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Source: The Gazette
When Cailin Foster was an Air Force Academy freshman in 2018, she confided in her close friend that she had been raped.
The assault had happened the night before, after she had been drinking in the dorms, she told him through tears. A sophomore had provided alcohol to a group of cadets, including Cailin, and then carried her back to her dorm room where he assaulted her, Cailin told her friend.
Cailin begged her friend not to report the assault and did not want to report it herself because she feared retaliation. She didn’t think anyone would believe her. Her assailant had been in trouble before, but still attended the school and she thought he wouldn’t face serious punishment.
The other cadets at the party could get in trouble for underage drinking, she told him. Cailin later told a cadet in a leadership position about it, but that never resulted in any consequences.
Cailin’s friend came forward with the story after Cailin died by suicide on Nov. 7, 2021, a few months into her first assignment at the Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. She had graduated earlier that year with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Her friend and other cadets related Cailin’s story to an El Paso County Sheriff’s Office investigator after her death, but the local authorities never brought charges against the young man, who left the Academy without graduating. He voluntarily departed instead of facing academic disenrollment. He was on academic, aptitude, conduct and honor probation, according to a copy of the sheriff’s office report.
Cailin’s decision not to formally report the assault to the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office is the most common reaction by cadets, a 2022 survey showed, despite ongoing efforts by the Academy to encourage victims to come forward.
Cailin’s parents, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Gary Foster and his wife Colleen, were unaware of the assault. They also were not aware that Cailin’s on-and-off boyfriend and fellow cadet, William “Billy” L. Gorczynski, died by suicide in the dorms at the beginning of the pandemic.
But they did see changes in their extroverted and academically gifted daughter.
Cailin excelled in numerous subjects, taking aeronautical engineering in French at the Academy. Once she woke up in the middle of night and remembered an English paper was due the next day and wrote it in a few hours, her mother said. At the time she had the highest grade in the course.
At her funeral, cadets pulled her parents aside to say they decided to stay at the Academy because of Cailin’s leadership.
After Gorczynski’s death, the extremely fit 5’2” cadet started to gain weight and didn’t want to go running anymore with family members, Colleen recalled. She also got upset more easily, started drinking more and vaping, according to an Office of Special Investigations report.
Both Gary and Colleen blame Cailin’s decline and death on her experience at the Academy.
“They broke her and indirectly killed her,” Colleen said.
The Academy has struggled to address sexual assault on its campus after several high level scandals in 2003, 2014 and 2017. After the 2003 scandal, the Academy instituted an Agenda for Change initiative that Gary Foster helped implement as a squadron commander and head of disenrollment.
That agenda included numerous on-the-ground rules, including keeping an officer on duty in the dorms at all times and a strict alcohol policy.
Steps in the agenda have been rolled back over the years and some steps to prevent sexual assault have been reintroduced as new, the Fosters said.
Despite all the steps the Academy has taken, the most recent data available from the 2022 survey shows about one in five female cadets experienced unwanted sexual contact, up from about one in 10 in 2014. Staff from the Secretary of Defense’s Office visited following the jump and found the school needed to take steps to stop hazing. In a formal response in October last year, the Academy concurred with those findings.
The Academy did not respond to repeated requests for comment about this story.
At a Board of Visitors meeting in July, the violence prevention program manager at the Academy, Sonja Strickland, said the school is now doubling down on efforts to build protective factors, such as high morale and work-life balance, against unhealthy behavior. She said the Academy also wants to reduce factors that contribute to problems, including high stress and passive leadership.
Victim advocates have also been embedded in the dorms to serve cadets, among other changes.
Fight for Accountability
Since Cailin’s death, the Fosters have been working to understand their daughter’s experience, and they hold the Academy and the Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patterson accountable for not taking steps to protect her.
The parents say they take their mandate from Cailin’s suicide note:
“You couldn’t have done anything different to stop this. Do all that you can to make sure I am the last one.”
The Fosters first took their concerns to former Superintendent Gen. Richard Clark a few months after Cailin’s death, but he hadn’t been briefed on her case, they said. Later they contacted Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a sexual assault survivor, who sent inquiries to the Academy on their behalf.
They also filed Inspector General complaints against the Academy and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson.
