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Author Topic:   Rape victims say Military labels them "CRAZY"
Frozen Queen
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posted April 15, 2012 08:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Frozen Queen     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
(CNN) -- Stephanie Schroeder joined the U.S. Marine Corps not long after 9/11. She was a 21-year-old with an associate's degree when she reported for boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.
"I felt like it was the right thing to do," Schroeder recalls.
A year and a half later, the Marines diagnosed her with a personality disorder and deemed her psychologically unfit for the Corps.
Anna Moore enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and planned to make a career of it. Moore was a Patriot missile battery operator in Germany when she was diagnosed with a personality disorder and dismissed from the Army.
Jenny McClendon was serving as a sonar operator on a Navy destroyer when she received her personality disorder diagnosis.
These women joined different branches of the military but they share a common experience:
Each received the psychiatric diagnosis and military discharge after reporting a sexual assault.

"I'm not crazy," says Schroeder, who is married now, with two daughters. "I am actually relatively normal."
McClendon says she had a similar reaction.
"I remember thinking this is absurd; this is ridiculous. How could I be emotionally unstable? I'm very clear of mind, especially considering what had happened." McClendon says. "It was a ludicrous diagnosis."

A similar pattern

CNN has interviewed women in all branches of the armed forces, including the Coast Guard, who tell stories that follow a similar pattern -- a sexual assault, a command dismissive of the allegations and a psychiatric discharge.

Schroeder says a fellow Marine followed her to the bathroom in April 2002. She says he then punched her, ripped off her pants and raped her. When she reported what happened, a non-commissioned officer dismissed the allegation, saying, "'Don't come bitching to me because you had sex and changed your mind,'" Schroeder recalls.
Moore says she was alone in her barracks in October 2002 when a non-commissioned officer from another battery tried to rape her. When she filled out forms to report it, she says, her first sergeant, told her: "Forget about it. It never happened," and tore up the paperwork.
"It felt like a punch in the gut," Moore says. "I couldn't trust my chain of command to ever back me up."
McClendon says she was aboard a Navy destroyer at sea when a superior raped her on the midnight to 2 a.m. watch. After reporting the attack, she was diagnosed with a personality disorder and deemed unfit to serve.
"I was good enough to suit up and show up and serve, but I wasn't good enough after the fact," McClendon says.
Despite the Defense Department's "zero tolerance" policy, there were 3,191 military sexual assaults reported in 2011. Given that most sexual assaults are not reported, the Pentagon estimates the actual number was probably closer to 19,000.

"The number of sexual assaults in the military is unacceptable," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at a news conference in January. "Our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to keep America safe. We have a moral duty to keep them safe from those who would attack their dignity and their honor."

But Anu Bhagwati, a former company commander in the Marines and executive director of Service Women's Action Network, a veterans advocacy group, says she sees a pattern of the military using psychiatric diagnoses to get rid of women who report sexual assaults.
"It's convenient to sweep this under the rug. It's also extremely convenient to slap a false diagnosis on a young woman ... and then just get rid of them so you don't have to deal with that problem in your unit. And, unfortunately, a lot of sexual assault survivors are considered problems," Bhagwati says.
From 2001 to 2010, the military discharged more than 31,000 service members because of personality disorder, according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Vietnam Veterans of America.
Asked by CNN how many of these cases involved sexual assault cases, the Defense Department says it does not keep such figures, nor would the Pentagon comment on individual cases.

The diagnoses

The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as the DSM-IV, defines a personality disorder as a long-standing, inflexible pattern of maladaptive behavior and coping, beginning in adolescence or early adulthood.

That would mean women like Schroeder, Moore and McClendon had a pre-existing personality disorder when they joined the military. Someone with personality disorder tends to get fired from jobs, get in trouble with the law or at school or is unable to maintain relationships.
"It makes absolutely no sense medically for people to be diagnosed all of a sudden after being sexually assaulted as an adult in the military to say 'No, you've had this all along,'" says Bhagwati, of the Service Women's Action Network.
"These women have clearly been able to function. They've made it through basic training. They've made it through all the follow-on training. Many of them are deployed overseas in war, and they've done fine there. But, when they're sexually assaulted, and then report it, it seems very suspicious that the military would suddenly stamp them with a pre-existing condition that bars them from serving anymore."
Dr. Liza H. Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine, says it's a rule of thumb among psychiatrists not to diagnose someone with a personality disorder in the middle of a traumatic experience like a divorce, litigation or the aftermath of a sexual assault.
The DSM-IV says: "When personality changes emerge and persist after an individual has been exposed to extreme stress, a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be considered."
Also, by definition, a personality disorder diagnosis cannot be caused by another psychiatric condition, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Gold says.
In 2003, when she returned to Germany from a deployment in Israel, Moore says a new Army counselor changed her diagnosis from severe depression to borderline personality disorder after only a half-hour session.
Gold is not familiar with Moore's case, but she says a personality disorder was not a diagnosis that typically could be made quickly.

