“The amount of reports that are now coming out — people willing to go public, which I think is a good thing — has brought this to a head for me,” he said. “Maybe we have a bigger problem than I imagined.”

While the sessions at the summit were themselves off the record, a succession of top generals spoke with media members, and told them that zeroing in on habitual sexual predators is key.

“There’s no unit who doesn’t have a problem,” Odierno said. “There’s a predator, probably, in almost every unit of some size.”

Gen. Robert W. Cone, who runs Army Training and Doctrine Command, said the recruits and trainees in his command are a uniquely vulnerable group in the Army, but even well-intentioned leaders haven’t always seen that.

“In some cases, I think we’re naïve” about how sexual predators operate, he said. “You have to understand that there are going to be people who try to find the gaps and seams in those procedures.”

More: Army Brass Gathers to Address Sexual Assaults - News - Stripes