Military. Was 19 and i want to challenge all alone and the next thing they mellow was laying on the ground i was struck from behind and 2 guys hold me down and one guy was pulling my pants down. And. He was taking care of his business and you know struggled and i was being struck and hit and told you know told to shut up or theyd kill me. And i see how it destroyed my life. I mean it im ive been married 3 times this luckily i have a wife right now who ive been married to for 25 years. You start wondering you start sort of you know youre coming up with reasons why things are the way they are and for a long time i kept thinking i dont know if this. Something Something Else. I had never told anybody over 30 years i decided to tell my wife. It was the scariest moment in my life i was going to tell my wife she was going to leave me and i would be lost without her i mean honest to god i couldnt i couldnt get up every morning without my wife. You know. And i told i felt horrified and i felt sad and i felt angry and you know along the course of the evening you know feelings just started to surface that were probably just simmering for a very very long time and she put her arms around me and were both sat there and saw it was like. This great weight had been lifted off for me. And i think its important to recognize that military sexual trauma is not limited to women and in fact when it comes to the absolute numbers because of the proportion of men in much larger numbers than women actually the numbers are even greater. I think one of the last bits of research showed that about one percent of males had been victims of Sexual Assault within the past year in the military that equals to about 20000 you get labeled as a body and thats. Term to be related to so its one of the things that you just dont you dont talk about it or you dont bring in the bodies essentially just keep yourself really really hard to forget. You know. They live in may had you know i can hear them. I can see their faces i can sue but theyre doing me. So i felt scared. And i was scared to tell my friends the people that really knew me the truth about what happened the shame as bad as it is for women is even worse for men because its all tied in with him a phobia the people who are doing the raping are not gay thats not the problem theyre worried about gays in the military the gays are not the rapists theyre heterosexual man for the most part this is not an issue of Sexual Orientation this is simply power and violence male sexual predators for the large part of target whoever is there to prey upon whether thats men or women whenever. There is. Evidence other one has been sexually assaulted the question. Is when does this ever. Breaking news at this hour but maybe appears to be facing a huge sex scandal details are still covering yeah. This news girl news tonight with Peter Jennings to t. V. Were going to begin tonight by putting a human face on the worst case of Sexual Harassment of the navys history at an annual naval aviators convention called the Tailhook Convention so your officers have known since 1900 binge included the socalled stand up or the specific purpose of targeting and sexually molesting women. I got off the elevator on the 3rd floor you can see it in b. 200 men. It was just a few steps into the hallway before. They closed ranks around me and then it happened very quickly that from both sides and from behind men came in and started reaching in my shirt i was getting pushed down to the floor and some was reaching under my skirt point my underwear off and it was about maybe 30 or 40 feet of 200 guys trying to pull my clothes off like i was a high value target and investigation was finally begun. But 1500 interviews later the navys Inspector General reported that his investigators were being stonewalled a great wall of silence had gone up to protect the guilty. The us army today is trying to establish the extent of a new and growing rape and Sexual Harassment scandal at all took place at the army base at Aberdeen Proving Ground where 30 women have filed complaints of sexual advances that range from unwanted touching to rape and forcible sodomy as an acceptable conduct for shoulders to bow to the army and we have 0 tolerance. 12 years ago that still looks sex scandal shook the u. S. Navy and the air force faces what may be an even bigger problem and other sexual abuse at the air force academy in Colorado Springs 100 out of 42 allegations of assault against women have been made in the last decade highest ranking air force generals knew about Serious Problems of Sexual Assault at the academy yet failed to take action we dont intend to sweep this under the rug we take it very seriously were going to address it publicly in Congress Outraged senators accused the air force brass of ignoring assaults on women we have a clear pattern. Of reports of Sexual Assault where the reaction of the air force academy seems to be to blame the victim we are in the process of is to those changes now in the process when studios changes now obviously you and i and secretary of fundamental disagreement here. In a small post in washington d. C. Will remain private history and tradition living. Room barracks in washington d. C. Is the most prestigious unit there is in the marine corps this is the unit where the best of the best go it is the marine corps showcase ceremonial unit it handles president s and dignitaries security at the white house the silent drill team. After my deployment to Operation Iraqi freedom in 2009 my command officer recommended me for the Marine Barracks washington i was excited it was the tip of the spear as far as the marine corps is concerned. She would stay work late and then she would drive home and she called me and shed be on some kind a little and she talked about how she loved her job she was a. Sweet person who was trying really hard. And succeeding. One of the 1st things i was told my entire dinner was. Dont worry because the marines will think that you want to sleep with them and i thought thats just ridiculous the atmosphere off the bat at Marine Barracks washington was was horrible people asked me what sexual favors had i performed to get my orders there. There is a senior officer in my command who the 1st time he spoke to me he said marines here are nothing but objects for the marines to. Shows up at my work. Of a new female talked about how. Theyre having facts so i stopped all that. I mean i did it got progressively worse and worse they determined that i welcome the Sexual Harassment by wearing my regulation length uniform skirt and running in running shorts. There were several junior female marines that came up to me crying while i was there saying that they felt humiliated to come to work. The. One