Female Warriors

[m1a1mg]

If you got a blotter report during deployments, you must have been in some special kind of unit.

 

That you never heard of rapes doesn't make them not happen. The biggest problem the Army had initially, is that most rapes were covered up. It's only when they got to be such a huge issue that people really started paying attention.

[thekirk]

Just out of curiosity, what on Earth would a rape investigation or sexual abuse claim do in S2?

 

That's about as personal and confidential as anything gets and they sure wouldn't be waving those papers around to anyone not directly involved with the investigation where I've served. It's not exactly your run-of-the-mill bar fight investigation. Not saying that's not the way it's done in the US, but sure wouldn't fly here. Or in NATO.

 

All reports of misconduct that could affect personnel clearances go through the S2 shop. They may be close-hold during the investigations, but the final disposition always shows up in the end, and it's a rare and unprofessional S2 at the Brigade that does not have visibility on what's going on in the units. Anything like a rape or a sexual assault would have to be reported to the central clearance authority.

 

Fuck, during one of my bosses divorce, I had to report him to the post clearance office for the allegations his wife made of infidelity. That's how closely this stuff is supposed to be reported, and generally is.

 

As an aside, that was the only remotely "sexually based" report I had to make in the four-odd years I ran that shop. Everyone else didn't have clearances, but we still had to track offenses in case they ever needed to get one. The crimes simply are not happening at the rates they put into those reports, not out in the units I was with. These things are not "invisible", either--Every single case that I can think of that was even remotely sexual, the "word" went through the unit like wildfire. In the division headquarters I was liaison to, a young lady made the mistake of leaving her personal USB drive on her desk. Someone went through it, found intimate pictures intended for her boyfriend, and copied them to the division server and passed them around. Inside of a week, the entire story was known throughout the headquarters, to include the final denouement of three company-grade officers receiving GOLORs for having accessed and viewed the pictures. That was, I'm afraid, the closest thing to a sexual assault that took place within that divisional headquarters in the year I worked there. Based on the number of women assigned to it, by the reported statistics, we should have had multiple separate cases of rape take place in that time frame. They didn't. I worked two seats away from the Provost Marshall, and saw the vast majority of what went across their desks. This issue was discussed more than a few times, and the consensus was that either the statistics were made up, or they magically weren't happening.

 

What I will tell you is this: Quite a few women on deployments have gotten home, after having spent their tours partaking in extracurricular activities, and then suddenly remembered all that consensual sex as rape. It's a common compensatory technique, when too many questions are asked by husbands and lovers at home. I sat on the sidelines for one of those "incidents" as well, and it wasn't pretty. CID's final take on the situation, after having ruined the career of the soldier who was supposedly the rapist, was that they had no way of determining whether the rape actually happened. They still ruined his career with the allegations and investigation.

 

I used to have illusions, too, about women being the poor victims in a lot of these cases. After sad experience and observation, I'm not taking anyone's word on it, period. The people gathering these statistics and making these reports all have an axe to grind, and the BS that's made its way into print does not match observed reality.

 

Anyone wanting a perspective on the issue ought to approach a CID investigator, and get them off the record about the subject. The results will be eye-opening, as well as the amount of pressure these guys and girls are under to make things "look right" for the public. There are some men in military prison simply because some immature little girl changed her mind after the fact about consensuality, and made a report that could not be disproven. Think "Nifong", and how far he got with the lacrosse team.

 

It's a shady, shady world, out there. I told my people, male and female, that they'd better be damn sure of themselves and their partners, if they were going to be having sex with other military members. I don't ever regret giving that advice.

[thekirk]

If you got a blotter report during deployments, you must have been in some special kind of unit. That you never heard of rapes doesn't make them not happen. The biggest problem the Army had initially, is that most rapes were covered up. It's only when they got to be such a huge issue that people really started paying attention.

