The fight veteran had been an infantryman in Afghanistan – a job the place you retain your head on a swivel and always take stock of your environment. And so he was paying shut consideration as an Army gynecologist examined his pregnant spouse, an Army officer, final month at Fort Hood, Texas.
When the physician leaned over as he shifted the wand used for the vaginal ultrasound, one thing caught the veteran’s eye: The physician’s cellphone was now in his shirt pocket with the digital camera lens identified. It hadn’t been there earlier than.
When the veteran glimpsed the display screen, he might see the cellphone was recording, in accordance to a individual conversant in what the husband later advised investigators.
After the physician left the examination room, the veteran discovered two feminine medical staffers and advised them what occurred, the supply mentioned. The couple’s interactions with hospital workers that adopted left him so pissed off that he in the end boiled over with obvious frustration.
“I just caught a doctor recording my wife’s vagina!” he screamed in the hospital foyer, in accordance to the identical supply.
That outburst and the particulars surrounding it, which haven’t been beforehand reported, set in movement a sequence of occasions which have blown the lid off what might develop into one in all — if not, the — largest instances of alleged sexual misconduct in US navy historical past.
Last month, navy officers in Texas suspended Dr. Blaine McGraw, an Army main and gynecologist at Fort Hood, who’s now accused in a civil lawsuit of repeatedly groping a feminine affected person and secretly recording intimate movies of her throughout a current pelvic and breast examination. The plaintiff, recognized as Jane Doe, noticed McGraw simply days earlier than the Army veteran accompanied his spouse to the Fort Hood hospital.
Army investigators recovered 1000’s of images and movies from McGraw’s cellphone that had been “taken over the course of multiple years, depicting scores of female patients, many of whom remain unidentified,” in accordance to the lawsuit.
So far, a minimum of 65 ladies declare they had been victims of McGraw’s sexual misconduct, in accordance to two legal professionals representing accusers. But sources mentioned that quantity is incomplete and anticipated to develop.
The Army is sending letters to roughly 3,000 sufferers McGraw got here into contact with at Fort Hood and Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii the place he labored years earlier, sources mentioned. NCS spoke to a minimum of one alleged sufferer who mentioned she had not but been contacted by Army officers.
“The potential magnitude of this harm is, to my knowledge, unprecedented in Army history,” mentioned Andrew Cobos, a lawyer representing a few of McGraw’s accusers. “It spans two major military installations, two different chains of commands, thousands of military spouses and soldiers who fell under his care.”
Lawyer for ladies alleging sexual misconduct in opposition to Army physician shares particulars
NCS spoke to alleged victims of McGraw who described an onerous reporting course of, with some feeling that they had been dismissed or not believed. One alleged sufferer, an Army partner, advised NCS she tried a number of occasions to report McGraw for inappropriate habits final 12 months, however in the end gave up after being repeatedly transferred between departments at Fort Hood, solely lastly to be disconnected.
Interviews with alleged victims and others present new particulars of the scope of McGraw’s alleged misconduct and makes an attempt to report him earlier, together with complaints made in opposition to him in 2022 and in 2024. The case additionally reveals broader systemic failures inside the Army that sources attribute to a part of a bigger cultural problem.
Advocates and servicemembers expressed concern that reporting allegations of sexual assault and misconduct will develop into harder after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth lately promised to finish the capability to file nameless and “frivolous” complaints.
Alleged victims, all of whom are ladies, spoke to NCS for this story beneath the situation of anonymity to shield their privateness. In some instances, pseudonyms are used to determine them.
The lawsuit in opposition to McGraw, filed on November 10, alleges that the “Army knew” and “gave cover to a predator in uniform,” noting that complaints had been made about McGraw at each Fort Hood and Tripler.
Five years after the brutal homicide of Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Hood whose sexual harassment claims went unanswered by commanders, advocates and troopers are questioning the effectiveness of the sweeping navy justice reforms in the wake of that tragedy.
Some mentioned the identical issues that existed then enabled McGraw to proceed seeing sufferers regardless of alleged makes an attempt to report him earlier.
