http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/18/eveningnews/main4874927.shtml
Does Policy Endanger Female Soldiers?
Female Troops Face Threat Of Sexual Abuse By Comrades As “Moral Waivers” Increase
March 18, 2009 | by Katie Couric
(CBS) It’s a potent environment, with female soldiers working – and living – under hostile conditions with their male counterparts.
One soldier, who asked us to call him Robert, spent three tours in Iraq as a signal unit leader out of Ft. Lewis in Washington state.
“For the female soldiers, it was far harder to adjust,” Robert told CBS News anchor Katie Couric. “Because not only did they have to deal with combat – mortar rounds, rockets, bullets – they also had to put up with male soldiers who were away from their families for a year.”
A decorated soldier in his unit, Robert says he went to his Command on many occasions after female soldiers complained of sexual assaults. Nothing was done.
“The last thing a commander wants, other than a death in his unit, is sexual harassment, or an assault case, because that makes his unit’s command look bad, Robert said.
For Wendy – an idealistic 17-year-old – the military seemed like the answer to her prayers.
“I was mostly going in for school,” Wendy said. “But I was also going in to see the world and travel.”
Deployed as a combat medic, Wendy was thrust into a chaotic and increasingly violent situation. Not long after, she experienced another kind of trauma, when she was assaulted by a fellow soldier in her barracks while she was sleeping.
“He started pushing himself on me,” she said. “And I wasn’t having it. So I started punching him and I actually kicked him in the groin.”
Afraid to go to her Command, she took extra precautions – locking her room with a deadbolt, traveling in pairs. But just weeks later, she found herself fending off the sexual advances of a doctor she worked with in the operating room. Again, she didn’t report it.
“He was a doctor, he was a surgeon. And who were they going to believe?” she says today.
Wendy’s experience is not unusual. Since 2002, the Miles Foundation, a private non-profit that tracks sexual assault within the armed forces, has received nearly 1,200 confidential reports of sexual assaults in the Central Command Area of Responsibility, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Those reports have increased as much as 30 percent a year.
Part of the problem for the increase, critics say, is the quality of today’s recruit.
The military is increasingly issuing something called “moral waivers,” so they can enlist military personnel with felony convictions for crimes like rape and sexual assault.
“We don’t enlist convicted rapists in the armed forces of the United States,” said Michael Dominguez, the principal under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. “If there’s a consensus ‘that kid needs a second chance, I think he’s got it in him to be a solider,’ then they’ll let him into the armed forces.”
In fact, CBS News has learned that both the Army and Marine Corps did issue a number of “moral waivers” to enlistees with felony convictions for rape and sexual assault – something not acknowledged in a follow-up letter from Dominguez.
But it’s not just who enters the military, it’s how sex offenders are ultimately punished by the Command.
“We have documents showing that a private convicted of rape, who had a bad conduct discharge suspended so he could deploy to Iraq,” Couric told Dominguez. “How could the U.S. military allow a convicted criminal to go back into a situation where he could easily rape again?”
“I’m not familiar with this particular case,” Dominguez replied.
The Army says it is committed to doing better, with plans of adding 15 “Special Victim” prosecutors and 30 criminal investigators by this summer.
“We’ve earned our way through the military, we put in our work,” Wendy said. “And I just think we deserve the same amount of respect, just as everybody else in the military.”
It’s a fight Wendy hopes female soldiers can win.
For More Information:
http://www.militaryonesource.com/
http://www.woundedwarriorresourcecenter.com/sexual-assault
http://www.vetwow.com/
“On guns, boys and babies.
Put a gun in a boy’s hands and it makes him feel like a man.
Put a baby in a boys hands and it may one day make him into a man.
Put a gun in a man’s hands only to protect that boy and
baby.
But a baby boy who carries a gun is a scary thing indeed; so woeful the tantrums of a bullet spraying child who cares not to protect the sacred bond of families or life itself.
I don’t know about all of you; but one day if I have a child who is misusing his privileges and his toys, I would simply take them away and put him on a very long time out.
This situation should be no different. Are our leaders that shallow and prideful that we rather not have a black mark on our unit’s record? Yet you find no qualms with leaving a permanent black mark on the psyches and confidence of these women who are your sworn sisters in combat and survival. Pitiful reasoning skills! I see you are an expert with all sorts of firearms; but this alone does not merit nor demand respect. Leadership, Love of life and Liberty, upholding these things, these qualities, this and only this demands respect from the people.
Rape demands no respect. Assault demands no respect.
It highlights dishonor. It highlights a units weakness.
In this lies the problem of prideful boys with guns.
I know not all of you are boys; there are men with guns protecting their children and families. There are boys who are following this example and becoming beautiful and strong.
But those who are ignoring their example; those who have obviously lost their way need to be reminded by their commanders and fellow soldiers who should be setting the example; forcefully if need be.
You should not cut off your nose to spite your face, and any soldiers of any rank who know these things happen and keeps quiet, I hope you at least lost some sleep over being an accomplice to rape and assault of a fellow soldier.
You say those oaths for a reason; listen to the words you have sworn to obey. All branches; All divisions; Please be always faithful to the duty of liberty that we have bestowed upon you, and the mantle that you have chosen to have bestowed upon yourselves in these hard times.
I pray that those who have a voice and a back bone stand up for what is right, and for the reasons our armed forces where created in the first place. To protect the people; and yourselves; with the highest honor, daring dignity, and all the grace and the great generosity that ideally portrays what all us Americans work hard every day to portray to the rest of the world.
In this time where at home things are hard; should only mean that our presence across the world is that much more humble and humane. I know to be a soldier isn’t easy; to long for the touch of a female companion. To long for family; friends; freedom. I can only begin to imagine the depths of your heartache. I personally have had two of my best friends taken from my world; my reality and are even now as I write this going through all of horrible sights and feelings that I can do nothing to stop; and can only wait for them to get home and then help them heal. As a community this must be our duty to our wounded soldiers; and to remember wounds of war go much deeper than skin, flesh and bone.
This is part of the price tag we all pay; indirectly. But it is you; the soldier who pays it directly, and you do this out of your love for your country and your loved ones who reside in it.
For that we hold you in highest honor and esteem; even if most of us have forgotten to pay you the respect you deserve. Please uphold that honor and esteem at all costs; for if it fails, who will protect us from you; if you can’t even protect yourselves from each other?
Please hear these words out of love and stop these acts of violence from happening in our own barracks, in our own bases, by our own brothers against our own sisters. We are better than this and I believe in you and in this great nation; Our home.”
-Baron