Was Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Designed to Fail?

UPDATE Keep in mind that I have no inside information but managed to report the same findings.  Not just yesterday but last year when I wrote my book and since 2009 when I warned about this program would in fact increase military suicides. I have only been proven right because I paid attention!

Report: Military efforts to prevent mental illness ineffective
FROM USA TODAY
Gregg Zoroya
February 20, 2014

There's little evidence that the military's efforts to prevent mental illness among troops are effective, a panel of scientists has concluded.

The military has produced dozens of programs aimed at preventing mental illness among troops during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there's little evidence that most of them work, a blue-ribbon panel of scientists said in a report released Thursday.

The findings by a committee of 13 experts appointed by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies come as about 1,000 Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans are being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder each week, according to data from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"There's no substantive indication of effectiveness (in the military prevention programs) and most importantly, there's no evidence of an enduring impact," said panelist David Rudd, provost at the University of Memphis and an authority on suicide in the military.
read more here

Was Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Designed to Fail?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 19, 2014

Veterans and their families have been paying attention and wondering if the military efforts to address wide ranging issues was designed to fail on purpose or not. No one can blame them considering what the result have been while every branch of the military has been pushing the same spiel for years no matter what happened afterwards. The thoughts turned from hope that the military finally understood what the men and women were going thru into thoughts of being pushed into suffering and suicide.

This was the "news" on Valentines Day

Pentagon data provided to Military Times show 296 suicides among active-duty troops and reserve or National Guard members on active duty in 2013, down 15.7 percent from the 2012 total of 351.

It followed the worst year for suicides on record. It also followed what amounted to thousands of servicemen and women dishonorably discharged. According to the AP report, Misconduct Forces More Soldiers Out put together with the report on the number of suicides, it is obvious what the military is doing is not working.

Army 2012 351 2013 296=55 less suicides. 11,000 discharged for "misconduct" in 2013
Navy 2012 59 2013 46=7 less suicides. 3,700 discharged for "misconduct" in 2013
Air Force 2012 59 2013 55=4 less suicides. 2,900 discharged for "misconduct" in 2013
Marines 48-45=3 less suicides. 3,000 discharged for "misconduct" in 2013

Yes, that is a Power Point slide show but it should be called, "powerless point" since no one learned much from it. They actually make fun of it. Take a look at this group among the empty chairs. They are bored.

The military can claim these were all behavioral problems but what they cannot do it prove it. Considering the military does do psychological testing and checks backgrounds, they have also claimed to be addressing problems from substance and sexual abuses, yet they still continue.

Since early 2006 the Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Program (SARP) has been integrated into the Behavioral Services Department. In the case of sexual abuse they have been "addressing" that for many years including this report from what happened in 2009

Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2009 Annual Report on Sexual Assaults in the Military

"In 2005, the Department enacted the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Program to encourage increased reporting of the crime, facilitate improved access to victim care, better organize response resources, and promote prevention. The Department‘s vision is to enable military readiness by establishing a culture free of sexual assault. The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) within the Office of the Secretary of Defense is responsible for the policy that supports this program and oversight activities that ensure its effectiveness. The Department of Defense (DoD) policy requires each Military Service to maintain its own SAPR program, investigate Unrestricted Reports of sexual assaults, and hold subjects appropriately accountable."

Suicides, PTSD, misconduct and everything else going wrong can be summed up in one terrible approach that began in 2008.

Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) is designed to build resilience and enhance performance of the Army Family — Soldiers, their Families, and Army Civilians. CSF2 does this by providing hands-on training and self-development tools so that members of the Army Family are better able to cope with adversity, perform better in stressful situations, and thrive in life.

CSF2 has Training Centers located across the United States. These Training Centers provide Resilience and Performance Enhancement Training where it is needed most – at Army installations (unit level). CSF2 is an integral part of the Army’s Ready and Resilient Campaign ; a campaign that promotes physical and psychological fitness and encourages personal and professional growth. Resilient Soldiers, Family members and Army Civilians perform better, which results in improved unit readiness and better lives.

Nice slogan but not worth more than the lives lost while they continued to push it.

FIVE DIMENSIONS OF STRENGTH but the outcome has been proven to be a failure. It isn't as if no one warned about any of this.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University

“This report reads more like propaganda than a serious scientific study,” he said in an email after reviewing the Army study results. “The big question, though, has not yet been addressed: Does this intervention make combat soldiers more resilient and prevent PTSD and somatization [a condition in which a person has many physical symptoms but no physical cause that can be detected]?

Anything else we try to do will fail until we can undo the damage done by this.

When we see the outcome spread past the military life and into the lives of our veterans, the whole nation should have screamed instead of just yawning. How could the military push something that experts have been complaining about for years? How could they just ignore the results?

If you want to know how much we knew and how much was spent to produce these deplorable results, read THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR Everything in this book was complied from news reports along with military documents. Nothing in it was hidden but most of it was forgotten.

Dempsey says military problems "one of those cycles"

Dempsey was trying to say that our troops should not be treated like victims, and rightly so. They are not victims. They are survivors. The trouble is with how he said it because if he actually believes suicides, divorces, sexual assaults along with the rise in PTSD cases as, "one of those cycles" and "less disciplined" it shows how little he is willing to face.

