American Morning
First female commander of Army Drill Sgt. School
CNN
431 hours. 9 weeks. 10 hour days. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for soldiers at the U.S. Army’s Drill Sergeant School in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. For the first time since its inception in 1964, its top dog does not look or act like a typical drill sergeant.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/10/20/king.teresa.art.jpg caption="Command Sergeant Major Teresa King is the first woman commandant at the U.S. Army's Drill Sergeant School in Fort Jackson, South Carolina."]
Her name is Command Sergeant Major Teresa King and she’s the first woman commandant of this school. Incredibly fit, 48-years-old and a 29-year Army vet, King oversees 78 drill instructors and is responsible for training every Army drill sergeant. Nearly 2,000 sergeants graduate from the drill sergeant school each year.
King says the program's rigorous nature isn’t to be take lightly. “It is very horrendous day after day to come out here and demonstrate the same level of competence and willingness. To take on this mission – it's very tough.”
Most of the school’s students are hand-picked sergeants, who average 10 to 15 years in the Army before entering this grueling course. According to King, only a small percentage of students don’t have what it takes to finish. And King should know – she went through it early on in her career.
Teresa King grew up in rural North Carolina. “I thought about college for about an hour,” she says. As a teenager, she spent time at nearby Ft. Bragg. On one particular day, it was there that she found direction. “I saw a woman in a red beret. We looked at each other … and didn’t speak. But at that moment, I knew I would be a soldier.” That’s all it took. Her future was solidified. King enlisted on August 19, 1980 and left for basic training the next day.
She worked her way up the Army ranks. Her first “first” came in 1997 – becoming the first female First Sergeant for the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, NC. Since then, her career has taken her across the globe: to Europe, Korea, the Pentagon and most recently NATO headquarters. However, King has never been in combat, and, in fact, has never been deployed to a war zone.
Only a few months ago King thought about retiring. That is until the Army came knocking once again. “I was very, very shocked. I considered a lot of jobs, but being the commandant of the drill sergeant school, I had never considered it.”
King had a lingering determination to help usher the Army into its next phase. “I believe I can cause people to do some things that they thought they could never do.”
Report: Sailors hogtied, fed dog treats
Just the thought of it is shocking: U.S. military personnel tying up and ridiculing a young man, hosing him down, forcing him to simulate a sex act with another man, and then throwing him into a feces-filled dog's cage at the canine unit – all while being videotaped.
The alleged victims are American servicemen – and it describes the hazing and abuse allegedly inflicted on sailors at the military canine unit in Bahrain in 2005 and 2006. One of them, former dog handler Joseph Rocha, says the abuse occurred daily during his two-year deployment.
“I could not wrap my head around the degradation and the barbarity of it,” says Rocha, who was 18 when he joined the Navy’s Military Working Dog Division in Bahrain in 2005. Because he is gay, he followed the military's rules and kept his homosexuality under wraps. But although, he says, no one in his unit knew he was gay, he still suffered.
Rocha says others, including his chief, suspected he was gay when he showed no interest in sexual escapades with women. He became a prime target, he says. “It was everyday for 28 months, for 16 hours a day. Nothing I did was good enough; all of my achievements were overshadowed by ridicule of my sexuality.”
He describes being ordered by his chief “to get on my knees pretend to have oral sex with another service member. … I was instructed ... to act more queen, more queer, more homosexual, more believable.” Rocha and several others from the Bahrain unit who spoke to CNN say the hazing was widespread – gays, straights, and women in his unit were targets, too.
New training promises a 'stronger, faster' soldier
Introducing new concepts in the Army is never easy. The Army is deeply rooted in tradition and is typically resistant to change. While that mindset does have its benefits it can also hinder the military from moving forward. That has been the case for its physical training. For decades it has gone unchanged but now things are moving in another direction.
When Jason Carroll and I arrived at Fort Campbell we were introduced to Eagle Tactical Athletic Program or ETAP for short. This new training program was born out of a realization by the Army that soldiers were suffering a 40 to 60 percent injury rate during training.
They brought in Dr. Scott Lephart of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition who has had success with reducing injury in professional sports teams. Lephart and his team spent 3 years compiling data on soldiers looking at what puts the most stress on soldiers physically and how to train them so their bodies can best withstand that stress.
The result is the ETAP program.
ETAP is a big step away from the traditional calisthenics that the Army has put its soldiers through. Through 45 second interval circuit training, it focuses on boosting a soldier's speed, agility, flexibility and balance. When we spoke to the soldiers going through this program their enthusiasm for it was clear.
The War at Home: Military family stress
This week in our special series "The War at Home," we've seen how difficult it can be to make the transition back home after months, and in some cases years, on the battlefield.
We're starting to see the stress of long and repeated deployments reflected in the military divorce rate. CNN's Kiran Chetry had the chance to meet one couple whose marriage was pushed to the breaking point.
The War at Home: 400,000 VA claims backlogged
They're coming home from the front lines – in need of help from the government they fought to defend – and they're stuck, in a sea of red tape.
In our special series "The War at Home," our Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr looks at the backlog of claims at Veterans Affairs that has left hundreds of thousands of vets in limbo.
About this Show
Welcome to the American Morning blog where you can get daily news updates from American Morning's reporters and producers. Join us for "the most news in the morning," weekdays from 6-9 a.m. ET, only on CNN.
On Twitter
