There was plenty of it Tuesday, though. “Well, let’s start with the principle that sexual assault is an outrage; it is a crime,” President Obama said. “And if it’s happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they’re wearing.” He added, “I have directly spoken to Secretary Hagel already today and indicating to him that we’re going to have to not just step up our game, we have to exponentially step up our game, to go at this thing hard. And for those who are in uniform who have experienced sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their Commander-In-Chief that I’ve got their backs. I will support them.”
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in his own press conference, talked about the need for a thorough “cultural change.” He added another concern: “This department may be nearing a stage where the frequency of this crime and the perception that there is tolerance of it could very well undermine our ability to effectively carry out the mission and to recruit and retain the good people we need.” Women are fifteen per cent of the active-duty forces. An all-volunteer military, at the current level of quality, is unsustainable without them. We talk about the ethical problem of those who never have to face the draft sending people for whom the military may be the best option for education or a career into ill-considered wars; how can we leave unchanged a situation in which so many of them leave with a trauma that can disorder their lives in so many ways? Being sexually assaulted while in the military is a risk factor for homelessness for female veterans.
Why was the new report so dismaying? It included two measures: one based on reported, recorded incidents of sexual assault of one kind or the other—there were three thousand three hundred and seventy-four of those last year, an increase of six per cent—and a detailed, anonymous survey of active-duty servicemembers, which showed that more than six per cent of women and one per cent of men had experienced these crimes, also an increase. The way the numbers worked together is what was so jarring. After all, there is a scenario in which an increase in reports alone would show progress: sexual assault is a profoundly underreported crime, in part because the tool of shame is too often applied to the victim, not the perpetrators. “We want more reports, because more reports—every report means another victim getting cared for,” General Gary Patton said at the press conference with Hagel. But that’s not what had happened here: “I mean, I got a team of Ph.D.s and statisticians that look at this every year,” Patton said. “And—and what we saw this year was, as I mentioned, for the active-duty females, an increase in the prevalence.”
But it also seems to have been a cultural surprise to the Pentagon’s leadership. They had made some moves in the past few years, made speeches and statements, and had, perhaps, told themselves that that would do the trick. Certain things were no longer acceptable to say or brag about, in polite company. Some may have even thought that it all went pretty far, in a politically correct sort of way—perhaps that’s why Air Force Lieutenant General Craig Franklin thought that it made sense to overturn a court-martial conviction of a fighter pilot who’d been found guilty on sexual-assault charges by an all-male military jury. Perhaps the scandal surrounding the near-systematic sexual abuse of airwomen at the Lackland Air Base had flown right by them. They had put up posters and assigned men like Jeffrey Krusinski to talk about training and respect. Wasn’t that enough?
It isn’t. Patton talked about how victims of sexual assault in the military “perceive retaliation in the form of social retaliation, leadership retaliation, again, perceiving different forms of retaliation.” But it is not simply a perception. It was only this past year that then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta changed the rules so that a victim would not be required to go first to her immediate commander, who might also be the perpetrator, or the perpetrator’s friend. He did so after seeing a documentary, “Invisible War,” which told women’s stories and also described the weakness of the military-justice system. It also made the point that perpetrators can have a surprisingly good sense of what their actual risks are. One option that has been discussed is bringing the military-justice response to sexual assault out of the chain of command. One way or the other, there has to be a practical price.
The report may have finally brought this home. “So I don’t want just more speeches or awareness programs or training but, ultimately, folks look the other way,” said Obama. “If we find out somebody is engaging in this stuff, they’ve got to be held accountable—prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period. It’s not acceptable.”
“We’re all outraged and disgusted over these very troubling allegations,” Hagel said, speaking of Krusinski. He added, “No one in this building is happy about what happened. We’re disappointed. But that doesn’t fix the problem.” Disappointment alone never does. Being vaguely sad, or even hotly ashamed, will not keep women in the military—and, by extension, our country—safe. Shame alone doesn’t get you to the point of honor.
Original Article
Source: newyorker.com
Author: Amy Davidson
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