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AT 6:45 P.M. on March 13, 1998, a military jury of four Army officers and four enlisted men filed into the courtroom at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to read the verdict that they had reached after twenty hours of deliberation on the 19 charges of misconduct against former Command Sergeant Major Gene C. McKinney. As Sergeant McKinney stood at attention with his attorneys, the president of the court-martial, an Army colonel, read a verdict that acquitted McKinney of 18 of the 19 charges, including all the charges of sexual misconduct made by his six accusers.

The media described the result as a “surprise verdict.” For the participants the verdict came as no surprise. The prosecution’s case was long on invective, short on fact. Before the Army’s discovery of the abuse of trainees by drill instructors at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the McKinney matter would have been resolved without a trial. But in the Army of the 1990s, a prolonged and agonizing general court-martial was held to be necessary in order to demonstrate the Army’s commitment to “zero tolerance” of sexual harassment. Rejecting McKinney’s request to retire, which he submitted even before the charges were preferred, the Army opted instead to conduct a million-dollar investigation and show trial of the Army’s senior enlisted man.

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Charles W. Gittins

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AT 6:45 P.M. on March 13, 1998, a military jury of four Army officers and four enlisted men filed into the courtroom at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to read the verdict that they had reached after twenty hours of deliberation on the 19 charges of misconduct against former Command Sergeant Major Gene C. McKinney. As Sergeant McKinney stood at attention with his attorneys, the president of the court-martial, an Army colonel, read a verdict that acquitted McKinney of 18 of the 19 charges, including all the charges of sexual misconduct made by his six accusers.

The media described the result as a “surprise verdict.” For the participants the verdict came as no surprise. The prosecution’s case was long on invective, short on fact. Before the Army’s discovery of the abuse of trainees by drill instructors at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the McKinney matter would have been resolved without a trial. But in the Army of the 1990s, a prolonged and agonizing general court-martial was held to be necessary in order to demonstrate the Army’s commitment to “zero tolerance” of sexual harassment. Rejecting McKinney’s request to retire, which he submitted even before the charges were preferred, the Army opted instead to conduct a million-dollar investigation and show trial of the Army’s senior enlisted man.