They deserve so much better. So does our country.

Well, good luck. The Good Old Boy network will never let go as long as there are Good Old Boys ready and willing to take up the slack. I am so very tired of men thinking women are just here to be their toys.

This, Phyllis, is why these men must be and, I think, will be punished hard.

But someone else will just take their place! I was raped in the military in 1987. They went to jail. Rapes are still occurring and with greater frequency. How long is it supposed to take?

Phyllis I am very sorry this happened to you. I have no idea how long it will tke. I do know that were we not to punish hard, it'd take longer for that culture to become more decent.

The Air Force is such a boy's club- first the "Born Again" circle, Tail Hook, but I guess its important they prove they're man enough to fly those incrediable phallic penetrators (even if most studies show women fly them better). "To Orgasmitron and beyond!"

Kenneth It's pathetic; yes.

That shift has to take place in two places at once: In terms of new policies in the Air Force and in terms of new education at the Air Force Academy.

Perhaps, and this one is odd, comparing statistics between the services might help, particularly if one of them is way lower than the others in rape incidents.

Kosh you make 2 excellent points.
It's also the AF Acad where the lines had been (are?) blurred betw secular and religious "education".

My first thought was that far more rigorous training is needed. But if it's the instructors themselves then it requires a much bigger overhaul. You're absolutely right that this neanderthal behavior needs to be eradicated.

Abra yes and Phyllis' point is daunting.

Keep their feet to the flames, Jon.

Matt I'll try. Thanks.

no place for this in civilian or military life.......unfortunately, as with any group,a tiny fraction of assholes cast a bad lite on the whole......can't speak for other branches,but i know if you bring dishonor to the Marines,you are in DEEP shit.....
R

Steel I'd hope so.

Jonathan - thanks for bringing this up. I wonder why this seems to go on and on, why the "culture" is allowing it. I mean, can you imagine this going on in a corporation, on this scale, for this long? Who the hell are they answering to?

Thanks for the update.

Emily I don't know. Us? ? ?

Sheila you bet.

Read and rated.

jmac thanks very much.

jesus, jon! you don't ask for much , do ya?
:)
"We must continually demand that overall military policy squares with our ideals."

Where are these ideals we live by? We hear them burble
bubble out of our politicians' mouths. We all know
politicians do nothing but lie, so these ideals
are kinda diminished when they
get into office and do naughty
things, much to our
utter
non-surprise. huh. kids will be kids and
snakes will be snakes.

we are rather a cynical nation.

not those good old boys, though! they know what is what.
caveman ethics! the 'good old days'.

punish em , hard, swift, and without mercy.

James yes; very hard.

Having been in Basic Training and knowing how scared those bastards had me, I can only imagine what these brutes do to women. Add the he said, she said thing, and see who they believe.

Scanner needless to say, the fish stinks from its head.

The Air Force has been making headlines both for its Christian fundamentalism and its sexual abuse. Is there any correlation, I wonder, or are these distinct factions within the organization?

Alan that culture supports both.

Right on, Jon!

Bud :)

The only way any headway will be gained in this travesty is if the honchos have a sudden change of heart and start paying attention to what is happening among their rank and file. Instead, coverups seem to be an integral part of the military modus operandi.

Lezlie

Lezlie yes; still got to slam the perps, too.

These are the same men, who were so against allowing Gays in the military!

Kenny in mny cases, yes.

J. - It will be interesting to see what happens. The longer it drags on without charges and trials the less we can expect.

Women should stop joining up and ensure that the Pentagon knows why.

r

Tor I agree.

Hear, hear! Women are in the army to serve their country, not their male superior's needs.

Maria thank you!

Jon late in reading. This is really a terrible problem. Lezlie wrote a really good piece on the other site..sent me here. I do think that there are men who just don't like or respect women. And it matters not their job description. The military gives these guys an opportunity to flex and it is not only the women that get hurt. I am not sure that you can change their nature. The act of rape should be considered a cause for dishonorable discharge.

