The war veteran, a former Marine in Afghanistan, was used to observing everything around him to stay alive. So he watched intently last month as an obstetrician in the army examined his pregnant wife, an Army officer, in Fort Hood, Texas.

When the doctor bent down to change the position of the ultrasound machine, something caught the veteran’s attention: the doctor’s cell phone was now in his shirt pocket, with the camera lens pointed outward. It wasn’t there before. When the veteran looked at the screen, he saw that the phone was recording.

#BREAKING

Army gynecologist Maj. Blaine McGraw suspended at Fort Hood after lawsuit alleges he secretly filmed & groped 46+ female patients over years.

Lawsuit claims unnecessary exams, dismissed nurses, fake phone calls to record without consent. Army allegedly ignored… pic.twitter.com/rOuep9rc0N

— ❀ N ✿ (@8zal) November 23, 2025

When the examination was complete, the veteran found two female members of the medical staff and told them what happened, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Their reactions frustrated him so much that he “exploded” right there in the middle of the hallway. “I just caught a doctor recording my wife’s vagina!” he shouted, according to the same source.

That “explosion” led to a sequence of events, allegations, and revelations that brought to light what could be one of the largest cases of alleged sexual abuse in the history of the U.S. military.

Dr. Blaine McGraw and the allegations
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Last month, Army officials in Texas removed from his position Dr. Blaine McGraw, an Army major and gynecologist at Fort Hood, who is now accused of repeatedly assaulting a female patient and secretly recording her private moments during a recent gynecological and mammological exam.

The plaintiff, known by the common “Jane Doe” used when a witness’s details are not made public, had visited McGraw a few days before the veteran accompanied his wife to Fort Hood Hospital.

Army investigators recovered thousands of photos and videos from McGraw’s cellphone that “were taken over the course of several years and depict dozens of female patients, many of whom remain anonymous,” according to the lawsuit. So far, at least 65 women claim to have been victims of sexual abuse by McGraw. However, according to CNN, that number is expected to rise.

3,000 letters to McGraw patients – The biggest sex scandal

The military sent letters to about 3,000 patients McGraw contacted at Fort Hood and the Army Medical Center Tripler in Hawaii, where he worked years earlier, according to sources. CNN spoke with at least one alleged victim, who said he had not yet been contacted by Army officials.

“The potential scope of this harm is, in my opinion, unprecedented in the history of the military,” said Andrew Combs, a lawyer representing some of McGraw’s accusers. “It involves two major military bases, two different chains of command, thousands of military spouses and soldiers who were put in his care.”

Members of the military have expressed concern that reporting allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct will become more difficult after recent statements by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who promised to end the ability to file anonymous and “trivial” complaints.

The lawsuit against McGraw, filed on November 10, alleges that “the military knew” and “provided cover for a predator in uniform,” noting that allegations had been made about McGraw at both Fort Hood and Tripler.

Five years after the gruesome murder of Vanessa Guillain, a 20-year-old soldier serving at Fort Hood whose allegations of sexual harassment were ignored by commanders, many question the effectiveness of extensive military judicial reforms in the wake of that tragedy. Some have said that “loopholes” in the legal process that existed even then allowed McGraw to continue seeing patients despite alleged attempts to report earlier.

Shannon Hoff, director of the NGO Shield of Sisters, which provides support for survivors of military sexual trauma, said she has spoken to dozens of women alleged victims of McGraw. “Every one of them” told her they had previously tried to report him to military officials, Hoff said, but to no avail.

The lawsuit alleges that while practicing medicine at Tripler in Hawaii, “at least one female patient filed a complaint alleging that McGraw had illegally recorded her pelvic exam on his cellphone. Rather than investigate him 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 shocking stories of Megan and Lisa

The wife of a soldier, whom CNN quotes under the pseudonym “Megan,” said she repeatedly tried to report McGraw for inappropriate behavior nearly a year earlier, in late 2024. However, she ended up abandoning the efforts after encountering many… obstacles.

