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Court-Martial Testimony: Culture Of Power Kept Trainee Silent

Headquarters to the 37th Training Wing
Ryan Loyd
/
Texas Public Radio
The headquarters to the 37th Training Wing at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The courts-martial are being held inside this building, where the base's legal offices and courtroom are housed.

A witness in the latest court-martial of a Lackland Air Force Base training instructor told a jury Tuesday that she was afraid to tell the instructor to stop touching her because he was her superior.

The command-directed investigation last fall found that command failures and gaps in institutional safeguards allowed a culture of abuse and secrecy to grow at Lackland.

Staff Sgt. Donald Davis is the seventh MTI to go to trial in the growing sex scandal at the nation’s Air Force boot camp training facility.

Davis is charged with abusive sexual contact with the trainee, and other offenses with a second female trainee. The witness said Davis measured her breasts, waist and buttocks to ostensibly check her progress in physical training.

The airman is not the first to tell investigators that she was trained to follow orders and feared professional retaliation if she spoke out.

So far, 32 instructors are suspected in crimes against 59 alleged victims, including three male trainees.

Eileen Pace is a veteran radio and print journalist with a long history of investigative and feature reporting in San Antonio and Houston, earning more than 50 awards for investigative reporting, documentaries, long-form series, features, sports stories, outstanding anchoring and best use of sound.