 

I suppose you base that on your vast experience of working at brigade and higher levels? Gee, I'll have to go back and tell the folks at the 101st PMO that they didn't have spend all that time working the issues and forwarding them down to the brigades, then. No blotter reports on deployment... What a fucking laugh. You don't have a clue what you're talking about. Good grief, they passed on traffic tickets our guys got on Arifjan down in Kuwait while they were down there picking up equipment--Ya think that kept them too busy to do the same with rapes?

 

And the rest of your prattle? Covered up? How the fuck do you "cover up" a rape officially reported to you as a leader? Do you even have one fucking clue how hard it is to stop even an allegation you know to be false of something like that from going forward? How many parties would have to be involved? Let's not even get into the gross insult you're perpetrating on every senior NCO and officer in the Army when you make these ludicrous claims. You'd have to be fucking suicidal to even hesitate to forward something like that, once the allegation is made. Once the allegation was made, you absolutely have no choice but to pass it on to the responsible parties, and not doing so is going to put your ass in front of a court-martial, yourself. It has been done in cases in the past, but every time I'm aware of, the people doing it have been stomped upon from on high. More typically, the mistake is going to be on the other side of the scale--Reporting questionable cases, where the reporting party seems unreliable.

 

Let's stop and examine this whole idea of things getting "covered up". How many resources are available to a victim, just inside the unit? You've got the Chaplain, the EO representative, and the IG, all of whom are completely available to anyone at any time. Even if your rape report is blown off by your squad leader, you have at least two internal resources right there that you can report to, and the IG is completely outside the chain of command. Every unit has bulletin boards with the contact information on them, and copious amounts of sexual harassment and assault literature to peruse detailing how to make the reports. On top of that, there are the senior female NCOs and officers, the majority of whom would cheerfully cut someone's throat were they to find out someone parallel to them in the rank structure was taking part in something like a cover-up. As a practical matter, it ain't happening, except in very rare circumstances.

 

Now, I'm not going to argue that there aren't cases of what amounts to statutory rape going on, where NCOs and officers have used their authority under false color in order to get sex. However, I'll submit that there is a hell of a difference between a woman who's been raped, and one who's decided to have consensual sex on a quid pro quo basis. The majority of the cases in the training base have been of that nature--Trainees influenced to have sex with their cadre in return for "favors". Or, as also happens a great deal, trainees offering sex in order to get over on something. That's a different realm, entirely, than the one alluded to by the various do-gooders spouting off about 1 in 4 getting violently raped in the course of their careers.

 

Rape happens in the military, a sad fact I will not argue. What I will argue is the set of delusional statistics that claim that one in four servicewomen will be violently raped in the course of their careers. It ain't happening, folks. The actual numbers aren't that far off of what happens in civilian life, and are probably somewhat lower, as a violent rapist stands a better chance of getting caught on a closed military post than he does off of it. Let's not even get into the unlikelihood of a violent rapist surviving a tour in a combat zone where his victims are armed, and among the people he works with every day... Rapists that stupid are not that common, I'm afraid.

Edited October 19, 2012 by thekirk

[m1a1mg]

I suppose you base that on your vast experience of working at brigade and higher levels?

Brigade or higher? 11 years. And counting.

Edited October 20, 2012 by m1a1mg

[m1a1mg]

The most recent Defense Department statistics show that the number of sexual assault reports rose 1 percent in 2011 over the year before to 3,192 reports. But Defense Department officials believe a fraction of sexual assaults are reported. They estimate that some 19,000 sexual assaults occur annually, and are seeking to encourage more victims to come forward.

The statistics showed a 10 percent increase in cases deemed “actionable” going to court-martial over 2010. But more than 10 percent of suspects who had charges preferred at court-martial were allowed instead to resign or be discharged, according to the statistics.

[FALightFighter]

The most recent Defense Department statistics show that the number of sexual assault reports rose 1 percent in 2011 over the year before to 3,192 reports. But Defense Department officials believe a fraction of sexual assaults are reported. They estimate that some 19,000 sexual assaults occur annually, and are seeking to encourage more victims to come forward.

