Sexual assault in military 'prompts allegations of cover-up' top official is no show! 

july 2008

• Hearing prompts allegations of "cover-up" after top Defense official doesn't show
  
  Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, spoke before a House panel investigating the way the military handles reports of sexual assault.

She said she recently visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area, where women told her horror stories of being raped in the military.

"My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military," said Harman, who has long sought better protection of women in the military.

"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.

"We have an epidemic here," HARMAN said. "Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

As of July 24, 100 women had died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

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.

But when it came time for the MILITARY  to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon's top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.

"I don't know what you're trying to cover up here, but we're not going to allow it," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said to the Defense official who relayed the news of Whitley's no-show. "This is unacceptable."

Rep. John Tierney, the panel's chairman and a Democrat from Massachusetts, angrily responded, "these actions by the Defense Department are inexplicable."

"The Defense Department appears to be willfully and blatantly advising Dr. Whitley not to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena," Tierney said.

An Army official who did testify said the Army takes allegations of sexual abuse extremely seriously.

"Even one sexual assault violates the very essence of what it means to be a soldier, and it's a betrayal of the Army's core values," Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle said.

The committee also heard from Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a 20-year-old pregnant Marine who was killed in December, allegedly by a fellow Marine.

Mary Lauterbach said her daughter filed a rape claim with the military against Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean seven months before he was accused of killing her.

"I believe that Maria would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect the victims of sexual assault," she said.

In the months after her daughter filed the rape claim, she said, the military didn't seem to take her seriously, and the onus was on "Maria to connect the dots."

"The victim should not have the burden to generate evidence for the command," Lauterbach told the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. "Maria is dead, but there will be many more victims in the future, I promise you. I'm here to ask you to do what you can to help change how the military treats victims of crime and to ensure the victims receive the support and protection they need and they deserve."

Another woman, Ingrid Torres, described being raped on a U.S. base in Korea when she worked with the American Red Cross.

"I was raped while I slept," she said.

The man who assaulted her, she said, was a flight director who was found guilty and dismissed from the Air Force.

Fighting back tears, Torres added, "he still comes after me in my dreams."

The Government Accountability Office released preliminary results from an investigation into sexual assaults in the military and the Coast Guard. The GAO found that the "occurrences of sexual assault may be exceeding the rates being reported."

"At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 service members indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 service members indicated that they did not report the sexual assault," the GAO said.

The office found that the military and Coast Guard have established policies to address sexual assault but that the implementation of the programs is hampered by an array of factors, including that "most, but not all, commanders support the programs."

"Left unchecked, these challenges can discourage or prevent some service members from using the programs when needed," the GAO said.

Tierney said, "what's at stake here goes to the very core of the values of the military and the nation itself.

"When our sons and daughters put their lives on the line to defend the rest of us, the last thing they should fear is being attacked by one of our own

It way past time jaws drop from the rapes and torture of our women in the military! That is what we are speaking out about on our site.

WOMEN NEED A NEW SERVICE ORGANIZATION THAT WILL REPRESENT THEM WITH 1,712,117 VETERANS AND 20% OF OUR ARMED FORCES (and growing)

The American Veteran's Committee after WWII, questioned whether they needed a "new" Organization.The American Veteran's committee started as a loosely organized correspondence group of men still in the service during World War II. They were disillusioned with the older more powerful American legion. They were questioning. They knew the things they fought for--"peace, jobs, and freedom had to be won by sticking together."

When they came home they felt "lost and alone" like so many have since. The old members said, "We vets have got to stick together." Yet when those veterans came home, the older veterans told them they knew the ropes and didn't let them have a say in their organization. The newer vet would leave never to return to a meeting. The American Legion in those days "didn't fight for rehabilitation," according to the WWII vets. "It represented the prosperous, more well to do." THE AMERICAN LEGION DOESN'T REPRESENT MST! The DAV doesn't represent MST! The Vietnam veterans represents PTSD for all  but only Vietnam veterans can join. NO SERVICE ORGANIZATION EXCLUSIVELY REPRESENTS ALL THE NEEDS OF WOMEN ESPECIALLY IN THE AREA OF CLAIMS WITH MST

The men of WWII said their war was "a longer war, a tougher war, a war in which men died of newer and more dreadful methods. On the basis of comradeship and shared experience, they wanted a new organization.

Moreover, our war was different," they said."We had an uncertain world to live in. It took Pearl Harbor...and a letter from the draft board to get us into uniform." They didn't believe in propaganda or someones good words that meant nothing. They only listened to action. They fought for "survival, to win, and maybe to come home and have something better afterwords."They wanted the wasted years to mean something." They didn't feel that the country owed them a living, yet they did feel they should have been returned to the status they were had they not gone to war.  VA cheated many of these men out of pensions in the same way they do today through repeated trips to far away hospitals to keep appointments and threats at discontinuing their claims..

For many women who were raped or sexually assaulted in the military, we can never be returned to the status we were had we not gone to the military. Many of us suffer from PTSD delayed onset because there were no laws in place, nor no means available to report our rapes. often we would have been forced to report to the very perpetrators, or if we did report, we were revictimized by those we sought protection from.

DAV and OTHER ORGANIZATIONS SHOULD NOT GET FREE RENT IN VA FACILITIES WHEN THEY DO NOT REPRESENT OUR INTERESTS BEFORE CONGRESS, THEY HAVE BECOME SELF SERVING AND IMBEDDED WITH VA.THE VA AIMS TO KEEP US OUT OF THE SYSTEM WITH MST CLAIMS

We have watched this tragedy repeat itself over and over in peacetime service, the Gulf War, and now the Iraq war. We returned to find service organizations  especially  THE DAV,   still treating us as other than full veterans, not advocating for our causes. We deserve more! We aren't half veteran or auxilliary veterans. We are veterans too! FOR MANY OF US WHAT WAS TAKEN FROM US WAS WORSE THAN MISSING BODY PARTS! TO HAVE THAT LOSS MINIMIZED BY DAV IS ADDING INSULT TO OUR INJURIES. They delay our claims and are unfamiliar and wilfully ignorant of our needs claiming it is not their area, yet they take our claims and keep them diverted in the lower level for years while others claims get through.

The House Committee of Veterans Affairs was authorized in 1946 by Public Law. There are now 22 standing committees with 30 members that vary from time to time. Many of these who serve on this committee have never seen service. Others saw service from advantage.  THE NEW CONGRESS SO FAR HAS NOT DONE BETTER?   The advisory committee on programs for VA IS A CHANGING JOKE! 

The question for today is some women vets need more, we deserve better, than what we got for our service. Many vets want wasted years to mean something, to be restored to the status they were before they went to the Armed forces. Many of us know that will never happen. we can never, ever be restored.

What am I saying? What am I talking about?

Many of us walked down hallways hoping to find help, kindness, only to get more of the same heartache and disappointment we faced seeking help then.  We deserve more!  We served honorably too!  We are America's women veterans. In todays services do we need a different organization? do we need a different service organization or organizations that serve women's needs?

WITHOUT US THE DRAFT WOULD BE REINSTATED!

WE are a significant amount of todays service members, no longer"auxillaries." WE ARE TIRED OF WAITING 8-10 YEARS WHILE  OTHERS GET PRIORITY. ALL VETS SHOULD GET PRIORIty