of the duties at Marine Barracks washington was a ceremonial drill. Evening parades are what you would see on the news the. President everybody goes to those type of things. After the parades. All the officers are required to stay told. During consider house washington so were talking about ones the happy hours that started 3 and. It was partying and drinking culture. And going out and partying and like i was ordered to drink i was ordered to attend the drinking. My boss even said. They were mandatory to me shes like we do our best work at these events we went to various pubs and bars and the goal was to do a shot at each one paid for by the marine corps youre talking about youre going to runs for other Senior Officers that are drinking to the point of. You know passing out on mont lawns this is the norm at one bar i had water and i was ordered to shot anyways and told i needed to take 2 shots to make up for that. I left the bar to get a cab my Company Commander followed me and said i need to talk to you about some things so we walked up the stairs into his office there was a little bit of a struggle he tried to kind of make an advance and try to kiss me i tried to leave any slammed the door on my arm. I fell on the ground and hit my face on his desk and the next thing i realised was i had woken up wearing his shorts with all of my clothes off and tremendous pain i knew enough about me that something wasnt right and i had felt entirely violated. The kernel of one point said you know homer boys girls now call just dont mix well never really know what happened inside that office only when the major knowing hes not talking so at this point the investigation is closed for lack of evidence and we have reopened a new investigation against you for conduct unbecoming an officer and public intoxication. So there you good. Other than. That on the but im going to the book are useless so that is just. Instead of. Me Emotional Learning to be. Stuck in the book you need. To. Go chill the. Compassion that. We think she minds be soldier because off the boot shes wearing. The sold out so to move the polls will appeal more than a lot of the issues to the with summarizing the police force. I remember going to the bar. Was an officer that said about shots for us after id had a couple drinks. Thats all i remember. This i was why are you know his fellow officers i was that he had. Got called up to the majors office and he charged me with fractionation adultery. He was married i wasnt and i was tried but i dont drink. I told her. About emulation and the comments and he said. You know you should do what a marine officer should do and thats to ignore it and move on. I used to lie awake in bed you. No wondering what i could do to help her get out. He. Told anybody that he was going to have his friend marvin from india to kill me and throw me to do it because thats how they take care of things in india and. She went to war. And years for life. For them to take it back and come back and say boy yes they called your yes they called us yes they called you a walking mattress its documented over and over and over again you deserved it and you won and when you complained about it you were welcoming it. The actions of my seniors both in the assault and and the ensuing arrest a geisha ins have really destroyed me were the when you when your wife doesnt come home. To her brother from its through that house searching for the suicide note be to call the police one hand. Put your restraining her from killing herself with the other the. I think the thing that makes me the most angry is not even an assault its the commanders that were complicit in covering up everything that happened. This is an organization that gives commanders an unbelievable amount of power and i felt it as a lieutenant in iraq its scary you appoint the prosecution you appoint the defense you appoint the investigator in charge of the police force youre in charge of the community. Youre on everything you are a judge or jury or executioner most americans assume that there is access to a system of justice so that for example if your civilian and you are raped you can call the police and then you have prosecutors other federal prosecutors state prosecutors local prosecutors they bring the perpetrator to justice the problem with the military is that instead they have to go to their chain of command now in our system of military justice it is the commander whos responsible you know to the chain of command for how that investigation proceeds i know that theres been numerous times in my career that i regretted the new vigil commander hood the the total city saw over a case and most them dont have the training or the education to determine whats appropriate and serious foley commodus cations the problem in the military is the convening authority who is not legally trained makes the final decision. They had a team to command my old squadron where they got it right and he was still station. Hed only been and command for 4 days and he made the decision over illegal to stop the case what i saw was was commanders i mean these are Field Grade OfficersLieutenant Colonels colonels. Who have been in 2025 years you know theyre career officers they sweep cases under the rug the last thing a Company Commander in the army wants to do is make the phone call to his or her Battalion Commander to say i have had a an allegation of a rape in my unit this is viewed in many cases as a failure to command that will adversely then affect their career sometimes youd see a guy get for 5 years for selling minor amount of drugs and youd see a guy get you know 2. That the military hides behind. It is really really hard almost impossible to prosecute but when you look at prosecution rates in the 2010 department of defense reports you begin with 2400 unrestricted reports and 740. What that means is theyve already funneled 748 Sexual Assault victims into a system that has absolutely no adjudication whatsoever. Then you take the 2410 that have been reported of those they identified 3223 perpetrators know what happens once you send a perpetrator over to command the command has just completely unfettered discretion to do whatever it is they want and what is it that they do do 1st off they drop 910. 00 of them they just dont do anything then of the 1025. 00 where they actually take some action through the Court Martial them know only half of them 529 actually got Court Martialled the rest 256 were subjected to article 15 punishments 190 administrative discharges and then 131 to quote adverse administrative actions whatever that means and then of the convictions where they actually get jail time when you work your way all the way through the numbers what youre looking at is that out of 3223. 