The statistics showed a 10 percent increase in cases deemed “actionable” going to court-martial over 2010. But more than 10 percent of suspects who had charges preferred at court-martial were allowed instead to resign or be discharged, according to the statistics.

 

So, despite a HUGE push to educate the military on how and what to report, only a 1% increase. And "officials" still estimate that only 6 assaults happen for every one reported? Based on what methodology?

 

No question there are scumbag leaders out there that let guys get away with stuff. And they should be hung along with the perpetrators. That said, the system is so screwed up, I don't see any way to fix it. You can't teach that a female who is drunk cannot provide consent, and then hold a male criminally responsible when he is drunk- it just doesn't make sense. I'll bet that 10% is ALOT lower than the number of civilians that are allowed to plead out.

[Exel]

The most recent Defense Department statistics show that the number of sexual assault reports rose 1 percent in 2011 over the year before to 3,192 reports. But Defense Department officials believe a fraction of sexual assaults are reported. They estimate that some 19,000 sexual assaults occur annually, and are seeking to encourage more victims to come forward.

The statistics showed a 10 percent increase in cases deemed “actionable” going to court-martial over 2010. But more than 10 percent of suspects who had charges preferred at court-martial were allowed instead to resign or be discharged, according to the statistics.

 

So, despite a HUGE push to educate the military on how and what to report, only a 1% increase. And "officials" still estimate that only 6 assaults happen for every one reported? Based on what methodology?

 

No question there are scumbag leaders out there that let guys get away with stuff. And they should be hung along with the perpetrators. That said, the system is so screwed up, I don't see any way to fix it. You can't teach that a female who is drunk cannot provide consent, and then hold a male criminally responsible when he is drunk- it just doesn't make sense. I'll bet that 10% is ALOT lower than the number of civilians that are allowed to plead out.

 

Let's remember that the same people are also saying that one out of every three women on Earth will get violently raped in their lifetime.

 

I don't buy it. Sure, in the Arab world the husbands can rape their wives 50 times during their marriage (or a single year) as a matter of habit, which would inflate the statistics, but that's a bit different than saying 1 out of 3. I just don't know enough men who would do such a thing to account for such statistics. There would have to be some serious serial rapists out there that for some reason always manage to escape the law.

 

Inflated claims combined with even more inflated assumed "hidden" cases is a far more plausible explanation, at least anywhere in the civilized world that doesn't permit arranged marriages. I'm not sure if the people reporting the "1 out of 3" number are inflating and misreading the statistics on purpose as part of their agenda, or if they are just ignorant enough not to realize that they are spewing bullshit. If someone rapes their wife three times it doesn't mean that three women got raped.

 

Rape is a serious offense and I'm by no means trying to mitigate the suffering of those who have been raped, but sadly there are a lot of women out there who do injustice to their sisters by claiming rape either because of regret, as a measure of blackmail (Assange case springs to mind) or just because they can "get back at" the men that way. With the courts set up in such a way that rape is a crime that has to be disproved rather than proved, we are practically encouraging false claims.

 

It's quite terrifying as a man to know that you can be accused of rape at any time without evidence and the burden of proof would lie almost solely on you, as the defendant. Even if you don't get a conviction in the courts, the claims alone are bound to ruin your career and personal life. And I know there are women out there who are perfectly willing to take advantage of the fact - just as there are men unworthy of the name who would actually rape women.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Exel

[thekirk]

I suppose you base that on your vast experience of working at brigade and higher levels?

Brigade or higher? 11 years. And counting.

 

I find that really, really hard to believe in conjunction with your continued assertions.

 

Either you've never worked around a competent S2 section, which would also imply that they've never passed a post-level compliance inspection from the people who manage clearances, or you're ignorant of what really goes on in those sections. Which wouldn't surprise me a bit, either.

