Folks at the Air Force Academy spent the Memorial Day weekend trying to clean up their dirty laundry in the latest rape trial of a cadet.
Air Force officials held court-martial hearings on the holiday in hopes of concluding the case of senior Cadet Benjamin Kuster before Vice President Dick Cheney arrives to give today’s graduation address.
They didn’t make it. Kuster’s case is set to resume after Cheney speaks this morning.
One voice remains bafflingly quiet. Neither the prosecution nor the defense has called Air Force Maj. Mark Michalicek to testify publicly about what happened on the night that Kuster claimed to have gotten so drunk that he mistakenly had sex with a woman lying near his fiancée.
Michalicek was the officer in charge of the AFA scuba club, whose members were involved in this night of inebriated folly.
Michalicek and his wife say the major has become a scapegoat for the Air Force as well as cadets facing expulsion and, in Kuster’s case, up to life in prison.
“My personal belief is that I am a double-edged sword, as harmful as helpful for the prosecution and the defense,” Michalicek said Tuesday.
Michalicek is an associate physics professor who was once named “Company Grade Officer of the Year.” He says he never had a bad report until the Kuster fiasco.
The too-drunk-to-realize-it-wasn’t my-fiancée rape defense is a new low in the sex-assault scandal that has dogged the Air Force Academy for several years.
But Michalicek’s decision to buy a bottle of champagne for a “ceremonial toast” at dinner – and his willingness to let cadets drink socially while watching a movie in a hotel room after dinner – have led to a nightmare that is driving him out of the service.
“I had allowed light drinking before by cadets who were of age,” Michalicek said. “Officers (who advise clubs) have said to me that they were allowing the same thing.”
Current academy policy doesn’t allow cadets participating in intercollegiate activities or clubs regardless of age to drink any time before, during or after competitions or events, unless the officer in charge has made an arrangement approved by the commandant.
Michalicek says he doesn’t think that prohibition was in effect at the time of the scuba team trip to New Mexico. At Colorado State or the University of Colorado, allowing students to drink legally in moderation might be considered “social norming” – helping students understand that they don’t need to drink to excess.
The Air Force Academy scuba team apparently used it as priming for a performance that resembled a “Girls Gone Wild” video.
Two female cadets ended up kissing one another as Michalicek says he yelled for them to stop.
“He discussed with me his fears of (the cadets) doing something to hurt themselves,” said Kim Michalicek, who accompanied her husband on the scuba team trip to Santa Fe. “He was scared to death to leave them.”
But around midnight, he did. Michalicek went to bed with his wife and children in another hotel room. By morning, one female cadet claimed Kuster had had sex with her against her will.
Her story rang so depressingly familiar that you could barely distinguish it from the academy’s last liquor-fueled rape charge.
Male and female cadets drink more than seems humanly possible. A female cadet says she passed out and awoke to find a male cadet having sex with her.
It all comes back to alcohol.
The Air Force Academy changed its leadership to deal with sexual assaults.
You wonder if it can ever have a big enough management shake-up to change its culture of binge drinking.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