Shannon Hough, founder and director of Shield of Sisters, a nonprofit that gives help to survivors of navy sexual trauma, mentioned she’s spoken with dozens of ladies who’ve come ahead as alleged victims of McGraw. “Every single one” advised her they’d beforehand made an effort to report him to Army officers, Hough mentioned.
The lawsuit alleged that whereas he was a resident at Tripler in Hawaii, “at least one female patient filed a complaint alleging that McGraw had improperly recorded her pelvic examination on his cell phone.”
“Rather than investigate or remove him from patient care, McGraw’s chain of command dismissed the complaint, laughed it off, and allowed him to continue practicing medicine,” the lawsuit claims.
A supply conversant in the military investigation mentioned an incident occurred whereas McGraw was seeing a affected person after hours in November 2022 and that it was not reported to regulation enforcement. Instead, there was an inner evaluation, which Army investigators are actually reviewing, the supply mentioned.
Another supply conversant in the investigation mentioned McGraw was “administratively corrected” for the November incident.
Then in 2024 at Fort Hood, Army officers once more investigated McGraw for allegedly touching a affected person’s anus throughout a medical process, one in all the sources mentioned. No motion was in the end taken after investigators deemed the allegation unsubstantiated.
Many ladies accuse McGraw of performing pointless procedures throughout their medical care, which they fear he didn’t notice in their information. And as the Army has begun reaching out to former sufferers, some have tried to request medical information from years prior to see if McGraw documented exams he carried out on them. At least one girl, nonetheless, was advised her file now not exists due to a military-wide transition to a new medical information system in 2019.
An official conversant in the state of affairs advised NCS that Tripler Army Medical Center was working by means of how to retrieve probably misplaced information.
McGraw first commissioned in the Navy in 2004 and attended the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, a well being sciences college for the navy. But a individual conversant in the state of affairs mentioned McGraw didn’t end his education there, successfully ending his quick profession in the Navy. He then joined the Army in 2006 and served initially as an infantry officer.
Eventually, McGraw turned a doctor assistant, serving at Fort Campbell in Kentucky with the one hundred and first Airborne and Fort Sam Houston in Texas, earlier than going to medical college at East Tennessee State University whereas nonetheless in the military, in accordance to his service file.
McGraw has not been criminally charged. According to Texas’ Bell County Courthouse database, he was unable to attend a listening to for a dashing violation on Nov. 10 as a result of he was “admitted for inpatient care for an unspecified amount of time.” Multiple sources mentioned McGraw was scheduled to be launched Thursday, Nov 20.
The supply conversant in the investigation mentioned Army officers had been contemplating inserting McGraw into a pretrial confinement upon discharge from the well being facility.
In a assertion to NCS on Friday, Daniel Conway, a lawyer representing McGraw, mentioned, “We’ve seen a significant number of new allegations – particularly as Army law enforcement is inviting former patients to come forward. At this point, beyond the allegations themselves, we’ve seen no records to support that patients were touched in a way that was not medically indicated. We believe that the Army previously resolved at least one of the allegations because of an eye-witness account by another provider present. We’ll continue to cooperate. We remain disappointed at Army law enforcement’s handling of the investigation.”
The Fort Hood Medical Center additionally launched a assertion, saying, “Fort Hood recognizes the great trust and responsibility inherent in caring for our soldiers, families, and beneficiaries and will continue to care for everyone involved throughout this process.”
For Hough, a survivor of navy sexual trauma herself who mentioned she is personally speaking with McGraw’s alleged victims each day, this case exhibits that the protections Shield of Sisters and different advocacy teams pushed for years in the past after Guillén’s homicide “were ignored and just forgotten.”
Officer: Military is ‘poisonous’ for ladies
NCS’s Brianna Keilar highlights the story of a extremely certified Naval officer and former SEAL crew six member who abruptly misplaced her submit. The impression from inner sources was that it was due to her gender. Her story is a part of an unique report in which NCS spoke to greater than a dozen active-duty ladies throughout the navy branches who say they ‘aren’t welcome’ and really feel ‘targeted.’ They imagine US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s insurance policies are pushing ladies out and discouraging others from becoming a member of the navy.