The complaint against the Academy claimed the staff didn’t provide adequate mental health care. It also alleged the Academy did not take proper steps to ensure Cailin’s alleged assailant did not have access to freshmen girls, among other failings.
Prior to the sex assault, he had been in trouble for underage drinking in the dorms and asking another cadet to mark him present at an event he did not attend, the Sheriff’s Office report said. Before he was disenrolled, the Academy ordered him to have no contact with Cailin and five other cadets. Gary Foster believes such cadets with problematic records should be disenrolled faster.
The Fosters’ complaint against Wright-Patterson Air Force Base alleged a colonel bullied and intimidated her.
In response to their complaint, the Fosters received a summary report from Wright-Patterson that found no wrongdoing. But they have been denied the full report, receiving instead 159 completely blacked out pages. The code on the pages indicates redactions made for privacy reasons.
Gary Foster wants to see the full report because the summary could feature cherry-picked information rather than the full findings.
The Fosters still haven’t received a formal response from the Academy to their complaint, although they did receive letters from Clark following inquiries by Ernst that outlined some changes.
They have also filed two wrongful death lawsuits against the Academy.
The couple said they believe the likelihood anyone will face accountability for failing to prevent Cailin’s assault or her death is small.
Amend the ‘Feres Doctrine’
The military is protected by a Supreme Court decision, known as the Feres doctrine, that prevents those hurt on active duty from suing the federal government. The Fosters would like to see the rule amended so that it doesn’t absolve the military academies of protecting students from sexual assault in an academic environment, they said.
“You don’t expect to be sexually assaulted when you join the military. That’s not incidental to military service,” Gary Foster said.
The Federal Tort Claims Act would also need to be revised in order to allow for such lawsuits.
Such changes have happened before. In 2020, Congress allowed service members to put in claims for medical malpractice through the Department of Defense, a step previously prevented by the Feres doctrine, said Josh Connolly with Protect our Defenders, a national nonprofit.
Lawsuits for medical malpractice outside the claims system for medical malpractice are still prohibited, he said. The Feres doctrine has been used to dismiss egregious cases, including one brought by a soldier who during surgery had a towel left in his stomach bearing the words “medical department U.S. Army.”
Connolly would like to see the law changed to allow service members to sue the military for negligence or wrongdoing in both cases of malpractice and sexual assault. The threat of lawsuits could provide “transformative” accountability, he said.
“It would raise the stakes for the military to address this and to be as vigilant as possible,” Connolly said.
Assaults Common at Academy
The most recent survey of cadets available shows experiencing unwanted sexual contact is a common experience at the Air Force Academy.
The 2022 survey of cadets found 22% or about 259 female cadets experienced unwanted sexual contact in the prior year. It was a large spike in unwanted contact, up from 15.4% among women in 2018.
The recent survey also found 4.3% of men, or about 122 male cadets, experienced unwanted sexual contact.
Unwanted sexual contact includes rape and other physical violations.
The same survey found 60% of women and 19% of men had experienced sexual harassment.
However, far fewer cadets actually step forward to report their experience.
The Air Force Academy said it received 45 reports of sexual assaults in the 2022-2023 school year, 57 in the 2021-2022 school and 55 in the 2020-2021 school year. In the 2019-2020 school year, the Air Force Academy reported 41 sexual assaults. Many cadets choose to file a restricted report that allows victims to receive mental health support, but doesn’t trigger a criminal investigation.
The numbers of reported sexual assaults across the DOD have been on a long-term upward trend, and in 2021 an independent review commission of civilians made numerous recommendations to address it, including building a qualified prevention workforce.
The Department of Defense is now in the midst of hiring 2,000 prevention specialists. As of May, 1,054 integrated primary prevention workforce personnel have been hired to advise leaders and respond to service members and civilians. But they are not part of the formal Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Offices, said Joshua Wick, a DOD spokesman.
Questions of Competency
The independent review found military attorneys litigating sexual assault cases, known as judge advocate generals, do not have the skills for the work, and that in turn fosters institutional incompetence.
The DOD has since started Offices of Special Trial Counsel that decide whether to prosecute sexual assault cases, rather than commanders. But those offices are largely staffed by members of the JAG corps, said Connolly, with Protect our Defenders.
