Sexual Assault and the U.S. Military

This can happen at any time, any place and you still probably wouldn’t even know it.  It happens at parties, at schools, in churches, literally anywhere. Sexual assault is everywhere and it shouldn’t be something anyone goes through.  Men and women have been sexually assaulted since who knows when.

The Pentagon has estimated that about 20,500 service members across all military branches have been sexually assaulted in the year of 2018, 13,000 of them were women and 7,000 were men.  In 2016, the number of sexual assaults was about 14,900, which is pretty alarming considering that the number of reports jumped up 5,600 in only 2 years. This represents a 37.5 percent increase over the two years.  Most reports were from women ages 17-24 and reports from males have risen slightly. Mark Landers, executive director of the Montgomery Veterans Service says “There’s no excuse. None… It pains me as an ex-United States colonel that this stuff still happens.”

Sexual assault can lead to a lot of different things, physically and mentally.  This includes depression and anxiety. Landers said, “You don’t want people commiting suicide and that’s why you cannot minimize anything to do with military sexual trauma… You don’t know what somebody will do.”

The number of sexual assaults that are actually reported in the armed forces has more than doubled in the last decade.  Back in 2008, there were 2,340 assaults reported and that number grew dramatically, making the sexual assault issue an even bigger problem in the military.  Things like this show that there really needs to be a cultural shift in the military.

Sexual assault is a crime in the military, they just don’t really execute it as one.  Colonel Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders, a national organization dedicated to ending rape and sexual assault in the military said, “The problem is you have to follow through and actually start prosecuting it as a crime… There’s no real reason to have faith that they’re going to start.  The problem I have is that I think they´re just window dressing.”  

People are always pushing to change the way the military prosecutes sexual assault crimes.  They want authority over these cases shifted away from military commanders and to the hands of an independent prosecutor’s office.  “These aren’t just numbers, these are people’s lives.” said representative, Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, who are pushed to remove the authority from the commanders.  

Overall, 1 of 16 women in the military has reported being raped, groped, or sexually assaulted within this last year.  In a message sent by Patrick M. Shanahan, the acting secretary of defense stated, “To put it bluntly, we are not performing to the standards and expectations we have for ourselves or for each other… This is unacceptable.   We cannot shrink from facing the challenge head on.”  

There was a list of actions that the secretary requested. This list includes better tracking, training, and a new program that identifies repeating offenders throughout the military, even if their victims do not come forward about it.  

Though it may seem easy to come out and say stuff about things like this, a lot of people still don’t say anything.  Victims are often reluctant to come forward about it because they fear it wouldn’t be taken seriously enough or the case wouldn’t be handled well.