‘We are all in disbelief’: How the New Hampshire National Guard failed to protect female soldiers

(CNN) — When a military police battalion from the New Hampshire National Guard arrived at the US southern border in October 2022, the unit’s commander Lt. Col. Mark Patterson immediately began making soldiers uncomfortable.

In one instance, Patterson sent a junior female officer a picture of a sexually themed “Beer Garden Babe” costume suggesting she wear it to the battalion’s upcoming Halloween party. In another, he told a female colleague that he’d gotten an erection while thinking of her during a massage.

Some of the women felt that Patterson often followed them, including around their hotel and to a local gym. He would also take photos of them without their knowledge and share them with others along with comments about their bodies. Patterson repeatedly ordered women in the battalion to come to his hotel room, texted them at all hours, and spoke at length about wanting a relationship with a younger woman.

If they complained about his behavior, Patterson would threaten to make their deployment miserable.

Patterson’s conduct was detailed in a 50-page report from March 2023 obtained by CNN laying out the findings of an Army investigation, which eventually led to Patterson being charged and convicted in a military court-martial for his actions at the border, including sexually harassing four women in his battalion over several months.

As part of a plea deal, Patterson is being forced to retire. His attorney told CNN Patterson is expected to retire as a major, one rank below lieutenant colonel, by November 1.

His case is perhaps the most high-profile example of a problem women say has plagued the New Hampshire National Guard for years: A toxic, sexist work environment.

In interviews with CNN, nine current and former members of the New Hampshire National Guard (NHNG) described a culture where sexual harassment and assault have been allowed to flourish, where whistleblowers are retaliated against and where survivors have often been neglected as leaders fail to enforce any real means of accountability.

Data obtained by CNN show that New Hampshire had by far the highest rate of reported sexual assault cases in the spring of 2023 than any other National Guard unit in the US — 5.29 cases per 1,000 service members. The second highest state, Wyoming, had a rate of 2.91 per 1,000. The New Hampshire National Guard told CNN in a statement that 2023 was an anomalous year for sexual assault reports.

None of Patterson’s behavior at the border should’ve surprised the top brass back in New Hampshire. The Guard had previously investigated Patterson numerous times, including over allegations of sexual harassment, multiple sources told CNN. One of the New Hampshire National Guard’s most senior officers was also warned directly about Patterson’s concerning behavior and his impact on soldiers under his command.

Several months before Patterson’s unit deployed, a lieutenant colonel warned the head of the New Hampshire National Guard’s Army component that there was “significant stress” and “serious depression” among soldiers and officers who served under Patterson, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

“If these issues are not resolved” before deployment to the border, Patterson’s past problems could “fester, grow, and may cause embarrassment” for the New Hampshire National Guard, wrote Lt. Col. Kennith Kruger, a field artillery commander.

Of the more than 50 service members interviewed by the Army during its investigation into Patterson, many expressed a deep sense of anger.

“We all are in disbelief that the state of NH would let him command this (battalion),” one service member told the Army’s investigating officer. Another said that Patterson “has remained unscathed through multiple investigations,” and “many of us have lost hope in the system and fear speaking up because he won’t be held accountable.”

Asked if he had any response to the investigation’s conclusion that Patterson made women feel “targeted, groomed, and threatened,” Patterson’s civilian attorney told CNN his client “felt that the female subordinates under his command were being friendly to him and thus he reciprocated. He erred in letting the level of familiarity go too far.”

‘I no longer trust this organization’

After Patterson was suspended in January 2023, the state’s sexual assault response program manager, a 10-year military veteran named Katrina Dupuis, went to the border and said she found soldiers “traumatized” by his behavior. When she learned that Patterson had been investigated multiple times already, including once just before he had deployed, Dupuis was appalled.

She said she was told the latest probe had ended after multiple soldiers retracted their complaints against Patterson, which she found troubling.

“I said, ‘You weren’t deeply concerned about that? What do you mean (they) took it back, that’s concerning,’” Dupuis told CNN, recalling the conversation she had with leadership at the time.

By March 2023, Dupuis, frustrated by a lack of response from leadership, brought her concerns to authorities outside of her chain of command, filing reports to the Department of the Army Inspector General and the New Hampshire attorney general’s office.

“I no longer trust this organization and its ability to keep myself or anyone else safe,” Dupuis wrote in an official complaint to the New Hampshire Department of Military Affairs and Veterans Services. Concerns she’d brought forward on behalf of sexual assault survivors “aren’t even acknowledged,” Dupuis added, writing that, for her, “(h)ostility, maltreatment and retaliation are just a daily expectation now.”