Military sexual assaults did not just start. They have been going on for far too long and still have not been viewed as a crime. Sexual assaults are criminal acts. He hasn't faced the fact that this country has spent billions every year on getting the troops help for PTSD while claiming to be educating the families, but with everything spent the healing hasn't happened and suicides have gone up every year along with attempted suicides. This is not a "cycle" no matter what Dempsey claims. This is a callous attempt to once again blame the troops for what the leaders have failed to do. No member of the Joint Chiefs has been held accountable for any of this.

Joint Chiefs Chairman: Don't View Recent Veterans as Victims
News Max
By Greg Richter
07 Jul 2013

While past generations of American military veterans have been viewed in their post-war years as heroes, such as in World War II, and with disdain, as in Vietnam, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey said he fears that those fighting in the Middle East recently will be seen as victims.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, rising rates of suicide, rising divorce rates and sexual assaults combine to give an impression that veterans as a whole should be looked at with pity, Dempsey said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

"We just find ourselves in one of those cycles of history when we've become a little bit less disciplined than we need to be," he said. "I want it to be a positive image, but there's moments when it feels like it's slipping into a negative image."
read more here

Military sexual assaults reporting slammed by GAO

GAO slams VA sex assault reporting, prevention
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 7, 2011 16:51:24 EDT
A new report from a congressional watchdog agency questions efforts by the Veterans Affairs Department to reduce sexual assaults in its hospitals and clinics, finding flaws in security and failures to report crimes to higher headquarters.

The report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office says 284 sexual assaults were reported to VA law enforcement officials between January 2007 and July 2010, but many of those cases were never reported to regional offices or to VA’s central office. A spot review of a few regions showed two-thirds of rapes were not reported to higher headquarters.

The report says the cases “included incidents alleging rape, inappropriate touching, forceful medical examinations, oral sex, and other types of sexual assaults,” but that records reviewed by GAO investigations made it impossible to determine how many accusations were substantiated.

Additionally, the report says there is reason to believe that many assaults went unreported.

“Factors that may contribute to the underreporting of sexual assault incidents include the lack of both a clear definition of sexual assault and expectations on what incidents should be reported, as well as deficient [Veterans Health Administration] Central Office oversight of sexual assault incidents,” the report says.

The findings unnerved lawmakers. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, said he was “aghast” when he first read it. “It reminded me of a 1950s prison system — lawlessness, lack of security and reporting, and outright disregard for human dignity,” Miller said, pledging to force VA to make improvements.

read more here
GAO slams VA sex assault reporting, prevention

PTSD From Sexual Assaults

Washington Post finally picked up on this one...today! (6/5)


More Vets Who Are Coping With PTSD From Sexual Assaults Get Honorable Discharges
NPR
Quil Lawrence
June 1, 2018

"I still have nightmares about it," he told NPR in 2016. "I am 45 years old, and I still have that vision in my head."

Heath Phillips says the trauma of being sexually assaulted drove him to alcoholism and to go AWOL. Three decades later, the military has agreed to upgrade his discharge to honorable. Courtesy of Heath Phillips

Sexual assault is still a major issue for the military. Reports rose by 10 percent last year, though there is some discussion about whether that is an increase in the number of assaults or an increased willingness of troops to come forward and report them. That would be an improvement because victims of rape in the military often face retaliation, sometimes even a less than honorable discharge from the military.

Among those veterans there is another number that is going up: the people getting their records corrected to show they served honorably.

Sexual assault and harassment affects female troops at a higher rate. But because the military is still mostly male, it's men who make up a much larger number of victims among the thousands of sexual assaults each year. Women report the crime more than twice as much as men.

This makes Heath Phillips, who speaks publicly about his experience, rare.

Phillips was sexually assaulted repeatedly by a group of sailors right after he joined the Navy.
read more here

Female veterans need to be voice for other women after military sexual abuse

Many Women Veterans have difficulty receiving service-connected disability for PTSD due to MST (Military Sexual Trauma).

“We need more specific information about the incidents. We need to know, within a 2 month period, the date(s) the incidents occurred. We need to know the name(s) of your attackers, and we also need to know if any police reports, or other reports, were filed regarding the incidents described in your statement. If police reports were filed, we need to know the name of the agency they were filed with, and the approximate date they were filed.”

"Your service treatment records do not show treatment for PTSD or any other mental health disorders while in service. Service personnel records do not provide any evidence that a personal assault occurred in service. There is no evidence of changes in performance or performance evaluations or unexplained behavioral changes which could be expected from a person who had undergone such an assault.

In the National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet on Military Sexual Trauma,
Page 2,under What Happens?: "There is no set reaction to MST......You may have a response right away, or it may delayed for month or years."
Page 3 first paragraph states: "After a sexual assault, many women veterans keep quit. They worry what others will think of them, and that talking about the assault will hurt their military careers."

As you can see from the National Center for PTSD already shows, that many times, that MST are not reported, and that reactions vary, including the onset of symptoms.
And again other documents and reports basically say the same thing.
What does it take for the VA to believe the Veterans, who are seeking service-connected disability for PTSD due to MST? Especially for the older Veterans.
Changes need to be made now.


