TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Shortly after he arrived in March 2012 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Air Force security guard Trent Smith of Tigard, Ore., was at an off-base apartment when, he said, a male sergeant touched him and pressed him to go into the bedroom for sex.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want to spend the night,'” Smith recalled. But Smith, 20, said he felt he had no choice. “I went along with it.”
For Smith, the encounter, which he reported up the chain of command three days later, began an emotional ordeal. As the months passed, his doctors say, the trim, polite airman suffered bouts of anger, guilt and depression so severe that he contemplated suicide several times.
More disturbing for a Pentagon struggling to gain control of a seeming epidemic of charges concerning rape and unwanted sexual advances in the ranks, Smith’s attempts to get help only worsened his troubles. After a lengthy investigation, the military said no crime had occurred and later moved to discharge Smith on medical grounds.
The case highlights a little-recognized reality for the male-dominated military. Although members of Congress have focused their outrage on abuse of women in uniform, the Pentagon reported in May that 53 percent of the estimated 26,000 troops who were raped or forced into sex in 2012 were men.
Although women are proportionally more likely to be the victim of a sexual assault, the fact that men so vastly outnumber women in the military means that the problem affects more men than women.
After a six-month criminal investigation, Brig. Gen. Charles Hyde, then commander of the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein, decided the sex was consensual, according to case records. The sergeant was admonished for an “unprofessional relationship” with a lower-ranking airman, the lightest punishment possible.
The Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau is not naming the sergeant, because he was not charged. He declined an interview request through a Ramstein base spokesman. The spokesman, Maj. Tony Wickman, said the sergeant was considered an “above-average airman.”
After Smith was transferred in October 2012 to Travis Air Force Base, an Air Force psychologist recommended his discharge. She said a personality disorder made his traumatic stress untreatable.
Many members of the military with post-traumatic stress disorder are allowed to remain on active duty if their condition can be treated with counseling or medication.
Smith disputes the diagnosis, and two psychiatrists hired by his lawyers say he does not have a personality disorder. He contends he is being cast off by the Air Force despite exemplary fitness reports from his superiors at the Travis chapel, where he had been assigned since March.
His problems might be rooted in another traumatic episode: sexual abuse at age 12 by a male teenager, he said.
But Smith got good grades in high school, played jazz trumpet and made the basketball and track squads, according to documents supplied by his lawyers. He enlisted in the Air Force after graduation in 2011.
Smith has asked the Air Force secretary to overturn the discharge order, his last chance to stay in the service.
“I really feel betrayed,” Smith said. “I love the Air Force, and I love being able to serve my country.”
