War on Women in The United States Armed Forces

Because I smile and laugh, why should it entice your jealously to evoke pain.
A violent perpetrator to say the least, unable to control you habits, what a shame!
I call you a beast. What right do you have to brutally rape me?
I serve, we serve this country.
Should I call for help, I risk being investigated…
Should I run away, I am considered AWOL and the after math is more devastating.

Property of Uncle Sam, but he doesn't hear the cry’s of a woman!
So I stand alone with tears, frequently shivering from military peers.
Where can I go?
How do I live from here?

In 1991 Journalist Amy Herdy wrote an article called “Betrayal in the Ranks”, she summed up a figure around 200,000 women in the U.S. Military were sexually assaulted. That was in 1991. Over 20 percent of female veterans have been sexually assaulted while serving in US divisions of armed forces. 80 percent of cases are never reported.

Up until 2012, the U.S. Armed Services mandated a rank system to report incidents. A known hurtle, the women violently attacked were to make the compliant with their “Commander in Chief” because they were next in superior rank. Unfortunately, 25 percent of known perpetrators are the commanders themselves. Many commanders had no formal training on law, prosecution, and lacked compassion for rape victims. Studies conclude The United Armed Services has two times the amount of known sex offenders actively in service than that of the civilian population. Each one is known to be obsessive and repetitive, many averaging an unimaginable capability of 300 victims in their life time. Yet, women are being blamed for being raped and their cases are repeatedly closed. Of the estimated 4,500 cases reported less than five percent or 200 end in convictions. Additionally, not one case out of 2,500 has been reviewed by the Inspector General in 2011. This same year the court dismissed a class action survivor rape case against the US Military. The court determined “rape as an occupational hazard of working for the military”.

Victims are deprived of the right to due process because they are denied the right to move to a safe quarters away from their attacker! Even worse, some have to take orders from their offender and are forced to complete assignments that require that them to be alone with the perpetrator. The bottom line is that women's human rights are not honored.

The devastation does not stop there, once a case is reported the trend has been to close it and then open a new investigation on the victim. The investigation has a history of charging women with adultery and wrong doing. Their career is destroyed in an instant if they speak up. Even as veteran’s long after the trauma occurred, injuries sustained in the rape are not covered under the medical health benefits given by the government.

The United States Government is fully aware of the issues women face but they are consciously not holding anyone accountable. These women entered in to the US Armed Services to protect a country that is considered a free land. The injustice that they have and continue to face contradicts the values and beliefs that the United States is built from. Studies show that the long term effects on their soul/psyche are damaged, hurt, and changed forever. These women are mothers, sisters, daughters, and aunts. These women warn against from serving in the US Armed Services. This is a sad day because we cannot cease our efforts because we have to fight harder to be heard. It is a step back unless we stand together as women. We must get our political representatives to hold all divisions of the US Armed Services and perpetrators accountable.

For more information
Watch the documentary- The Invisible War