The Army households Hough spoke with in the wake of this case are “feeling extreme betrayal” after they trusted the navy with their well being care, she mentioned.
Earlier this 12 months, an Army physician, Maj. Michael Stockin, pleaded responsible in a navy court docket after he was accused of touching or viewing the genitals of greater than 40 of his male sufferers beneath the guise of medical remedy between 2019 and 2022, in accordance to court docket paperwork. His victims are actually searching for $225 million in a civil go well with in opposition to the Army.
That had been thought of maybe the largest such navy abuse case – till this one.
“This is going to go down as the largest scandal in the military’s history,” Hough mentioned. “And if they don’t hear us now, we’re done… And if they don’t make the reform and stick to it after this, then there’s no hope.”
After the fight veteran shouted in the hospital foyer at Fort Hood, what transpired over the course of the subsequent a number of hours, as he and his spouse tried to sound the alarm each at the hospital and with broader Army management at Fort Hood, was an emotional and bureaucratic nightmare, in accordance to the supply conversant in his report.
When the couple went to the III Armored Corps headquarters constructing at Fort Hood, the fight veteran advised a workers sergeant at the entrance desk that he wanted to train the commander’s “open door policy,” a protocol circulated in a base memo earlier this 12 months guaranteeing service members might convey considerations immediately to the commander.
The couple had been advised two commanders had been out of state and couldn’t see him. Then they turned to the hospital command crew, who advised the feminine officer fill out a kind and mentioned senior officers had been both busy or out of the workplace. They then tried to flip to the inspector normal’s workplace – solely to be advised it was positioned in the first place they tried.
Finally, the husband left a voicemail on the commanding normal’s hotline, in accordance to the supply conversant in what the veteran advised investigators. He didn’t hear again from anybody in base management for days, the supply mentioned.
Over the following weeks, investigators contacted and interviewed different ladies they may determine from the photographs and movies they’d discovered on McGraw’s cellphone, together with Jane Doe in the lawsuit.
One alleged sufferer – an Army partner NCS is figuring out as Megan, a pseudonym – mentioned she tried repeatedly to report McGraw for inappropriate habits almost a 12 months earlier, in late 2024. But she hit so many useless ends that she gave up attempting, she mentioned.
Long earlier than Megan visited Fort Hood’s Darnall Medical Center in December 2024 for a sinus an infection between pre-natal check-ups, she had requested by no means to see a male gynecologist. She was a sexual assault survivor.
When McGraw entered her examination room, Megan mentioned she requested for a chaperone from the medical workers to be a part of the appointment – one thing sufferers have a proper to throughout delicate exams. McGraw advised her everybody was busy, she mentioned.
Megan mentioned McGraw stored placing his hand on her knee, despite the fact that she advised him he was making her uncomfortable, and he pressured her to have a vaginal examination.
“I looked at him like he’s crazy because it’s a sinus infection. I don’t need an exam,” Megan mentioned. “He said. ‘It’s perfectly fine, (you’re) due for one. It’s mandatory.’”
Four occasions he pressured her to let him study her and 4 occasions she refused, Megan mentioned. She consented to an exterior examination of her stomach. But McGraw insisted she permit him to do a breast examination and instructed her to pull up her shirt above her breasts.
When she refused, he pulled her shirt up, she mentioned. She pulled it again down and McGraw grazed her breasts as he examined her abdomen. He measured her abdomen from her pubic bone, then advised her that he wanted to go decrease.
“No, you don’t,” she mentioned she advised him, however he pulled down her leggings, his hand grazing her vulva. “If you don’t remove your hands from my body I will punch you in the face. This exam is over,” Megan mentioned she then advised him.
She instantly approached a girl working behind the entrance desk of the clinic and, tears streaming down her face, advised her what had occurred.
“Oh,” she replied, nonplussed, in accordance to Megan, who requested to report the incident.
She mentioned the girl advised her everybody who might take a report was busy. She might both come again later or name a quantity. Megan left, and over the course of the subsequent few weeks tried to file a formal grievance about what occurred 4 occasions, solely to be always transferred between departments at Fort Hood and disconnected. None of them ever took her report.
