Sexual Assault in the Military

Hey Matt,

Thanks for your post on this.  I think you've made a lot of good points.

I think your suggestion of having separate barracks and check-in/sign-ins would be helpful.  When I was at the Academy we (women) weren't even supposed to lock our doors.  Waking up with drunk guys on your bed, makes you break that rule pretty damn fast, but then you have the ones who will just go through the ceiling:/ A lot of bad stuff happens after people have been drinking.

Immediately prior to the start of my sophomore year at USNA (93), the Commandant met with all of the women midshipmen, just over 400 of us. He passed out index card to the group and then very carefully defined sexual harassment and sexual assault. He then asked the following four questions and asked us to respond on our index cards with yes or no answers:


1) Do you know anyone who has been sexually harassed while at the Naval Academy?
2) Do you know anyone who has been sexually assaulted while at the Naval Academy?
3) Have you ever been sexually harassed while at the Naval Academy?
4) Have you ever been sexually assaulted while at the Naval Academy?


He then had the cards collected, shuffled, and redistributed to the women. He reasked each of the questions and asked us to stand if we had a “yes” answer on the card we had in our hand.


1) Do you know anyone who has been sexually harassed while at the Naval Academy?
Every woman stood up.


2) Do you know anyone who has been sexually assaulted while at the Naval Academy?
Over 75% of the women stood up.


3) Have you ever been sexually harassed while at the Naval Academy?
Over 95% of the women stood up. (I still wonder who the hell those 5% were, lol)


4) Have you ever been sexually assaulted while at the Naval Academy?
Approximately ¼ of the women stood up.


He then made a very persuasive argument that he had only had a handful of sexual harassment cases brought forward, and only one assault case. He stressed that the problems can’t be addressed if we, the women, weren’t willing to report them. It was one of the most inspirational things I heard while I was there.

Everyday I was at the Academy I had some for of sexual harassment.  Every. Single. Day.  I had some form of "assault" (as defined by the military), on average, once every two weeks.  I was no anomaly.   Women who say they haven't been harassed or assaulted in the military say that because they don't want it to impact their careers. I put up with a lot of chit, but ended up leaving after a particularly bad sexual assault by an officer/coach.  After pressing charges, NIS interviewed over 400 people and found that he had assaulted three other young women, none of whom were willing to come forward.  I left the Academy four months after filing.

I’m sure things have changed somewhat over the last 20 years, and this is just a snapshot of a service academy, but I think these issues have to at least be a part of the equation when politicians and top brass think about men and women working together, especially in close quarters and now in combat situations, and the latest push for women in tip of the spear ops.

Well, dang, now I'm really curious.

So this thread has 73 views, but only two posts. What's up? 

I can't believe that this subject is too controversial--you all don't seems to shy away from stuff like that.  Is it that it's just a subject that's been beaten to death?  Ho-hum? Is it that there are no good answers? We have quite a few people on the forum who are in, or have been in, the military.  What have your experiences been?

I don't want to stir up controversy for controversy's sake, I'm just a little surprised there aren't more opinions on the subject. 

Any of you who have viewed but not posted want to shed a little light?

 I'm sorry for what you had to go through Switch. It is sad that you had to change your plans because someone could not, or chose not to, control themselves. 

I am also glad to see you seem to be a very strong woman and did not let this assault dictate who you became. 

As far as the military in general, I really believe in our military, appreciate what they do for my country and support them. 

I hate to hear this situation. Abuse and harassment is never OK.  Awareness & education are steps in the right direction for sure. I believe our military is full of honorable leaders, hopefully they will make this issue a priority. 

The new forum format has kept me away for the most part.  I usually only stick my nose in, stir things up and then punch out.   The new format makes it a little more challenging so I haven't been on as much. 

My first comment is about Switch.  USNA??  OK, that explains a lot.  haha, just kidding.  I dealt with academy guys all the time in the Navy and they were always an interesting bunch.    (btw, I desperately tried to get into the Academy before I enlisted)

I was in the Navy from 91 - 97 but I was fairly sheltered from the male/female interaction back then.  All male bootcamp, all male "A" school, all male "C" school, all male ship.
I will say that having a high concentration of men seemed to degrade behavior quite a bit.  There were nudie pictures hanging all over the ship and just about every drawer in any workspace was full of porno mags.  Even in the berthing area it wasn't uncommon to have both TV's going with porn.  Combine all that with being underway for 30 days+ and a lot of money to spend and it's easy to see where some of the Sailor stereotypes come from. 

Obviously Sailors on my ship went to other integrated ships after I got out, so I always wonder how they dealt with the women.  I know I was exposed to a virtual university of how to think of and treat women improperly during early adulthood (17-23), so it would be hard for me to believe that my shipmates would just turn it all off because there were women around.  It took me many years to de-program from all this exposure and it's one of the reasons I work with people struggling with sexual addictions now.

So, I honestly don't know what the military is like now, but I do see how there could be a higher percentage of sexual assaults in the Military versus the civilian world based on my own experience but I don't really know.

