Ive interviewed women civilian world and rape is a very very traumatizing thing to have happen but ive never seen trauma like ive seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma. I cannot remember how many times a young female marine that had been raped or sexually assaulted had told me that she looked at these guys as your brother or the suspect as your brother its a kin to what happens in a family with incest because you know in the military when we were functioning at our best i coach he says unit with brothers and sisters in of the band of brothers and sisters i mean we are family when that bomb of trust is violated. I. The wound penetrates to the very most inner part of ones soul one psyche. I have this folder that i keep i have all my boot camp letters in it for my mom and my sister and. People and. I was just going through some of this stuff and im like whats this you know and i open it up im like oh my god. My suicide letter. Bomb im sorry for the grease that you must feel. Just because im gone physically doesnt mean i will be there spiritually i truly feel that god will take me without question even though i took my own life. Ive had the most broken thoughts of dreams and physical pain to remind me of the her if it acts upon me that happened while one of duty a mother brother sister and husband should never live with knowing the horrible acts upon me find peace in knowing that my bottom that the body left behind doesnt consume my soul i am free now and im not afraid. Ready to soar corded and you know. I took a whole bottle of pills and woke up strangely enough im not sure why. I at that point in my life i just wanted to be over. And think i was 2021 and then. Within the next year i tried again. I was going to. Overdose on pain medication and sleeping medication. And just hope that id fall asleep in my body it would just shut down or something. When i went to the doctor i had been feeling sick and dizzy and i was aided and. They took my urine and they told me that i was bragg. You know theres a wife and there you know maybe her life will be better than mine and i got to make sure that so. She was very special. Sometimes it takes a different kind of action to cause change to calm. And sometimes. A loss. I grew up on military bases my dad was career army when i was a child when we answer the phone we just have to say colonel burks quarters and because of that i have as i have an understanding of the level of control that the military exercises that perhaps most in civilian life dont have. The fare structure and it is a judicial doctrine that was developed by the Supreme Court that says if youre in the military you cannot sue for something that happens to you thats incidental your military service if you military doctors amputate the wrong limb youre out of luck you cannot sue for that for that harm thats been done to you so we filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of 16 men and women seeking to bring former secretary rumsfeld and secretary gates to justice. I heard about the lawsuit and decided to become a part of it. Because i never wanted another woman to go through what i would. Be a lawsuit alleges that they have overseen a system that has deprived the rape survivors of their Constitutional Rights specifically we allege that they deprived them of their substantive due process procedural due. Process equal protection and 1st amendment rights. In the sick to see everybody stories. How they kind of closely tied together everybodys story somehow has its consistency like the military does to People Like Us all the things that theyve put in place are all pretty much intended to help women deal with being raped better thats what theyre about. And join the military halfway through my senior year of high school awning to serve my country and do new things and challenge myself in a different way. I was in the army about 7 or 8 years before anything ever happened to me. By another cia agent who was senior to me. I was contacted by an agent with 4 riley c. Id who said they were investigating the suspect as a serial rapist who had raped several military Law Enforcement women and i thought there was no way that you know she wouldnt be convicted and i have a difficult time with anything its not the fact that i had an almost 10 year career which i was very invested in and i gave that up to report a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry and hes probably doing the same thing right now. It was a female attempt on me aside and tell me that you know she had heard about my case and she thought she could talk to me as one female marine to another and she told me what he did was capitalize on an opportunity that you presented to him thats not the same thing as rape and you need to know. Him after it happened they mean you know and i think with them and i tried having everybody advocate for me to not make me go i was can deal with seeing him so their solution to that was just to put him right in front of me so i could see him the whole time so that i could know where he was and know that he wasnt able to do anything right in front of me and they were thinking the entire time were up on the hills and kept. Steeper. Theres no way out of it i mean if you think about it the only way out of it is like a suicide or a wall so thats those are your only 2 options suicide a wall or deal with it right now im just barely appreciating. Learning how to appreciate being a woman again as 11 years. And. Im trying to have fun with it not forcing myself to have fun. Im trying really hard not to cry but it just. You know and watching you girls having to. Go through it i mean it makes me want to explode being here and like knowing that me wanting to commit suicide im not alone me being hidden raped and not all everything the way that they treated me the way that they made me feel not alone and we have all you guys with all your knowledge and everything you guys are going to stand right you know. This instance. I think the woman who are coming forward in this lawsuit are very courageous they because theyre putting their names out there for criticism. Theyre putting their names out there to go down and his truth is they were the ones who got raped and theres one thing you want to go through life with. Today i stand in solidarity with the courageous women and men who serve in our Nations