Megan gave up reporting McGraw, she mentioned, had her child, and ultimately moved along with her husband to his subsequent task, leaving Fort Hood behind, however not the trauma of her expertise there.
When the story of McGraw’s suspension broke in the information, Megan’s husband confirmed it to her on his cellphone.
“It’s that doctor you told me about,” he advised her. “He’s being investigated.”
“No f***ing way,” she responded in disbelief. “No, he’s not. No one cares.”
A pair days later, an Army investigator contacted Megan to see if McGraw had ever mistreated her as a affected person.
Fort Hood has lengthy had a popularity for being stricken by misconduct. The base was beforehand compelled to confront important cultural and coverage shortcomings in the wake of Guillén’s homicide in 2020.
The extremely publicized tragedy kicked off a reckoning inside the Army, and navy extra broadly, in how the providers deal with sexual assault and harassment and the associated reporting and investigation mechanisms.
An impartial evaluation of Fort Hood in the wake of Guillen’s homicide resulted in 70 suggestions, together with many particularly addressing shortcomings inside the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program at Fort Hood, or SHARP, the Army extra broadly, and US Army Criminal Investigation Command.
The evaluation discovered that the SHARP program at Fort Hood was “structurally flawed” and “ineffective, to the extent that there was a permissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment.”
The Defense Department additionally undertook its personal 90-day evaluation of sexual assault in the navy in 2021, ensuing in 82 suggestions to enhance accountability, sufferer help and prevention.
Last 12 months the variety of reviews of sexual assault involving service members fell 4%, according to the Pentagon. Hough, the founding father of Shield of Sisters, the advocacy group, mentioned that’s in half as a result of “people don’t feel like they’re going to be believed, just like this.”
Given Hegseth’s public feedback about nameless complaints in the navy, which made up greater than a third of sexual assault reviews in the navy final 12 months, advocates and protection personnel alike imagine an already cumbersome reporting course of might develop into extra difficult.
“The number of reports is going to drop significantly lower,” mentioned Hough.
The lawsuit additionally claims that McGraw’s alleged habits goes again to his task at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, his responsibility station prior to Fort Hood the place he accomplished his residency.
The Army is sending letters to 1,600 sufferers McGraw got here into contact with at Tripler to inform them of the investigation. NCS spoke to one navy partner who claims she was a sufferer of McGraw’s from his time at Tripler, however she has not but obtained a letter.
NCS is figuring out the girl as Lisa, a pseudonym, to shield her id.
In late summer time of 2021, Lisa went to the hospital for a fetal heartrate check whereas full time period with the being pregnant of her fourth little one. She mentioned she encountered McGraw as she was leaving the facility.
“I could check your cervix really quick,” she says he advised her, urging her to come to the OB-GYN clinic.
Lisa, who initially favored and trusted McGraw, says she tried to decline the examination, however that he repeatedly pressured her and she or he lastly acquiesced.
During the examination, Lisa mentioned McGraw had his cellphone in his breast pocket, digital camera confronted out.
“He said he was waiting on a phone call since he was the only one in the clinic,” Lisa advised NCS. “Since every exam his phone was in his pocket, it didn’t register as weird.”
She mentioned it was a very tough examination – a lot in order that her “water broke and amniotic fluid gushed out on the floor.”
“He said to me with a wink and a smile, ‘We’re having a baby today,’ then directed me not to tell anyone that my water had broke until I was off base because we both could get in a lot of trouble,” since the examination wasn’t scheduled, Lisa mentioned. She went house and got here again to the hospital along with her husband.
When it lately got here to gentle that an unnamed obstetrician at Fort Hood was alleged to have been secretly recording his sufferers throughout exams, Lisa noticed the title of a regulation agency that was representing victims in a information story and made a plan to name the subsequent morning.
That night time, she couldn’t sleep. She was replaying each second that she had come into contact with McGraw, dry heaving, operating forwards and backwards to the toilet.
In the morning, Lisa referred to as the reception line and requested, “Is the doctor Blaine McGraw?” Yes, she was advised.
“One day, my son will ask me about when he was born, and I don’t want to talk about it. It makes me want to throw up,” she mentioned. “He took that from me and I’m never going to get that back.”