The numbers
Military records show the personality disorder diagnosis is being used disproportionately on women, according to military records obtained by Yale Law School's Veterans Legal Services Clinic under a Freedom of Information Act request.
--In the Army, 16% of all soldiers are women, but females constitute 24% of all personality disorder discharges.
--Air Force: women make up 21% of the ranks and 35% of personality disorder discharges.
--Navy: 17% of sailors are women and 26% of personality disorder discharges
--Marines: 7% of the Corps and 14% of personality disorder discharges
The records don't reflect how many of those women had reported sexual assault.

The cost
A personality diagnosis discharge can carry a heavy financial burden.
In the military's eyes, a personality disorder diagnosis is a pre-existing condition and does not constitute a service-related disability. That means sexual assault victims with personality disorder discharges don't receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to help with their trauma. They can still apply for benefits, but it's considered an uphill battle.
There are other costs. For example, members of the armed forces who receive a personality disorder discharge lose education benefits under the GI Bill.
Moore, now 32 and married, says the Army came after her for $2,800 of the enlistment bonus she received when she signed up for six years. With interest and penalties, the bill topped $6,000. Moore says she's still paying it off.

Celeste Santana, a former Navy lieutenant commander, lost her pension when she was involuntarily separated from the military in 2011 after 17 years of active duty -- three years short of being eligible to retire. Santana says the Navy gave her an adjustment disorder after she reported being sexual assaulted in the middle of the night at a forward operating base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. She says no medical evaluation ever took place.

An adjustment disorder is an excessive response to a stressful experience, typically lasting three to six months. For example, Gold says, someone who is fired from a job, stops eating, refuses to get out of bed and won't talk to anyone might be suffering from an adjustment disorder.

Secondary injury

Veterans who talked to CNN all say lack of military response to their reports of assault added to their emotional trauma. Gold says therapists call this a "secondary injury." McClendon, Moore and Schroeder each say they became suicidal.
Panayiota Bertzikis received an adjustment disorder diagnosis and was forced out of the Coast Guard in 2006 -- after reporting to her superiors that she had been punched in the face and raped by a shipmate during an off-duty hike.
When she reported the attack, Bertzikis says the chief of her Coast Guard station ordered her and her attacker to clean out an attic on base together and told to work out their differences.
"I am the victim of this crime, and then you report it, and then I felt like I was the one on trial -- I was the one who did something wrong," Bertzikis says. "He got a free pass. I was the one fighting to stay in."
Bhagwati, who runs the Service Women's Action Network, says the sense of betrayal is profound for sexual assault victims whose allegations are not taken seriously.
"Very commonly victims will hear that they're lying ****** . It's very common," Bhagwati says. "That kind of betrayal deepens the trauma so, so much, and it's hard to recover from that. I mean, it's akin to incest where you grow up with a family, with someone you trust, admire and in many cases, salute, is your perpetrator. It's a huge betrayal that often entails guilt, embarrassment, shame. You're made to feel that you did something wrong and you could have prevented it from happening."

In the civilian world, sexual assault victims can quit their jobs, go to court, go to the media, says J.D. Hamel, a Marine veteran and Yale Law student involved at the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. If higher-ups don't follow-up on allegations, Hamel explains, there is no other recourse.
"If the command doesn't deal with it, no one is going to deal with it," he says. "It's just a very lonely position to be in. It's hard for people who have never been in the military to realize how all-encompassing military life is."
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, says the military has used personality and other psychiatric diagnoses "almost robotically" to force women who report sexual assaults out of the service.
"It's the default position the military uses," says Speier, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "The problem we have in the military is the unit commander is in charge of the entire process."
Speier has introduced legislation that would take sexual assault cases out of the chain of command and assign them to an autonomous office at the Pentagon.
Bhagwati says victims of sexual assault in the military should be able to sue for damages in civil court.

