Transcripts For RT Documentary 20240714

Anybody can be a victim of Sexual Assault. I join the service in 1972. The military is a great way of life. Cannot see the world. I got educated i love the military. Was 19 and i want to challenge all alone and the next thing they mellow was laying on the ground i was struck from behind. And you guys will hold me down one day i was pulling my pants down. And. You know. I was taking care of his business and you know struggled and i was being struck and hit and told you know told to shut up or theyd kill me. And i see i would destroy my life. I mean ive been married 3 times this luckily i have a wife right now who ive been married to for 25 years. You start wondering you start sort of you know youre coming up with reasons why things are the way they are and for a long time i kept thinking i dont know this something something else. I had never told anybody over 30 years i decided to tell my wife. It was the scariest moment in my life i was going tell my wife she was going to leave me and i would be lost without her i mean honest to god i couldnt i couldnt get up every morning without my wife. You know. And i told i felt horrified and i felt sad and i felt angry and you know all along the course of the evening you know feelings just started to surface that were probably just simmering for a very very long time and she put her arms around me and were both there and sobbed it was like. This great weight had been lifted off for me. I think its important to recognize that military sexual trauma is not limited to women and in fact when it comes to the absolute numbers because of the proportion of men in much larger numbers than women actually the numbers are even greater. Or i think one of the last bits of research showed that about one percent of males had been. It seems a Sexual Assault within the past year in the military that equals to about 20000. 00 youll get labeled as a body and thats the lowest term to be related to so its one of the things that you just dont you dont talk about it or you dont bring in embodies a sense you just kind of keep yourself really really hard to forget. You know up until now is. They live in my head i can hear them. I can see their faces i can see what theyre doing to me. So i felt scared. And i was scared to tell my friends the people that really knew me the truth about what happened the shame as bad as it is for women is even worse for men because its all tied in with him a phobia the people who are doing the raping are not gay thats not the problem theyre worried about gays in the military the gays are not the rapists theyre heterosexual man for the most part this is not an issue of Sexual Orientation this is simply an issue power and violence male sexual predators for the large part have charted whoever is there to prey upon whether thats men or women whenever. There is. Evidence other when one has been sexually assaulted the question i keep asking myself is when does this ever. Breaking news at this hour but maybe appears to be producing a huge sex scandal details are still covering yeah. This news girl news today with peter joining the t. V. Were going to begin tonight by putting a human face on the worst case of Sexual Harassment of the navys history at an annual naval aviators convention called the Tailhook Convention so your office whos. Been included the socalled stand up or the specific purpose of targeting and sexually molesting women. I got off the elevator on the 3rd floor you can see it in b 200 men. It was just a few steps into the hallway before. They closed ranks around me and then it happened very quickly that from both sides and from behind men came in and started reaching in my shirt i was getting pushed down to the floor and some was reaching under my skirt point my underwear off and it was about maybe 30 or 40 feet of 200 guys trying to pull my clothes off like i was a high value target and investigation was finally begun. But 1500 interviews later the navys Inspector General reported that his investigators were being stonewalled a great wall of silence had gone up to protect the guilty. The us army today is trying to establish the extent of a new and growing rape and Sexual Harassment scandal at all took place at the army base at Aberdeen Proving Ground where 30 women have filed complaints of sexual advances that range from unwanted touching to rape and forcible sodomy as an acceptable conduct for shoulders to bow to the army and we have 0 tolerance. 12 years ago that still looks sex scandal shook the u. S. Navy and the air force faces what may be an even bigger problem and other sexual abuse at the air force academy in Colorado Springs 100 out of 42 allegations of assault against women have been made in the last decade the highest ranking air force generals knew about Serious Problems of Sexual Assault at the academy yet failed to take action we dont intend to salute the sons of the rug we take it very seriously were going to address it publicly in Congress Outraged senators accused the air force brass of ignoring assaults on women we have a clear pattern. Of reports of Sexual Assault where the reaction of the air force academy seems to be to blame the victim we are in the process of is to those changes now the process of instituting those changes now obviously you and i and secretary of fundamental disagreement here. In a small post in washington d. C. Karim pride history and tradition living. Room barracks in washington d. C. Is the most prestigious unit there is in the marine corps this is the unit where the best of the best go it is the marine corps showcase ceremonial unit it handles president s and dignitaries security at the white house the silent drill team. After my deployment to Operation Iraqi freedom in 20082009 my command officer recommended me for the Marine Barracks washington i was excited it was the tip of the spear as far as the marine corps is concerned. He would stay work late and then she would drive home and shed call me and shed be on some kind a little and she talked about how she loved her job she was a. Sweet person who was trying really hard. And succeeding. One of the 1st things i was told my entire dinner was. Dont worry because the marines will think you want to sleep with them and i thought thats just ridiculous the atmosphere off the bat at Marine Barracks washington was was horrible people asked me what sexual favors had i performed to get my orders there. There