There is a raging epidemic of sexual assault in the U.S. military. A report released by the U.S. Department of Defense says that an astounding 12,000 women serving in the U.S. military were sexually assaulted in 2012. This is a national disgrace, and any U.S. service member that rapes a woman deserves the death penalty in my opinion. It has gotten so bad that a female service member serving in Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a male service member than she is to be killed by the Taliban. But that is only half the story. Sexual assault against males is at an epidemic level in the U.S. military as well. In fact, according to the same report that I just mentioned, there were 14,000 sexual assaults against men serving in the U.S. military during 2012. That means that most of the sexual assaults in the military are actually male on male. The following is an excerpt from an article in the New York Times…
According to the Department of Defense’s Military Sexual Assault Report for 2012, an estimated 26,000 members of the United States military, both men and women, were sexually assaulted in that year. The Pentagon survey almost certainly underreports the scale of the issue. Of those sexual assaults, 53 percent (approximately 14,000 in 2012) were attacks on men.
The study also found that male service members are far less likely to report when they are attacked, and when a report is made, military authorities are far less likely to go after the perpetrator…
These men — an estimated 13,900 last year alone — are far less likely than women to report an attack. Only 13 percent of reports last year were filed by men, military data show.
But the disparities do not end there. The Sun found that when men do report a sexual assault, military authorities are less likely to identify a suspect, to refer charges to court-martial or to discharge the perpetrator than in cases in which the victim is a woman.
Fortunately, after years of denial this issue is starting to come to the forefront. Some prominent retired officers are even speaking out about this.
For example, Major General Dennis J. Laich says that the military brass “should be asking for forgiveness” from the thousands of victims that never got justice…
The chain of command “should be asking for forgiveness” from the thousands we have failed to serve and protect over the past 25 years, former Maj. Gen. Dennis J. Laich (ret.) told reporters during a press call. “When an American female service member serving in Afghanistan has a higher probability of being raped by a fellow soldier than being killed by the Taliban, I would submit that the chain of command has a problem,” he continued.
When we can’t even protect members of our own military, we have got a major problem on our hands.
During 2012, more than 85,000 military veterans were formally treated for sexual abuse that they suffered while serving in the U.S. military.
And even though they are less likely to come forward for treatment, 40 percent of those that were treated were men.
Things have gotten so bad at this point that even military recruiters have become known for sexually assaulting those that they are recruiting. According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is pledging to do something about this growing problem…
“The secretary has made it clear that we will spare no effort to rid our military of sexual abuse,” said George Little, the Pentagon press secretary. “The fact that there have been problems of sexual abuse during the recruiting process is simply intolerable.”
When you get sexually assaulted, it can absolutely shatter your life – especially if you never get any justice. This is one of the reasons why the suicide rate in the U.S. military is so high.
Most people don’t realize this, but the number of active members of the U.S. military that kill themselves each year now exceeds the number that are dying on the battlefield.
And according to one absolutely shocking study, 22 military veterans kill themselves in the United States every single day.
Clearly something is very wrong with the U.S. military.
Most of the time, the stories of these victims of sexual assault in the military never get told. But fortunately a few of them are starting to get out there. For example, consider what happened to former Marine Lance Corporal Jeremiah Arbogast…
His eyes low, focused on the prepared statement in front of him, Arbogast recounted the details of his own sexual assault and its equally horrifying aftermath. He was drugged to the point of incapacitation and sexually assaulted by a fellow marine, a former staff sergeant, while on active duty. “I was humiliated at the thought of my helplessness,” he said.
Two months after the attack, incessant nightmares, anxiety, depression and confusion finally overpowered his fear and embarrassment and Arbogast confronted a base social worker who reported the attack to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which investigates crimes involving Naval or Marine Corps personnel. This would only further his humiliation, Arbogast came to find out. He said he was forced to make recorded phone calls to his rapist and even confront him at his house while wearing a wire in order to get a confession. He accomplished his mission, but his nightmare was far from over. Arbogast’s attacker was arrested and hit with several charges including sexual assault and sodomy, but after only a week in court, evidence shed light on his 23 years of service and he walked away with a bad conduct discharge and no jail time. Arbogast said his rapist was ordered to NCIS headquarters for fingerprinting only to reveal that he’d dulled the skin on his fingertips, and that he managed to refuse to register on the sex offender database by simply saying, “No, I don’t have to.”
You can read some more first person testimonies of sexual assault in the U.S. military right here.
This has got to stop.
The U.S. military is supposed to be the most highly disciplined fighting force on the planet, and there is no excuse for this.
Sadly, the reality is that what is going on in the military is simply a reflection of society as a whole.
America has become a giant cesspool of filth and corruption, and this is manifesting itself in thousands of different ways.
If it was up to me, every member of the U.S. military that rapes someone would get the death penalty.
But it is not up to me. Instead, political correctness has taken over the U.S. military and we have an administration that treats military veterans like absolute garbage.
So let us hope that things in the military start to get better, but I wouldn’t count on it.
