Though the Fort Jackson case made some headlines, nothing compared to the spotlight trained on the Air Force at the time, after 43 women accused 17 military training instructors of sexual assault and other abuse that began in 2009. The following year, the Pentagon stood up the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, nearly a decade in the making, after former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Defense Department to review its policies and processes for sexual assault survivor care in 2004. “The people that tortured me, the three days before CID got involved … the Army pretty much slapped them on the hands,” Woodruff said, including her company commander, who was not charged. The drill sergeant received an official reprimand but was able to keep her job, a Fort Jackson spokesman said at the time, because leadership believed she was otherwise a good instructor. The Army also investigated a female drill sergeant who had threatened Woodruff in an attempt to get her to recant her story, as well as her company commander, for failing to report the assault when he learned of it. Luis Corral was convicted of sexually assaulting Woodruff and four other women later that year, sentenced to five years in prison and busted to private along with a bad-conduct discharge. That noncommissioned officer took her report seriously, kicking off an investigation of her entire company.
She didn’t know he was her battalion command sergeant major, she said, but she went up to him anyway, telling him she had been assaulted and her chain of command wasn’t doing anything about it. After three days of physical and psychological intimidation, her previously trusted caretakers urging her to drop her accusation, she broke.ĭuring a combatives exercise, she noticed someone with rank strolling around, observing.
A group of drill sergeants had decided to smoke Woodruff and two friends who vouched for her after she reported her assault.
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