is a senior officer in my command who the 1st time he spoke to me he said marines here are nothing but objects for the marines to. Sew the men in the female shows up at my work shes mentally ill. All of the new females get talked about how. Theyre having facts so i stopped all that. I mean i did it got progressively worse and worse they determined that i welcome the Sexual Harassment by wearing my regulation length uniform skirt and running and running shorts. There were several junior female marines that came up to me crying while i was there saying that they felt humiliated to come to work. The. One of the duties at Marine Barracks washington was a ceremonial drill. Evening parades are what you would see on the news the. President everybody goes to those type of things. After the parades. All the officers are required to stay told midnight. Drink inside our house washington so were talking about ones the happy hours that started 3 and. It was a pounding and drinking culture revolved around going out and partying and drinking i was ordered to drink i was ordered to attend the drinking about my boss even said. They were mandatory to me shes like we do our best work at these events we went to various bars and the goal was to do a shot at each one paid for by the marine corps youre talking about youre going to runs for other Senior Officers that are drinking to the point of. You know pass it on lawns this is the norm one bar i had water and i was ordered to shot anyways and told i needed to take 2 shots to make up for that. I left the bar to get a cab my Company Commander followed me and said i need to talk to you about some things so we walked up the stairs into his office there was a little bit of a struggle he tried to kind of make an advance and try to kiss me i tried to leave any slammed the door on my arm. I fell on the ground and hit my face on his desk and the next thing i realized was i had woken up wearing his shorts with all of my clothes off and tremendous pain i knew enough about me that something wasnt right and i had felt entirely violated. The kernel of one point said you know the homer boys girls now call just dont mix well never really know what happened inside that office. Only you in the major now and hes not talking so at this point the investigation is closed for lack of evidence and we have reopened a new investigation against you for conduct unbecoming an officer and public intoxication. If you were. Going to do. So. You can sleep. With. Me shes on the. P. P. Down this time i dont. Need to promote. These to continue the police to use of people who were. Still. Again we stand on the brink of war we should not be surprised official washington was quick to blame iran for the attack on saudi Energy Assets iran has denied involvement. Of claimed responsibility will trump take the neocon bait and set the middle east on fire. Were going to the bar. Was an officer that. After id had a couple drinks. Thats all. Yes i was sir why act until his fellow officer 5 years that he had me. Got called up to the majors office erred huge harmed me with fractionation adultery he was married i wasnt and i was tried but i dont think. I told the so about militia in the commons and he said. You know you should do what a marine officer should do and thats to ignore it and move on. I used to live where he compared you know wondering. What i could do to help her get out. Hes. Told anybody that he was going to have his friend marvin from india to kill me and throw me in it did it because thats how they took care of things in india that. She went to war. And years for life. For them to take it. And come back and say boy yes they called your yes they called us yes they called you a walking matter is its documented over and over and over again you deserved it and you were and when you complained about it you were welcoming it. The actions of my seniors both in the assault and in the ensuing investigations have really destroyed me. When you when your wife doesnt come home. To her brother from its through that house searching for the suicide note be to call the police one hand. Bush restraining her from killing herself with the other the. I think the thing that makes me the most angry is not even the repeat itself when its that commanders that were complicit in covering up everything that happened. This is an organization that gives commanders an unbelievable amount of power and i felt it as a lieutenant in iraq its scary you appoint the prosecution you appoint the defense you appoint the investigator in charge of the police force in charge of the community. Youre on everything you are a judge or jury or executioner most americans assume that there is access to a system of justice so that for example if your civilian and you are raped you can call the police and then you have prosecutors other federal prosecutors state prosecutors local prosecutors they bring the perpetrator to justice the problem with the military is that instead they have to go to their chain of command now in our system of military justice it is the commander whos responsible you know to the chain of command for how that investigation proceeds i know that theres been numerous times in my career that i regretted the new vigil commander hood the the total city saw over a case and most them dont have the training or the education to determine whats appropriate and serious foley commodus case since the problem in the military is the convening authority who is not legally trained makes the final decision. They had it to command my old squadron where they got it right and he was still station. Hed only been and command for 4 days and he made the decision over illegal to stop the case when i saw was was commanders i mean our Field Grade Officers Lieutenant Colonels colonels. Who have been 2025 years you know theyre career officers they sweep cases under the rug the last thing a Company Commander in the army wants to do is make the phone call to his or her Battalion Commander to say i have had a allegation of a rape in my unit this is viewed in many cases as a failure to command that will adversely then affect their career sometimes youd see a guy get for 5 years for selling minor amount of drugs and youd see a guy get you know 2. Weeks should do for the military hides behind this notion that it is really really hard almost impossible to prosecute rape but when you look at prosecution rates in the 2010 department of defense reports you begin with 2410 unrestricted reports and 748. What that means is theyve already funneled 748 Sexual Assault victims into a system that has absolutely no adjudication whatsoever. Then you take the 2410 that have been reported of those they identify 3223 perpetrators know what happens once you send a perpetrator over to command well the command has just completely unfettered discretion to do whatever it is they want and what is it that they do do 1st off they dropped 910. 