Rep. Jane Harman: Rapists in the ranks

[babylonsister]

Rapists in the ranks
Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.
By Jane Harman
March 31, 2008


The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.

These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004. The DOD's newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.

The Defense Department has made some efforts to manage this epidemic -- most notably in 2005, after the media received anonymous e-mail messages about sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy. The media scrutiny and congressional attention that followed led the DOD to create the Sexual Assault and Response Office. Since its inception, the office has initiated education and training programs, which have improved the reporting of cases of rapes and other sexual assaults. But more must be done to prevent attacks and to increase accountability.

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of "insufficient evidence."

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-harman31mar31,0,5399612.story

[leftofcool]

1. This has been true for many years and no one does a thing about it

[Submariner]

2. If the rape victims get the opportunity, and can do it unseen,

they should shoot the MF'ers dead in their tracks.

[sce56]

3. Well I feel it has a lot to do with the moral waivers handed out like candy now days!

When the Army has to scrape the bottom of the barrel looking for recruits this is what happens.

Not to mention the fact that there have been several Non Combat Fatalities where the female was possibly killed to cover up a rape yet the chain of command does nothing to find the guilty! The other thing that shows they have no care to fix it is they now take DNA samples from all troops to aid in the ID of the casualties so everyone of them has a DNA print on file it does not take a rocket scientist to find the rapists!

The state of the Army is no where near what is was when I retired 14 years ago it is now a broken army thanks to Commander AWOL!
http://web.archive.org/web/20030602211200/

[Karenina]

4. Nah, rape and pillage is as American as apple pie.

Leider.

[sce56]

6. Ahh I see you have been lsitening to Bill Oraly !

You know the one that belives the US Army comitted a war crime at Malmedy during the battle of the Bulge in WWII!

[Karenina]

8. Fortunately, I've never heard the man's voice.

:P

[Lerkfish]

5. This has to stop, but sadly

I don't hold out much hope it will, since there is no real consequences.

[sce56]

7. PFC. LAVENA JOHNSON

http://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/pfc-lavena-johnson/

They come from all walks of life.


Black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American.

They are the young women and men who enlist in the U.S. military to make the world, and America, safe for democracy.

But, the horrible, hateful way that these young people who serve our country are treated is downright wrong and sadistic..

Pfc. Lavena Johnson was a young black woman from the St. Louis suburb of Florissant. She was an honor roll student, who loved playing the violin. She donated blood and volunteered for American Heart Association walks. Because she wanted to proudly serve her country in the armed forces, she elected to put off college for a while and joined the Army immediately after getting out of school. At Fort Campbell, KY, she was assigned as a weapons supply manager to the 129th Corps Support Battalion.

LaVena Johnson, private first class, died near Balad, Iraq, on July 19, 2005, just eight days shy of her twentieth birthday. She was the first woman soldier from Missouri to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

That this beautiful young woman’s story is so unheard of by so many people is reprehensible. Many people have certainly heard of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the soldier whose story was in many papers when it turned out he was killed by friendly fire.

Dr. John Johnson, Lavena’s father, was initially told by an Army representative, that his daughter “died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries,” but initially added that it was not a suicide. The subsequent Army investigation reversed this finding and declared LaVena’s death a suicide, a finding refuted by the soldier’s family. In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Johnson pointed to indications that his daughter had endured a physical struggle before she died - two loose front teeth, a “busted lip” that had to be reconstructed by the funeral home - suggesting that “someone might have punched her in the mouth.”

Very little coverage has been given to Lavena’s story, until a St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV news station aired a story which revealed details not previously made public - details which go against the Army’s contention that this young lady took her own life.

Posted here on DU several times
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x280719

[yurbud]

9. the military could exercise more quality control of recruits if they weren't chasing them away with

unnecessary wars.

[ziggysane]

10. War is hell

I think that it's not just that there are more undesirable-types being allowed into the military these days, but rather that the things our soldiers are experiencing in Iraq are so traumatizing that they get to a point where it's hard to tell what's right from what's wrong. When you're spending your days killing people that you have to convince yourself aren't human, it's not too much of a stretch to spend your evenings raping someone it is only slightly harder to convince yourself isn't human. It's not that the military is allowing rapists into its ranks, it's that the experience of war is so awful that it turns regular guys into rapists.

We should have just as much empathy for those committing these acts as those experiencing them. When you've been exposed to such brain-shattering experiences, there comes a point at which really bad ideas like "hey, she's pretty hot, let's get her" doesn't seem like it would actually hurt her because she's not a person either. In my opinion, the way to stop this is to bring them home, give proper mental health care to all our soldiers, not subjugate them to stop-losses, 4+ tours, etc; and then prosecute those who have committed such acts while caring for those who were the victims of it.

[suffragette]

11. Great points

Also, the U.S. military is a microcosm of U.S. society and all the good and the bad that we have here is also in place there, exacerbated by the situation you describe as well as the machismo in the service.

Welcome to DU!
:hi:

[ziggysane]

12. HI SUFFRAGETTE!!!

Thank you for the kind welcome and for letting me know you had welcomed me. :p