In the Military Sexual Trauma: Violence and Sexual Abuse Document:
Page 3, 2nd Paragraph: "......However, three fourth of the women who were raped did not report the incident to a ranking officer."
Page 4, 2nd Paragraph: "Reasons why both men and women avoid reporting sexual abuse include fears no one will believe them, that their careers will disruupted, that they will be harassed or face retribution from their attacker, or that they will be told to suck it up."
Sexual Assault Permates theU.S. Armed Forces, CBS Evening News: Shocking Report On Frequent Attacks, Low Rate Of Investigation, Prosecution, March, 17, 2009
Page 3, 1st Paragraph: "The Pentagon acknowledges that some 80 percent of rapes are never reported - making it the most under-documented crime in the military."
Page 3, 3rd Paragraph: "They didn't report because they didn't report because they didn't think they'd believed."
The Women's War Document
Page 8, 3rd Paragraph: "Given that PTSD sometimes takes years to surface in a veteran..."
Page 16, 3rd Paragraph: "There is the story of Tina Priest, a 21-year-old soldier who, according to Army investigation records, shot herself with an M-6 rifle in Iraq last March, two weeks after filing a rape charge against a fellow soldier and days after being given a diagnosis of ^acute stress disorder consistent with rape trauma^"
Page 22.last Paragraph: "Some of the women served in previous decades and were only now dealing with their PTSD" Sadly to say, this is many of us "Older" Veterans fall in this category. Assaults occurred decades ago, and we supposed to remember the exact dates, names and such? We forget to survive only to find ourselves wondering why the symptoms of PTSD come to surface.

NAMI VETERANS COUNCIL
Cornelia Huebscher
Veteran/ U.S. Army
NAMI Alaska Liaison to NVC
Chair/Women Veterans Subcommittee to NVC
Chair/NAMI Vets Alaska
huebscher@acsalaska.net
www.nami.org

Wisconsin Army National Guard assaulted and betrayed getting justice the hard way

Final punishment: As Wisconsin National Guard officer Megan Plunkett took steps to leave the Guard after she said she was sexually assaulted three times, officials tried to revoke her benefits

Madison.com
Katelyn Ferral
May 11, 2019

“I was like, ‘I’m out, I just want to be left alone.’ I don’t want to cause more problems and then he came at me with fraternization. Are you ... kidding me?” she said. “He… assaulted me and how dare they accuse me of fraternization without asking me what happened?”

Eight months after the Wisconsin Army National Guard finished its investigations into 1st Lt. Megan Plunkett’s sexual assault claims, they tried to kick her out.

They did so even though Plunkett was already making her own way out. She was going through a medical discharge for post-traumatic stress disorder connected to alleged sexual assaults by two different men in two different units she served in.

She was not actively training at that time but was having a consensual relationship with an enlisted soldier in her unit. After the relationship ended, Plunkett said that man also sexually assaulted her. As it did in the first two cases, the Guard said her allegations were unsubstantiated, but they went one step further than that, finding Plunkett guilty of “fraternization.” In the military, officers are forbidden to have sexual relationships with enlisted soldiers.

As of today, Plunkett has won some measure of vindication from other agencies. A panel of out-of-state Army officers ultimately rejected the Guard's attempt to strip her benefits and status, though that ruling is not yet final. Separately, the Veterans Administration awarded her full service-connected disability compensation and medical benefits for PTSD, which they determined was caused by military sexual trauma she experienced in the Wisconsin Army National Guard.

'Failure to Protect'
This week, the Cap Times is publishing “Failure to Protect,” a four-part investigation by reporter Katelyn Ferral into the Wisconsin Army National Guard and its treatment of soldiers who are sexually abused in its service. The series is centered on 1st Lt. Megan Plunkett, a soldier who says she was sexually assaulted by three different Guard colleagues over the course of three years.

After she brought those allegations forward, the Guard not only decided that they were unsubstantiated, but took multiple steps to punish her. Plunkett eventually brought her story to the Cap Times, and after a four-month investigation including access to extensive records of a type rarely available to the public, we are sharing her story with you. It is alarming, nuanced and sometimes graphic, but it is important to hear, coming amidst growing concern among government officials in Wisconsin and nationally about the number of military sexual abuse victims and their treatment.

Part one focused on Plunkett’s allegations, the Guard’s responses and also explains its procedures for responding to sexual assault allegations.

Part two took a close look at a yearlong, internal Guard investigation into Plunkett’s first unit, which concluded that it had a longstanding culture of sexual misconduct.

Part three examined the phenomenon of “military sexual trauma” as well as Plunkett’s often frustrating efforts to maintain consistent medical care and legal representation.

Part four (below) describes the Guard’s final — and at this point, unsuccessful — effort to strip Plunkett of military benefits even after she was in the process of getting a discharge for medical reasons.
read more here

VA Priority Access Vortex

Recent headline

On May 15, 2014, VHA had over 6 million appointments scheduled across the system. Nationwide, there are roughly 57,436 Veterans who are waiting to be scheduled for care and another 63,869 who over the past ten years have enrolled in our healthcare system and have not been seen for an appointment. VA is moving aggressively to contact these Veterans through the Accelerating Access to Care Initiative.

Why?

The number of veterans using VA’s health care system has risen dramatically in recent years, increasing from 2.9 million in 1995 to 5 million in 2003. Unable to completely absorb this increase, VA began 2003 with more than 280,000 veterans on waiting lists to receive medical care. In addition, a new regulation giving priority access for severely disabled veterans was implemented for those veterans with service-connected disabilities rated 50 percent or greater. This new priority includes hospitalization and outpatient care for both service-connected and nonservice-connected treatment. In 2004, VA will provide priority access to other veterans for their service-connected conditions.

