Sexual Assault Awareness Exercise Gives Offutt a Real-life Experience

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Carly A. Costello
  • 55th Wing Public Affairs
OFFUTT AIR BASE, Neb --  As a way to bring awareness to sexual assault in the military, several units on base held a sexual assault awareness exercise April 7.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Jennie Sheffield and U.S. Air Force Capt. James Resch from the 55th Medical Operations Squadron organized and led the exercise with the help of U.S. Air Force Col. Stephen Mounts, 55th Medical Group commander, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Mynda Ohman, 55th Staff Judge Advocate, Jennifer McCabe, Offutt Sexual Assault Response coordinator, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Paddock, 55th MDOS.

"Sexual assault prevention and awareness is a key element to having a healthy force here at Offutt and across the military," said U.S. Air Force Col. Greg Guillot, 55th Wing commander. "Since April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we decided to hold an exercise that presented a challenging, real-world scenario to members all across Team Offutt."

Fifteen units from the 55th Wing as well as units from U.S. Strategic Command, the Air Force Weather Agency and five other tenant units took part in the exercise.

Team Offutt has completed sexual assault awareness and prevention trainings and exercises in the past, but what made this exercise different from other sexual assault trainings was that the scenarios used for the exercise came from prosecuted Air Force sexual assault cases that had occurred since 2010, according to Resch.

Each unit that participated had a role player who was briefed and trained three days before the exercise. They were told to go to work on April 7 and to show signs of distress, to say certain things or act a certain way that would hint that they had been sexually assaulted and to see if their co-workers or supervisors would pick up on it and respond to it.

"We were pleasantly surprised with the results in terms of level of participation and how quickly the co-workers and peers picked up on something that may have happened to the role player," Resch said.

Many of the co-workers who came in contact with the role player told them to reach out for help, showing that previous sexual assault awareness and prevention training has helped.

"We were excited to see that more than half the participants recommended that the role-player contact SARC, medical or the chaplain, Sheffield said. " Another 30 percent recommended that the role-player contact the commander, first sergeant or a supervisor. In addition, we were able to assess how well participants remembered their SAPR training. This knowledge will help inform our future outreach, prevention and training efforts."

Airman First Class Adam Blair, 55th Dental Squadron, played one of the victims in the exercise. He said this exercise was better than any computer-based trainings or other sexual assault awareness exercises he has participated in before because people seemed to take it more seriously.

"I really think this exercise was effective," Blair said. "I am appreciative that it was created because I think [sexual assault prevention and awareness] is something that needs to be put out there. It's definitely an important subject and I don't think that everyone takes it as seriously as they should."

The Mental Health Flight hopes that this exercise will continue to bring attention to the issue of sexual assault in the military.

"An important benefit from this training is the ongoing discussions it will generate in the squadrons and units around the base," Resch said. "We have encouraged all commanders to use the lessons learned and experiences from this exercise to generate meaningful discussions in their units about sexual assault. The results of the exercise will be presented to all base commanders and first sergeants at the upcoming Community Action Information Board."

Many other events were held throughout the month of April to include the annual Sexual Assault Awareness golf tournament, Trivia Tuesdays and a 5K as a way bring awareness to the issue of sexual assault in the military.