Retired Air Force Col. Don Christensen, who served as a JAG and a military judge, explained that across the Department of Defense, few cases go to trial. That makes it tough for JAGs to gain experience, which leads to incompetency.
The Department of Defense estimates about 29,000 people experienced sexual assault in 2023, while the military received about 8,500 reports. About 5,500, reports were unrestricted and about 4,570 triggered an investigation. At courts-martial, 169 people were convicted of any crime and 74 were required to register as a sex offender, according to a DOD report.
“The odds of you as a rapist or sex offender ever going to trial is minimal, and then being convicted is almost nonexistent. … If theft, murder had that kind of prosecution success, I think we’d have a bigger problem,” Christensen said.
Some rape cases can go to nonjudicial punishment instead of criminal trials. Transparency notices on the Air Force Academy website, going back only to April 2023, show that a few cases have gone to those non-criminal venues.
In one case, an unnamed cadet was found responsible for four acts of sexual assault involving three victims. The board reviewing the case recommended an under-other-than-honorable conditions discharge and monetary damages.
Coming Forward About Assault
Cailin’s roommate during her junior year, MJ, went out with six friends to celebrate her 21st birthday in January 2020 and came back to her dorm drunk. MJ asked not to be identified by her full name.
Cailin left the room to work on her homework and MJ started sending messages to a former romantic interest, who had not been invited to the party, saying they should hang out sometime. The two were not together and previously she had asked him to stay away from her.
She says the cadet took her messages as an invitation to come to her room. The man assaulted her that night, although her memory of it is incomplete.
MJ reported the assault the next day, under the restricted process that allows Air Force Academy cadets to seek help, but does not prompt an investigation.
As a dual British and Filipino citizen, MJ did not qualify for help through the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. The office could not promise that what she said would be kept confidential, if it went to court, she said.
For example, if she told the professionals at the office that she felt guilty about the circumstances surrounding what happened to her, that could be used against her later.
While employees at the office did their best to help, the rules made her feel like a second-class citizen, MJ said.
She did qualify for special victim’s counsel who helped her navigate the legal process.
A few weeks after reporting initially, she unrestricted her report so she could tell people about her experience, including her squadron commander, and receive more support. The step also allowed an investigation to go forward.
When she unrestricted her report, two or three other woman who had previously put in restricted reports also came forward with complaints about the same man, she said.
There was video evidence of him going into her room. But he said the sex was consensual, and so the case did not go forward after a year and a half of investigation, MJ said. This was despite six friends who could have testified she was not in a condition to consent.
“They believed his word,” MJ said.
MJ doesn’t know if the cadet faced consequences for any of the allegations against him, although he didn’t commission as an officer.
She said she was lucky to have a supportive tennis coach and squadron commander in the months following. She was also among the cadets who was sent home during the pandemic, and that helped.
After graduation, she went on to study at the University of Memphis and received free therapy that allowed her to heal, she said.
MJ is now pursuing a career as a civilian pilot.
‘Unbelievably Guilty’
While MJ didn’t know about Cailin’s assault, she witnessed how Gorczynski’s suicide in March of 2020 “destroyed” Cailin.
In the Office of Special Investigations report, a message from Cailin to a friend, whose name was redacted, described her relationship with Gorczynski and her guilt around his death.
Gorczynski had asked her out on Christmas of her sophomore year and they were in an off-and-on again relationship.
After all but the senior cadets were sent home during the pandemic, Cailin went to see Gorczynski and saw things that concerned her, such as an apparent stab wound over his heart. She said in her message to the friend that she didn’t ask Gorczynski what was wrong.
“I have felt so unbelievably guilty since then and have been a mess,” she wrote.
She also sent messages to Gorczynski’s social media accounts after he died, detailing her depression.
“I was long depressed before I even met you, but I was hanging onto a string fighting. Now that you are gone tho (sic), I have nothing left to fight with. I don’t want anyone else to hurt.”
Gorczynski’s parents received those messages and sent them on to Cailin’s squadron commander, the OSI report states. She also spent time with Gorczynski’s parents after his death because her first duty station was close to their home. They did not respond to a request for comment.