Recent headline

According to 2012 VA statistics, one in five female veterans and one in 100 male veterans reported some type of sexual abuse while in the military. From fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2013, veterans filed more than 29,000 claims for disabilities related to military sexual trauma, with most attributing post-traumatic stress disorder to the abuse.

Under VA rules, military sexual trauma by itself is not grounds for a disability claim. But veterans can receive compensation for “physical or mental health disabilities caused or aggravated” by sex assaults.

Why?
Reported by Reuters in 2008

Nearly 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking medical care from the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department have suffered sexual trauma, from harassment to rape, researchers reported on Tuesday.

And these veterans were 1.5 times as likely as other veterans to need mental health services, the report from the VA found.

"We are, in fact, detecting men and women who seem to have a significant need for mental health services," said Rachel Kimerling of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California.

The study, presented at a meeting of the American Public Health Association in San Diego, raises many questions.

Kimerling said in a telephone interview the term "military sexual trauma" covers a range of events from coerced sex to outright rape or threatening and unwelcome sexual advances.

A spokeswoman for the VA said about 40 percent of all discharged veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have sought medical care of some sort from the VA, which has a universal screening program for military sexual trauma.

They knew but didn't care enough to fix it.

UPDATE
How many more years of their ranting are we willing to take? They didn't fix it before and have not taken responsibility for their failures. Nothing will change unless they actually start to value the veterans they want votes from in an election year.

Congress moving to ensure speedier care for veterans
The Associated Press
By MATTHEW DALY and ALAN FRAM
Published: June 10, 2014

WASHINGTON — United in response to a national uproar, Congress is suddenly moving quickly to address military veterans' long waits for care at VA hospitals.

The House unanimously approved legislation Tuesday to make it easier for patients enduring lengthy delays for initial visits to get VA-paid treatment from local doctors instead. The Senate was poised to vote on a similar bill within 48 hours, said Democratic leader Harry Reid.

The legislation comes close on the heels of a Veterans Affairs Department audit showing that more than 57,000 new applicants for care have had to wait at least three months for initial appointments and an additional 64,000 newly enrolled vets who requested appointments never got them.

"I cannot state it strongly enough - this is a national disgrace," said Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chief author of the House legislation.
read more here

US House passes military sexual-assault reporting compensation bill

US House passes military sexual-assault reporting compensation bill
By Kevin Miller
Morning Sentinel
Washington Bureau Chief
June 4, 2013

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill named for a Maine woman that aims to make it easier for veterans who were sexually assaulted to receive compensation.

The Ruth Moore Act of 2013 aims to help victims of military sexual trauma qualify for disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bill supporters argue that disability claims for mental health conditions linked to a sexual assault should be treated the same as claims for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, from combat. The VA receives thousands of claims linked to sexual assaults every year. However, advocacy groups contend the approval rate is too low, in large part because many veterans never report the assaults out of fear of retaliation, or the documentation has been lost or destroyed.

House passage of the bill — which was sponsored by Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District — represents the first policy victory this year in either chamber of Congress for veterans' groups and lawmakers pushing for a more aggressive military response to sexual assault within the ranks.

"I'm beyond pleased," Ruth Moore, a sexual assault survivor and the bill's namesake, said Tuesday after the House approved the bill on a voice vote. "It is bittersweet, of course. But this is going to make a difference for so many veterans. Now we just need to get it through the Senate."
read more here

Military sexual assaults nothing new and that is the saddest part of all

If they actually did something back in 2006 they wouldn't be facing it even worse now.

White House, Congress bear down on military sexual assault
By Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — As lawmakers on Thursday railed against the epidemic of sexual assault in the military, President Barack Obama summoned top Pentagon leaders to an emergency White House meeting to deal with the latest scandals and the perceived culture of indifference among service leaders.

The meeting, scheduled for late Thursday, was to include Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a number of other senior enlisted advisers. Last week, White House officials held a similar meeting on the topic, that time with members of Congress furious over several high-profile assault cases in the ranks.

Earlier this month, the head of the Air Force’s sexual assault prevention office was charged with sexual battery for groping a woman in an Arlington, Va., parking lot. This week, an enlisted soldier leading similar programs at Fort Hood was accused of running a prostitution ring and assaulting women.
read more here

This is one of the first videos I did back in 2006 Women At War. Back then 20% of female veterans using the VA had been sexually assaulted.
Sisters After War
The Voice, Women at War
Here are some headlines they forgot about.
Army adding lawyers to prosecute sex crimes
January 26, 2009
New campaign aims to stop sexual assault
April 3, 2009
Military Men Silent on Sexual Assaults
October 5, 2009

