Homosexuals in the military? COnsider how Women are received.

[scandal 951]

The article is largely ####### written by someone with an agenda that doesn't include reality.

Regardless of WHAT you might think of don't ask don't tell, gays in the military, women in the military, or any other subject, in my opinion you should be ashamed of yourself to speak in this way ("#######") about the women who have chosen to serve our nation and have suffered this kind of abuse as a result. Shame on you. Seriously.

The US DOD considers this a serious enough problem to maintain a dedicated "Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Team"

http://www.sapr.mil/HomePage.aspx?Topic=Re...ReportLinks.htm

This is not a media story, or a Wikipedia link. This is the US military self-reporting on what is going on in its ranks. Here's a snapshot of how widespread the problem was in 2008:

http://www.sapr.mil/Contents/ResourcesRepo...nual_Report.pdf

Aggregate Report of Sexual Assault Incidents: In FY08 there were 2,908

reports of sexual assault involving Military Service members:

? There were 2,265 Unrestricted Reports involving Military Service

members. 1,594 (70%) of these reports had Military Service members as

victims. Some of these reports included more than one victim resulting in a

total of 1,752 Service members victims in the Unrestricted Reports

received.

? Service member victims made 753 Restricted Reports of sexual assault.

Fifteen percent (110) of victims that made Restricted Reports decided to

change to an Unrestricted Report and participate in a criminal investigation.

As a result of the change, 643 remained as Restricted Reports.

? The Military Services completed a total of 2,389 criminal investigations on

reports made during and prior to FY08, which involved 2,763 subjects.

The Department of Defense remains committed to eliminating sexual assault from the

Armed Forces by sustaining a robust sexual assault prevention and response policy;

identifying and eliminating barriers to reporting; ensuring care remains available and

accessible; and by providing continuous, relevant, and effective training and education to

all Service members.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I posted reports of abuse women have endured.. wholesale.

Your Ivory Tower dreams about how life should be are partially to blame..... and then you suggest "I am promoting ideas".

What ideas have I promoted... except the idea to, open your eyes.

Let's see - you start with a comment in the title that slants it before you even read it.

We then read about the abuse of female soldiers, with a lovely postscript by you that the military is a "unique environment", one that women and gays should not be a part of - because a "Glee club with guns is both futile and foolish". This implies that you believe that neither a woman or a gay person can behave professionally in a military context and should not be taken seriously as a result.

You are, in essence, defending institutionalized prejudice within the military. As to whether that exists or to what extent - this is unclear because you have indicated that it is in fact not a serious problem at all (and that such things are more prevalent in colleges). Rather ambiguous to say the least.

[alienlovechild 75]

Regardless of WHAT you might think of don't ask don't tell, gays in the military, women in the military, or any other subject, in my opinion you should be ashamed of yourself to speak in this way ("#######") about the women who have chosen to serve our nation and have suffered this kind of abuse as a result. Shame on you. Seriously.

The US DOD considers this a serious enough problem to maintain a dedicated "Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Team"

http://www.sapr.mil/HomePage.aspx?Topic=Re...ReportLinks.htm

This is not a media story, or a Wikipedia link. This is the US military self-reporting on what is going on in its ranks. Here's a snapshot of how widespread the problem was in 2008:

http://www.sapr.mil/Contents/ResourcesRepo...nual_Report.pdf

You should be ashamed for backing an article that claims 30% of female soldiers were raped when your own source on page 51 of the PDF file says the sexual assault rate for the Army in 2008 was 2.6/per 1,000. I didn't claim it never happens but it's not as if most single females are raped. I'm sure the same is true in American colleges and universities where women get raped but I wouldn't discourage women from attending college solely because of the risks involved.

I also didn't refer to women in the military as #######. I plainly said the article was #######- get it right.

[Danno 1,228]

Let's see - you start with a comment in the title that slants it before you even read it.

We then read about the abuse of female soldiers, with a lovely postscript by you that the military is a "unique environment", one that women and gays should not be a part of - because a "Glee club with guns is both futile and foolish". This implies that you believe that neither a woman or a gay person can behave professionally in a military context and should not be taken seriously as a result.

You are, in essence, defending institutionalized prejudice within the military. As to whether that exists or to what extent - this is unclear because you have indicated that it is in fact not a serious problem at all (and that such things are more prevalent in colleges). Rather ambiguous to say the least.

Hunt you are so full of #######, you have your mind so made up about everything you comment on, you don't even need to read it.

For instance, WHERE DID SAY: " neither a woman or a gay person can behave professionally in a military context and should not be taken seriously as a result?"

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Where did you say that the military is a "unique environment" and that "turning it into a glee club with guns is futile and foolish". Yeah Danno, that doesn't imply anything does it...

But let's look at it logically.

Either this problem of rape and sex abuse is real, in which case it needs to be addressed so that the military is the best it can be for all its recruits (regardless of gender or sexuality).

Nothing unreasonable about that.

Alternatively, there is no significant problem at all (i.e your comment about colleges). In which case the question becomes why you posted the article in the first place.

