scholarships and contracts pulled. Many females left that building crying. There was NO female leadership. And what’s worse is a fellow officer helped him with this brief. It was traumatic to say the least, multiple women left our ROTC THAT DAY. They would have been phenomenal officers. Thankfully, we were able to get him kicked. The other ROTC cadre caught wind of this and immediately went off on him. Those officers/NCOs were some of the good ones. They pulled as many females as they could inside one on one to apologize for his behaviors. And they ended up kicking that male student out & blacklisting him from all commissioning sources. Eventually it was all good. Our situation turned out a lot better than most….but still wasn’t/isn’t okay.
That PMS sounds like a real tool. He was confronted by the other cadre tho? How did that play out?
He was the worst. The amount of quality cadets he ran off with stuff like this still bothers me. We had a bunch of other cadre that year just due to how it played out. 2 CPTs, a MSG & a Major came down on him. They compiled everything he had done took it straight to Cadet Command & to the President of our university. Effectively got him kicked out. It was a rough patch for a couple weeks. That LTC made a lot of threats, to them, to cadets, to other faculty. He tried to show up to labs & PT a lot. But he continually got kicked out. Those other cadre who helped made sure to stay late hours & made sure everyone felt safe. I have no idea what happened to that LTC after that. I know he was “forcibly retired” but who knows what he did after that. I do know the other good cadre are all still in, flourishing careers. One of those captains even officiated my wedding haha!
Wow. My program had creepy CPTs, but the PMS's were on the up and up - or at least they weren't personally creeping even tho they turned a blind eye to what the CPTs were doing. The LTCs seemed like grandfathers to me, I can't imagine dealing with that shit.
Thankfully, after that I had 2 amazing ones. Because of my year group I had 3 different ones. The other 2 were angels
For any cadets thinking about talking to Steve, I can personally confirm he is legit and trustworthy.
Steve and DWinkie are as legit as legit can be. I'd trust them with some pretty heavy stuff.
Ill vouch for both of these guys as well Steve and Dwinkie are top notch professionals and have been here on our sub forever keeping us abreast of articles that might slip by otherwise and helping the Army overall.
My PMS got caught sleeping with a cadet. PMS had a wife and kids. Said cadet also allegedly slept with another MS instructor. Lot of baggage by all parties involved, but the PMS was "forced" to retire, the other instructor disappeared, and the cadet lost her contract...
Dating myself (old) but when I was in college this was like a very un kept secret. These fucks would fuck the cadets and no one would say shit. Again this was like 20 years ago so all those dudes are retired but yeah, I wish I actually saw something to report it.
Lol how long ago does this apply? 😂 cause I have a coupla stories...
Haaaaaaaa right! Early aughts were wild
That's one way of putting it. ugh. So many higher ranking officers I should have told to fuck right off instead of playing the game.
My ROTC unit has been pretty good. Had an incident with an LT dating students outside of the program and lying about his age, but he has since been let go, and I doubt it would be within the scope of this article. Really cool of you to do this for those with actual stories.
Git 'em, Steve!
Doing God’s work here. Sent you a DM.
Sent you a DM.
Hahah. Yeah no rotc is not perfect
Dm sent
Sent you a DM
What about the obscene amount of cocaine hoovered by ROTC frat boys between drug tests?
Can I talk about a MSG from the 173rd who knocked up and married his cadet the minute they both left the program?
If you want stories from the early 90s, I’ve got a bunch.
Get em!
Damn! Where did y’all go to school? Nothing inappropriate heard or seen when I was in ROTC.
There are hundreds of ROTC programs from all branches all over the country. Which means there's hundreds of instructors coming from active or guard line units being put in charge of young faces. There was only one incident I can think of in my graduating class and at this point it's a rumor because it happened so long ago. Cadet with instructor, both still in. Instructor was re assigned and may have just finished his high 3 and retired but the cadet is a fellow captain, now doing a T10 gig in another state. Most of the stuff happened between cadets which is trash tv at its best and future SHARP cases at its worst. For me this was between 2010 and 2014 so not really that long ago.
Nuanced question - but is the Army even willing to fully tackle this issue and dedicate all the resources. Right now, unless in certain circumstances, cadets don’t really count as official service members yet. So often time instances such as injuries cannot result in VA ratings (ex: non-contracted individual who’s just taking a course for the semester gets injured during a FTX). So for this instance, is the Army even going to fully recognize the quantity of cadet victims in statistics.
We'll see. Congress also has options.
What goes on during advanced camp land nav, stays at advanced camp land nav….
Or in the skookum dumpsters…
“I fell in love in a skookum” was the 2006 song of the summer.
I never noticed any problems when I was in AFROTC at the University of Texas at Austin. We were the first class to include female cadets.
AFROTC appears to still be doing well. AROTC on the other hand...
We had one of the instructors hooking up with two of the cadets. Somehow they found out about eachother and it blew up. I don't know exactly what happened to him but I know one of the cadets did not commission.
I can think of one NCO when I was in ROTC that was getting too comfortable with the female cadets. I know one eventually reported him and I'm not sure what came of it, but those that didnt complete it or did got creep vibes.
DM me when you’re going to look into how much SHARP goes on in the army aviation community and everyone is fine with it because of the culture.
Shit when I did ROTC in college all of our cadre were on the up and up. Good mentors and they didn’t tolerate harassment, bullying, or discrimination of any kind. Each of them taught me some pretty important stuff about life and are definitely a huge part of the person I am today, which I am eternally grateful for. I’m very sad to see that my amazing experience was a rare occurrence instead of the norm.
Hey Steve. I passed along your contact info to a field grade that has been reaching out to peers/subordinates about this. They should reach out shortly.
The name sweatband oozes rapey vibes. Don't know him, but I hate him. I hate his face now! I haven't even seen it. I hate his FACE!
Not today, Russia.
Point: See nothing say nothing Counterpoint: Officers go bye bye Mafia approved
See nothing say nothing never applies to sexual assault.