 

As an FYI, the reporting requirements I'm talking about? They're a DOD Central Clearance Office mandate. Should the chain of command decide to blow that one off, careers can end. I saw that happen in a sister unit on Fort Lewis, when the commander chose to tell his S2 not to forward the DWI/infidelity information on one of his fair-haired children. He wasn't relieved of command, as it was close to the end of his command tour, but he was also asked to retire in lieu of prosecution--This was a guy who was supposedly in line for his star, BTW.

 

Failure to report derogatory information is not a joke, I'm afraid. Commanders do not take risks with that, and that's why the S2 is normally kept abreast of all formal investigations and prosecutions in the brigade. I've seen cases where confidential matters were kept close-hold, and only the S2 OIC and NCOIC were made aware of what was going on, but I've never, ever heard of them being kept out of the loop. The JAG NCO in my brigade was basically on my speed dial, for two reasons: One, he had to know if the individual in question had a clearance, and I had to know if I needed to suspend that clearance. Even an allegation of sexual assault is something that would have mandated suspension of a clearance for someone with a TS/SCI-level clearance, per post policy. Secret, probably not until they were found guilty or not, but access would sure as hell have been pulled immediately.

[m1a1mg]

Look me up on AKO Global. Machell. Still work at a division today.

 

Given JBLM's inability to do much of anything right, I think you're the one who is spewing crap. I have a good friend who is a senior commander at JBLM. He says it's one of the most fucked up places he's ever seen. But you just keep telling everyone that you were in the super brigade.

 

To say that derogs aren't sent to CCF regularly is just delusional on your part.

[thekirk]

Look me up on AKO Global. Machell. Still work at a division today.

 

Given JBLM's inability to do much of anything right, I think you're the one who is spewing crap. I have a good friend who is a senior commander at JBLM. He says it's one of the most fucked up places he's ever seen. But you just keep telling everyone that you were in the super brigade.

 

To say that derogs aren't sent to CCF regularly is just delusional on your part.

 

So, let me see if I can get your incoherence straight: At the same time, you're telling us that there's this huge number of violent rapes going on that are covered up by the chain of command and other leadership (which you apparently take part in, as a leader, since you claim it's going on all over the place...), you're also asserting that JBLM is one of the most fucked up places in the Army, and also telling us that mere compliance with DOD policy is a.) too hard for the units you've served in, and b.) that mere compliance with the basics of DOD policy regarding the reporting of derogatory information on clearance holders indicates some kind of super-unit...

 

I think you're the one full of shit, to be quite honest. If your commanders are not forwarding derogatory information reports on personnel in your units, they are playing with fire--Career-ending fire. If they really are doing that, which I find hard to believe, I think we can now count on the next Walker incident coming out of wherever the hell it is you're assigned, followed by a bunch of heads rolling all the way up to DA.

 

However, it doesn't quite work like that. This stuff is tracked, and if it isn't reported, questions get asked when the individual hits the next assignment and another clearance office sees their files. I've had inquiries come back from DOD on personnel who PCSed a year or so before I took the job, asking why derog information wasn't turned in on them by us, since the misconduct took place while they were supposedly assigned to the unit. In that case, the incident had taken place during a PCS leave after the individual signed out of the unit. Now, given that the investigator was looking for the responsible party with knife in hand, I'm pretty sure I'm safe in saying that if your units aren't doing their jobs, the fact that they are not will be found out, and will be dealt with. I had a panicked Major and Lieutenant Colonel in my office going through records with me trying to find out what the hell had happened in that case, so I'm pretty sure this was something that had the attention of the commander.

 

And, by the way? This stuff I'm describing? It's not a "super-unit", it was one that was doing it's best to keep it's head above water in a lot of respects. Compliance with this stuff is a huge pain in the ass, and a major distractor. It still gets done, because of the pressure applied. It's been that way on most posts I've been at, over the course of my career. The ones I have recent experience with are at Fort Campbell, Fort Carson, Fort Leonard Wood, and Fort Irwin. All of those posts have the same or similar requirements for reporting derogatory information, and have draconian Central Clearance people when it comes to compliance. If the places you're at do not, I find that really rather surprising.