Ande at the least, yes...and Lezlie's piece is terrific! Thanks!

You know, I just think the whole mentality about what sex is for, where the drives come from, how they can be controlled or not controlled, what it's about, when it's appropriate, when it's not, has got to be further investigated and researched and understood and also treated with compassion. Maybe some people don't think rape is sex, but I'm tired of that construct. Men and women, hell, adults and children, people and other people have all kinds of weird power and longing and tension and attraction and fantasy and stupid irrational behavior towards one another. You put all these hot headed angry fighting people together, what do you expect is going to happen? The goal should be to better understand how the worst case scenarios play out, and try to put positive supports in place to stop them before they happen. I don't think the threat of jail is very good at stopping an angry man who's sexually attracted to a woman whom he holds power over from abusing it. And I'm sorry, the women need to buck up and fight these guys off, too. Slip them a drink, give them a kick, carry a knife. Although I don't like where that leads, either, but that's kinda what they all signed up for. Maybe we should try something else, like finding out where that fear and anger is coming from and defusing or redirecting it. Painting or planting corn or building a better generator. That's it, art and science therapy for the military!

Do you think these numbers are any different than let's say 10 years ago, but people just feel freer to report?

It would seem so, because there has been so much more enlightenment on the subject, if anything, you would think the numbers would be lower

"We must continually demand that overall military policy squares with our ideals."

Our ideals? Why aim so high? How about just common DECENCY?

Survival, Resistance, Evasion and Escape (SERE) training has been around for years. The purpose is to train men and women to survive, escape or resist captors in wartime. It's to teach military members how to avoid becoming a prisoner of war. In 1995, several female Air Force Academy cadets came forward to complain that the "simulated rape" portion of the training had "gone too far." The story went national. I covered it for the Associated Press, but the fallout back then was that the training was going to be "altered" to prevent male cadets from taking things "too far." Looks like not much has changed. The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?

iThe Air Force has been making headlines both for its Christian fundamentalism and its sexual abuse. Christian fundamentalism calls for dominant men and submissive women. This result is inevitable.

Here & in Lezlie's post, many people call for women to stop enlisting as a protest. The people who perpetrate these crimes would like nothing better. It wouldn't surprise me if that - eliminating women in the military - was a motive for not addressing and solving this problem.

Obedience - following orders - toeing the line - that sort of thing is supreme in military culture, right? Seems to me that ethic would make it not so hard to end this if those at the top wanted to.

When women started entering the service in large numbers the potential for rape was an opposing reason. "Women can't work shoulder to shoulder with men because rape will inevitably follow."

And something that's been bubbling up: post -Vietnam we, as a country, have been bending over backwards not to repeat the same mistakes re blaming the soldiers. Now we're all about thanking them.

At the same time most of us know very well that what we're thanking them for has not one single thing to do with our safety or national integrity.

Even if it's only subliminal knowledge, we know the horrors they've been through in the service of political bullshit, i.e. their service keeps us safe (just typing that sets my teeth on edge for so many reasons) and unjustifiable multiple deployments in service to 1) not using the draft to fill the ranks to the level necessary actually to fight because that would turn the population massively and actively against your current wars and 2) cut taxes cut taxes cut taxes CUT TAXES, liberty = no taxes. Cut taxes = inadequate funding for both equipment for the troops (You fight with the army you have so what if that raises your casualty rate? 'Unconscionable' has no meaning in the absence of a conscience.)

So we the people, burdened with guilty consciences, will not clamor en masse too loudly for our soldiers to be held to account for their misdeeds. The power structure will not act because men have a right to dominance, women by nature don't belong in the military, and all the bureaucratic and career reasons anyone can dredge up but mostly, if the people get stirred up enough to think rationally about the military, if the curtain gets pulled back, they might force change and then we’d have a revolution on our hands.

(Sorry for the length, Jon. I suppose I should have just gone out and cut the grass instead of reading.)