Ft. Leonard Wood Battles Sexual Assaults

Ft. Leonard Wood Battles Sexual Assaults
January 31, 2011
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. -- Two days after she joined her military police unit, the 19-year-old private found herself drunk, sick and locked in a barracks bathroom where, she said, a soldier in her unit sexually assaulted her.
Less than three months before, on Christmas Day 2009, the same soldier used similar tactics to assault a 20-year-old woman new to the 988th Military Police Company, prosecutors alleged in a court-martial earlier this month.
Six years after the Pentagon committed to addressing sexual assault within the ranks, such cases remain a fixture in military courtrooms. Of 19 pending courts-martial at Fort Leonard Wood, eight involve sexual assaults by soldiers, most of them on other service members. In many cases, the circumstances are sadly familiar and often difficult to prosecute.
The victim and accused often know each other, and, in some cases, may have had a previous sexual relationship. Alcohol is usually involved.
read more here
Ft. Leonard Wood Battles Sexual Assaults

A Third of Military Women Surveyed Say They Suffer Sexual Harassment

Military women report harassment

A Third of Military Women Surveyed Say They Suffer Sexual Harassment

PAULINE JELINEK
AP News

Mar 14, 2008 14:33 EST

One-third of women in the military and 6 percent of men said they were sexually harassed, according to the latest Pentagon survey on the issue.


The figure for women was worse than the previous finding several years ago but better than a similar survey taken in 1995, the Defense Department said in a report Friday. The Defense Manpower Data Center said it compiled the data from a survey of 24,000 people in 2006.

A separate report on sexual assaults showed that fewer cases were reported among military personnel in 2007 after years of significant increases.

There were 2,688 sexual assaults reported last year by people in uniform, the figures showed. That was down about 9 percent from the 2,947 reported the year before.

Officials said some changes in the method of reporting data made it difficult to compare numbers year to year. In 2005, there were about 2,400 sexual assaults reported.
click post title for the rest

Women at War: When the enemy is one of your own

There is a quality within the foundation of their souls. It nags at them until they surrender their own desires to live a selfish life of only looking out for themselves to becoming part of something bigger, stronger, noble. They are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of others, compelled by what is within them to fulfill the need to be of service. Some say they only want to serve so they can go to college in order to dismiss this unique characteristic within all who enter the military. Surface reason may vary but at the core is this call to serve and they answer it.

When it comes to women in the military, some will want to dismiss them, saying they should not be in the military, they are only in support roles, they are of lesser value, anything and everything enters into the minds of some of the males who have little respect for women in general. These are also the males who not only attack them, but refuse to defend them.

Sexual assaults in the military are not new and have not been in the news enough. If we are ever going to stop the rapes and abuse in the military, it will require the decent males in the military to stand up and say those who commit these acts are traitors to the service. Women warriors should not have to worry about the enemy among them. Rape is a crime and those who commit it are criminals. Having a criminal in the ranks removes the trust and unit cohesion the military prides itself on. Gone are the days when women were in safe atmospheres far from danger. Gone are the days when they did not participate with males risking their lives.

While some refuse to acknowledge the contribution women have made to the defense of this nation, they have served with courage and honor since the Revolutionary war. If you want to know more of the history of women warriors, I suggest you watch my video The Voice, Women at War and see exactly what part of history you have forgotten as proof of their answering the call to serve.

These women are part of the military family and when a family does not hold members accountable for what they do, it destroys the family. The lowlifes who choose to view females as targets of sexual attacks need to be held accountable. They need to think about what they would do if their own sister was raped and assaulted because that is exactly what these women are. They are sisters among the brotherhood of warriors. They would not let someone get away with raping their own sister.

We cannot eliminate rapes in the military until worthy men of honor begin to honor their military sisters and treat them as they would their own blood sister. These men of honor watch over the women when danger arises from the enemy just as they do anyone else in their unit but they turn deaf, dumb and blind when the danger comes from within the unit itself. Once the honorable men stand up and turn in the perpetrator traitor then they can finally say they are honoring the code.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington




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Noonie Fortin1SG, USAR (Ret)Author and SpeakerResearcher and Consultant
http://www.nooniefortin.com/
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OCTOBER 3, 2008
Rate of Sexual Assault in Army Prompts an Effort at Prevention
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
WASHINGTON -- The Army is launching a new war against an old foe: the lingering problem of sexual violence within the military.

Ellen Waignwright
Ellen Wainwright, at right, in Iraq

Last month, 80 high-ranking generals gathered at a hotel in Alexandria, Va., for a mandatory, weeklong summit devoted to combating the crime. In a Sept. 22 essay in Army Times, Army Secretary Pete Geren and Gen. George Casey, the service's chief of staff, said it was "repugnant to everything a soldier stands for" and promised a "zero tolerance" policy for harassment or assault.

The approach comes in direct response to a batch of new Pentagon data indicating that 2.6 soldiers per 1,000 reported a sexual assault last year. In the Marine Corps and Navy, it was 1.1 per 1,000; in the Air Force, 1.6 per 1,000. The Army began tracking the numbers only in 2006, and officials say they don't have enough comparable data to determine whether the problem is getting worse over time.

Army leaders hope a major change in their strategy for combating these acts of violence can bring the numbers down. The service has long focused on dealing with the aftermath of an assault. Now it will try to prevent the crime from occurring in the first place.

The centerpiece of the new effort -- known as "I AM Strong," with the I AM standing for "intervene, act, motivate" -- is a call for soldiers to confront peers who are abusing alcohol or exhibiting other possible harbingers of an assault, such as making suggestive comments. The Army also wants soldiers to alert higher-ranking personnel if their colleagues' behavior doesn't improve.