 

And, oh-by-the-way--Reporting derog information was also something that the forward 101st G2 in Tikrit was having to worry about, and I know this because they had to stay on for the night shift I was on when they needed to talk to their stateside civilian bosses at the clearance office at Fort Campbell. This was usually at least a bi-weekly thing with the poor schmuck who had that responsibility. We were also constantly getting queries from that same office about all the folks who were NG or Reserve that were assigned to our brigade, in reference to clearances. The visibility is not apparent to people working outside of the realm of that stuff, but it is there. It has to be, or the commander is going to eventually wind up with a ton of shit falling on him when his luck runs out. I don't know too many people in the -2 realm who are going to put up with that, either, since the S2 is always going to share the blame when things go south.

[RETAC21]

The place looks like fun: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-13/afghan-shooter-s-base-hunkers-down-under-international-attention

 

Lewis-McChord was called the U.S. military’s “most troubled base” in 2010 by the military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.

[thekirk]

The place looks like fun: http://www.businessw...ional-attention

 

Lewis-McChord was called the U.S. military’s “most troubled base” in 2010 by the military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.

 

Statistically, not that much worse off than other posts. JBLM has had a bit of a "perfect storm" hit it, in terms of the numbers of new units, the amount of turbulence in established units, and the optempo. At one time, there were as many as five maneuver brigades assigned to the place, and 3-4 of them were deployed. That's a recipe for bad things to happen, especially when those units are high-visibility. In such an environment, troublemakers and bad Soldiers are all too easy to shuffle around until they finally screw up spectacularly.

 

I also have to blame the idiotic way the Army went about standing up most of those new units--You do not, I repeat, do not assign a whole mass of junior enlisted to a new MTOE before their leaders are even on the base with them, which is what happened to most of those all-new Stryker brigades. The ones established by conversion did a lot better, I think, while ones like the 5th (COL Tunnell's, btw...) which were built from the ground up went months without significant leadership being on the scene while many of their junior enlisted were at loose ends. We sent one of our Staff Sergeant's over to their Engineer company while that was going on, and the poor bastard about lost his mind, riding herd by himself on 50-60 fresh-from-initial-training junior enlisted for a month or two. Couple that with PTSD from a couple of IED strikes, and it's all to easy to understand why he didn't make their deployment, being hospitalized for stress issues.

 

It would have been a hell of a lot smarter for the Army to have taken an existing brigade, plussed up the strength, split it down the middle, and then form the new brigade from the clone. I do not know why they did it the way they did, other than a complete lack of contact with reality as to how units actually work.

[m1a1mg]

Dude, you couldn't get a clue if you fell out of the clue tree and hit every freaking branch.

 

I know two of those posts very well that you mention. That you believe they are somehow functional, does not surprise me. One of them falls directly under our oversight. But you keep jabbering away.

[m1a1mg]

Oh yeah, statistically, JBLM is pretty damn bad, compared to the rest.

[m1a1mg]

The most recent Defense Department statistics show that the number of sexual assault reports rose 1 percent in 2011 over the year before to 3,192 reports. But Defense Department officials believe a fraction of sexual assaults are reported. They estimate that some 19,000 sexual assaults occur annually, and are seeking to encourage more victims to come forward.

The statistics showed a 10 percent increase in cases deemed “actionable” going to court-martial over 2010. But more than 10 percent of suspects who had charges preferred at court-martial were allowed instead to resign or be discharged, according to the statistics.

 

So, despite a HUGE push to educate the military on how and what to report, only a 1% increase. And "officials" still estimate that only 6 assaults happen for every one reported? Based on what methodology?

 

No question there are scumbag leaders out there that let guys get away with stuff. And they should be hung along with the perpetrators. That said, the system is so screwed up, I don't see any way to fix it. You can't teach that a female who is drunk cannot provide consent, and then hold a male criminally responsible when he is drunk- it just doesn't make sense. I'll bet that 10% is ALOT lower than the number of civilians that are allowed to plead out.