**edit

btw Switch, I was just ribbing you about going to the USNA.  After re-reading your post and mine the comment seems a bit insensitive based on how/why you ultimately left.  So, please accept my apologies if it comes across that way.

It really sucks that you had to leave the Academy and why.  The story you tell seems to be right in line with my experiences from the male population in the Navy.

Kido: thanks for your post. It should have dawned on me that this has already been covered in depth in COJ.  Duh.  I totally understand not wanting to beat your head against this wall :)

Meljoypip: Thanks for your kind words.  It truly sucked at the time.  I was immediately ostracized by everyone I was close to.  I still feel like it was the right thing to do, and if I hadn't done pressed charges, he would have continued to have access to young women and abuse his power over them.  I feel very fortunate that I had other good options.  Lots of women don't feel like they do.  I also am very grateful for our military, and the men and women who serve in it:)

Jlruhnke: I haven't seen "The Invisible War" yet, but I need to.  It's hard for me to imagine something working that is mandated from the outside.  In my very limited experience with the military, those things pushed from the outside are worked around and seen as hurdles rather than taken on with true commitment.  But, as you said, there just may not be another option.

Tony: I know what you mean about USNA grads--there are good ones though! (I didn't like many of the Naval officers I met, but I liked almost all of the Marines I met, officers and enlisted.)  I don't know how many of you ever hang out in the LR, but "Slowguy" is a USNA grad '97 and he is a very good egg.  He often has good insight on these issues.

Your viewpoint is very interesting, and '91-'97 seems to have been a very pivotal time in the Navy.  The prevalence of porn was always kind of amazing to me.  I'm no prude, but it was everywhere and very common in work areas.  One of my classmates (close friend) got hospitalized during plebe year, and our CO visited him in the hospital and took him some porn.  WTH?  This is the same officer who later that week did our company sexual harassment training.  Complete disconnect.

As part of my leaving the Academy I agreed to be "quiet" about what had happened on the condition that the coach would be fired and not have access to female midshipmen again.  Two days after I left, they rehired him.  It took hiring a hardball lawyer to call and tell them that we were prepared to go to 60 minutes, NYT, Washington Post, to get him permanently fired. 

That was the culture.  I really hope things have changed.  I really liked many aspects of being in the military, but I could not commit to a future plagued with those kinds of problems.

That's just it CD, I don't think those commanders exist. In my 8 years, 4 fleet units, and 7 Battalion Commanders, anytime a troop brought a formal accusation of anything, the CO immediately appointed an investigating officer and had CID do a side investigation. In fact, my First Sergeant did sexually harass a female troop and one of the male troops who was present brought charges. They were dismissed because the female troop stepped up and said "it was a joke, the first sergeant apologized immediately, forget about it." I was investigated once for chewing a kid out whose excuse for not being deploy able was that his wife couldn't speak English even though she'd lived in the US for 2 years. I told him to stop speaking Spanish in the home, block Univision and Galavision and watch only English programming and to get her into an ESL class. When the IO came calling, I explained that I learned Spanish and German that way in 6 weeks and it was not me being racist it was actual advice.

To Switch's point though, it is up to your daughters (and sons by the way) to show some courage to report stuff that happens whether it was them or someone talking about it. They need to stop the little stuff so the jerks out there don't keep going to the big stuff.

As for the "women in combat" this isn't the issue. Women in garrison is the issue with rape. I would venture to say that fewer than 1% of assaults could have even happened in a combat outpost because the lieutenant and SNCOs share living areas with the troops out there.

LB, this is a subject I am more than happy to address, though it might very well open up a huge can o' worms:) 

For those of you who haven't seen it, please try to carve out 15 minutes and watch this video of General Barrow.  He knocks it out of the park with the best speech I have ever heard in my life. 

The short version of my opinion is men and women are different.  We have different strengths and weaknesses.  Putting women in combat roles--and by this I mean combat arms, front line units, and freakin infantry (the semantics and terms can muddy this issue)--is, IMHO, a very bad idea. 

I have not met a lot of women who are stronger than me, and I know that I could not handle what the men in these units handle. I did three weeks of training, just training, with the Marines in Quantico with a 70lb pack (which, for those of you who don't know, is much lighter than an infantry pack + extras like radios equipment etc), and I was sleeping in a bed a good 6 hours a night most nights and I was beat.  Again, I was one of the top performing females in my class, and I didn't measure up to the most average dudes. 

If they want to allow women into these positions they cannot change the qualifications one iota.  They can not alter them. They cannot make women specific standards.  None of that chit.  Otherwise they are compromising everyone. Even then, even those few women who could make it through the training required and the standards as they exist, those women will still be in a war zone with a bunch of men.

Sexual assault rates are already unacceptably high and now we're going to put women in male dominated units in war zones who are under incredible amounts of stress and part of their training is to become desensitized to humanness? No, I don't think that is a good idea.  These soldiers are filling the VAs with PTSD.  How putting women into that equation is going to help anyone is not something I understand.