"We're trying to change the culture," said Carolyn Collins, the program manager for the Army's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program. "We want soldiers to look for red flags and take steps to address them before they turn into something serious."

An August 2008 Government Accountability Report found that the military's efforts to combat sexual violence had been hampered by a lack of support from some senior commanders and by a shortage of qualified mental-health professionals.

The survey found that 103 service members at 14 military installations said they had been assaulted within the preceding 12 months. But only 51 of the victims reported the crime to the authorities, with the remainder worrying that coming forward would hurt their careers, according to the report.

"Most people keep quiet because they don't want to believe it happened to them or because they're scared of what will happen if they speak up," said Susan Avila-Smith, an Army veteran who runs Women Organizing Women, an advocacy group.

Ellen Wainwright, a former medic, says a higher-ranking enlisted soldier forced her into his room on a large U.S. base near Baghdad in early 2006 and raped her. Afterward, he warned her not to tell anyone. Ms. Wainwright kept quiet for two months and says he raped and sodomized her repeatedly before she finally chose to speak out.

In April 2006, she gave a sworn affidavit to agents from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command. She was sent back to the U.S. on emergency leave. A few days later, Army officials told her she was being involuntarily discharged for psychological reasons. Ms. Wainwright says it was retribution for speaking up.
go here for more
http://wsj.com/article/SB122298757937200069.html

Military Sexual Assault Amendment: 'It's The Least We Can Do'

We assume the DOD is serious about addressing sexual assaults and treating the perpetrators like criminals. That also means we assume the DOD thinks they are criminals. The problem is, they have not given any indication they believe it is a real crime.

We've been reading about these attacks from within for far too long to be able to pretend they are doing something about it now. How many more years does it take before the DOD stops protecting the criminals? Senators standing in the way of this have no acceptable excuse.

Kirsten Gillibrand On Military Sexual Assault Amendment: 'It's The Least We Can Do'
The Huffington Post
By Ashley Alman
Posted: 11/20/2013

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Wednesday failed to reach agreement on amendments to the military justice system, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-N.Y.) proposal to remove military sexual assault cases from the chain of command.

The Senate adjourned Wednesday evening after discussing amendments for more than five hours. Gillibrand, who has the public backing of 53 senators for her proposal, told MSNBC's Chris Hayes she is "still hopeful" that the Senate will vote when it reconvenes on Thursday. She argued that her proposal would benefit both victims and defendants in serious cases by protecting them from bias. She said the amendment will bring an "objective review, outside the military chain of command."

Gillibrand said the amendment would allow a justice system that members of the military deserve.
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Rape victims say military labels them 'crazy'

Rape victims say military labels them 'crazy'
By David S. Martin, CNN
April 14, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Women accuse military of using psychiatric diagnoses to oust sexual assault victims
"I couldn't trust my chain of command to ever back me up," says an alleged victim
3,191 military sexual assaults reported in '11: "Unacceptable," says defense secretary
Pentagon is assessing its training for sexual assault prevention and response

Editor's note: CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta will report further on allegations of sexual assault in the military Saturday and Sunday April 21 and 22 at 7:30 a.m. ET on "Sanjay Gupta MD" on CNN.

Stephanie Schroeder, Anna Moore, Jenny McClendon and Panayiota Bertzikis say they were raped and then discharged from the military.

(CNN) -- Stephanie Schroeder joined the U.S. Marine Corps not long after 9/11. She was a 21-year-old with an associate's degree when she reported for boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.

"I felt like it was the right thing to do," Schroeder recalls.

A year and a half later, the Marines diagnosed her with a personality disorder and deemed her psychologically unfit for the Corps.

Anna Moore enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and planned to make a career of it. Moore was a Patriot missile battery operator in Germany when she was diagnosed with a personality disorder and dismissed from the Army.

Jenny McClendon was serving as a sonar operator on a Navy destroyer when she received her personality disorder diagnosis.

These women joined different branches of the military but they share a common experience:
Each received the psychiatric diagnosis and military discharge after reporting a sexual assault.
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Violent Veterans, the Big Picture or not?

I usually like reading the Huffington Post, but not this time. This article is missing a lot. While it's easy to blame the "military culture" as usual, this time, there is a lot more to it than that.

Sexual assaults against women is a huge problem, partly because there are more women in the military than before but also there is the issue of the military lowing the standards to maintain troop levels. Not an easy task with two active military campaigns, one being Afghanistan since 2001 followed up by Iraq in 2003. They allowed gang members into the military. They allowed people with criminal backgrounds in, gave options of jail or combat, allowed in all kinds of people they never would have allowed in before. The draft caught a lot up as well during Vietnam but even back then, there were standards. The draft allowed for a much larger pool of men to pull into the military, so there could be a little bit more picky.

That's one problem. The other is PTSD. We talk a lot about self-medicating with drugs and alcohol but we avoid talking about what a flashback does or the paranoia that also comes with PTSD. During a flashback, they are not "in their right senses" because while they may be physically at a location, their doing a time travel back to someplace else. Every part of them is back there, where it happened, with their lives on the line, the smell filling their nostrils, the taste in their mouth, their hearts pumping on overload, their muscles just as tense and they are watching for the enemy. No matter who comes up on them at the wrong moment, they are in that moment the enemy. This can also happen in the middle of the night with a violent nightmare and a wife makes the mistake of trying to wake up her screaming husband within arms reach. This usually leads to a bloody nose or black eye, occasionally something worse. Avoidable violence if they know what is happening during a nightmare or flashback and know how to handle it with the least repercussions.