If you don't believe that there is a serious problem, why would you use this article to suggest that gays would not want to be a part of the military environment?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I'd like to hear from current military members and veterans. Not from Wanna-be liberals.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm sure you would, Lucky.

Your problem is not that you can't read, its that you're too lazy to do it.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I'd like to hear from current military members and veterans. Not from Wanna-be liberals.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm sure you would, Lucky.

Your problem is not that you can't read, its that you're too lazy to do it.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Please do your fellow VJ members a favor and read the original post.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

No point I supposed asking for your opinion, you don't have one.

Oh that's right - you rarely have an opinion on anything. Except Israel - yet the best you can do there is cheerlead.

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I'd like to hear from current military members and veterans. Not from Wanna-be liberals.

i didn't hear of any of that going on while i was in. however, if it is going on and being reported with very little action, it's a leadership failure.

[Peikko 1,575]

There are already homosexuals in the army and there always have been but of course they have to 'hide' their sexual preference from anyone who would report it and cause problems. Presumably in Danno world these are HINO's, the 'flaming' sort (the ones you should be worried about because they will perve on you in the showers, wear dresses, speak camp and generally make any red hot blooded male feel uncomfortable) are kept out currently because they would not fit into the specialised environment that is the armed forces. At least, that seems to be what Danno is suggesting

[scandal 951]

You should be ashamed for backing an article that claims 30% of female soldiers were raped when your own source on page 51 of the PDF file says the sexual assault rate for the Army in 2008 was 2.6/per 1,000. I didn't claim it never happens but it's not as if most single females are raped. I'm sure the same is true in American colleges and universities where women get raped but I wouldn't discourage women from attending college solely because of the risks involved.

I also didn't refer to women in the military as #######. I plainly said the article was #######- get it right.

Sorry, not finding your citation of 2.6/1,000 on page 51.

Here's what IS on P.51:

Sexual assault is a vastly underreported crime, in

both military and civilian communities. Of the 6.8% of women and 1% of men who

reported unwanted sexual contact on the 2006 Defense Manpower Data Center Gender

Relations Survey, only one fifth of them reported the matter to an authority. The

Department estimates that less than 10% of the sexual assaults that occur annually are

reported to DoD.

In other words -

1. The DOD itself admits that the problem is vastly underreported. ALL the measured statistics we're going to quote at each other will UNDERESTIMATE the actual amount of assault going on. DOD estimates less than 10% are reported.

2. By DOD estimates, only 20% of those who report sexual assault on an anonymous survey are willing to report it officially. That would mean that of the 6.8% of women who reported on the anonymous survey only ~ 1.3% made an official complaint (that's still much higher than your stated 0.26%).

Now, from the Original article, if you had bothered to read even just a tad below the first paragraph highlighted by Danno:

The Defense Department shows much lower numbers, but that is because it only counts reported rapes—and, as the DoD admits itself in this year's annual Pentagon report on military sexual assault, some 90 percent of rapes in the military are ever reported at all.

In other words, the OP is referring to the same SAPR data. While the exact statistics can be argued (since all you can do is estimate an unreported assault, you can't actually count it), there is no doubt that it's a substantial number and indicative of a widespread problem.

Which brings me back to my reason for outrage at your post, ALC.

You want to hide behind the veil of attacking the OP article, and only that article. Not the phenomenon of widespread abuse in the US military.

Your words:

The article is largely ####### written by someone with an agenda that doesn't include reality.

In other words, it's ####### because it doesn't happen to coincide with your comfortable view of the world, your reality.

I never heard about any rapes in any unit I served in and people do talk so a lot of people know what's going on.

So because you don't have personal anecdotal evidence, any evidence to the contrary is #######. Please do tell that to the SAPR staff commissioned to study it and who report the problem to be troubling and widespread and with a serious impact on our nation's military preparedness:

A recent study in the Journal of Epidemiology found

that prior sexual assault doubles the chance of developing post-deployment PTSD

symptoms when the victim is exposed to combat.32 Sexual assault diminishes individual

resiliency, erodes individual and unit mission readiness, and causes long term medical

and mental health problems.

No, but please do continue to deny the problem exists.

ALC, I am not going to argue over whether the number of assaults is 5%, 10%, 30% or higher.

Frankly, ONE assault is ONE too many.

We have a volunteer military. These are our countrymen who have chosen to serve.

Many have been victims of brutal attacks by their own comrades in arms.

Yesterday, you told us of a buddy who died to enemy attack in Afghanistan. That is very sad, and as a nation we mourn the losses of our service members in combat. Why should be any less outraged by attacks on the women (and men, straight and gay) who simply want to do their jobs as professionals in the service? Why would you WANT to cover up the problem and pretend it does not exist?

I really don't understand that attitude at all.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

My sister proudly served in the army. Achieved the rank of Major. And for a time was commander of an army jail. She was the best shot, male or female, in her ROTC class. She served in two conflicts, the last being a year spent in Iraq.

Gay's have served, and are serving, in the US Armed Forces.

End of story... Except to say Danno can now add homophobia and gender bias to his long list of posted personality defects.