In June 2023, the New Hampshire National Guard’s most senior commander, Maj. Gen. David Mikolaities, temporarily suspended Dupuis, citing “medical issues” that were interfering with her performance. Dupuis, however, told CNN that she had not reported “medical issues,” saying instead she’d been discussing concerns over retaliation and leadership’s treatment of her in a conversation she believed to be confidential.

In July, she was told she was being fired for, among other things, “unprofessional behavior.” A memo to Dupuis, dated two days before her termination was final, listed a series of allegations against her, including that she “failed to take steps to quell negative, insubstantial rumors about colleagues” and told a victim of sexual harassment that “our higher leadership won’t do anything” and they should file a complaint through their Congress representative.

The memo did not cite “medical issues” as a reason for her firing. A few months earlier, Dupuis received a glowing performance review, giving her the highest rating of “outstanding” for her work overseeing victim support services and training.

Dupuis says she believes she was retaliated against for raising issues the unit’s top leaders didn’t want to hear and for trying to alert outside authorities to the problem.

Emily Paige Kamal, a lieutenant colonel who worked as a civilian alongside Dupuis as the NHNG director of the wellness division, told CNN she believed Dupuis was fired for blowing the whistle about the unit’s lack of response to reports of sexual assault.

“I think that the leadership was deeply troubled by the information that she was providing to them,” Kamal said. “I think that she was not willing to change her narrative to be the misleading story that the leadership was providing.”

The New Hampshire National Guard declined to comment on Dupuis’ employment citing privacy laws.

Mikolaities, who declined to be interviewed for this article, said in a written response to questions from CNN that there was “nothing” in Patterson’s past performance to indicate “he was capable of the kind of misconduct and abuse of authority revealed in the findings that he (pleaded) guilty to.”

“The New Hampshire National Guard takes all allegations of sexual assault seriously and significant work has been done to improve the prevention and response, victim care, accountability, prevention, climate and culture,” he said.

‘Foxes guarding the henhouse’

In recent years, the US military has made a priority of addressing sexual assault and harassment. While the National Guard has focused on these issues, experts told CNN change can take longer to sink into National Guard units because they are largely made up of part-time troops, who are often not subject to the same federal regulations as their active-duty counterparts.

National Guard units are also led by general officers, known as TAGs or adjutant generals, such as Mikolaities, who report directly to their state’s governor but also to the Pentagon. This effectively gives them “two bosses,” and leads to confusion on whether issues should be handled by the state or federal government, said Kate Kuzminski, the director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security.

“If there’s an open question mark, and it’s a topic no one wants to spend their time on,” Kuzminski said, “then that’s the thing that’s likely to fall between the cracks.”

The investigation of Patterson offers a window into those competing authorities. Because he was on federal orders at the time of his misconduct at the border, and therefore subject to active-duty military regulations, the investigation was ordered by his chain of command at the border and not the National Guard.

A major report delivered to the Secretary of Defense in June 2021 outlined a series of recommendations for the military to improve how it handles assault and harassment. The report made a point of calling out the National Guard, saying it faced “unique challenges” in preventing assault or harassment.

The complexities of National Guard members being on state or federal orders, the report said, “make prevention oversight and accountability highly convoluted, stalling necessary change and progress.”

A civilian member of the Independent Review Commission (IRC) who put that report together for the Pentagon and requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the findings, said the National Guard has particular challenges in enforcing change because of the power TAGs have in their states.

TAGs typically serve at the pleasure of their state governor, leaving the National Guard Bureau – the Guard’s administrative federal agency – without an effective way of enforcing accountability in specific units, the person said.

“There’s way too much of ‘foxes guarding the henhouse’ in every angle of the [National Guard Bureau],” the IRC member said. “The National Guard belongs to the governors, and so they can do what they want.”

The office of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu did not respond to requests from CNN for an interview with Sununu for this article, instead sending a written statement attributed only to the governor’s office.

“Governor Sununu and NH National Guard (NHNG) leadership take allegations of sexual assault seriously,” the statement said. “When they were raised over a year ago, Governor Sununu in conjunction with NHNG leadership, took quick action and conducted a third-party external review to ensure a workplace environment where there is zero tolerance for sexual assault or harassment.”

