NEW LONDON, Connecticut – The grueling basic training for rookie cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, known as swab summer, was overhauled this year in light of a sexual abuse scandal that rocked the prestigious service academy.
Gone is the shock and awe of the first day of seven-week training, when rising juniors, known as cadres, screamed in the faces of about 300 freshmen as they arrived at the New London, Conn., campus for future officers of the US Coast Guard. This year, the board vigorously read a prepared script, avoiding improvisations and shouting.
The goal is to drain the adrenaline from the cadre and make boot camp more about guidance and respect than intimidation and intimidation, hopefully creating a positive ripple effect throughout the Coast Guard.
“When you don’t have a script, you end up just resorting to volume,” said the retired commander. John Heller, deputy commandant of cadets for strategy and leadership, who has worked at the academy in a variety of roles for about 25 years and helped oversee the latest changes reflected in cadet training at the U.S. Military Academy. “What ends up happening is that we have integrated our cadets for decades, perhaps unwittingly, into a climate of fear and intimidation.”
Changing the summer weather is one of seven actions the academy was instructed to take following revelations that the Coast Guard kept an investigation called Operation Fouled Anchor secret. The investigation found that dozens of cases of sexual assault and harassment involving cadets from 1990 to 2006 were mistreated by schoolincluding preventing some perpetrators from being prosecuted.
The revelation, first reported by CNNraised calls for major reforms and long-awaited accountability for offenders and those who protected them. There are several governments and Congressional investigations ongoing reviewing the mishandling of serious misbehavior in school and beyond.
A conviction majority team report released Wednesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found “systemic failures” that “continue to this day” in academia and the Coast Guard in general. At a field hearing the committee held Thursday in New London, former and current enlisted personnel spoke of the abuse and harassment they suffered and how a “culture of cover-up” ended up protecting its perpetrators.
Shannon Norenberg, a former sexual assault response coordinator at the academy who resigned in June and became a whistleblower, said training 20-year-old cadets and giving them power over swabs a few years younger, with minimal supervision, was an issue that she has raised over the past year. review that the commander ordered after the revelations of Operation Fouled Anchor.
“Sometimes cadets just aren’t mature enough to handle this role of being in command and they go too far” and get personal, like making comments about intelligence or the appearance of a cotton swab, said Norenberg, who He has since rescinded his resignation and is trying to return to his position on campus. “Instead of correcting the swabs’ behavior, they would insult his character or attack his value for being there.”
Months later, the swabs discovered that the cadre, whom they still call Mr. and Mrs., can tell them what to do and get them into trouble.
“You can imagine the abuse of power that has been taken advantage of repeatedly,” said Norenberg, who noted that during her 11 years at the academy, she handled more than 150 reported cases of sexual assault, including many that involved abuse. of power.
As ordered by the commander, there will be more supervision of the cadre this summer. Training instructors from the Cape May Training Center in New Jersey, where enlisted personnel are trained, were tasked with mentoring the cadre. Outside experts were invited to campus to speak about issues such as power dynamics.
This is in addition to professional victim advocates who were first hired at the school in 2021 and who have been training swabs and staff on sexual harassment, assault and rape.
A new program called shield training was implemented this year to emphasize the Coast Guard’s core values of honor, respect and devotion to duty. Every night, after bathing tired swabs – some in individual cabins that were recently built to provide privacy – they break into groups with a cadre member to go over a lesson and discuss what happened that day with their squad.
Cotton swabs can write down personal problems they may be facing in journals that are reviewed by the board. They can also make a special hand gesture to signal that they need to speak privately with the board.
Oliva Spada, a researcher from Long Island, New York, said she felt some trepidation before coming to academia because of reports of sexual abuse and harassment. But after a few weeks into her new life as a cadet, she felt completely safe.
“Like, I would never, ever feel like something like this would happen,” she said. “I feel completely safe around my painting, around my teammates.”
But the changes were met with skepticism by some past and present Coasters, the nickname given to members of the Coast Guard.
“It’s theater. They did not internalize any irregularities,” said the retired commander. Kimberly McLear, a former whistleblower who taught at the academy and later founded the Right the Ship Coalition, which seeks to help those “wronged by the culture of cruelty and cover-up” in the Coast Guard.
“They are taking calculated steps to divert attention to the performance of the cadets in order to divert attention from the culture of the staff, faculty and leaders to the commander.”
Academy staff are well aware of the skepticism regarding the changes being made and whether they get to the heart of the problem.
“We have a lot of confidence that we need to regain,” said the commander. Krystyn Pecora, who has been going to the gym for 20 years. “And so I can appreciate that skepticism.”
Pecora said he disagrees with criticism from some old-guard coastalites who believe the school is now going too easy on the new cadets.
“There is nothing easy about respect,” she said. “It’s actually easier for me to just go out there and yell and intimidate. It is no longer effective. Therefore, putting this focus on building respectful leadership is a challenge and it is not easier for anyone.”
The Coast Guard as a whole was tasked with carrying out 33 actions in light of Operation Fouled Anchor, including seven assigned to the academy.
In addition to the summer changes, the cadet conduct system is being updated and security in the dormitory is being strengthened, including plans to update cadet room locks and install more security cameras. There is a new policy that allows assaulted cadets to continue their education at another service academy.
Cadet 2nd Class Gabriella Kraus-Rivera said Operation Fouled Anchor is common knowledge among cadets and “there isn’t a kid here that doesn’t understand what happened” and that cultural changes are needed.
“I think that’s part of having honor, is living with integrity and being able to be honest about things that have happened at this academy,” she said. “The only way to change this is to recognize it first.”
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