"Until there's a deterrent, you're going to have far too much incentive to the average commander, to the average perpetrator, to do the wrong thing," she says. "It's far too convenient to do the wrong thing now."

Military response

The Pentagon has made changes in policy on personality disorder diagnoses and discharges.
Army guidelines enacted in 2008 require commanders to review administrative separations, such as personality and adjustment disorder discharges, for sexual assault victims. The commander must assess whether the separation "appears to be in retaliation" for reporting the sexual assault or involves a medical condition like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
After congressional hearings in 2008 looking into Afghanistan and Iraq combat veterans who received personality discharges, the Pentagon also changed the rules to require a psychiatrist or PhD-level psychologist to diagnose personality disorder on troops who "served or are currently serving in imminent danger pay areas."
The new rules require personality disorder diagnoses for combat veterans to be corroborated a by a peer or higher-level mental health professional and endorsed by the surgeon general of the relevant military branch. This added layer of protection against misdiagnoses does not affect sexual assault victims.

Bertzikis started blogging about her case and says she found other women -- and some men -- who described similar experiences. She has started two websites: stopmilitaryrape.org and mydutytospeak.com, a chance for victims of military sexual assault to share their stories.
"For me, writing has been very helpful," Bertzikis says.
At his January news conference, Secretary Panetta announced that for the first time service members who reported a sexual assault would be allowed to make an immediate request to transfer to a different unit. The commanding officer would then have 72 hours to decide whether to grant the request.
Panetta also ordered an assessment of the training that commanding officers and senior enlisted personnel receive on sexual assault prevention and response. That report is scheduled to be completed next month.
Moore and Schroeder each say they'd still be in the military if the military had aggressively pursued their attackers and allowed them to switch units. But Schroeder is skeptical about the Pentagon's efforts.
"It's all just talk. It's for show," Schroeder says.
Bertzikis started and runs the Military Rape Crisis Center, which helps victims of sexual assault in the military. She and Schroeder have joined a lawsuit suing the Defense Department for unspecified monetary damages for a culture that permitted sexual assaults.
Asked by CNN about the lawsuit, the Defense Department says it does not comment on pending litigation.

As for the personality and adjustment disorder discharges, the Pentagon tells CNN: "We encourage all separating service members who believe their discharges were incorrectly characterized or processed to request adjudication through their respective military department's Discharge Review Board and Board for Correction of Military Records."
McClendon, 41, is married and the mother of four. She teaches college humanities courses. Two or three times a week, she says she's awakened by nightmares.
Schroeder, 30, is getting a business degree and taking care of her daughters, who are in second and third grade. She says she suffers from anxiety and depression and is fighting the Department of Veterans Affairs for a PTSD diagnosis.
Moore, 32, received a diagnosis of PTSD from the Veterans Affairs and is on full disability.
"I have nightmares all the time and flashbacks and things like that," Moore says. "I'm still paranoid of the outside world and how cruel people can be -- because what my chain of command did to me was cruel and unnecessary."


Source

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If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

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Lexxigramer
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posted April 15, 2012 08:43 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lexxigramer     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Horrible.
Thank you for posting that.

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Aquacheeka
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posted April 15, 2012 09:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Aquacheeka     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ugh, don't remind me.


My boyfriend and I got in a fight last night about this story. It was the subject of our weekly fight.

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Lonake
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posted April 16, 2012 01:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lonake     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Oh, there's a lot of rape in the military.
There's also a lot of sexual assaults by so-called 'humanitarian aid' workers on the locals.
Human beings are animals, there is no doubt about that.

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PixieJane
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posted April 16, 2012 02:42 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Oh yeah, I know ex-military who have told me to never enlist in the armed forces and shared horror stories of how women were treated. One was a rape crisis counselor in the US Army and he gave me the most emphatic advice to never join the military.

What's really odd to me is a common feature of propaganda is how our enemies are evil rapists and yet soldiers who drink that propaganda up (not to say it isn't true) are themselves evil rapists...my guess is that it's more to make men fearful of alien men violating their women (you know, like described in that horrid, vile song called Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers in which the only crime of gang raping a woman was the insult to the pride of her husband and a sound beating by the husband made everything ok again).

