Female troops have been raped, sexually harassed while on duty in Iraq
15 percent walking into VA test positive for military sexual trauma
VA opens 16th inpatient ward specializing in treating military sexual victims
Female veteran to daughter in military: Don't let your guard down with male soldiers
YORK, Pennsylvania (AP) -- It took Diane Pickel Plappert six months to tell a counselor that she had been raped while on duty in Iraq. While time passed, the former Navy nurse disconnected from her children, and her life slowly unraveled.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/07/22/military.women.sexual.assault.ap/index.html
Carolyn Schapper says she was harassed by a fellow Army National Guard soldier in Iraq to the extent that she began changing clothes in the shower for fear he'd barge into her room unannounced, as he had on several occasions.
Even as women distinguish themselves in battle alongside men, they're fighting off sexual assault and harassment. It's not a new consequence of war.
But the sheer number of women serving today -- more than 190,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan -- is forcing the military and Department of Veterans Affairs to more aggressively address it.
The data -- incomplete and not up-to-date -- offer no proof that women in the war zones are more vulnerable to sexual assault than other female service members or American women in general. But in an era when the military relies on women for invaluable and difficult front-line duties, the threat to their morale, performance and long-term well-being is starkly clear.
Of the female veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma,
The Associated Press has learned. That means they indicated that while on active duty, they were sexually assaulted, raped or sexually harassed, receiving repeated unsolicited verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature.
In January, the VA opened its 16th inpatient ward specializing in treating victims of military sexual trauma, this one in New Jersey. In response to complaints that it is too male-focused in its care, the VA is making changes such as adding keyless entry locks on hospital room doors so female patients feel safer.
Rape victim felt numb when returning home
Depression, anxiety, problem drinking, sexually transmitted diseases and domestic abuse are all problems that have been linked to sexual abuse, according to the Miles Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides support to victims of violence associated with the military. Since 2002, the foundation says, it has received more than 1,000 reports of assault and rape in the U.S. Central Command areas of operation, which include Iraq and Afghanistan.
In most reports to the foundation, fellow U.S. service members have been named as the perpetrator, but contractors and local nationals also have been accused.
Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/07/22/military.women.sexual.assault.ap/index.html
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
CNN REPORTS: SEXUALLY ASSAULTED FEMALE TROOPS STRUGGLE TO RECOVER
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
If you research the record on rape claims, you'll find that more than half are probably false, not just in the military, but throughout our entire society.
The Air Force OSI did a study of rape complaints and concluded that 61% of the complaints were probably false. That included 27% where the complainant admitted that the complaint was false.
This story reports, "15 percent walking into VA test positive for military sexual trauma", but the term "sexual trauma" seems calculated to create sensational statistics. In these reports of "sexual trauma", the injury is frequently subjective and often purely in the mind of the person making the report. A definition that includes, "... receiving repeated unsolicited verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature" sets the bar so low that two men saying, "nice dress" might qualify. To highlight the inconsistency of women making these reports, one need only consider the fact that an off-color remark offered by someone the recipient finds desirable isn't considered "harassment", while the exact comment offered by someone else is. This means it is NOT the nature of the comment that causes it to be classified as "sexual trauma", but rather, the state of mind of the recipient!
No doubt there are serious cases. But broadening the definition to the point where every perceived slight becomes a "sexual trauma" trivializes the entire issue.
Taking matters one step further, women have lowered the bar in the military in other ways. While men are required to meet one set of physical requirements and are expected to put their lives on the line in combat situations, women meet a much (MUCH) lower physical bar, and are not expected to serve in the most hazardous duties.
This is what women call, "Equal pay for equal work".
Until such time as women meet the same standards as men, women do not belong in the military. (One estimate is that requiring women to meet the men's standard would eliminate 94% of all women on active duty.) By many measures, the presence of women in the military is a destructive influence. There is a wealth of research that indicates that only a small number of jobs can be successfully accomplished by women in the military, that often male co-workers are tasked to take up the slack, and that command is under extreme pressure from the political echelons of rank to report that female integration "is working".
Nothing could be further from the truth.
False claims of rape are just one tiny part of the bigger problem of women in the military. Removing them would eliminate all this left-wing feminist hand-wringing over "sexual trauma".
what about the huge prostitution rings within our armed forces that are just now being broken up. our own woman are 'pimpin' themselves and then coming back around with false allegations of rape in order to receive discharge. talk about easy money.