When Megan visited Fort Hood Medical Center in December 2024 for a sinus infection, she had asked not to be examined by a man. She was a survivor of sexual assault. When McGraw entered the exam room, Megan said she asked for someone from the medical staff to be present – something patients are entitled to during sensitive exams. McGraw told her that everyone was busy, she said.

Megan said McGraw put his hand on her knee, even though she told him it made her uncomfortable, and pressured her to have a gynecological exam. “I looked at him like crazy because it was sinusitis. I didn’t need a gynecological exam,” Megan said. “He said: “It’s OK, it’s time for one. It’s mandatory.”

Four times he pressured her to let him examine her, and four times she refused, Megan said. He agreed to do only an external examination of her abdomen. But McGraw insisted he give her a breast exam and asked her to lift her shirt. When she refused, he lifted her shirt, she said. When she pulled it down, McGraw touched her breasts as he examined her abdomen.

He measured her belly from the pubic bone and then told her she needed to go lower. “No, you don’t have to,” she replied, but he pulled down her leggings, touching her sensitive area. “If you don’t get your hands off my body, I’m going to punch you in the face. The examination is over,” she stopped him.

Immediately, he approached a woman behind the clinic secretary and, with tears streaming down her face, told her what had happened. “Oh,” she replied nonchalantly, according to Megan, who asked to report the incident. The woman replied that everyone who could document the incident was busy. She could either go later or call a number.

🚨🚨 BREAKING NEWS

A civil suit alleges the Army kept a doctor, Maj. Blaine McGraw, on staff despite patient complaints at Fort Hood, and before that at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, beginning in 2019.

👉🏼He secretly recorded patients during pelvic exams and made lewd…

— Dittie (@DittiePE) November 22, 2025

Megan left and, over the next few weeks, tried four times to file a formal complaint about what happened, only to be continually moved from department to department at Fort Hood and disconnected. No one took her statement. Megan dropped the report against McGraw, gave birth to her child, and eventually moved with her husband to a new location, leaving Fort Hood behind, but not the trauma of her experience there.

When McGraw’s story came to light, Megan’s husband showed her the news on his phone. “Is this the doctor you told me about?” he asked her. “They’re investigating him.” “I don’t believe it,” she replied in incredulous wonder. “No, he isn’t. No one cares.” A few days later, an Army investigator contacted Megan to see if McGraw had ever mistreated her as a patient…Another woman, whom CNN refers to as “Lisa,” went to the hospital in the summer of 2021 for a fetal heartbeat test while she was in the final stages of pregnancy with her fourth child. She said she met McGraw as she was leaving the building.

“I could check your cervix very quickly,” he told her, and urged her to go to a gynecologist. Lisa, who initially trusted McGraw, said she tried to refuse the exam, but he repeatedly pressed her and finally relented.

During the examination, Lisa said McGraw had his cellphone in his shirt pocket with the camera pointed outward. “He told me he was expecting a phone call since he was alone in the clinic,” Lisa told CNN. “Since his cell phone was in his pocket during every exam, I didn’t think it was strange.”

She said the exam was very “rough” – so much so that “breaking her water, the amniotic fluid spilled onto the floor.”

“She told me with a nod and a smile, ‘we’re having a baby today,’ and then advised me not to tell anyone that my water broke until I left the base, because we both could be in big trouble,” Lisa said. She returned home and later that day went back to the hospital with her husband to give birth.

When it recently became known that an unnamed obstetrician in Fort Hood was allegedly secretly recording his patients during exams, Lisa saw the name of a law firm representing the victims in a news story and decided to call the next day.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. She replayed every moment she had come in contact with McGraw, vomiting and running back and forth to the bathroom. In the morning, Lisa called the reception line and asked, “Is this Dr. Blaine McGraw?” “Yes,” she was told.

“One day, my son is going to ask me about how he was born, and I don’t want to talk about it. It makes me want to throw up,” she says today. “He took that away from me, and I’ll never take it back.”