Btw, anyone remember the marines that confessed to raping a little girl in Japan? Even though America (like Japan) wanted them to fry for it the military (with Clinton's support which is no surprise to me) went to extraordinary lengths to protect them from justice even to the point to surround them with bullet proof shields so that snipers couldn't get them (as it was rumored that the family of the raped little girl hired a hitman for some vigilante justice). Btw, I just tried to google that incident and wasn't able to find it in part due to all the more recent rapes and gang rapes of Japanese girls (some of them children) by marines...

It's just one more dampener when I'm supposed to honor the military and just one more reason why I see little difference between gangsters who kill over gang colors and soldiers who kill over national colors.

Oh, btw, what do you think this Army vet would say on this thread if he were to post?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/25/judge-lesbians-military-turn-straight/

quote:
“Lesbians should be allowed to serve, gay men should not,” declared Joe Rehyansky in an article published Monday. Rehyansky, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, is a part-time magistrate in Hamilton County, Tennessee, and a former assistant district attorney.

In the original article, Rehyansky concluded that his lesbians-only policy “would get the distaff part of our homosexual population off our collective ‘Broke Back,’ thus giving straight male GIs a fair shot at converting lesbians and bringing them into the mainstream.”

That alarmed some LGBT activists, who note that much of the article before that comment argued that men are rapists by nature. Rehyansky’s argument that gay men should continue to be banned from the military was based on this notion:

"[S]houldn’t the overwhelmingly straight warriors who answer their county’s call be spared the indignity of showering with other men who achieve lascivious enjoyment from the sight of those lithe naked bodies, and who may be tempted to seek more than the view? They are, after all, guys.

In the early evolutionary years of the human species, Rehyansky argued, “It fell to men to swing through the trees and scour the caves in search of as many women as possible to subdue and impregnate — a tough job but someone had to do it.”


Finally, the trailer for a documentary called The Invisible War that shows how rape in the military is a secret even dirtier than described in the CNN article:
http://vimeo.com/32929190

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ghanima81
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posted April 16, 2012 02:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ghanima81     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
OMFG that man is disgusting. Wow.

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otterpus
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posted April 16, 2012 09:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for otterpus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
More horror stories ):
http://mydutytospeak.com/

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BearsArcher
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posted April 18, 2012 12:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BearsArcher     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Lonake:
Oh, there's a lot of rape in the military.
There's also a lot of sexual assaults by so-called 'humanitarian aid' workers on the locals.
Human beings are animals, there is no doubt about that.

Please provide me with your credible stats of the Military ("lots of rapes") compared to the Civilian world. I understand the intent of this newstory, however, I know the real stats as they are reported up to the Big Army (as well as the "restricted" stats that are not reported on behalf of the victims request).

Soo... please, prove the stats and where you got them (and not from a news article).

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BearsArcher
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posted April 18, 2012 12:17 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BearsArcher     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
BTW.. Before you jump on my a$$ I work for Families and as an advocate. I am privy to the real stats and not the make believe BS from the news report.

Soo.... let us look at the overall stats for sexual assaults per capita in the US compared to the US Military. An article stated that more women in the Military are subject to sexual assault than die during combat... That statement is misleading because there are fewer women in combat than men ALSO women are not allowed on the front lines therefore, there are fewer women in combat killed that women in car accidents (more women drive cars than there are on the front lines).

So.. get the stats and then we'll talk.

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Lonake
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posted April 25, 2012 01:55 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lonake     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by PixieJane:
Oh yeah, I know ex-military who have told me to never enlist in the armed forces and shared horror stories of how women were treated. One was a rape crisis counselor in the US Army and he gave me the most emphatic advice to never join the military.

Heard the same thing from ex-military *men* so the fact that you heard that from a rape crisis counselor does not surprise me, unfortunately. If a woman still wants to go, then fine, but I think it takes a certain type of woman to handle that kind of environment. On the other hand, I've known *women* in the military who boasted about orgies with men. So that's another extreme...but perhaps men wouldn't boast about that to me, because I haven't heard it from them.

quote:
and yet soldiers who drink that propaganda up (not to say it isn't true) are themselves evil rapists

I guess the fact remains that certain men are prone to take sexual advantage of those weaker than them, just by their nature. And it's inevitable that some will enlist.

quote:
my guess is that it's more to make men fearful of alien men violating their women (you know, like described in that horrid, vile song called Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers in which the only crime of gang raping a woman was the insult to the pride of her husband and a sound beating by the husband made everything ok again).