Sexual assaults, part of this is because the brass has yet to come to terms with it, even after all these years and treat it like a crime. That's exactly what it is but much like the Catholic church simply transferred the offenders, the military still repeats the same mistakes and sends the wrong message that rape is not that big of a deal to end a military career. When these cases do end up going to trail, women across the nation let out a great big cheer that someone is finally doing something to take all of this seriously.

One more thing with this is the attitude that women do not belong in the military, should not be in combat environments and are more of a problem than a help or a sister. This attitude is fed by the fact they take women with little combat training, because they are not supposed to be in combat, then put them into combat areas, expect them to know what they're doing, and end up forcing the men in their company to play knight in shining armor.

It's not that the women could not hold their own given the right training, it's that the military does not train them to go into combat roles, but puts them in it just the same.

How do I know this? Because two of my videos focused on women at war. Women At War and The Voice, Women At War, were responded to by a lot of negative comments from soldiers and veterans about the women being more of a problem than a help. During a conference of female veterans in St. Louis, I spoke to several female veterans and was informed the complaints were legitimate enough. The military says that women do not go into combat zones but we've all seen the pictures. Considering that Iraq, aside from the Green Zone, was all combat zones, it's pretty hard to keep females out of combat areas when they had to go on re-supplying missions and work in one area from another. This kind of issue causes a lot of bad attitudes. Compiled on top of this is the fact the women are so afraid of being attacked by the men in their own units, even in the heat of Iraqi summers, they will reduce their fluid intake during the day to avoid having to use the facilities at night. They are that terrified. This ends up causing them health problems because they dehydrate their bodies.

All in all, if you want to know what stress on steroids is, talk to some of them and you'll discover there are a lot of reasons lives fall apart after combat. If you want to know what it was like when Vietnam veterans came home with no help for PTSD, until they fought for it, go to any prison in the country or jail and you'll find at least a few of them. They were sent to jails because they were self-medicating, because of domestic violence charges caused by flashbacks and nightmares along with a multitude of other problems no one seemed to care about back then. Veterans courts are finally starting to spread across the nation but back then it was just veterans in court.

So, yes, problems are real in the military and in military families, but to paint the problems as is found in this article is not really fair at all. You can look at something without really knowing what you're seeing and just assume you're right. As for the studies listed in the article, I can't remember them or how many people were asked to participate in the studies but it could be a very small group, if my guess is right. I do however urge you to read it because it's good to understand the magnitude of the problems we all should be dealing with instead of just ignoring them.

(One more thought is when you read about killing and hurting themselves more than any other time in history, understand that after Vietnam and the wars before, no one really took a serious look at what when with what.)

Helen Benedict: Violent Veterans, the Big Picture
By webmaster@huffingtonpost.com

Iraq War veterans seem to be killing and hurting themselves and others more than the veterans of any other war in American history.

Only two weeks ago, the New York Times reported nine murders and a rising number of rapes and other violent crimes against women committed by Iraq war veterans at Fort Carson, Colorado. One veteran beat his girlfriend to death. Another raped and murdered a mentally challenged teenage girl.

Some say this rise in veteran violence only reflects the better reporting of crimes and is not a rise at all, but the statistics are too startling for that to be true. Suicide rates are the highest they have ever been in the Army. The number of attempted suicides and self-inflicted injuries among soldiers has jumped six-fold since the Iraq war began and is continuing to rise. The rates of sexual violence against women inside the military are the highest ever seen. Domestic violence among veterans has reached historic frequency. And post-traumatic stress disorder rates appear to be higher among Iraq War veterans than among those who have served in Afghanistan or even, many believe, in Vietnam. One of the symptoms of P.T.S.D. is uncontrollable violence.

Psychologists usually blame the violence committed by Iraq War veterans on the stress of multiple deployments, the loss of close friends and comrades to bombs and bullets, and the military tendency to punish rather than treat G.I.s who break down at war.

These factors certainly all contribute, but the reasons for veteran violence and suicide lie much deeper than these. They begin in the family backgrounds of the troops, and are exacerbated by the nature of military training, the misogyny in military culture, the type of war we are waging in Iraq, and the remorse, fury and self-loathing that comes from fighting a war one doesn't believe in. None of these factors tend to be much discussed in the press, but they add up to a recipe for veteran violence:

Take the fact that half of all Army soldiers and Marine recruits report having been physically abused as children, while half of the women and about one-sixth of the men report say they were sexually abused, according to two significant veteran studies published in 1996 and 2005 respectively. A lot of people are joining the military to escape violent homes; some bring that violence with them. Most people inside the military know this. Most outsiders don't. click link for more

Congress moves to protect military sex assault victims

Congress moves to protect sex assault victims
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 19, 2011 14:32:03 EDT
Efforts to strengthen protections for military victims of sexual assault are gaining ground in Congress.

The House Armed Services Committee adopted a series of new protections when it passed the 2012 defense authorization bill last week, and similar legislation was introduced Wednesday in the Senate by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., one of the cosponsors of the House sexual assault provisions, said introduction of a Senate bill “will help move this legislation closer to becoming law.”

