Guest Blog: Fighting For Justice
By Sarah L. Blum ARNP
Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland lead a group of powerful women colleagues on the Senate floor on November 19, 2013, each speaking passionately about the compelling national problem of military sexual assault. Fed up with the military’s lip service and having worked on the issue for 25 years, Mikulski told the case from her first year in the Senate when a young female navy midshipman from Annapolis was chained to a urinal and taunted for three hours. Mikulski’s message: the abuse must stop!
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, noted military leaders in 2004 were dismissive of the problem and had a completely inadequate response to sexual assault in their ranks. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said the character of the military is undermined by the plague of sexual assault and Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin pleaded for greater respect of those who choose the path of military service. She identified a military woman who reported sexual and was then interrogated for hours while nothing was done to her assailant.
As a nurse Vietnam Veteran I was not aware of the abuse culture in our military or how pervasive it was and is. I discovered that when I began to interview women who served in our military from WWII up to current and began to hear horrendous stories of abuse to them and worse, details of retaliation that lead to them being interrogated for days, shunned, isolated, ostracized and kicked out of the corps without benefits for having the audacity to report the assault thereby challenging the over riding culture that demeans and diminishes them. Women who do report their assault are treated as traitors to their units and to the corps. Commanders protect perpetrators and even promote them so they are in charge of the very women they assault. The abuse culture shows up in the chain of command when one commander has the power to investigate or not, prosecute or not and more likely than not chooses to protect the perpetrator, the image of the corps and their own career over and above the well being of the assaulted woman.
It is that issue of the over reaching power and authority of the commander that has been the subject of much dissention and debate in the senate but was not talked about when each of the eight women senators took to the floor on 11/19. Instead they spoke about the many reforms they all worked on in a bipartisan way which were to be included in the new National Defense Authorization Act. They labeled them “amazing reforms” that will increase rates of prosecution and protections for victims including making retaliation a criminal offense and providing legal counsel to victims who report military sexual assault.
When Senator Patty Murray took the floor she referred to the epidemic and how appalling it was that someone in the ranks who is supposed to have the back of those they serve with would attack them sexually and even more shocking was how prevalent those attacks were. One in five women seeking services at the VA report they were sexually assaulted during their active duty service. Senator Warren of MA mentioned the 20 reports provided over the years that have done nothing to change the culture of abuse and highlighted the staggering numbers which translate to 71 assaults per day if you are only counting the 26,000 and knowing that number is only about 20 percent of the actual numbers.
The military has failed to solve the problem in the decades that have passed and these senators, along with their male colleagues, have created reforms that will be come law when the National Defense Authorization Act is passed and the military will have to comply. The military has failed to protect their own from their own as they have condoned and tolerated their culture of abuse so the senate is taking steps to insure a cultural change with these reforms.
It is unclear what the House will do with all of that since they voted on the NDAA without those reforms. November 12-15, I personally visited with members of the senate and house armed services committee and was received with respect and openness with the exception of Adam Smith of WA and Susan Davis of CA, both of whom defended the military, the data, and listened poorly to what I had to say. I went purposely to share my work, Women Under Fire; Abuse in the Military, which details the culture of abuse toward women in the military and what I believe needs to be done about it. Many of the reforms in the senate version of the NDAA include some of what needs to be done, and more importantly Congress doing its oversight job will have the greatest impact.
Sarah L. Blum ARNP is a decorated nurse Vietnam Veteran, author of the book Women Under Fire: Abuse in the Military www.womenunderfire.net
