If the Naval Academy were a TV show, it would be called “Fast Times on the Taxpayer Dole.” The deviant sexual criminal charges leveled against midshipmen and their leaders of late would provide enough material for many seasons of shows.
But this is no comedy. This is the training ground for our nation?s leaders, some of whom could be charged with pressing the button to release nuclear weapons.
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What?s going on in there? To recap: Last week Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Dickinson admitted to being a call girl for D.C. Madam Deborah Jean Palfrey. Also last week military officials said they found more than 500 images of child pornography on the computer of Midshipman 1st Class Michael Pollard, who may also have shared the files. And then there is Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, the former chaplain of the Naval Academy who admitted to exposing an unknown number of servicemen to HIV. He bargained down late last year a 12-year sentence for forcible sodomy and aggravated assault to 19 months by promising to reveal all he knows about the identities of his victims. And don?t forget Cmdr. Kevin Ronan, a Navy doctor who was convicted in November of conduct unbecoming anofficer, illegal wiretapping and obstruction of justice for taping Naval Academy midshipmen having sex.
Rape allegations and a 2005 Defense Department report on sexual assaults at the military academies compound the most recent charges. What kind of culture tolerates such behavior? With each case, it becomes harder and harder for authorities to say they had no inkling of the activities of those attending and running what is increasingly looking like a criminal sex asylum.
The academy recently started a sexual harassment program to address what some women at the school have labeled sexual abuse fomented by the 5-to-1 ratio of men to women on the campus. But that is hardly a solution to what ails the academy. It needs credible outside investigators welcomed by Capt. Margaret D. Klein, commandant of midshipmen, to independently interview midshipmen and faculty about the environment that helped to spawn and protect the illegal actions and ways to refocus the academy on its core ideals and goal of graduating officers with integrity.
Nothing less will help to restore faith in an institution repeatedly incapable of policing its own leaders and the future leaders of America.