The thought of this as a possibility is actually too disgusting for me to process right now.

And I hadn't heard the story of the girl in Japan But I will do a quick search right now for it. I just don't like hearing those stories so I avert. Was it in 1995? OK I see some things on it. How sad.

quote:
Oh, btw, what do you think this Army vet would say on this thread if he were to post?

I just broke up with a Baptist, and he sincerely believed that homosexuality was a choice and that they could be converted into more 'appropriate' ways of expressing their sexuality. I got physically sick when I heard that. I thought that kind of thinking was just in the movies. He was serious. Some people really would like all the control in the world. Oh the guy served in Vietnam, so he's a bit older. Maybe that thinking is dying out..at least I would hope so. His mention of "lithe naked bodies" is v. creepy. From the tone of his article I wouldn't be surprised if --he had-- a few rape fantasies running through his mind in those all-male showers. If he's asserting that all men are rapists (obviously untrue, but if true in his mind then he is included) then I'd want to keep my distance from him.

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Lonake
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posted April 25, 2012 02:40 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lonake     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by otterpus:
More horror stories ):
http://mydutytospeak.com/


I'm glad that the internet gives these brave people a place to share their stories with so many.

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YoursTrulyAlways
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posted April 25, 2012 09:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for YoursTrulyAlways     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Rape is disgusting and all forms of rape cannot ever be condoned, and those who shield rapists are just as culpable.

I speak as a victim of rape and also a former military commander. I'm no longer in active service but I was an O-4 in a foreign allied military, held the rank of Major and served as battlion commander.

While remembering the victims of rape, let's also honour to the fullest extent the 400+ female warriors who have given their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to those who have earned meritorious awards such as Silver Stars and Bronze Stars.

There are stories of women serving as combat medics shielding fallen comrades on the battlefield with their bodies. Imagine being 110 pounds and dragging a 200 pound man to cover under heavy enemy assault fire. Consider the women military police officers in convoy being blown apart by IEDs. They die without receiving medals or recognition. Let's uphold them.

I've seen women in combat roles, particularly the IDF, very effectively deployed with a zero tolerance policy for harrassment, let alone rape. Justice should be swift and penalties should be overwhelmingly harsh. Where I was from, we are fond of locking up and throwing away the key, while instituting some "corrective" attitude adjustment.

I've also seen women special forces teams in action, so whoever says women cannot be top soldiers/marines/sailor is talking out of his rear end. They would take on any team of regular men anywhere on earth and kick their butts.

Here are some true female heroes:

http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/silverstar.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003415.html

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PixieJane
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posted April 25, 2012 06:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Lonake:
I guess the fact remains that certain men are prone to take sexual advantage of those weaker than them, just by their nature. And it's inevitable that some will enlist

Of course. But we're not talking about a few bad apples here, we're talking about institutionalized protection (and thus promotion) of an all too common practice they KNOW is evil (at least it is when the "bad guys" do it).

If the military instead treated it as they should then the condemnation for rapists would only go to the bad apples who do it. But if they--like other infamous institutions--defend (and even aid and abet) it in vile ways then the organization as a whole also becomes responsible.

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PixieJane
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posted April 25, 2012 06:58 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ghanima81:
OMFG that man is disgusting. Wow.

He was not only ex-Army, but he was a judge for awhile, too! You can read about how he got fired (as the civilian world isn't as forgiving of this type of behavior as the Army) here:
http://www.chattanoogan.com/2010/4/1/172480/Part-Time-Magistrate-Fired-For-Highly.aspx

Every single rape case (or even just sexual harassment) he ever presided over needs to be reexamined (but wasn't, as far as I know).

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Ami Anne
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posted April 25, 2012 07:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ami Anne     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I want to say, Pixie Jane, that you seem like a very decent person even though we disagree, politically. You do so with a respect for people who differ. I want to know that I appreciate it.