While I can, on the one hand, understand why some women would want to be in these roles, I think they are delusional (get a few whiskeys in me and I use more colorful terms).  Furthermore, I think the ones who are pressing for this change are not really thinking about what is best for their team.  When a woman fails in these roles, her male counterparts have to pick up her slack,  This doesn't do anybody any good.  It compromises everyone's safety and readiness.  LB, I could go on and on about his particular issue; it is really a hot-button for me.  Again, I think women are AWESOME and have a lot to offer this country by serving in the military, but I think to patently ignore the physiological limitations of women in an effort to try to achieve an unachievable standard of equality is a lose-lose proposition. 

Apologies for the novel;)

Excellent post and thanks for sharing your thoughts.  I'd say my opinion is very similar to yours.  There's no question that women are awesome and some or even many would be able to meet the qualifications.

In the Navy combat roles are obviously a lot less physically demanding but there are still unique things with having women in combat roles there too.  For example, I was a Fire Controlman and we had three people on my ship that were qualified to man the main weapons console to fight the ship.  It was designed that way so during a deployment we would rotate in three 6 hour shifts.  So 6 hours on 12 hours off.  It worked out pretty well.
My rating was a combat role so it wasn't open for women until 1993.  Shortly after, women FC's started showing up on the coed combatant ships and I had a buddy of mine from school who was on one of them.  They had a similar staffing level of 3 people with one of them being the new girl.  They did 18 months of work ups and training for deployment and about 4 weeks before they left the woman got pregnant.  Navy policy was to not allow pregnant women to deploy so she was transferred to shore duty the day before they deployed.  The staff went from three down to two and my buddy was forced to do port and starboard shifts for 6 months straight.  For the non Navy types that's 6 hours in a chair, 6 hours off, 6 hours in a chair, 6 hours off 24/7 for 6 months straight.  Oh, if you had to go to the bathroom you had to have somebody wake up the other guy to stand by for you while you took a dump.  I had to do this for about 30 days once and it was miserable.
When they got back from deployment the girl was still on limited duty and got out of all the physical labor type work that the combat system types get to do in the yard period following a deployment as well.  So, fast forward 18 months later for the next deployment and guess what happens?  Yup, she got pregnant again...   Lets just say she wasn't the most popular member of the team and my buddy was not a happy camper.

My anecdote above obviously has nothing to do with sexual assaults in the Military, and is more related to women in combat roles so I'm sorry about the sidetrack. 

As to the lack of replies ...

Rollover to new site

Vast majority (Northern Hemisphere) back into training and starting to race (less time debating on BT, happens every year)

Similar issues got debated ad nauseam with a fair bit of mod intervention needed because some posters weren't playing nicely with others (aforementioned Peter Sagan thread, Women in Combat thread ... very cool because several of the female combat veterans chimed in, not so cool because several people forgot basic politeness)

Thanks Mark.  It is a small world:)

Class of '94 had its own set of issues, right? EE;)

I like hearing stories like the one about how that 2nd class handled hearing about that plebe's harassment. I heard about stuff like that happening, but didn't ever see anything like that personally. I think it did tend to vary quite a bit by company.  I know there are a lot of guys who absolutely do the right thing when they need to.  I think over time, there are more and more guys like that--guys who are actively doing the right thing and being leaders. Over time I think the ones who are a little more malleable (and I was often surprised how malleable many of the midshipmen were, part survival mechanism I suppose--as you said everyone does learn early to not stand out) will hopefully be influenced by this positive role modelling and will then choose to do the right thing if they are ever in that position. 

Thanks again for posting about your experience.  It's always nice to hear the good stories:)

Thanks for this post.  I need to go back and educate myself on the COJ history w/ this these topics.  I totally understand why people don't want to rehash them, but I am very curious about what's been posted, especially from the female combat veterans.  Again, thanks for the heads up.

I think she felt able to speak up because that 2nd class was really crystal clear that yes, he was hard on us in training, but for serious sh1t, he'd always go to bat for us.  With him, I have no doubt it would've been handled properly regardless of who was accusing / accused.

But it's easier to jump to someone's defense when the problem is on the outside - like a custodian in this case.  When someone accuses your friend, your roommate or anyone you know, the first reaction is disbelief.  That can be overcome but it takes professionalism and training to handle those situations properly.

Edit: side note, the 2nd class in question ended up going Marine Corps, and our company officer was also a Marine.  I'm confident the environment in my company was not a coincidence.

Edit 2: when I mentioned my classmate being sexually harassed, the actual incident would probably be considered sexual assault by the Navy's definition, and as I remember it.

That is very, very interesting.  Did you go Marine Corps too?

I completely agree on the inside/outside thing.  The guy I pressed charges against was an Academy grad, LtCdr, coach, professor, and Olympian.  His guys worshiped him.  Hell, I worshiped him.  That's part of why it sucked. 

I think for a lot of people it's difficult to understand how big a role the power dynamic plays in harassment/assault in the military.  In my particular situation I was at first so flattered to be receiving praise for my performance from someone who I respected so much.  That was part of the slippery slope that was very difficult for me to recognize when it was going down, and then when it was obviously way wrong and way inappropriate I was just sick and shocked.  Anyway, that's all just to say that when it is on the outside and rank/respect is not involved, I do think it's much easier to see and draw clear lines.