Today, Protect Our Defenders, a human rights organization that supports our troops, announced that almost 7,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Los Angeles County), hold a congressional hearing about the criminal scandal at Lackland Air Force Base. The online effort launched on Causes.com and Protect Our Defenders by Tailhook whistleblower Paula Coughlin-Puopolo has gained momentum as people hear the horrific details from victims sexually assaulted by their superiors with nowhere to turn. At least 31 female trainees at the Air Force's sole recruiting center in San Antonio, Texas, say they were raped or sexually assaulted by 12 instructors.
One of the 12, Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, was convicted on Friday of rape and sexual assault; unfortunately his verdict does nothing to fix the epidemic of sexual assault in our military. The military justice system for rape and sexual assault cases is overwhelmingly weighted in favor of the criminal suspect. Last year, there were an estimated 19,000 military rapes and sexual assaults, but only 3,200 victims reported the attacks and out of those only 191 cases resulted in court martial conviction.
As the former naval aviator, Paula Coughlin-Puopolo makes clear in her petition to Congress, "our military leadership has made no changes that stop this predatory criminal behavior. How much longer and how many more of our brave men and women in uniform need to be raped or sexually assaulted before our elected officials do something to end the crisis?"
The officer who would be the Air Force's new Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Welsh III, told Congress last week that the Air Force is "not doing enough" to address the epidemic of sexual assaults in our military, saying, "what we have been doing is not working." The Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that over half a million veterans have now experienced military sexual trauma.
Seventy-eight members of Congress, along with Paula, are asking Rep. McKeon to open an investigation about Lackland, but there has been no response, though HASC Vice Chairman Mac Thornberry is quoted as saying, "My understanding is there is no evidence of a widespread problem."
So today Protect Our Defenders launched the #AskBuck Twitter campaign asking Rep. Buck McKeon how many more soldiers need to be sexually assaulted before Congress investigates Lackland and legislates fundamental reforms.
.@BuckMcKeon how many soldiers need to be sexually assaulted before Congress acts? Open a #Lackland hearing http://bit.ly/O0dpyb #AskBuck
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has promised to fix this criminal behavior, but nothing has changed. Every single day, Protect Our Defenders is receiving new stories from our brave men and women in uniform that have been sexually assaulted. It is very apparent this crisis needs to be addressed legislatively. Hearings are part of this process.
The Department of Defense estimates that only 13.5% of sexual assaults in 2010 were reported. And of those few that did report, over 75% wouldn't do so again if given the chance. Why? Because victims are often blamed, fear career ending retaliation, and are required to report their assault by fellow soldiers to a superior, not law enforcement or medical personnel.
Over the past year Secretary Panetta has announced several half measures to address the crisis of military sexual trauma, like bumping the reporting of rape and sexual assault further up the chain of command. But, this does little to address the problem. Many survivors have made it abundantly clear that senior commanders are just as capable of covering up assaults and frequently do. Commanders are incentivized to sweep problems under the rug as their careers can be adversely affected if a rape or sexual assault happens under their watch. And the DOD reports, "39% of women report that the perpetrator was a military person of higher rank and 23% indicated the offender was someone in their chain of command."
The prevalence of rape in our military, the failure to prosecute perpetrators and the retaliation against the victim continues to undermine readiness, unit cohesion and morale.
RobertaSandolva is correct, it is hard to prove these things sometimes and that is really unfortunate that it is...we surely wish we could catch all the bad apples. However, we pull out members from society and some of them are bad and do not internalize our core values or choose to disregard them. Obviously a lot of my commentary does not apply to the Lackland situation with the instructor sex scandal. Having been through basic training, I certainly understand how those women were coerced into the situation and none of what I mentioned above could have fixed those horrible situations but that is just my point.....every situation is different and has to be evaluated as such. Of course there is frustration seeing these things go on and even much more when it involves an institution I hold dear. I am not saying mistakes have been made but I do think there are time it is also blown out of proportion due to the high emotions that go along with such a horrible thing like sexual assault. I disagree with SyFy Geek...there certainly is interest in justice
I think one of the big problems is every alleged sexual assault falls into one of 3 categories 1 - It happened 2 - It didn't happen 3 - Neither party knows what really happened and have no clue whether they consented or whether they did something they normally would not have done because we all know how well our memory works after intoxication. Problem is all 3 scenarios many times sound just alike and the Air Force is left to sort it out and ends up one of two outcomes 1- We're overzealously prosecuting or 2 - We're letting people who sexually assault run amok in the Air Force. I'm sure there are cases where both have happened.The elephant in the room that no one wants to ever talk about is personal responsibility - both men women...all we do is give it lip service. While it is a no-brainer that people should not exploit intoxication,we know there are messed up people who will. This is not a function of being educated...the messed up people ARE educated they shouldn't do these things anyways. Therefore you have to adapt to that fact. There are laws against breaking into houses and cars but we lock and alarm them anyways because we know some people won't obey those laws.
This is an atrocity and something needs to be done about it.
It is so unconstitutional to say the least.
The military courts need a major overhall, they are not interested in justice, they are only interested in saving their own butts.
The military is not equipped with rape kits and has never held sex crimes to be a high priority.
through out history unlimited access to the women of the vanquished has been one of the perks of the winning army and that mindset is hard to lose.
it is not the middle ages anymore ....is it?
Bottom is victim can go through the chain of command but are not forced to
I knew a girl in Korea who was raped by an American GI and did my best to help her but there was no chance for getting any resolution from the military then and probably even now, especially when our own service members can get no help.