You Will Anyway: Respect our military, dammit

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Respect our military, dammit

Young women troops at training bases and sailors assigned to ships faced the highest risk of sexual assault in the military, according a report released Friday by the Pentagon.

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"A large proportion of all sexual assaults occur at a relatively few large installations for each of the services," according to the report. "The Army and Marine Corps, for instance, each have installations where we estimate there were more than 500 sexual assaults of women and men in 2014."

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At the Navy's highest-risk installation for women, Naval Support Activity Charleston, RAND researchers found that women there faced a 17.1 percent risk of sexual assault in 2014. "That is, our model estimates that more than one in six women assigned to duty at that installation were sexually assaulted in FY 2014." The RAND report found that "ships dominate the highest-risk installations. Of the 15 highest-risk installations for Navy women, 13 are ships or clusters of ships, including eight of the ten aircraft carriers."

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[T]he report found commonalities among victims, and where they are assigned by the military, that continue today. For example, the factors that put victims at high risk of sexual assault – youth, not being married, and having lower rank – correspond to their assignment to large training bases and ships. Those assignments and living conditions aboard ships, for example, have not changed greatly since 2014.

[...]

The military has made progress in fighting sexual assault, according to the Pentagon. Sexual-assault rates for active-duty men and women in 2016 decreased significantly from rates last measured in 2014, according to Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman. They are at the lowest levels since 2006.

[...]

The Army's highest-risk posts for women included Ft. Huachuca in Arizona, Osan in South Korea and Ft. Drum in New York, where the risk of being assaulted was about 5 percent to 10 percent.

For the Marine Corps, women faced the highest risk at Yuma Air Station in Arizona, 29 Palms Combat Center in California and Beaufort Air Station in South Carolina. The risk at those bases was between 10 percent and 15 percent.

USA Today

From the Pentagon's November 2017 report:

I don't know how this compares to the general population (and I suspect it's much higher in civilian life), but it's abominable.

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.