RAPE IN MILITARY Back in my hometown, when I was just a young little girl, there was a time that American movie culture approached us and caught many attentions to viewers. During that time, the genre that amazed and thrilled me the most was those movies about war, for which my admiration to military women was later developed through such great movies like Pearl Harbor or Cadet Kelly. For the first time in my life, I realized how honored, brave and independent a woman can be, and most importantly, how there was still a place in the World where women were respected and appreciated. I was indeed grateful for that. However, having grown up and experienced with several cultures, I started to discover the dark sides of every society, in which the unfair treatment to women still happens in family, at work place, or even on the streets. My belief from childhood about an existing fairness for women has collapsed immediately after I figured out a dirty truth behind the most disciplined, governmentally institutional family called the U.S military. An analysis of military women who was raped during their serving reveals an increasing number of victims from last several years, which somehow has turned into an issue called “military rape culture”, while emphasizes the extravagant neglect of the authorities when it comes to let the cat out of the bag.
My fellow women, have you ever gotten into a situation when you had to gather all your courage to choose the very rough path but eventually it turns out to be a dead-end? I think it happens a lot to those women who at first had been either delighted or miserable, honored or hesitating, dedicated or burdensome, to join the army, to be a part of U.S. Navy or Marine. However, despite all the respectful and admiring look from other people to you putting on the military jacket, is the life of a woman in military as grateful as it seems to be? Training, danger, discrimination or mistreatment, what else is there to make a woman more devastating? Periods to periods, sadness to indignation, some former military women and women in military today have done their best to pull up the curtain that the government and authority tried to cover the nasty behaviors coming from their men soldiers. Women are raped, then forced to keep silence or diagnosed with a personality disorder and get kicked out of military without any pension. It is such a shame to know that an enormous system like U.S. Military has been suppressing this kind of “epidemic” for such a long time. Even the Pentagon, where they keep all the data of the victims and rape reports happening within every fiscal year, does its job very well in preventing this dirty little secret from being public. According to “Rape in the US military: America's dirty little secret” by Lucy Broadbent, Pentagon’s most recent data estimates a number of 3,192 reported sexual harassment in 2011, which is 1 percent greater compared to the year of 2010 report’s 3,158 sexual crimes. It is also recorded that in 2010, only 529 cases went up to trial, and such 104 of them were sentenced, which was a really small fraction of what happened in reality. However, sexual assault is not something comfortably for women in military to share and uncover it with straightforward attitude. In fact, in 2010, Department of Defense (DoD) investigated that only 13.5 percent of the total number of assaults (around 24,000 in military) that were reported, which means there was a vast number of 19,000 cases remaining silence (data mentioned from “The Rape of Our Military Women” by Kelley B. Vlahos). Putting these numbers in a more precise analysis, while there is approximately a total number of 150,000 women that are enlisted in the U.S. Army each year, it is estimated that every one in three military women would be sexually assaulted (Broadbent). This ratio is very intense because the rate of rape happened to civilians is only one in six, emphasizing how frequently this abusive crime occurs in military. Indeed, this issue is continually widespread that undoubtedly becomes a serious military sexual trauma to almost every women during their active service. It, invisibly and quickly, turns into a culture since U.S. military maintains this issue and helps its growing among the men soldiers, allowing them to satisfy their needs by abusing their fellow soldiers. We cannot help but wonder how long the military women have been treated like that, and also in what circumstances that made these poor women to stay weak and useless while enduring all the notoriously dirty behavior of their commanders for such a long time. Military, from the perception of normal people, is a place where people have to take deadly long-term training in order to become neat, brave and equitable soldiers who will be able to protect their country’s sky and border. On the other hand, in the eyes of people who have limits in financing options, military is a heaven door for those young people in need of finding sponsor for their college’s debt, or for those people, whose ability is not good enough to fulfill their own dreams, choose to become soldiers instead. Joining military is definitely not an easy decision to be made in just one or two days. Especially, for women who are occasionally weak and sensitive in term of emotion and health, military can be a dangerous environment since abuse and discrimination are likely to happen where males are dominant. Not only one but many former military women have stood up to tell their stories about how badly the U.S. military repays them. Surprisingly, the unfairness do not stop at how these women were raped, yet it has gotten worse when the unit commanders and authorities cruelly ignore and try to conceal the guilt by accusing the innocent victims. In “Rape in the US military: America's dirty little secret” by Lucy Broadbent, there is a well sarcastic saying by a soldier which states that “A female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.” This statement has pictured precisely the brutality, violence and mistreatment occurring regularly inside the U.S. Army. According to “The Rape of Our Military Women” of Kelley Vlahos, former Marine Stephanie Schroeder and Jenny McClendon were both attacked and raped by their fellow soldiers. After complaining to the command, they were either forced to transfer or diagnosed to have personality disorder and later got discharged from the crew with bad credit on their profiles. In fact, to a soldier, having a diagnosis of personality or adjustment disorder could be a dead-end to their life in future since these records will lower their chance to get employed to any companies while also restrain them from receiving many benefits including healthcare and the disability compensation that they are supposed to have. Moreover, some cases are even worse as these women might be raped or harassed few more times no longer before their superior removed their titles. Such as another story of a girl named Weber who was raped at the age of sixteenth, she recalls that after the incident, Weber tried to report the rape to her male and female sergeants, but rejection and curse were all she received. They only told Weber not