FA, I've seen the briefings. Although there is an issue on CONUS, the biggest issue, not surprisingly, is on deployments. Additionally, I'm sure a great deal of it comes from the command climate. The numbers I've seen (FOUO) tend to lead to the same posts over and over again.

[thekirk]

Look me up on AKO Global. Machell. Still work at a division today.

 

Given JBLM's inability to do much of anything right, I think you're the one who is spewing crap. I have a good friend who is a senior commander at JBLM. He says it's one of the most fucked up places he's ever seen. But you just keep telling everyone that you were in the super brigade.

 

To say that derogs aren't sent to CCF regularly is just delusional on your part.

 

Going back and re-reading my previous reply to this post, I see that I let my anger get the better of me. I also figured out what pisses me off about this issue, which I didn't realize before now.

 

All of this boils down to a direct attack on the character and integrity of the leadership in question. The folks who came up with those so-called "statistics" about so many women being violently raped are the same activists who rail against the "patriarchy" and who claim that all men are out to exploit and keep women in positions of subservience both sexual and workplace.

 

But, see, there's a bit of a problem with this idea: The vast majority of senior leaders who I worked around simply do not think that way, and neither did I. Had one of my female subordinates come to me and reported a rape or sexual assault, I know for a damn fact that I would have moved heaven and earth to deal with the perpetrator--And, so would all those around me. The mindset that many senior leaders have towards these young ladies is not that they are a sexual resource to be exploited for the entertainment of all males, but that they are seen as surrogate little sisters and daughters. Screw around with one, and the wrath of many older males is going to fall heavily on your head. I know of a single case where a senior NCO went over the edge and started demonstrating that he was sexually harassing female subordinates. He was out of a job inside of a week once the formal complaints were made, and when they were found to be accurate, his career was over. Until he left the unit, he was ostracized and treated with contempt by every senior leader in the brigade. Had he committed a rape instead of simple harassment, I do believe our CSM at the time would have probably gone to Leavenworth over the issue--He'd been one of the CSM's fair-haired boys, and the sense of betrayal the CSM had over this guy's conduct was palpable.

 

Look around: How many of your fellow senior leaders would look the other way in the case of a report of violent rape? Would you? When you say these statistics are accurate, you're saying that you're working with people who would do that kind of crap on a routine basis. 1 in 3 women being violently raped in the course of their military careers means that there's a much higher percentage of their leadership who is willing to look the other way, because every one of those women has both a first-line and a secondary leader who would have to be "in on it", along with everyone else in the chain of command. I know damn well that if I had had a female subordinate who reported such a thing to me, and I saw no action taken on it by the people above me, I'd be on my way to the IG and anyone else who would listen right after I picked my jaw up off the floor. To say that this crap is going on at the rate reported is saying that the entire chain of command in those units is in on it--And, while I've seen a bunch of crap that's messed up, I've seen nothing like that. Period.

 

If anything, the shoe is on the other foot: A young enlisted female has the advantage in reporting these things, because in most cases, the senior leadership is going to take her side, just because of that paternalistic ethos that's prevalent. A young lady can, almost literally, get away with murder in terms of her vastly larger amount of credibility with these people. Hell, in a lot of cases, it's damn hard to get justice for misconduct on the part of the girls, because once they're inside the bosses office for NJP, the tears come on, and the next thing you know, he's melting. I went in on a couple of cases of dereliction of duty, the young lady did her thing, and the boss let her off with suspended punishment. After our earlier discussions on the issue had indicated he was going to max her out...

[thekirk]

Dude, you couldn't get a clue if you fell out of the clue tree and hit every freaking branch. I know two of those posts very well that you mention. That you believe they are somehow functional, does not surprise me. One of them falls directly under our oversight. But you keep jabbering away.

 

And you had how much direct contact with their clearance sections...?

 

It's not a post thing, my friend. It's DOD, with draconian emphasis.

[m1a1mg]

Amazingly, for the one with oversight, quite a bit. But don't let that stop you.