So, the Air Force OSI did a study of rape complaints and concluded that 61% of the complaints were PROBABLY false. Doesn't sound like very concete evidence to me. Having served in the military, I can assure you that sexual harrassment and abuse against women is alive and well. The solution you suggest is to remove the temptation (women) instead of demanding that men act in a civilized and law abiding manner and exercise some self control. That's the same logic as saying that a woman was asking to be raped because her skirt was above her knees.
As far as physical equality in the military all I can say is the only big difference in the requirements is in the standard for pushups. Men have natural upper strength, women do not. There were no men in my unit that completed as many situps (100) in two minutes as I did, nor were there many that completed the 2 miles run ahead of me. I think your argument is totally with merit and you are just a sexist pig.
You mean totally without merit, I think. I agree with you that this person has flawed thinking and dislikes the idea of any women on active duty -- and is a sexist pig.
The proof's in the pudding here: "all this left-wing feminist hand-wringing over "sexual trauma"."
Yeah, because when an female civilian in Iraq (or even our other bases like Japan) is sexually brutalized or even murdered by a service member, you must be a "left-wing feminist" to care.
That is an attitude unfitting to anyone who serves our country and upholds our laws.
I find it interesting that the poster believes women have "dragged the service down" but doesn't mention the criminals who have served jail time before being allowed in, who are now serving alongside ordinary men and women.
I'd like to see the proof of this so-called OSI report and its methodology. What type of sampling did they use?
As for the comment about women not meeting physical standards, that is laughable. Women exceed men in endurance tests and their ability to withstand pain, just as men tend to have higher upper body strength.
Part of the problem with the military is that it's always fighting the last war(s). We got into this mess because Rumsfeld's misunderstanding of the playbook. Many situations needing the military these days will not be traditional combat operations. It's no longer enough to have a brawny male with a gun. Civilian management and intelligence obviously is more important in Iraq these days; there's no reason a woman can't ably lead in those roles, as they do in the U.S.
The military should be scouting athletic Americans of both genders for assignments requiring brute strength; but let's not kid ourselves, the military also runs on clerks, paperwork, and intelligence. Smaller, even scrawny personnel of both genders should obviously not be serving in the infantry... except of course, that kind of thinking would have knocked out Audie Murphy.
Yes, I did mean "without merit". Thank you.
As the author of this blog, I have read all the comments and the "anonymous" person who said women are not in combat positions obviously doesn't know about women flying jet fighters in combat as well as helicopters. HE (and it is obviously a HE), apparently didn't read about Jessica Lynch who was on patrol in Iraq in a Humvee when it was hit by an RPG.
I was in the military, albeit it was in the 1950s and during the Korean War, and women where not in combat positions then, but the women I ran into where professional soldiers in every sense of the word.
The person who said there are prostitution rings in the military would have to prove it to me if I were still editing a newspaper. You just don't throw accusations out like that without at three sources to back up your claim.
As far as women as combat hardened soldiers, I think the Israeli Army has proved that women make great soldiers.
The remarks by "anonymous" and perhaps "anonymous 2" are the rants of a sexist and not worth answering because HE most likely was NEVER in the military and has no idea of what HE is talking about.
Bill Corcoran, Cpl (E-4) Sqd Ldr, U.S. Army Combat Engineers, Korean War veteran. EDITOR of CORKSPHERE.
conejitofiend05
Please produce documented proof their are prostitution rings in the military. Not hearsay. Just facts.
BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE.
The inventor and Sunnite Solar company founder is Mark Bent, a former United States Marine, Foreign Service officer and Houston oilman. He has spent more than 20 years in Africa. To us, it’s a flashlight, basically a toy, the inventor told the Dallas News in May. But if you live in Africa, where you often spend 30 percent of your income on kerosene for lighting, it’s a really, really big deal.
Visits to an Eritrean village in 2005 prompted him to research global access to artificial light, according to the New York Times (NYT). Nintendo DSA group of homeless boys took him home to a rural village where he noticed that many people had nothing to light their homes, schools and clinics at night. Researching the issue, he found that close to two billion people around the world go without affordable access to light.
Post a Comment