00 perpetrators only 175. 00 end up doing any jail time whatsoever. I have been in congress for 7 terms now and every single term we have had meetings with d. O. T. D. And they come in and they confirm to the us to us were going to be serious were going to take care of this were going to stop this 0 tolerance but the rhetoric is not being turned into the reality of protecting our women and in some cases men and our military and their like but we have to start programs. Oh great. What does that do they can strongly suggest to the military to do something. Brothers and sisters. Personal duty to prevent Sexual Assault they cant order them they cant enforce it they dont back it up in april of this year we will debut a social Marketing Campaign as part of our prevention strategy that means that. My. School i saw my buddies do. Its ludicrous. You know we have posters that say wait until shes sober im its remarkable that thats allowed to pass and in todays military weve implemented training at each and every level of military service from the moment they enter the service and basic training they are given that campaign consist of a series of posters that are actually training tools and each of those posters has a different focus you cannot perhaps Sexual Assault with pretty posters posters do not prevent sexual predators from preying upon women and men in the military were talking about people barging into rooms in the middle of the night posters going to provide a criminal from version of these are violent people but one of the things that we do in our prevention strategy is to focus on Bystander Intervention in strategy and in that training we ask for each soldier sailor airman or marine to be aware of what Sexual Assault is and how to prevent it so are. The things that they say ignored or theyre made fun. Of and maybe a video or 20 slides its like a lot of military training words of the year. Checking the box. Stopper cant fix any you know walking back a little yeah such a short walk to watch you. And all the money seems to be spent on advertising which is just right with victim blaming and shit. Like the rest thats just i just wanted to let you. Know that the guys who grabbed me are you by yourself or your body i dont think i need a wife Sexual Assault is preventable are you doing your part and so this notion that you know essentially like anyone could be a rape as we all have to be on alert it misses an opportunity to take real steps towards preventing rape if they actually had systems of accountability that prosecuted and imprisoned perpetrators you would get rid of a lot of the rapes right away how would you characterize the typical sex offender well if i look at our data from the department of defense young people that are ages 18 to 2425 when you say that most of them are serial rape. I dont have data one way or the other to determine then what percentage of the rapes are caused by serial predator. I dont i dont have any numbers and i dont know how to i dont think we collect that type of data theres been studies done of people who answer the military are twice as likely to have committed rape as their equivalent population in the civilian world im not aware of that study my area of expertise focuses primarily on prevention and victim care but were. Focusing on the perpetrators. I notice that dr kay whitley is not in her chair is it under your direction that she has not shown her testimony this morning or do you have an executive privilege to do a search no sir youve instructed her not to come what is your reason for doing that if you find the departments response in provisions efforts fall short of your expectations responsibility for that shortfall rests with me the ridiculous answer but is it youre trying to hide we all remember tailhook at the scandal and how the military tried to cover that up i dont know who knew think elective you to defy the congress of the United States were an independent branch of government so for now is the big issue i dismissed. Intimacy is definitely in fact it. Will go from minds without stats. I have to initiate if im comfortable enough im having a good day and i think my has been lets offer the day i have to initiate. When he comes up and hugs me sometimes ill cringe and i just want him to you know like hell feel it. Sometimes i think if when he has sex with me is he thinking about even. Getting raped is he upset is he in now because i think i think about that it all right never does it not enter my head thats why i didnt want to have sex for a while. When we almost split up because theres stuff i feel like im responsible. I dont know what id do if i was. Told. So long. Hes like me only supporter. Like my own blood. Time after time corporations repeat the same mantra sustainability its very important to excel or a transition to sustainable prize board sustainability sustainable amana a more equitable and sustainable well. They claim their production is completely harmless followed a. Leap into compass and it. Companies want us to feel good about buying their products while the damage is being done far away and this is Something Else this must be done even and im a needless. To say im in the news limited window Nieminen Einstein theme that may be best understood so when. Good food descriptions sound up the tasing even for the owners so how to choose just had Food Industry is telling us what to feed our pets really more based on what they want to sell us than was necessarily good for the pet turns out and may not be a sophie most people believe we have animals that have you know diabetes in our straightest they have auto immune disorders allergy. We are actually creating these problems its a huge epidemic of problems all of them i believe can be linked to very simple problem of diet and some dog owners so heartbreaking stories about their pets streets the larger corporations are not very interested in proving or disproving the value of their food because theyre already making it a 1000000000. 00 on it and theres no reason to do that research. Ive interviewed limits of the world and rape is a very very traumatizing thing to have happen but ive never seen trauma like ive seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma. I cannot remember how many times a young female marine that had been raped or sexually assaulted told me that she looked at these guys as your brother or the suspect as your brother its a kin to what happens in a family with incest because you know in the military when we were functioning at our best cohesive unit with brothers and sisters one of the band of brothers and sisters i mean we are family when that ball and of trust is violated. I. The wound penetrates to the very most inner part of ones soul one psyche