Washington Post: Hidden face of a military problem
Protect Our Defenders Advocacy Committee member Brian Lewis is featured in a piece by columnist Ruth Marcus:
Lewis’ experience sounds both recognizable and unfamiliar. His description of a system that ignored claims and blamed victims is sadly common. Military commanders assert that times have changed; Lewis begs to differ.
“We’ve heard the same tired refrain of zero tolerance” for years, he said. Commanders, arguing against proposals such as that by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to take such cases out of the chain of command, insist it would compromise their authority. Still, Lewis notes, “26,000 victims per year is not good military order and discipline.”
But his is also the hidden face of the problem of sexual assault in the military. Women are more likely than men to be the victims in such cases. But in sheer numbers, more military men than women are targets of assault, mostly by other men.
