shock & awe: women in the military (& dadt)

I recently read "The War Within" an essay in Time magazine by Nancy Gibbs. Gibbs begins, "For too many American women in uniform...danger also comes from their male comrades." I began reading the article and was absolutely convinced that her statistics would underwhelm me. Reason being that I had heard little of this issue, which seems impossible with the press all over the war like white on rice and the ease with which we receive information these days. Unfortunately the statistics are shocking and alarming!

"80% to 90% of sexual assaults [according to Pentagon figures] go unreported," among women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been around 160,000 women deployed to these two countries. Gibbs reports that according to the Pentagon nearly 3,000 of service-women were sexually assaulted/raped in 2008. That's purported to be only 10% of the actual figure. You do the math! That's a lot of women being assaulted while on the job in an already hostile & dangerous occupation.

For a little dose of perspective she says, "when you look at the entire universe of female veterans, close to a third say they are victims of rape or assault while...serving." That is twice the rate of assaults in the civilian population. Get that? Danger of sexual assault for women in the armed forces is double that for civilian women! These stats shock me.

The report gets worse when she starts talking about how military mandates preclude a broken and dysfunctional process of reporting and prosecuting male perpetrators.

"Only 8% of cases that are investigated end in prosecution, compared to 40% for civilians arrested for sex crimes." Basically, if you're a female soldier you're now coping with the fact that there's actually little hope that your male counterpart will even be prosecuted. But before she can even decide whether to report the crime she's also thinking about the fact that her right to "anonymity" is non-existent. Civilian rights include an expectation of anonymity as well as protection against harassment, demotion, and further danger from an assailant. There is no privilege of anonymity in the military, except with a chaplain. The truth is she may lose more than the perpetrator. Worse, if she does nothing, she may be stuck fighting right alongside her assailant.

One wants to hold out hope that once a perpetrator is investigated and found guilty of the charges of his crime, he would be punished to the full extent of the law. I mean, come on. We're a modern society? Astonishingly, Gibbs says, about 80% of those convicted are HONORABLY discharged!! My mind reels at the idea! Wait, they are convicted of a crime, right? It actually disgusts me to the point of feeling sick deep in my gut. Or is that my heart?

What does this say to the soldier he assaulted against her will? Obviously the military believes their reputation, and the "war effort", would be tainted if they punish an "exemplary" soldier for sexually assaulting a female soldier. Obviously their viewpoint is that such trifle matters also take attention from the seriousness of the war effort and the fine men who are fighting it. It, in effect, "disrupts" the effort. Her honor is sacrificed for the propaganda to work.

And the sucky part?...they're right. The investigation itself does disrupt. Money, staff, time, effort. The soldiers involved would be moved around or out of the military entirely. The press might also take such astonishing statistics and spread them to the unpredictable civilian population. The more liberal of those civilians would take the stats and want to actually do something more. The liberals would call it an "injustice". The military does have justifiable (though not just) reasons for their actions...or inactions.

Meanwhile, unfortunately, the female soldiers dig deeper into their hole, thinking if they report their assailant it would be "disrupting" and "inconvenient". She's also fearful of repercussions, demotions, etc. Unfortunately, maybe her silence is the best decision for the "good of the whole".

Maybe we civilians have it all wrong. Maybe we call too much attention to injustice and the end result is a lot of disruption of more important events. Like war?

Really. I'm disgusted.

Now I am worried about the prospect of getting rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Maybe DADT protects the safety of gay soldiers. After reading Gibbs' essay I couldn't stop thinking about the implications this same military mind-set would have on gay soldiers if DADT was dissolved.

I cannot stop thinking of what fellow soldiers may do to an out gay soldier and what their higher authority figures will not do. Based on Gibbs' report they clearly won't investigate something if they don't find it necessary to do so. Soldiers also know they can get away with things like raping and assaulting female soldiers, so what really prevents them from doing physical harm to a gay soldier who's chosen to out him/herself. Ultimately, any soldier who does harm to a fellow soldier who is gay will more than likely end up with a honorable discharge anyway. We can see this coming a mile away.

So why are we pushing for the dissolution of DADT? Really, if I was in the military I would not want to be out even if it was "legal" for me to do so!!

What scares me the most about the idea of dissolving DADT is that the military mind-set is far from changing. The don't-rock-the-boat mind-set is as resilient as it is ancient. The belief is that having women and gays in the armed forces is potentially "distracting". They're right. Not because the belief is correct, but because the idea is so entrenched and it IS a distraction because of that.

I don't know. This makes me wonder seriously if Americans should have either women or gays in their military branches. It causes so many "problems".

So this is my sorry ass'd conclusion: at least a gay soldier can hide his/her orientation, whereas a female soldier cannot hide her gender from a male soldier set on taking what he wants from her. Maybe she has a chance... as long as she doesn't act too much like a lesbian she just might make it through the war.