 

I know an installation where the 2 star directed that the installation 2 did not get the SIRs anymore.

[EchoFiveMike]

I'm so glad there all no females in a USMC infantry battalion. S/F.....Ken M

[BansheeOne]

Yeah, they might bitch and fight all the time!

 

[Simon Tan]

So you would use them as a cluster munition?

[Exel]

All of this boils down to a direct attack on the character and integrity of the leadership in question. The folks who came up with those so-called "statistics" about so many women being violently raped are the same activists who rail against the "patriarchy" and who claim that all men are out to exploit and keep women in positions of subservience both sexual and workplace.

 

But, see, there's a bit of a problem with this idea: The vast majority of senior leaders who I worked around simply do not think that way, and neither did I. Had one of my female subordinates come to me and reported a rape or sexual assault, I know for a damn fact that I would have moved heaven and earth to deal with the perpetrator--And, so would all those around me. The mindset that many senior leaders have towards these young ladies is not that they are a sexual resource to be exploited for the entertainment of all males, but that they are seen as surrogate little sisters and daughters. Screw around with one, and the wrath of many older males is going to fall heavily on your head.

 

 

Here's a sentiment I can agree with 100%. And the women don't have to be subordinates or "little sisters and daughters", they can be your peers, your superiors, older or younger; and the men don't have to be "older men": the principle still applies with the vast majority of men I've served with. You view your female co-workers as your sisters, friends and colleagues, and if you'd be willing to risk your life for any of your brothers in arms any day of the week, you'd damn well would do a lot more for your sisters in arms.

 

Had it come to our attention that a woman in our unit - any one of the ones I've served in - had been assaulted or even just harassed, the MPs probably would have had to race a company of angry men to get the predator locked up just to keep him alive. And post armed guards at his cell door. Violence against women can rile up good men like that.

 

So I take great offense when people suggest that the military is full of rapists and misogynistic sobs who hate or seek to take advantage of any women who dare enter "their club". Sure, there are rotten apples in the military, just as there are at any work place. But you don't paint every university student a serial rapist just because there's harassment and abuse on university campuses every day.

 

Most men I've served with an certainly most of the leaders are, if anything, more upstanding citizens than the average Joe and certainly put both themselves and their coworkers to a higher standard than is expected of the society at large. If someone is going to suggest that they are collectively less trustworthy and more malevolent than the society they serve at large, they better be real quick with presenting evidence.

[m1a1mg]

Lest we forget, the Army took in a lot of people in the mid 00s that previously would not have been allowed.

 

We all knew a lot of very good people during our time in service, but I also ran into some douchebags. I served with a SSG that raped a 13 year old boy.

 

Finally, Exel, I don't know who is painting with the wide brush you claim. The Army is still primarily made up of good people.

[Corinthian]

Somewhat on topic:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221475/Our-women-war-Portraits-Afghan-frontline-female-troops-winning-hearts-minds-Afghanistan.html?ICO=most_read_module

 

Capt. Alice Homer looks fetching with the beret.

[thekirk]

M1A1MG, I apologize for getting heated about this. No doubt you've seen what you've seen, and I've seen what I've seen. That an Army the size of ours would offer drastically different viewpoints shouldn't be surprising.

 

Although, that datum about SIRs? How in the blue fuck is he getting away with that, without DOD coming down like a ton of bricks? In my experience, that would have led to the S2 going up his MI chain of command, calls being made to the next level higher in the chain of command over that idiot, and then hellfire being brought down upon the genius in question. The MI guys do not take this crap lightly, or at least, did not do so while I was around to observe. If the standard has slipped that far, someone's going to slip through the cracks, and we're going to have another Walker on our hands. I just don't get that, either--What the hell is the reasoning behind withholding the SIR data from the S2? What does that gain, except screwing up the input about clearance holder's conduct?

