A female Navy recruit at an Orlando, Fla., boot camp was allegedly ordered into a shower, kicked and beaten with broom handles by three company commanders -- at the same time the Navy was cracking down on harassment of its female sailors.
The recruit, one of the first women to enroll in the Navy's integrated boot camp, reported the Aug. 12, 1992, incident, but no action was taken against the enlisted instructors, according to an internal Navy document obtained by the Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star.
The woman has been transferred to the Portsmouth (Va.) Naval Medical Center, where she is awaiting a discharge for a medical disability that may be linked to the beating.
Details about the incident surfaced last month when the woman told a corpsman at the Portsmouth hospital that she was suffering from an equilibrium disorder. The corpsman notified the command.
An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was launched Nov. 30.
"I've got a feeling we're going to wind up substantiating her allegations -- that would be my bet," said a Navy official familiar with the investigation. "The injuries support what happened to her. It appears like somebody hit her with the flat of a hand or a cupped hand."
According to the Navy memo, the woman, who was 20 at the time, had been designated as a trainee leader at the boot camp at the Naval Training Center in Orlando when she was told to report in "uniform and rain gear after class."
"Three company commanders took her into the shower, which was generating steam from hot water," the memo stated.
"Victim was then made to do 'PT' while being kicked and struck by broom handles.
"Victim alleges that she was required to pay her dues before she could order men around."
The women, an operations specialist, first recounted the incident to a female chief corpsman at a branch medical clinic in Orlando, according to the Navy memo.
The chief corpsman told the recruit it was not significant, and no action was taken.
The memo was sent Wednesday from the hospital to commands throughout the Navy, including that of the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jeremy Boorda.
After the woman first reported the attack, "several other persons were reportedly informed" during the next two years, including officials at the Navy's Fleet Combat Training Center at Dam Neck, at Virginia Beach, Va., according to the memo.
"No known official actions" were taken, until the recent NCIS investigation, the memo states.
The incident took place less than six months after then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Frank B. Kelso focused a public spotlight on the problem of sexual harassment by instituting a policy of "zero tolerance" for the mistreatment of women.
That crackdown followed a string of embarrassing scandals that had rocked the Navy, including the 1991 Tailhook convention, where Navy pilots groped women in the hallway of a Las Vegas hotel.