00 of them they just dont do anything then of the 1025. 00 where they actually take some action through the Court Martial them know only half of them 529 actually got Court Martialled the rest 256 were subjected to article 15 punishments 190 administrative discharges and then 131 to quote other adverse administrative actions whatever that means and then of the convictions where they actually get jail time when you work your way all the way through the numbers what youre looking at is that out of 3223. 00 perpetrators only 175. 00 end up doing any jail time whatsoever. I have been in congress for 7 terms now and every single term we have had meetings with d. O. T. D. And they come in and they confirm to the us to us were going to be serious were going to take care of this were going to stop this 0 tolerance but the rhetoric is not being turned into the reality of protecting our women and in some cases men in our military and their like but we have to start programs like great. What is that. They can strongly suggest to the military to do something. Brothers and sisters. Personal duty to prevent Sexual Assault they cant order them they cant enforce it they dont back it up when i pull of this year we will debut a social Marketing Campaign as part of our prevention strategy that insecure. My. Son i saw my buddies did. Our school we should say. Its ludicrous you know its. You know we have posters that say wait until shes sober im its remarkable that thats allowed to pass and in todays military weve implemented training at each and every level of military service from the moment they end of the service and basic training they are given that our campaign consist of a series of posters that are actually training tools and each of those posters has a different focus you cannot perform Sexual Assault with pretty posters posters do not prevent sexual predators from preying upon women and men in the military were talking about people barging into rooms in the middle of the night posters going to prevent a criminal from version of these are violent people but one of the things that we do in our prevention strategy is to focus on Bystander Intervention and strategy and in that training we ask for each soldier sailor airman or marine to be aware of what Sexual Assault is and how to prevent it so far is. The things that they say ignored or there may. Be displaced. You know it might be a video or 20 slides its like a lot of military training words once a year check in the box. Welcome back a little yeah its just a short walk to watch you. And all the money seems to be spent on advertising which is just right with victim blaming. Like the rest of us are just i just theyre just you. Know theyre the guys who are you by yourself or your body and everything they needed was Sexual Assault is for. Are you doing your part and so this notion that you know essentially like anyone could be a rape as we all have to be on alert it misses an opportunity to take real steps towards preventing rape if they actually had systems of accountability that prosecuted and imprisoned perpetrators you would get rid of a lot of the rapes right away how would you characterize the typical sex offender well if i look at our data from the department of defense and young people that are ages 18 to 2425 when you say that most of them are serial rape. I dont have data one way or the other to determine that what percentage of the rapes are caused by serial predator. I dont i dont have any numbers and i dont know how to i dont think we collect that type of data theres been studies done of people who answer the military are twice as likely to have committed rape as their equivalent population in the civilian world im not aware of that study my area of expertise focuses primarily on prevention and victim care but were. Focusing on the perpetrators. I notice that dr kay whitley is not in her chair is it under your direction that she has not shown her testimony this morning yes or do you have an executive privilege to do a search no sir youve instructed her not to come what is your reason for doing that if you find the departments response in provisions efforts fall short of your expectations responsibility for that shortfall rests with me the ridiculous answer i want it but is it youre trying to hide we all remember tailhook at the scandal and how the military tried to cover that up i dont know who knew think elective you to defy the congress of the United States were an independent branch of government so for now is the big issue i dismissed. Intimacy is definitely in fact it. Will go from minds without stacks. I have to say if im comfortable enough im having a good day and i think my has been lets off for the day i have to initiate. When he comes up and hugs me sometimes ill cringe and i just want him dead you know like hell feel it. Sometimes i think if when he has sex with me is he thinking about even. Getting raped is the upset is he in because i think of i think about that it all right never does it not enter my head thats why i didnt want to have sex for a while. When we almost split up. I feel like im responsible. I dont know what i. Told. Hes like me only supporter. Like they own blood. Is a tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been faithfully implemented for inside venezuela things look different were going to announce sanctions against petroleums to venezuela so sudan famously have a son of a moment to move the temple something. 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Israel is on course for yet another election stalemate with Prime Minister netanyahu flagging one seat behind rival benny gantz lengthy Coalition Talks now loom as neither have enough for a majority in parliament. In the coming days will convene negotiations to assemble a strong zionist government i intend to speak with everyone starting tonight we work to form a broad unity government. And the New York Times and faces a backlash for publishing an excerpt from a forthcoming