Separating the wheat from the chaff must be hard....LINK

False reports outpace sex assaults in the military

False complaints of sexual abuse in the military are rising at a faster rate than overall reports of sexual assault, a trend that could harm combat readiness, analysts say.

Virtually all media attention on a Pentagon report last week focused on an increase in service members’ claims of sexual abuse in an anonymous survey, but unmentioned were statistics showing that a significant percentage of such actually investigated cases were baseless.

From 2009 to 2012, the number of sexual abuse reports rose from 3,244 to 3,374 — a 4 percent increase.

During the same period, the number of what the Pentagon calls “unfounded allegations” based on completed investigations of those reports rose from 331 to 444 — a 35 percent increase.

In 2012, there were 2,661 completed investigations, meaning that the 444 false complaints accounted for about 17 percent of all closed cases last year. False reports accounted for about 13 percent of closed cases in 2009.

Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and analyst at the Family Research Council, is writing a book for Regnery Publishing Inc. about the Pentagon’s push to put women in direct ground combat in the infantry, armor and special operations.

“In the course of conducting interviews with commanders, I heard time and again complaints about female service members making sex-related allegations which proved unfounded,” Mr. Maginnis said. “Not only do some women abuse the truth, but it also robs their commanders from more important, mission-related tasks.

“Female service members told me that some women invite problems which lead men on and then result in advances the woman can’t turn off. Too often, such female culpability leads to allegations of sexual contact, assault and then the women feign innocence.”

The annual Pentagon report on sexual assault noted the numbers of false complaints but included no analysis. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

Elaine Donnelly, who runs the Center for Military Readiness, said the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Office (SAPRO) is ignoring the problem of false reports.

“Unsubstantiated accusations remain a significant problem, but the SAPRO is doing nothing about it,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “I went through both volumes and found no evidence of concern about the significant 17 percent of ‘unfounded accusations.’ Something should be done to reduce the numbers of false accusations, the first step being an admission that the problem exists.”

The number of sex abuse reports has risen from 1,700 a decade ago to 3,374 last year.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed male and female personnel into close living conditions at a sprawling network of bases.

The existence of unwanted and wanted sexual contact in the war zone is not disputed.

For example, a group of Army physicians in 2010 studied one brigade combat team deployed to Iraq in 2007.

The physicians’ study, published in the Military Medicine journal, examined the number of soldiers who sustained disease or noncombat injuries. Of 4,122 soldiers, including 325 women in support roles, 1,324 had diseases or injuries that forced them to miss time or be evacuated.

“Females, compared with males, had a significantly increased incident-rate ratio for becoming a [disease or noncombat] casualty,” the doctors found.

Of 47 female soldiers evacuated from the brigade and sent home, 35 — or 74 percent — were for “pregnancy-related issues.”

Even before the wars, the Pentagon removed barriers across the board to women and took action to mix the sexes more closely. Men and women share dorms and barracks in boot camp and at the service academies, and deploy in close quarters on ships.

The integration promises to become even more intimate in coming years as the Pentagon places women into training for direct ground combat jobs.

“The latest SAPRO report confirms that problems of sexual assault against both men and women are getting worse, not better,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “Pentagon leaders nevertheless are planning to extend these problems into the combat arms. Congress and the Pentagon first must do no harm. At a minimum, the Obama administration must not be allowed to extend complicated issues of sexual assault, which have increased by 129 percent since 2004, into direct ground combat infantry battalions.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week announced several steps to eliminate assaults, including ordering commanders to conduct “visual inspections” of all workplaces to ensure they are “free from materials that create a degrading or offensive work environment.”

The Air Force completed such an inspection last year after a female service member complained of persistent harassment.

In January, the Air Force reported the “health and welfare” inspection results:

“The Air Force found 631 instances of pornography (magazines, calendars, pictures, videos that intentionally displayed nudity or depicted acts of sexual activity); 3,987 instances of unprofessional material (discrimination, professional appearance, items specific to local military history such as patches, coins, heritage rooms, log books, song books, etc.); and 27,598 instances of inappropriate or offensive items (suggestive items, magazines, posters, pictures, calendars, vulgarity, graffiti). In total, 32,216 items were reported. Identified items were documented and either removed or destroyed.”

Said Mr. Hagel: “We need cultural change where every service member is treated with dignity and respect, where all allegations of inappropriate behavior are treated with seriousness, where victims’ privacy is protected, where bystanders are motivated to intervene, and where offenders know that they will be held accountable by strong and effective systems of justice.”

Today's 'Stars and Stripes'

Does social media add fuel to servicemembers' degrading actions?

http://www.stripes.com/does-social-m...tions-1.221481

Image of front page of e-edition.

Richard

What is he talking about? Patches and coins?

Perhaps stuff like this: LINK

I do a lot of employment law and, to justify firings, employers have a treasure trove with Facebook and other social media. People aren't acting more inappropriately today; there's just data capture of nearly everything anyone does. Sift through the white noise and you can destroy nearly anybody's career.