 

In any case, the base behind this sub-thread is the rape statistics, and the use being made of them by the activists. My base issue with all that boils down to this: If there was truth to the allegation that one in three (or, is it four, this week? The number keeps changing...) women in the military would experience a violent sexual assault, report it, and then see it covered up by the service, then there are some follow-ons to that which should piss off anyone holding a leadership position.

 

First, there's this: How many people would have to be involved in order for there to be an effective cover-up? One? Two? Three, or more? In order for an incident like this to be covered up, once it was reported, you'd have to have at least the person involved in taking the initial report, the person that individual worked for, and probably their boss, as well. That's at least one first-line supervisor and two senior leaders, at a minimum. I can't imagine that someone would try something like covering up a rape without involving their parallel counterpart in the chain of command or NCO chain of concern, so that probably means another two senior leaders, depending on where the report got started. That's just within the victim's parent unit, right there. Let's not even start counting all the likely involved outside parties, from the MPs she might have reported the crime to, to the individuals who might have found her after the assault. Covering up after a reported crime like this would almost have to involve a significant number of people.

 

Average all this out over time, and it would become vanishingly improbable that any individual senior leader would lack involvement in these cover-ups. We'd all have to have personal knowledge of something like this going on, at some point in our service history. I know for a fact that I didn't see a single case of this kind of thing going on, and I never heard of any going on around me, either. Every time I heard a rumor of this sort of thing, it was either something in the Army Times, or it was just that--It happened in another unit, far away, to a "friend of a friend...".

 

When the issue first came up with us, it was in the context of "Is it safe for us to be sending our junior enlisted women out on mid-tour, through these transit camps that supposedly double as rape camps?". All of us sat down, and compared notes, male and female senior leaders, and worked through the issue. No matter what way we looked at it, the numbers didn't make sense, period. A quick survey was made in one of our subordinate units that had just returned from Afghanistan, and the questions were asked anonymously "Did anything happen to you while you were in those transit camps?" "Did you witness or hear of anything happening to a friend or peer?" "Did you feel unsafe at any time?" "If something had happened, would you have felt comfortable reporting it?". The answers we got back were pretty much "What the hell are you people getting at?". Conclusion reached? Sending the young ladies through was safe--And, to my sure knowledge, nothing was reported, nothing was covered up. Could things have happened that weren't reported? I can't say that, but judging from the lack of concern most of the women had in going on leave, I really, really doubt it. If the transit camps like Ali Al Saleem really were that unsafe, I'm pretty sure that that information would have percolated through the female community with a rapidity that would boggle your mind. God knows other, far less important crap did.

 

The other convincing thing about all this is that when you start digging into the methodology and the definitions used in these damning surveys, very little is unbiased. Reports are taken in circumstances that are conducive (and, even encourage it...) to the subjects outright lying, the numbers of parties surveyed are not that great, and the questions they answered are very broadly worded. One of these "studies" restricted itself to women who were appealing VA ratings, which is a circumstance fairly likely to lead to "padding" such statistics, from what I've seen. Then, those numbers were taken and broadly extrapolated to cover the entire force, and that's where this ridiculous set of statistics came from. And, since the people running the Army are both foolish and paternalistic, they blindly accepted them and used them to make policy--All the while impugning the character of all the rest of us, out in the force. I don't accept that that many of us are covering this kind of crap up. If we really were, I'm pretty sure I'm safe in saying that the enlistment and re-enlistment rate for women would be damn near zero--Which it manifestly is not.

 

It's very much a "... and, when did you stop beating your wife?" situation, here.

 

I honestly don't know what the real statistics are, but based on what I know from talking to a couple of CID agents over the years, I think the real rate of violent sexual assault is probably no worse than what you'd find at your typical university or college, and probably a little lower due to the more draconian control we have over the barracks compared to a college dorm. The assertion that 1 in 3 women will be violently assaulted in the course of their careers? And, that we'd cover those assaults up? I'd really like to know why the rest of you are doing it, because those stats implicate that you are. Since I know I never did, that means the rest of you senior leaders out there have to be involved...

 

See how that works?