You know. Just taking care of his business and you know i 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 saw 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. I think one of the last bits of research showed that about one percent of males had been. Victims of Sexual Assault within the past year in the military that equals to about 20000. 00 you get labeled as a body and thats a. 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 the bodies you sense you just keep yourself really really hard for you. You know. They live in my head you know 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 homophobia 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 from a large part have charted whoever is there to prey upon whether thats men or women whenever. You know there is. Evidence that another woman has been sexually assaulted the question myself is when does this ever. Breaking news at this hour but maybe appears to be facing a huge sex scandal details are still coming yeah. E. T. C this news girl news tonight with Peter Jennings to do 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 officers have known since 1900 convention including the socalled stand up for the specific purpose of targeting and. Sexually molesting women. I got off the elevator on the 3rd floor you could see it in the 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. A new and growing rape and Sexual Harassment scandal it 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. 12 years ago. The u. S. Navy and air force faces what may be an even bigger problem and other sexual abuse at the air force academy in Colorado Springs 142 allegations of assaults against women have been made in the last decade one highest ranking air force generals knew about Serious Problems of Sexual Assault at the academy yet failed to take action we dont intend to sweep this under the rug we take a share say were going to address it publicly in Congress Outrage 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. Kareem pride history and tradition living. Room where 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 2009 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. Sweet person who was trying really hard. And succeeding. One of the 1st things i was told my entire dinner was. Dont wear any makeup because the marines will think that you want to sleep with them and i thought thats just ridiculous the atmosphere off 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 was a senior officer in my command who the 1st time he spoke to me he said female marines here are nothing but objects for the marines to. Sew the men in the female shows up at my work shes a mentally ill. Of the new females get talked about how safe there have in fact slipped was so and so apparently i stopped all that. I mean i did it got progressive way 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 and 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 passing out on lawns this is the norm at 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 realised 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 whos had a home or 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 weve reopened a new investigation against you for conduct unbecoming an officer and public intoxication. 54 jets and more than 1300 military personnel are headed to air force base in alaska where is that to say come on ill show you whats the reason for any type of enhanced u. S. Military presence in this area rush up. What is it suddenly about the South China Sea that makes it so that it 11000000000 barrels of oil. Take a look at this map who really owns what kind of says no it belongs to us india says no we claim that that belongs to us both of these countries have Nuclear Weapons capabilities there is reason for concern so thats why were going to drill down on this story for you today right here on the news with rick sanchez where you know as we always like to say we do believe by golly its time to do news again. The one guy you appear he was a may found literally dead like this is standing. Guard here and his girlfriend they were found in their apartment that they just got. Cold and they were definitely 3 days holding each other this was so people who have lost their life so early today she. This is from akron. Is better known as the meth capital of the high and its a city where the number of drug addicts keeps growing every. Yeah. I came up when i was 14 and my whole family were drug addicts. Throughout much of the 1990 s. And beyond and the doctors were incursion in some cases incentivized to overprescribe. I mean enough to sedate a small country where you should also hear about people by all that secular stuff and we got a good chance that guy was just crazy too much you know to do it. And theyre succumbing you know one after the next. Before. All of club became a cultural being out states and other world over. Washington ceased to be a city of. Gender quarter compromised by much as im sure National Interest people talk about gridlock in Congress Years people got the bell. Of the right salt the radicals the media in both bodies so this happened to. Be a solid bipartisan centrist approach to politics both domestic and war predates clark just wish. I remembered going to the bar. With an officer that sarabande chats for us after id had a couple drinks. Thats all i remember. This wham to his fellow officers i was that he had. I got called up to a majors office in. Me with fractionation adultery he was married i wasnt and i was trying but i dont think. I told this. About emily and the comments 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 lie awake compared to you know wondering. What i could do to help her get out. Hes. Told anybody and that he was going to have his friend marvin from india to kill me and throw me in it did because thats how they took care of things in india and. She went to war. I mean years for life. For them to take it. And come back and say. Yes they called you a yes they called you a yes they called you a walking mattress its documented over and over and over again and you deserved it and you 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. The call the police with one hand. Who are 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 bits of the 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 youre in charge of the community. Your own everything you are judge or jury or executioner most americans assume that there is access to a system of justice so that for example of your civilian and your rape 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 that little vigil commander had the the total say so over a case and most him dont have the training or the education to determine whats appropriate and serious felony commodus cations the problem in the military is the convening authority who is not legally trained makes the final decision. They had attained a command at my old squadron where the Credit Rating it was still station. Hed only been and command for 4 days and he made the decision over legal to stop the case what i saw was was commanders i mean or Field Grade OfficersLieutenant Colonels colonels. Who have been in 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 through for selling my remote drugs and youd see a guy get you know 2 weeks of duty for a rape that 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 restricted 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 do they 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 and 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 and i pull of this year we will debut a social Marketing Campaign as part of our prevention strategy that insecure souls hierarchy might. See what i saw my buddies did. Strong. Are still 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 no poster is going to prevent a criminal from barging into your rooms 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 sark is a joke the things that they say ignored or there me. 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 guess 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 rapist 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