The best advice is to not put yourself out there for the general public to see. And be careful which "friends" you email "controversial" things to. One day they may not still be your friend. And one day something borderline controversial may become deemed by society as horrific or crossing the line.

$0.02

May 19, 2013, 6:16 p.m. ET

The Pentagon's Bad Math on Sexual Assault

Potential recruits need to know that serving in the military doesn't turn a woman into a victim.

By LINDSAY L. RODMAN

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...html#printMode

In the days since the Defense Department's May 7 release of its 2012 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, the media and lawmakers have been abuzz. The report's estimate that last year 26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact prompted many to conclude, incorrectly, that this reliably estimated the number of victims of sexual assault.

The 2012 estimate was also significantly higher than the last estimate, causing some to proclaim a growing "epidemic" of sexual assault in the military. The truth is that the 26,000 figure is such bad math—derived from an unscientific sample set and extrapolated military-wide—that no conclusions can be drawn from it.

Yet three bills have been introduced in Congress since the report's release, all intended in various ways as a response to the findings. This week the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, which has power over the Pentagon budget, will hold a hearing where military leaders will be questioned about sexual assault in the armed forces.

It is disheartening to me, as a female officer in the Marine Corps and a judge advocate devoted to the professional practice of law in the military, to see Defense Department leaders and members of Congress deal with this emotionally charged issue without the benefit of solid, verifiable data. The 26,000 estimate is based on the 2012 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Military. The WGRA survey was fielded throughout all branches of the military in September and November 2012. As the report indicates, "Completed surveys were received from 22,792 eligible respondents," while "the total sample consisted of 108,478 individuals." In other words, one in five of the active-duty military personnel to whom the survey was sent responded.

I am one of those who responded to the survey after receiving an email with an online link. None of the males in my office received the email, though nearly every other female did. We have no way of knowing the exact number of male or female respondents to the 2012 WGRA survey because that information wasn't released.

The term "sexual assault" was not used in the WGRA survey. Instead, the survey refers to "unwanted sexual contact," which includes touching the buttocks and attempted touching. All of that behavior is wrongful, but it doesn't comport with the conventional definition of sexual assault or with the legal definition of sexual assault in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as enacted by Congress.

The estimated 26,000 service members who fell victim to unwanted sexual contact in 2012 is higher than the 19,000 estimate based on the 2010 WRGA survey (the survey wasn't conducted in 2011). Does this mean that there was a 34% jump in just two years? The data are too unreliable to tell. Before 2010, the Defense Department did not extrapolate military-wide in this manner, and for good reason. If you apply the same extrapolations to the 2006 WGRA survey results, you arrive at a far higher number—34,000.

These numbers vary widely because incidents involving unwanted sexual contact cannot accurately be extrapolated military-wide using this survey. The number of active-duty personnel is more than one million. The U.S. military as a whole is 14.6% female. Though the 2012 survey does not specify the gender composition of its respondents, the 2010 respondents were 42% female (10,029 women and 14,000 men).

Nevertheless, to achieve the 26,000 military-wide estimate in 2012 (and 19,000 in 2010) over half of the victims must have been male. Of course, male victims do exist, but empirically males do not constitute anywhere near the majority of victims of unwanted sexual contact—no less sexual assault.

Here is what we do know: The actual number of reported sexual assaults in the military in 2012 was 3,374, up from 3,192 in 2011. These figures include reports by civilians against service members. Of the 3,374 total cases reported last year, only 12%-14% were reported by men.

We also don't know how actual sexual-assault rates in the military compare with civilian society. Last year's National Defense Authorization Act asked the Defense Department to undertake two major studies that would review judicial proceedings and compare the military system with best practices in civilian jurisdictions. Both studies are set to begin this summer.

The military isn't averse to changing to assure that all its service members, especially women, are treated justly. But change should come as a result of supportable data.

Each and every sexual assault is tragic and infuriating. But given the military's recent emphasis on awareness of the problem and insistence that victims come forward, it's no surprise that this number has gone up.

We in the military justice system want victims to come forward, and to seek accountability through the system. We want them to feel empowered to report, and to know that their command will take the allegation and their recovery seriously. An increasing number of reported sexual assaults, at least in the next few years, should be viewed as a positive sign that this message is being heard.

In my five years in the Marine Corps, I have seen revolutionary change regarding how military leadership addresses sexual assault. Ask the military service member closest to you whether the military takes sexual assault seriously. They will likely talk your ear off about increased training requirements, speeches from their leadership, videos they have watched and workshops they have attended. They can tell you what they have learned about bystander intervention, about alcohol and impaired judgement, and about the hefty consequences within the military justice system for sexual assault.

I often talk to young men and women interested in joining the military, and I find that women especially seek me out to gain the perspective of a female officer. In the past year or so, these potential female recruits have grown increasingly wary, asking many follow-up questions about whether women are treated fairly and respectfully. I tell them that serving in the military doesn't turn a woman into a victim. I am a proud Marine, surrounded by outstanding military personnel from every service who take this problem seriously, male and female alike.