‘No guarantee’ of justice for survivors

Both Kuzminski and the IRC member pointed to the lack of a robust investigative unit within the National Guard as part of the reason why the toxic culture is often allowed to linger. While active-duty military branches have their own criminal investigation agencies — like the Navy’s Criminal Investigative Services — the National Guard does not.

The part-time status of many National Guard members presents jurisdiction issues on criminal investigations; oftentimes, unless members are on federal orders, they are under the jurisdiction of their local civilian law enforcement agencies.

CNN found at least six civilian police reports involving sexual assault, harassment, stalking, and hazing allegations within the New Hampshire National Guard that were investigated by local law enforcement in cities and towns around the state since 2019.

One case involved a female soldier who reported being sexually assaulted by a male officer. Another involved a female soldier who said she was assaulted by a male soldier during her recruiting process; that same alleged offender was also investigated over allegations of domestic violence and stalking.

A case handled by the Manchester Police Department included claims from Staff Sgt. Jaleesa Ackerman, who reported being sexually assaulted by her company commander at a holiday party in December 2019.

“Within like 30 minutes of me being there, I was being inappropriately touched in front of his kids and wife,” said Ackerman, who chose to speak to CNN on the record about the incident involving her company commander.

“He had his arm around me, started touching my boobs and my thighs, and his wife was right there kind of watching, kind of giving him the stink eye like, ‘You better knock it off,’” she recalled.

Ackerman reported the incident to the Manchester Police Department three days later. The commander ultimately received a memorandum of reprimand, according to official documents; he has since left the military, according to Ackerman.

Keri Wareing, a former soldier with the New Hampshire National Guard, described several harrowing weeks when she claims she was sexually assaulted numerous times by an officer, who then threatened to ruin her career and marriage if she told anyone. In an emotional interview with CNN, Wareing said that after keeping the incidents to herself for years, she changed her mind when she learned of allegations that her assailant had assaulted other women.

Wareing also chose to speak to CNN on the record. She said ultimately the Guard found her complaint unsubstantiated, though she said they found proof of gross misconduct on the officer’s part — an outcome she found upsetting.

Wareing recalled the regular, required sexual assault and harassment trainings her unit conducted over the years — routine training for military units — and how no one ever seemed to take it seriously.

“Everybody would joke and be like, ‘Alright, you guys ready to go to the rape briefing?’ It wasn’t taken seriously,” Wareing said.

In his statement to CNN, Mikolaities, the NHNG’s most senior commander, said, “Every sexual assault reported is referred to the appropriate external local law enforcement agency or Military Criminal Investigation Organization for investigation … Upon the receipt of a substantiated investigation, the NHNG takes action to the fullest extent practicable.”

The civilian member of the Independent Review Commission who spoke to CNN, however, cast doubt on the idea of survivors in the National Guard having real assurances that they will be taken care of.

“The bottom line is it’s up to leaders in uniform to care for their soldiers, whether they are active duty, or National Guard, or a reservist,” the member said. “And the way the National Guard is currently structured, there is no guarantee to survivors that they will see any form of justice.”

Action in Congress

But a recent move by New Hampshire’s senior US senator, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, suggests they’ve finally spurred some action on Capitol Hill.

Shaheen, who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee and also serves as a co-chair of the Senate National Guard Caucus, recently wrote a provision into the drafted language of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act — the major defense spending bill which is passed annually — that would require a Pentagon committee to review every state’s National Guard policies around handling assault and harassment.

Shaheen also wants to strengthen the National Guard’s internal investigative agency, the Office of Complex Investigations (OCI), which was involved in an assessment of the NHNG that current and former members of the unit said fell flat.

“They don’t have the ability to truly hold perpetrators accountable,” the source familiar with Shaheen’s thinking told CNN. The IRC member who spoke to CNN echoed that OCI ultimately has “no teeth,” despite being the “only honest broker” in the National Guard Bureau to conduct independent investigations.

Ultimately Shaheen “wants justice for these women,” the source familiar with her thinking said, and wants to ensure “we’re taking all the appropriate steps necessary to help them, and also use her position on a federal level to influence legislation, since this is an issue on a national level.”

But doubt remains as to how effective new legislation could be, given the complex nature of the National Guard and what many sources see as a lack of means to hold leaders accountable for rules already on the books.

“At the end of the day, regardless of what the National Guard is supposed to do, there’s nobody holding them accountable for the things they fail to do,” Dupuis said. “We already know what they’re supposed to do. They’re not doing it, and nobody holds them accountable for it.”

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