Armed forces the inspirational plaintiffs you see before you are a small handful of the 10s of thousands of troops and veterans whove been sexually brutalized by their fellow Service Members while defending our nation it is time to finally acknowledge that the military judicial system is broken when it comes to these cases my name is and in my case my command was unwilling to help me i went for help several times with other petty officers and i i was denied help even with other men saying please get her away from him and it was it was still allowed many. People recently me dont go to the public dont let this get out because itll make the military look bad i really feel like my social responsibility to speak out about this issue especially from centering my investigative experience and the fact that the military Justice System allows so many offenders to escape justice. Thanks for being willing to fill me in a little bit on some of the experiences i name is Regina Basque is and i served honorably in the United States marine corps for 4 years my name is clearly choke and i served in the United States coast guard i was harassed and sexually assaulted i was administrative leave discharges no benefits after 9 and a half years of Service Women should not bear their burden that is not part of what we should have been doing to do our jobs for time a criminal activity were talking about a vicious. Attack that it is criminal it isnt assault almost none of the cases means Court Martial and out of the ones that do almost none of their them resulting convictions seems to me in all the time times that ive looked at these things and the command is the one who has so much discretion i think our advocate should actually be civilians not ones that work in the military i think we should have actual units civilian units it absolutely tears in my inside to think that this has been going on for as long as its been going on and weve never addressed it all people in the military must know if you are perpetrator of Sexual Assault against someone else military will be to you youre going to be held accountable. Is youll be via reflection of reality. In a world transformed. What will make you feel safe from. The isolation community. Are you going the right way or are you being led so. Direct. What is true what is faith. In the world corrupted you need to descend. To join us in the depths. Or a maybe in the shallows. With the yeah you know what. I found a tremendously frustrating when i would demonstrate that an offender had committed an offense and taking it to a commander and having a commander be the deciding authority you know i dont think commanders are capable of making. An object of decision i dont i do not think it should be in their hands so he was just thinking to do discretion away from yes absolutely congresswoman davis and i are both on the Armed Services committee there are a number of issues that youve raised that makes me want to go back and particularly take another look on an emotional one individual basis what happens after a crime like that has been committed its a very difficult thing to go through and dont think i dont know i know. The fact that youre willing to tell me your stories firsthand makes it much easier for us to go back and just say you know these are policies that we have to change its a big its a big big deal what are you doing you really find people like you who stand up for us thank you so much for everything they do. For me. Thank you again for your Service Thanks for your time mr speaker last year the military received over 3000 reports of Sexual Assault involving other members into service this week 17 better ins are saying that the military ignored their cases of Sexual Assault while they were on active duty today im going to talk about the men corey chokmah who served in the coast guard from august 2005 to june 2007 she now suffers from p. T. S. D. And abnormal e. G. Did nerve damage in her fate. Joe greg later told the press its like they didnt care it wasnt important i wasnt important. Going to get the mail. He was cross. There is my pay. This is. Effective october 20th 2009 my overall combined rating is 70 percent. Service connection for anxiety is denied Service Connection for displacement and bilateral bilateral this displacement is denied. You. Will be right there. My face doesnt have any desks in it but thats what the x. Rays show thats what dr karp those letters. Medical for your winners x. Are. Nice to see you again and thank you for coming im going to play a short Public Service announcement and then we can entertain questions i think the prevention aspect of Sexual Assault goes back in some ways to Risk Reduction what it really is was Risk Reduction Risk Reduction are ideas like telling women to if theyre going to go somewhere together always have a buddy with them or there are other examples of risk. I didnt im not familiar with thats out of my area of expertise. Well i want to continue where dr whitley left off you know looking at what our focus is and thats on prevention as well as as a response weve really done a very good job there and the credit goes to dr whitley and her staff that has been working this for the last 5 to 6 years i dont think the department of defense has has really yet embraced that they have a Sexual Assault problem that its not just an issue of the culture environment or that the people are at risk for sexual sold their system itself though just does not value the rights of victims and doesnt provide the medical protection you know i have heard the accusations as well that you know commanders are sweeping this under the carpet now what i would say to the people that have come forward to you is if you feel your commander is ignoring what you have have asked them to do if theyre not taking care of you within that chain of command you need to go to the d. O. D. That are part of the fence Inspector General g. A. O. General Accounting Office just did a study a report and guess what not one. One case of more than 2500 has been reviewed and investigated by the Inspector General and when asked about that the Inspector General said we have other higher priorities what what you really want is you want there to be a system akin to a civilian system where you go to the police and you youre in the crime is prosecuted by an impartial judicial system as a