to tell anyone, and her fellow soldiers, for some reason, started to isolate and call her a bitch for accusing that male soldier as a rapist (Broadbent). Surprisingly, Weber is not the only one experiencing this. This is more likely an inhuman process that any victims might have to go through if they wish for a relevant penalization to these rapists. Eventually, military women who have suffered from the sexual assault lack their confidence of coming forward to public because they know that they are the only ones who will take all the blame, and the real culprits will just keep themselves sweeping under the rug. Sadly, some of the victims come to acknowledge that it would be better for them to keep silence since they can stay in the unit until their retirement coming in order to be qualified for pension or any health care service. Living in fear and having to face their “fellow” enemies everyday, some women, because of unable to tell the truth, hold this secret for nearly ten years and get into smoking, drug or obesity to forget about what happened to them. Putting altogether, rape is genuinely brutal, but when it happens in military, the consequences are catastrophic. While perpetrators are backed up, victims have to suffer from severe and chronic physical and emotional health effects such as depression, phobia, and even abortion that haunt them everyday. Thus, where does the women’s right exist here? Unfortunately, there is nothing like that inside the army. Apparently, the number of unreported cases that has given above may present only fifty percent of the real amount of victims. Many investigators also believe this issue happens a lot more than we expect because the actual statistic of women that have been kicked out of service with personality disorders is still a big question which has never been answered by the Pentagon. The Department of Defense reluctantly explains that they did not keep track of any cases regarding to sexual harassment from 2001 to 2010 (“The Rape of Our Military Women” by Kelley B. Vlahos). In twentieth century, even though the women comprise nearly half of the labor force, violence or sexual assaults towards women still exist. Instead of being restricted, it still roots to every workplace that gradually turns into a protective shell for these crimes to occur. However, despite the fact that rape is so widespread and universal, people could not hold their surprise to know that this problem is commonplace in military. Undeniably, the risk of sexual assaults for women who work in male-dominated occupations always stays in high alert. Especially, in the army where males are the majority and superior, women are more easily to get attacked and discriminated, which is more confirmed by a statement of Anu Bhagwati, who is an executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), saying that “In a system that is entirely built on rank and intimidation, it is no wonder that survivors do not come forward more often about the most brutal and horrifying experience of their lives.” (Vlahos) Additionally, we need to mention about the environment and gender factors, in which the matter of fact that military is full of young men can lead to some uncontrollable behavior to satisfy their needs. In my opinion, U.S. Military is an enormous system that not only represents a country of freedom, but also is a place where equality, respect and discipline could be found. Thus it is astounding to know that todays, rape and abuse happen usually within its borders, which makes every woman joining the army called the “comfort women”. What is the point of creating an army to protect other people while you try to sacrifice your own people’s lives? U.S. Government, the administrative organization that creates regulation, develops education and affects people’s life the most, is the one to blame. When the authority was in need of people for Iraq invasion, women were there to volunteer. Regardless of the significantly moderate contribution of military women compared to a large proportion of males in the army, their strong spirit and attitude should be appreciated. Rape happens to all races, genders and sexualities, but for these women, spending their lives in the military is difficult enough that they do not have to endure all these kinds of painful mistreatment. U.S Government should consider a way to solve this problem if they still need the women to serve in military without fear of being harmed, shamed or accused for any violation that they do not make. Trying to admit its mistake and expose all the information to the public is the first start for U.S. Government to recover the honor of all victims. From that, citizens can take this issue seriously and objectively educate themselves that this world is full of unfairness and the only way to make everything better is raising individual’s awareness and dignity. Moreover, in term of correction and improvement, U.S. Government should encourage its lawmakers to create a policy that seriously punish any perpetrators despite of what rank these soldiers stand in military. Other than that, healthcare, psychological therapy or any pension available has to offer to the victims as compensation. Not only conducting the academies to unit commanders, there should be also commendation and reward for those superior officer or sergeant to encourage when they do a good job in helping the military women prove their innocence. Therefore, with the threat from North Korea and the Middle East intervention nowadays, if the government still needs the cooperation of millions of females, it must be laudable for them to be realistic to soften this inner war before sending them out to another battlefield. In conclusion, without any prevention, the number of sexual assaults in the military keeps increasing that there were around 19,000 unreported cases happening in 2010. An exact number of cases from 2011 to 2012 remains unknown but expects to be double more, which sets an alert to the advocates about how this issue can actually turn into an epidemic while there is no cure given by the authorities. Military women are the most brave, honest and unyielding people who should be protected by the system into which their efforts are contributed. It is heartbroken to know that joining the army was in first an honor to those women because they can help protecting their country, and also a great opportunity for them to be able to study and get a job since they cannot afford by themselves. Therefore, U.S. Government, indeed, owes these women a lot that it should encouragingly do the justice and bring this unfairness to light. Hopefully, in the future, we can read the news about a powerful action of government on an effort of reducing this “rape culture” has been taken place, thus no stories of disappointing indictment will be told.

Works Cited
Broadbent, Lucy. Rape in the US military: America's dirty little secret. 9 Dec 2011. 5 Dec 2012 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military>.
Vlahos, Kelley B. The Rape of Our Military Women. 15 May 2012. 5 Dec 2012 <http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/05/14/the-rape-of-our-military-women/>.