As mentioned in my post below-I was on the road yesterday. Although I understand the bias often associated with National Public Radio reporting, I often find myself listening to NPR as there is not much decent music available and sports talk shows offend (especially the radio ads.) Silence would be better, but sometimes I listen anyway. Yesterday was one of those times.
Yesterday NPR featured a story on female veterans. It cited a VA study which found that 23% of female soldiers reported they were sexually assaulted while in the service. 28% of those being treated at VA facilities reported being raped by their fellow soldiers! The problem (rape by rank-thus reporting rape might possibly go through your rapist's hands) is so prevalent that:
Two years ago, the Department of Defense introduced "restricted reporting," which allows the victim of a sexual assault to bypass chain of command and make a confidential report.
The problem with "restricted reporting" is that no action or investigation is launched against the perpetrator-'restricted reporting' simply allows the victim to get help.
Read the rest of the story online here.
There are many reasons why deploying female soldiers is problematic. Some have to do with morale, some have to do with finances. The most important reasons have to do with the order of creation.
However, no matter how you see the deployment of female soldiers, this report is a disgrace to our country and to our military. But look at the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq a few years ago. So is today's story a surprise? (See how they are related in a post from 2005 at Caelum et Terra .) There are stories out there that pornography is encouraged among the soldiers. There is emerging a picture of a culture of sexual immorality in the ranks-which seems to be silently approved of.
Maybe this is a potential outcome when you have an army of professional soldiers instead of a citizen soldiers. The Anti-Federalist papers warned that a strong central government would result in a standing army of professional soldiers, and having such an army at hand would result in more wars.
I am not trying to say that soldiering is not an honorable profession or that we don't have many, many honorable soldiers in our military. However, I do believe that there is a subculture in the military that encourages violence for violence sake-including pornography. When you put women soldiers in that subculture, rape is going to happen frequently and perpetrators will not brought to justice often.
I am not in favor of female soldiers in general as could be gleamed by astute readers of this blog-but it is NOT because I think large numbers of women will be sexually assaulted. I am against the ordinary use of female soldiers because I think it goes against their nature and confuses the nature of man (males). Both of these things are bad for society.
Yet if we must have women soldiers-they must be protected from "friend" and foe alike.
May God have mercy!
3 comments:
I agree with most of what you say here, but years ago one thing I was shocked and disappointed to learn was how prevalent prostitution during the Civil War & WWII. I think the army actually facilitated it because of high rates of venereal disease (i.e. by providing 'clean' prostitutes).
So it's a long term problem. I don't think it's any worse now for the military to be promoting porn as it did promoting prostitution. Both are obviously greivously wrong, but neither is a new thing. Unfortunately.
Men and Women lived thru war and died for what they believe in. (what about joan of arc?) They died so all could have the freedom of speech. We should bless all female soliders like we would our men soliders.
they do not deserve to be belittled.
TS-Agreeing with what you write, the big difference as I see it is the presence of women soldiers -we are putting them at risk from their own.
Anonymous-My belief that women (as a general rule-not as the exception, as St. Joan of Arc) should not soldiering-doesn't belittle them. War is always unfortunate-even if sometimes necessary. I think I honor women by my belief-but if you disagree-that's okay. Despite whether I favor the use of female soldiers, I am shocked by their abuse by our own troops.
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