Army Gets Over 4,000 Calls To Sex Harassment Hot Line

More than 4,000 women have telephoned an Army hot line with complaints of inappropriate sexual conduct since revelations of a sex scandal involving women recruits and their leaders at a Maryland base.

“Yes, it is the worst we have seen, and we never expected it,” Secretary of the Army Togo West said Sunday, describing growing evidence of sexual harassment in the Army.

West, interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said well over 4,000 complaints had been filed over the Army hot line. The Army intends to follow up in around 550 cases, he said.

The hot line was set up after four drill sergeants and a captain at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland were charged with raping or sexually harassing at least a dozen female recruits.

In a separate case at the Fort Leonard Wood training base in Missouri, four noncommissioned officers were charged last week with violating the Army’s absolute ban on personal relationships with trainees.

West said that of the complaints received so far, about 74 percent were from places other than Aberdeen.

He said there was no indication that people in authority were aware of the alleged sex crimes at Aberdeen before women soldiers made the allegations in early September. What is worrisome, he said, is, “Even if they didn’t know, why didn’t they know.”

Referring to a 1995 survey in which 55 percent of women in the Army said they had experienced sexual harassment, West said, “We thought even when we got that survey that we were close to being a model for society in dealing with sexual harassment.”

He again urged women soldiers to report any improper behavior from superiors. While “we cannot put the onus on the victims to improve - that’s the responsibility for leaders - we want them to come forward,” he said.

Both West and Defense Secretary William Perry, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” stressed that the military will continue to be a leader in addressing sexual harassment problems.

Women considering military careers, Perry said, should be confident that their commanders will have “greater sympathy, greater support for dealing with these problems than you will find anywhere in society.”