O.C. Recruit Says She Was Steered Into Sex Scandal

ORANGE — Of all the sad and seamy tales to emerge from the sex scandal at the Army training base in Aberdeen, Md., the story told by Pvt. Angela Thomas of her relationship with Staff Sgt. Wayne Gamble perhaps best dramatizes the severe erosion of military discipline there and its consequences.

When Thomas arrived at Aberdeen Proving Ground a year ago, she could do 55 push-ups in two minutes and was surprised to admit that she was getting to like Army life, even the 4 a.m. wake-up. But her career veered off course in August when another drill sergeant introduced her to Gamble as a prospective sexual partner, and the two began an affair.

Sergeants and privates in Thomas’ company covered for her when she left her barracks to visit Gamble night after night, she said. She stayed with him even when he was supposed to be under virtual house arrest awaiting disciplinary action in a sexual misconduct case originally involving other female trainees, Thomas said.

In a complete reversal of the normal hierarchy in an Army training camp, Thomas said she could talk back to instructors and refuse their orders because people knew of her relationship.

Thomas’s Army career has come to an end because she became pregnant, with Gamble’s child, and had to leave the service in March. She now has no job, no money, no health care and is living with her parents here, awaiting the baby’s delivery in August.

Gamble was arraigned Wednesday on charges of having improper sexual relations with Thomas and 13 other trainees at the northern Maryland post. His trial starts June 3. He faces 32 counts of misconduct, including sodomy, adultery, desertion and violating the ban on relationships with trainees.

Thomas, 20, acknowledges she bears part of the responsibility for what happened at Aberdeen, but she and her parents also believe the Army should be held accountable for allowing such a wanton atmosphere to exist at the base.

“Our belief is you send your daughter into the Army with hopes and dreams, you know, ‘be all you can be,’ . . . and she’s come out a pregnant woman with no benefits, no nothing,” said her stepfather, Bob, who like his wife does not want his last name published. “Now we need medical care. We need money for education. This kid will be brought into this world under circumstances that shouldn’t have existed.”

Gamble, 36, who has been in the Army 18 years, was reached by telephone at his Aberdeen barracks. He did not deny he is the father of the child but did not want to speak on the record.

Eleven other trainees from Aberdeen left the Army in the last two years because they became pregnant, Aberdeen officials said.

Army commanders give women who become pregnant during training this choice: Leave voluntarily or stay in the Army and give custody of your newborn to someone else while you finish training.

Thomas chose voluntary discharge because she wanted to get away from Aberdeen, she said. She would not turn her baby over to anyone. As a single parent it would be impossible for her to reenlist any time soon, if ever, Army officials noted.

Aberdeen spokesman Ed Starnes said Thomas is entitled to Army-provided health care until she delivers and that officials there will help her straighten out the problems she is having getting it. “We’ll get her any help we can,” he said.

Thomas said she joined the Army in March 1996 because she knew life had more to offer than stacking 40-pound boxes of frozen chickens, her job in Arkansas at the time.

Basic training went well. Just before Thomas was to leave advanced training at Aberdeen, she developed a hip problem and was held over until doctors could decide how serious it was. She was given paperwork jobs to fill her day.

In August, a drill sergeant in her company ordered her one day to come behind the orderly room, she said. There she stood at parade rest--feet apart, hands behind the back--and Gamble appeared.

“He told me to stand at ease,” she said. He looked her over, made small talk and left.

Later that day the same drill sergeant gave her Gamble’s room number and told her to call a cab and to go there that night, Thomas said. He would cover for her, she said he told her. She willingly went.

“It was just the thrill of the fact it was a secret,” she said. She became fond of Gamble, who led her to believe he was in love with her. “He told me I was the first to come into his room.”

According to court documents and Army sources, Gamble and the drill sergeant who introduced Gamble to Thomas are alleged to be participants in “the game,” in which drill sergeants passed around the names of women who they knew were open to having sex. Gamble bragged about having had sex with over 60 privates, one sworn statement says.

About a month after Thomas and Gamble began their relationship, Gamble was transferred to Fort Bragg, N.C. About the same time, the sexual improprieties at Aberdeen began to surface. Thomas was questioned and admitted to the affair. When Army investigators called Gamble back to Aberdeen, he went AWOL.

After he was apprehended and returned to Aberdeen, Army prosecutors argued that Gamble should be sent to pretrial confinement, but a military magistrate decided he would not flee again so he restricted Gamble to his barracks.

It was while Gamble was supposed to be under virtual house arrest that Thomas said she spent nearly every night with him over a three-month period. During one of those evenings she became pregnant.

Visiting with Gamble was easy, Thomas said. None of the privates in charge of her barracks ever questioned her when she left at night, nor did the drill sergeants, she said, because they knew about the relationship.

Although she was once disciplined--she received 45 days of extra duty for missing bed checks--she said got away with a lot. “If I didn’t feel like” cleaning the barracks, “who was going to make me do it?” she said. “It kind of turned to my advantage. I could tell people above me to shove it.” The drill instructor in her company that set up their initial meeting “knew about me and Gamble and I knew about him and other privates.”

Thomas’s mother was washing the dishes when her daughter called to tell her she was pregnant. Both recalled the conversation.

It went like this:

“Mom, remember you always said you would love me no matter what?”

“Yes. . . .”

“I’m pregnant.”

Pause. “What are you going to do?

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“He’s black.”

“That’s fine. That’s not a problem: That’s how we raised you.”

Army regulations say Thomas is entitled to military-paid prenatal care until the baby is delivered. But she has been turned away from two Veterans Affairs facilities. Last week, she and her mother drove 60 miles to Camp Pendleton. Because Aberdeen officials have not forwarded her medical records, the Camp Pendleton doctor would not examine her. Instead she got vitamins.

“I’m in the most crucial time in my pregnancy and they won’t do anything,” she said. “The most important thing is once I have my baby, my insurance is gone.”

Because Thomas was in training when she was discharged, the Army will not pay for her to go to a private physician. She will have to go to Camp Pendleton to deliver.

Gamble and Thomas speak often by telephone, she said. in a recent call, they talked about money and his trial. After a while, her mother gestured for her to get off the phone.

“I gotta go, I can’t afford to call you. I don’t have any money,” Thomas said. “I don’t mean to be egging you, but it’s been two months since I’ve been home.”

She hung up without saying goodbye.