The House and Senate initiatives are similar, drawn from recommendations of the 2009 final report of the Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services to fix flaws in the rights and legal protections for assault victims.

Supporters said one in three women leaving the military report experiencing sexual trauma while in the service, but less than 14 percent of sexual assaults in the military are reported to authorities, and only about 8 percent of reported sexual assaults in the military are prosecuted.
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Congress moves to protect sex assault victims

Sex Crimes By Soldiers Up 97 Percent In Five Years

When you read this keep in mind that there are more women serving in the military and that the military has been trying to get these crimes reported, or at least, that is what they have been saying for a long time. Those two factors have reports up but as this article points out, most still go unreported and the criminals get away with it. Sex crimes are committed by criminals and there should be a no tolerance policy. The vast majority of our armed forces serve with honor and dignity. That portion of the members of the military should make sure these criminals are charged and kicked out.

Womens Memorial

U.S. Army: Sex Crimes By Soldiers Up 97 Percent In Five Years

John Rudolf
1/20/12

Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, of the Air Force, and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta addressed the problem of sexual assaults in the military at a Pentagon press briefing this week.

Military leaders vowed this week to curb sexual assaults by and against U.S. soldiers after the release of a new report revealing that violent sex crimes committed by Army personnel nearly doubled since 2006. The majority of reported sex crimes occurred on U.S. soil, the Army said.

A U.S soldier committed a violent sex crime every six hours and 40 minutes in 2011, a rate far above that of the general population, the report found.

"This is unacceptable. We have zero tolerance for this," Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, said at a press conference Thursday. "Army leaders take sexual assault seriously."

Chiarelli said the Army was confronting the problem by stepping up surveillance of barracks and cracking down on drug and alcohol abuse, a key factor in sexual assault.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also addressed the issue of sexual abuse within the military this week, announcing that the Pentagon was creating a database to track offenders and would provide increased funding to train sex crime investigators.
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2,212 reports of military sexual assaults in 2007 alone

Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach said she was raped by a fellow Marine. A Marine has been charged in her death.

Attacker 'still comes after me in my dreams'
A lawmaker says she was shocked when told 4 in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military. "My jaw dropped," Rep. Jane Harman says. "We have an epidemic here." A government report indicates the numbers could be even higher. One woman today told a congressional panel: "I was raped while I slept." full story

Story Highlights
Official: "My jaw dropped" after women described rape, sex abuse in military

Hearing prompts allegations of "cover-up" after top Defense official doesn't show

Mom of slain pregnant soldier: Victim shouldn't have burden to "generate evidence"

Woman describes rape: "He still comes after me in my dreams"

In 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.

Defense statistics show that military commanders took unspecified action, which can include anything from punishment to dismissal, in an additional 419 cases.

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Veterans May Get More Help From Veterans Affairs

House backs bill to help vets who've suffered sexual assault
Associated Press
Posted: Monday, July 27, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans who suffered sexual assault or other sexual abuse while in uniform would get help more easily from the Department of Veterans Affairs under a bill approved Monday by the House.

The bill would allow a statement by a survivor of military sexual trauma to be considered sufficient proof that an assault occurred. The House approved the bill xxx--xx Monday night.

The bill is named after Ruth Moore, a former Navy sailor who was raped twice by a superior officer nearly three decades ago. Moore, of Milbridge, Maine, was awarded more than $400,000 in retroactive disability benefits last year after a decades-long battle with the VA.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, called it an important step to get the VA to make its benefits process easier and fairer for veterans like Moore who were sexually assaulted during their military service.

Since starting work on the issue five years ago, Pingree said she heard from "countless veterans who've struggled for years to get disability benefits for (post-traumatic stress disorder) and other conditions that stem from their assaults."

The Defense Department estimates that about 19,000 sexual assaults occurred in the military in 2010, but only 13.5 percent of those assaults were reported.
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Lonely Soldier examines sexual violence women at war face

Women at war face sexual violence

Over 206,000 US women have served in the Middle East since March 2003

In her new book, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, Helen Benedict examines the experience of female soldiers serving in the US military in Iraq and elsewhere.

Here, in an article adapted from her book, she outlines the threat of sexual violence that women face from their fellow soldiers while on the frontline, and provides testimony from three of the women she interviewed for her book.

More American women have fought and died in Iraq than in any war since World War II.

Over 206,000 have served in the Middle East since March 2003, most of them in Iraq. Some 600 have been wounded, and 104 have died.

Yet, even as their numbers increase, women soldiers are painfully alone.

In Iraq, women still only make up one in 10 troops, and because they are not evenly distributed, they often serve in a platoon with few other women or none at all.

This isolation, along with the military's traditional and deep-seated hostility towards women, can cause problems that many female soldiers find as hard to cope with as war itself - degradation and sexual persecution by their comrades, and loneliness instead of the camaraderie that every soldier depends on for comfort and survival.

Between 2006 and 2008, some 40 women who served in the Iraq War spoke to me of their experiences at war. Twenty-eight of them had been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped while serving.

They were not exceptions. According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% are sexually harassed.

The Department of Defense acknowledges the problem, estimating in its 2009 annual report on sexual assault (issued last month) that some 90% of military sexual assaults are never reported.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8005198.stm
linked from ICasualties.org