commander you have no favorites you are equally to take care of every Single Person in your organization thats what commanders are all about these are human beings just like everybody else you cannot be impartial when you are already involved with people in other settings i would take exception with your characterization that the disposition of the case is based on the relationship between the commander. And he alleged perpetrator c. Im going to speak to you with my former commanders had on there is absolutely no conflict of interest you do what the right thing is to do. You have other avenues and those if you feel like you have not been taken care of adequately by your commander go up through your congressman or congresswoman and file a complaint that way you cannot you cant go to a congressman to be to obtain justice for being raped i mean imagine how silly that is imagine if you told civilians that oh geez sorry you were raped go talk to your congressman. You could Say Something to this guy but what you want to see. I dont think its affected his life at all. And people in my old squadron that ive talked to. They say they dont see any effect that its had on. Her. Because its a struggle every day thats clearly changed to i. Am really hoping that he falls off the coast guard but they never find him im really hoping for that like they fight for support mishap where he got chopped up by the prop. Big that would be great thered be an exciting day but i price over and. I hope this reaches them to you know i hope that somewhere someone sees my face. Wherever it is and goes. I know them and theyre talking about me. Because they know what they did you know and then although half the matter is the same friend they. Say we station with her. You know and then they can be a secret anymore. So hopefully they have to deal with it to you know some way shape or. Most rapists. Repetitive criminals that its a kind of crime thats has an obsessive quantities of people do it again and again so the tragedy of that is that every one of these guys who gets off free will be doing it to other women again and again often for years. The average sex offender in their lifetime has about 300 victims. The vast majority of sex offenders will never be caught a lot of civilians see it as being a military problem but it really isnt because 5 percent of reported offenders are convicted. So almost none of them wind up on the sex offender registry there is no military sex offender list that im aware of but if youre convicted in court a felony conviction us. Next offense of a sex offense theyre going to go on the National List for any sex of bad words were correct that is not the case it depends on what level conviction they got if they received over a year then thats considered a felony but a lot of these cases are pled down so that theyre not felonies the military doesnt like to prosecute people and keep. As felony convictions i often ask myself the question why wouldnt why would they stop and if theres nothing to stop them like incarceration or some other light major life change theyre going to continue. If you run that the sexual predator through the judicial system and then you give a slap on the hand all youve done is youve done the equivalent of the catch release program youve caught up youve educated now you released him back in the home town america he now knows a lot more about the Law Enforcement judicial system than he did when he 1st started which makes him a much more capable criminal a much more dangerous criminal they go on to literally prey on women and men in our neighborhoods across the United States i mean if we dont care about women or men in the military then we. Care about women and men in our girls and boys in our neighborhoods back home. Were. Missing that bread line than anything about this story was the young women. We went in with such ideas and i want to serve my country i want to give back to see a Young Persons hope and idealism crushed in that brutal way i think we owe our young people love and that. Increasingly women are becoming some of the best trained professionals that we have in the military is a great soldiers and we cant afford to lose them. Cant have it around trying to get. People deeply believe in their hearts to serve their country they should be given that chance with respect. You know its part of really harm american way even dont we just there purple hearts because we were wounded in time of war they were in the give us one you know very just saying maybe there should be written for women you. Are served and she who have survived it is your. We have a good army a good military but not a great one and this is the kind of issue that they keeps our military from being great. We can view this as a shared challenges not just a womens issue its not just something that the military has to deal with but as a society were all in this together. Its our national duty. My. Dollar club became a household name in the United States and other world over. Washington ceased to be a city that. Gender corridor compromise might might is a sure National Interest people talk about gridlock in congress with years people got the belt. Of their rights all the radicals in both bodies. This grappling. Lydias solid bipartisan centrist approach to politics both domestic and foreign agreed a spot thats for sure. Secret prisons are not usually what comes to mind when thinking about europe however even the most prosperous. Can be deceived weve been busy rolls on the work to view houses were allowed to leave prison was located and the only people had access to the story for investigators sure hell they uncovered the darkest dealings of the secret services but i mean. You graded no. Box. For. Crying for justice. I know no crowd. No shots. Actually felt. No 1st. Point your thirst for action. The weeks biggest stories from r. T. Rushes for a fresh constitution comes into effect after getting solid backing from voters in a challenging weeklong vote. How to handle historys contentious money ones with growing moves to take down start choosing to racism as germany we ask found a solution to protecting the past without told meant in the present. Heard enough is enough Seattle Police clear the selfproclaimed autonomous protest zone following deadly shootings and repeated violence
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