The Anchorage Press, which is way ahead of other Alaska journalists, has a new article which outlines some of the despicable behavior by Alaska National Guard recruiters.

The Anchorage Press managed to get their hands on a military investigation report that lays out sexual abuse, rape, and intimidation engaged in by three Alaska National Guard recruiters nicknamed the "Three Headed Monster." Which included Sgt. Jarrett Carson, Master Sgt. John Nieves, and Sgt. 1st Class Shannon Tallant.

I will warn you ahead of time that this is not for the faint of heart.

Here are but a few of the finding of the investigation:

Carson, Nieves and Tallant, all three married at the time, habitually violated military regulations by having consensual sex with women they met in their official roles as recruiters, as well as with fellow soldiers, including subordinates. Numerous liaisons took place in the “back room” of a National Guard recruiting office inside the Dimond Center shopping mall, and inside marked Alaska National Guard recruiting SUVs. One woman told investigators that in the spring of 2011, she went to the shopping mall recruiting office not long after graduating high school to inquire about joining the Guard. She said that Carson, who was 35 years old at the time, “threw her over the desk” and had sex with her, though she described the encounter as consensual. 

According to a summary of investigative findings in one AR 15-6 report, in December 2010 Nieves raped the younger sister of a soldier that he had recruited to join the Guard three years prior. According to the report, Nieves, then 35 years old, physically forced the 19-year-old woman to have sex with him after threatening to ruin her brother’s military career if she rejected his advances.

Tallant boasted to fellow soldiers of having sex with a high school girl he met at Dimond High School through a JROTC program. Three former Dimond High School female JROTC cadets told military investigators that from 2007 to 2009, during their freshmen through junior years of high school, Tallant repeatedly asked them out on dates and offered them alcohol. One former cadet said that Tallant “talked about Jägermeister and Jäger Bombs and Southern Comfort, which could be mixed with pineapple juice so that one couldn’t taste the alcohol,” and that when she visited him at the Dimond Center recruiting office, “he would try to talk her into the ‘back room,’ which housed the recruiting giveaways such as T-shirts and water bottles.” A second former cadet said that when she was a freshman in high school, Tallant offered to give her a ride home after school. Once she was inside his car, she told a military investigator, Tallant announced they were going to his house instead. The girl “told SFC Tallant that she wanted to go home because her mother was probably looking for her,” according to an AR 15-6 report. “Tallant countered that it would only take about five minutes. When SFC Tallant stopped at a stop sign she jumped out of the car. SFC Tallant tried to convince her to get back in his car but she ran off and used a stranger’s phone to call her father for a ride.” 

Tallant was the Non Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of an Alaska Army National Guard recruiting “mobile events team” that officially represented the guard at the 2008 Arctic Man winter sports festival. The recruiters traveled to Arctic Man in Alaska National Guard RVs. Investigators found that “from the moment they arrived excessive drinking and partying were accepted and encouraged by SFC Tallant.” A female Alaska National Guard recruiter who served under Tallant and was assigned to the mobile events team at Arctic Man turned 19 during the four-day festival. According to an AR 15-6 report, Tallant, who was 34 years old at the time, sexually assaulted her twice inside a guard RV after she became so intoxicated that she passed out the night of her birthday. 

During a 2008 recruiting event at a lodge in the Copper River Basin, several recruiters serving under Tallant witnessed him persuading a civilian woman in a bar to “drink more alcoholic beverages than it appeared she wanted to,” until the woman “seemed drugged, not responsive, loose, incoherent and clumsy.” According to witnesses cited in an AR 15-6 report, Tallant pulled the woman into an Alaska National Guard RV and fondled her while she was unconscious. “The victim was asleep while this was happening, but at some points she would make efforts to have him stop before falling back into an unconscious state,” the report states. Military investigators found that Tallant then directed soldiers under his command to “stand lookout” while he pulled the woman into a bedroom behind an “accordion door” inside the guard RV. One soldier told investigators the RV soon began to rock and he heard Tallant making sounds “consistent with intercourse.” 

During a 2009 recruiting trip to Clam Gulch, a woman that Tallant had recently met during a military recruiting event at ThursdayNight at the Fights in Anchorage “showed up to party with SFC Tallant.” According to military witnesses, “Tallant strongly insisted that she drink alcoholic beverages. At times SFC Tallant seemed forceful in making the woman drink.” One witness, who at the time was a Sergeant serving under Tallant in the recruiting battalion, told investigators that Tallant at one point in the evening ordered him to go purchase more liquor at a liquor store, and to hide the woman’s car keys so that she couldn’t leave. The Sergeant did not hide the keys well because “he wanted the woman to leave for her own safety,” the report states. When the woman found her keys, Tallant ordered the Sergeant under his command to let the air out of her tires, which the Sergeant did, after first requesting that Tallant repeat the order. Upon returning from the liquor store, the Sergeant said, he offered to give the woman a ride home. “Tallant said she was not going anywhere,” the report states. “That night, the Sergeant woke up to find Tallant having sex with the woman. The woman did not seem to be enjoying herself.” 

I have to tell you that reading this article from the Anchorage Press quite literally left me shaken.That this has been going on for so long, and our Governor knew about it and did NOTHING, is beyond reprehensible.

This story deserves national attention and I urge all of you to promote it until it receives exactly that.