After his death, the Fosters noticed changes in her and cryptic statements. She would say the Academy doesn’t care and will let you down. She also failed a fitness test in the fall of her senior year in October, 2020.
She hurt her back during the sit-up segment of the test and said she couldn’t complete the run. A coach told her to run anyway and when she failed the coach humiliated her and told her she would be a terrible officer, according to statements in the OSI report.
After the physical fitness test, one of her close friends told her squadron commander that Cailin was having suicidal thoughts. The squadron commander told the commandant in an email that someone would be with Cailin for the next 24 hours.
Cailin’s parents did not know she was feeling suicidal, although they were aware of the failed physical fitness test.
“She was never put on suicide watch because she never was in the custody of a trained professional,” Gary Foster said, noting her squadron commander could have ordered her to go to a mental health appointment.
Seeing the Chaplain
Instead, the commander wrote in the email the plan was for Cailin to meet with a chaplain on a regular basis and establish weekly meetings with her permanent party. The permanent party are the officers and staff in charge of cadets.
Prior to expressing thoughts of suicide, from April 2020 to October 2021, Cailin watched 105 videos about suicide and near death, according to the OSI report.
MJ explained many cadets meet with chaplains rather than mental health providers because they are afraid talking with mental health providers will hurt their chances to get selected for pilot training or commissioning as officers.
After the failed fitness test, Cailin was cut from managing the tennis team, an activity she loved.
While in high school, Cailin competed at the state level in tennis. Later at the Academy, she loved spending time at the courts and would play from time to time, her friend MJ said.
Statements several unnamed people made to the Office of Special Investigations showed Cailin feared going to mental health services could hurt her career.
Absence of a Wingwoman
Sometime after the Gorczynskis reported Cailin’s social media messages to the Academy, her leadership encouraged her to go to mental health appointments, in January 2021 and then in April 2021.
The Fosters requested her medical health records and received a questionnaire she completed in April 2021. But they said she never made it to her mental health appointment because she was directed to quarantine for COVID-19 exposure for seven days.
The mental health record provided by the Fosters shows she did not disclose many mental health symptoms and it does not show she attended an appointment.
Clark responded to questions about the mental health care after receiving a request from Ernst.
A letter from Clark said she attended the mental health appointment in April but “additional visits were not warranted nor requested.”
Cailin did not receive a transfer of services, Clark said, because she was not deemed to be a risk to herself based on the contested appointment in April, 2021.
A month before graduation, she was taken off the Cadet At Risk List, based on the “recommendation of the Mental Health Clinic, Cailin’s personal perspective, and her observed behavior,” Clark said in other correspondence. She was placed on the list after expressing thoughts of suicide. Commanders and medical health professionals discuss cadets on the list monthly, he said.
Gary Foster believes the Academy could have responded to Gorczynski’s death in a far more effective way to reach his friends and people who cared for him.
He would have liked the Academy to hold a group session for those who knew him well so that no one felt singled out, and then invite those who attended to interact with the counselors further.
“You establish that connection, instead of just, here’s a 1-800 number to call, here’s real people, you know,” he said.
Clark said a Disaster Mental Health Team was not activated after Gorczynski died to serve those impacted by the trauma. But agencies were available to serve cadets seven days a week for two months, Clark wrote.
Foster also believes that cadets identified as at risk should be sent to their first base with a friend and fellow officer who can serve as their wingman or wingwoman.
Cailin needed a wingwoman at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, he said. She told friends she felt lonely, isolated and was having a hard time pleasing a colonel, the OIS report said. Gary Foster said her first assignment was not appropriate for a second lieutenant officer because she didn’t have any peers.
Clark said the Academy now connects recent graduates going to the same base to provide each other support.
Cycles of Sexual Assault
The Academy’s cycles of sexual assault scandal have triggered national interest and are often followed by reforms. The changes often billed as “new” frustrate the Fosters.
The largest scandal was perhaps in 2003, when more than 50 women came forward with their stories of assault on campus, triggering congressional action and the Agenda for Change that Gary Foster helped put into practice on the ground.
The agenda included amnesty for cadets participating in other prohibited behavior, such as underage drinking, to encourage cadets to come forward. Similar Safe to Report policies have been introduced since then, including in 2018.