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YoursTrulyAlways
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posted April 25, 2012 08:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for YoursTrulyAlways     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
PixieJane,

The onus is not only on the military but also Congress to do something about it. I don't understand why there is a reticence. Like I said, courts martial for the perpetrators and their superiors. Lock them up and throw away the key. The wages for traitorous conduct in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, especially during war, is death.

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Lonake
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posted April 25, 2012 09:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lonake     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by PixieJane:
Every single rape case (or even just sexual harassment) he ever presided over needs to be reexamined

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SpooL
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posted April 26, 2012 01:25 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for SpooL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
According to the article from abc news female service women are more likely to be harassed or raped as opposed to being injuries by enemy combatants.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5760295&page=1#.T5jXbdW9SUk

It doesn't surprise me because the quality of recruits and its members just isn't the same that it was 10 yrs ago.

A lot of enlisted members are joining do to
lack of options, naturally you'll get more bad apples. Also assume that since 2004 during the Iraq war alot of those bad apples have been prompted and are higher in rank.

There was a quote on family guy by stewie that said.

"Ah, yes. The bottom 10% of our high-school class is off to fight another battle."

I can't make a comment on it, but there is some point to it.

To be fair, I'm sure there are some good servicemen. My uncle in California, just retired from the US navy, but still works as a contractor at Camp Pendleton. He shipped me some of his ex-marine gear.

So there are still some good servicemen its just becoming rarer.

Once again were seeing a sociological decline.

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YoursTrulyAlways
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posted April 26, 2012 01:47 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for YoursTrulyAlways     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I would worry a whole lot more on women being killed in combat, especially by Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). A life lost to me a far more traumatic.

Perhaps you guys see things differently, but 400 lives lost of brave, strong, competent, high quality women is 400 lives too many.

And stop bad mouthing the US military and the quality of its personnel, especially if you are Canadian! The military is far from being the bottom feeder. They would make mince meat out of the useless good-for-nothing useless punk college kids in Occupy Wall Street without pride and a game plan in life.

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PixieJane
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posted April 26, 2012 03:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Ami Anne:
I want to say, Pixie Jane, that you seem like a very decent person even though we disagree, politically. You do so with a respect for people who differ. I want to know that I appreciate it.


Thanks.

It can be quite the conflict as my Libran Sun, Venus, and Mercury have to mix with Sag moon & Mars and a Leo ascendant, but I think my Libran side has won out (even if Libra does inspire one to be a contrarian at times in the name of balance).

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Ami Anne
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From: Pluto/house next to NickiG
Registered: Sep 2010

posted April 26, 2012 05:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ami Anne     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I can feel the Libra, Pixie Jane.
It feels nice on you

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http://www.mychristianpsychic.com/

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SpooL
Knowflake

Posts: 348
From: Toronto/Ottawa,Canada
Registered: Apr 2009

posted April 26, 2012 05:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for SpooL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
[BAnd stop bad mouthing the US military and the quality of its personnel, especially if you are Canadian!....

You have every right to be upset and theoretically were suppose to be allies in Afghanistan. JTF2 are elite unit is still there and was requested by the US army.

I know it can be heartbreaking to any supporter of the US military to here news like this, but were all human and not every member of the service has the right moral intentions.

But, with all the problems and scandals in the US armed forces there is a lack of morals and that ties in with lower quality of personal.

Better personal would have better morals to do whats right and just. The remaining personal are tired and worn down from other deployments.

Other then the complaint that other NATO nations aren't pulling there weight when was the last time you've heard any major problems/scandals with soldiers of other nations.

I might be from Canada, but at least people in Canada are still somewhat nice to each other. I mean are we seeing a moral and sociological disintegration in the US?.

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Capircorn Rising
Gemini Sun, 5th House
Aries Moon
Mercury in Gemini
Venus In Taurus
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YoursTrulyAlways
Knowflake

Posts: 2467
From:
Registered: Oct 2011

posted April 26, 2012 09:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for YoursTrulyAlways     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
SpooL,

I have nothing but absolute admiration for JTF2. I was fuming mad when US Air National Guard did an unintentional friendly bombing in 2002 of JTF2, killing four and wounding eight.

Canada has always been America's top trading partner and one of three best friends. NORAD is a joint effort providing a security blanket.

Again, I have top respect for the special forces and special operations personnel. However, let's not make comparisons to the conventional military.

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