Capt. Rodman is a Marine Corps judge advocate stationed at U.S. Marine Headquarters in Arlington, Va. Her opinions do not reflect the position of the Defense Department or the Marine Corps.

A version of this article appeared May 20, 2013, on page A17 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Pentagon's Bad Math on Sexual Assault.

- First I got an email from the Army Chief of Staff telling everyone that their primary mission is to combat sexual harassment and assault. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.1347436

- Next I got an email ordering me to inspect all work areas in my unit and annotate any pictures I ordered to be taken down that I deemed to be potentially offensive and of a sexual nature.

- Then I got an email telling me that Maxim magazines on desks were an example of things that were offensive.

Does anyone really think that this will decrease sexual harassment and assault survey number extrapolations?

The bottom line on this to me is that sexual harassment and assault as defined by the military and especially on military surveys is a very complex situation that will be very tough to tackle ('ever been inappropriately touched' is the standard???). We can't get Afghans to clean weapons and use power point- do we really think we can change the culture of the average American male- and I'm not talking sexual harassment and assault- I'm talking about the cultural change everyone is talking about. The objectification of women isn't going away with some military objectification inspections. Instead this will be used by some with an agenda to get more power- in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that is who is pushing this to begin with.

I have been aware of and/or involved with sexual assault investigations only twice in my career. One was a drunken orgy that ended in the morning with the woman accusing one of the men involved (only one) of rape. The other was a woman who accused three men of sexual assault and/or harassment only to find one unsubstantiated, one totally false (proven false), and the other a 50-50 proposition (she was just as in the wrong as he was in their recorded, on-line flirtations). I have not been aware of or involved with any investigations that rose to the level of the assaults that seem to make the headlines. Although I am sure they exist- I just haven't seen them on the scale that everyone makes them out to be (an epidemic).

My take on the problem is that at the same time the military is being forced to establish a sterile sexual environment- our pop culture is going in the exact opposite direction. We preach tolerance, individual choice, privacy, co-ed everything and 'anything goes' sexual relationship values- and yet expect our commanders to enforce terribly infeasible sex standards that amount to abstinence in both speech and actions. It amazes me the careerism that has turned our senior leadership into reactionary tools.

And I can't believe that the only person with balls in the military is a female Marine officer...

And to top it all off.....we want to integrate combat arms. Assclowns.

And the "hits" just keep on comin'... :mad:

Sergeant Accused of Secretly Filming Female Cadets
NYT, 22 May 2013

A sergeant first class on the staff of the United States Military Academy at West Point faces charges for allegedly videotaping female cadets without their consent, sometimes when they were in the shower, according to Army officials.

The Army is contacting a dozen women to alert them that their privacy may have been violated and to offer support or counseling as required, officials said.

The suspect, Sgt. First Class Michael McClendon, faces charges under four articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for indecent acts, dereliction in the performance of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, and actions prejudicial to good order and discipline. Sergeant McClendon, who had been assigned to the school since 2009, was transferred to Fort Drum, N.Y., after charges were filed on May 14, Army officials said.

During his tenure at West Point, Sergeant McClendon served as a “tactical noncommissioned officer,” described in academy personnel documents as a staff adviser “responsible for the health, welfare and discipline” of a company of 125 cadets. The person in the position is expected to “assist each cadet in balancing and integrating the requirements of physical, military, academic and moral-ethical programs.”

(Cont'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us...s.html?hp&_r=0

Oh cool! Can I play "cite the study" too?

Victims of sex assaults in military are mostly men

Washington Times, 20 May 2013

More military men than women are sexually abused in the ranks each year, a Pentagon survey shows, highlighting the underreporting of male-on-male assaults.

When the Defense Department released the results of its anonymous sexual abuse survey this month and concluded that 26,000 service members were victims in fiscal 2012, which ended Sept. 30, an automatic assumption was that most were women. But roughly 14,000 of the victims were male and 12,000 female, according to a scientific survey sample produced by the Pentagon.

continued at link below:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...tly-sil/print/

So I guess we need to focus less on the environmental factors leading to the objectification of women, and more on administering hormonal therapy to reduce the testosterone of the average US military male.

quit all the crying and continue the experiment...

If we had this level of adverse events in a medical study, we would shut it down, if we didn't - the ethics board (of the federal oversight on clinical trials) would.

Just sayin....

Everyone should be glad to know that my unit no longer allows the local paper (Fayetteville) to be delivered or for anyone to possess such terrible objectification of women trash on their desks. During a walk-through investigation for Maxim and the like, a turned-over newspaper revealed an advertisement for women's bras. The newspaper ad was compared to the Maxim cover given as an example of what could not be tolerated and it was apparent that the newspaper ad was actually worse...

What unit are you in?

Uh, oh! :D

Pat