One of the most concrete steps that was rolled back was keeping an officer in the dorms at all times, including when cadets are most likely to bring alcohol in, Friday and Saturday nights, Gary Foster said.
“You got to fix it at the tactical level … you got to tackle the alcohol, reduce the opportunity and reduce the power, the power differential between them,” he said, of the differential between upperclassmen and younger cadets.
Clark said in his letter security forces must complete three patrols every 24 hours in the cadet area, along its perimeter and inside dormitory hallways and common areas.
A squadron duty officer, a cadet, is also responsible for checking on the status of each cadet at Taps. The officer of the day, a member of staff, is on duty until 30 minutes after Taps. In contrast, the 2003 agenda for change required an officer to be on duty at all time in the dormitories.
In 2014, The Gazette uncovered how athletes held parties dating to 2010 where cadets, including a core group of top football players, smoked synthetic marijuana, drank themselves sick and may have used date-rape drugs to incapacitate women for sexual assault.
In 2017, the school faced scrutiny over how its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office handled cases and kept records.
After the 2017 scandal, a group of graduates got together to form Zoomies Against Sexual Assault.
“We were appalled that sexual assault is still happening at our academy 30-35 years since we had graduated,” Zoomies Against Sexual Assault Executive Director Kathryn L. Smith said.
The group advocates to end sexual assault at the school and also supports survivors of assault. Zoomies are often present during courts-martial to support victims of sexual assault, since sometimes their parents aren’t aware of the cases.
In one case, Smith attended a court-martial to support a cadet in a case with substantial physical evidence. The woman was found crying, half-naked, panicked and in pain after a sexual encounter with another cadet at a rental house off campus in 2021, according to previous Gazette coverage.
Two cadets took the victim to the hospital where a nurse found “severe” internal injuries that caused bleeding, said a prosecuting attorney on the case. The large ring the accused wore was likely responsible for the injuries.
The accused cadet was found not guilty because the defense attorney argued there was no way to know whether the woman consented to the encounter because she was black-out drunk, The Gazette reported.
Smith said ZASA is now looking into advocating for a change in the Uniform Code of Military Justice so that defense attorneys can no longer argue that alleged offenders believed their victims were consenting — known as a mistake of fact defense.
Smith also believes that a cultural change is necessary at the Academy.
“I think there’s so much of ‘You’re the best and the brightest and you’re perfect, and you should have everything you want because you know you worked hard to get to the Academy.’ And I think that culture follows through for people who are predators that they should get to have sex. And if it’s not consensual, we’ll convince her, we’ll drug her, or we’ll wait till she passes out,” Smith said.
The feeling of entitlement gets combined with a culture of protecting your friends from getting in trouble, she said.
Honoring Cailin
At the Fosters home in Monument, mementos of Cailin are everywhere. Visitors are greeted by a wreath on the front door adorned with Cailin’s picture and a sign that reads, “God has you in his arms and I carry you in my heart.” A picture frame and towel bear her nickname, “Sunshine.”
In the year after Cailin’s death, Colleen stayed inside their long-time family home much of the time. Memories abound. The swing in the backyard went up when Cailin was one. Now, while it’s a big house for just two people, Colleen doesn’t want to leave.
“I know she’s still with me, all the time,” she said.
A former banker and travel professional, Colleen recently went back to college to pursue her pilot’s license because she has always wanted to fly, and she knows it’s something Cailin would want her to do.
Still she makes time to visit Cailin’s grave at the Air Force Academy cemetery every day. From the manicured green expanse among the trees, the Academy’s academic campus and all its memories of loss aren’t visible.
The routine has taught Colleen and Gary the rhythms of the place — when funerals take place, when the sprinklers come on.
They visit the flush headstone, Section 2, Row C, Site 40, where the epitaph reads:
You are my sunshine
Love you for all eternity
Colleen takes solace in knowing she will see her daughter again. Until then, the couple is dedicated to protecting other cadets, even if the fight is exhausting and shows no end in sight.
The Fosters believe only congressional action will make a difference in accountability and bring about the sweeping reforms that are needed, including changes to the Feres doctrine to allow the military to be sued for failing to protect cadets from sexual assault.
Despite all their efforts and contacts with several congressional leaders, no one has committed to doing that.