ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 8, 1996 TAG: 9611080074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HAMPTON, VA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
In what could prove to be the Army's Tailhook, a captain and two drill sergeants were charged Thursday with raping or sexually harassing more than a dozen women recruits.
The alleged incidents took place at the Army Ordnance Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Up to 1,000 women who trained at the center are being interviewed by the Army to determine if there are any additional victims.
``We will continue to run down every lead at Aberdeen,'' Gen. William W. Hartzog said at a news conference at the Fort Monroe, Va., headquarters of the Training and Doctrine Command. ``America deserves better than this. Our soldiers deserve better than this and our Army is better than this.''
The Army said Capt. Derrick Robertson was charged with rape, conduct unbecoming an officer, obstruction of justice, adultery and having an improper relationship with a recruit.
Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson was charged with rape, forcible sodomy, adultery and obstruction of justice.
Staff Sgt. Nathanael Beach was charged with obstruction of justice, disobeying an officer and having an improper relationship with a female trainee.
All three face-courts martial. The rape charges are punishable by life in prison. All three men were married. The victims were 21 on average, and all were recruits in their second eight weeks of military training.
Two other instructors were charged with a lesser offense of inappropriate conduct. One is accused of writing a love letter to a trainee and faces a $500 fine; and the other was involved in a similar violation of Army codes of conduct.
The Pentagon would not release any other details of the allegations.
Recruits at the Ordnance Center receive instruction in bombs and shells and learn how to repair military machinery. Aberdeen Proving Ground, 30 miles north of Baltimore, is where the Army tests and evaluates weapons.
The investigation began in September when a recruit alleged sexual harassment. The Army has interviewed about 550 women.
Maj. Gen. Robert D. Shadley, commander of the Ordnance Center, said every woman who has been through training at the school during the past two years will be interviewed. Women who were reported AWOL will be asked if they left the base because of a sexual assault by an instructor, Shadley said.
As of September, the Aberdeen base had a population 14,000 people, including civilians. The ordnance school had an enrollment of about 3,500.
In 1991, more than 80 women were groped or otherwise sexually assaulted by drunken Navy and Marine aviators at a Tailhook Association convention in Las Vegas.
The scandal brought the resignation of Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III and put on hold some 10,000 Navy and Marine promotions. The Navy and Marine Corps pursued 140 harassment cases, but none led to a court-martial.
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