Posted on 04/18/2009 8:16:48 AM PDT by Zakeet
Female U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have more to fear than roadside bombs or enemy ambushes. They also are at risk of being raped or sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers.
"The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq," a book based on 40 in-depth interviews, recounts the stories of female veterans who served in combat zones and tells of rape, sexual assault and harassment by male counterparts.
Some were warned by officers not to go to the latrine by themselves. One began carrying a knife in case she was attacked by comrades. Others said they felt discouraged to report assaults.
"The horror of it is that it is their own side that is doing this to them," said the book's author, Helen Benedict, a journalism professor at Columbia University in New York. The book was released in the United States on Wednesday.
One in 10 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are female, and more women have fought and died in the Iraq war than any since World War Two, according to U.S. Department of Defense statistics cited in the book.
Benedict said the book's title comes from the isolation female U.S. soldiers experience when combining the trauma of their combat duties with sexual harassment by fellow soldiers.
"Because women are under so much more danger now and actually in the battle, it's a particularly tragic situation because all soldiers are supposed to be able to rely on one another to watch their backs," Benedict said.
"And how can you feel that way if your fellow soldiers are harassing you all day or trying to rape you or actually even raping you?"
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
If someone posts something contradictory to what I know, and know directly from personal witness and testimony and also from news stories that I’ve read..., it’s only natural to show that the statement is false. And that’s exactly what has been done.
As I said before, the two main things that I hear about, from military people, are that (1) drug trafficking and (2) weapons sales goes on in the military. And that’s precisely what is happening, contrary to the assertions that others want to portray as not true or that someone “doesn’t know” the military... :-)
To point this out is not an anti-military agenda, but correcting the *false message* that someone else is giving. There is a distinction between the two.
Women make up 6% of the Marine Corps. If women were removed from the Marines tomorrow, the lack would not be a big deal. Contrast that with the amount of work, expense, and hassle involved in accommodating the existence of women in the Marines.
You really know how to waste time by just ignoring a poster's words and getting back to your anti military agenda. You do seem determined to continue to attempt to portray our military as being criminal.
Save us all some time and just read post 114, especially this part.
"All this doesn't make for God like perfection but it sure does mean that the military has a vastly smaller number of bad guys than civilian life and you dont have to be pick carefully to avoid them, for one thing you can bust their ass, nobody wants flakes in their unit."
To point this out is not an anti-military agenda, but correcting the *false message* that someone else is giving. There is a distinction between the two.
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Sorry. It appears to me that you have an anti-military perspective.
Your little smiley face aside.
You said — You really know how to waste time by just ignoring a poster’s words and getting back to your anti military agenda. You do seem determined to continue to attempt to portray our military as being criminal.
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You haven’t heard me say that the military “as being criminal”. That’s something that *you* made up, not me. I’ve relayed to you precisely that I’ve got information directly from people in the military that the two biggest things going on with some there are (1) drug trafficking and (2) weapons sales.
Then you start saying that they are not like that (apparently you’re saying that *no one* in the military is not like that — saying that I don’t know what I’m talking about. So, if that wasn’t enough information for you to have, that I have direct contacts with people in the military that tell me that, I supply the information through public news sources that tell you about that.
And then you start backpedaling and saying something to the fact that not everyone is perfect but we’re more perfect than most — or something to that effect.
Well, I’ve never said that they were perfect or not — only that *this* is what is going on, what I’ve been told and exactly what the news also reports, as you can see.
You’re the one who is misleading people around here, to give them the idea that no such things happen in the military. They do indeed happen there. But, as I said, I’m not the one who is saying that the military is criminal — you’re the one who made up that assertion...
This is an old issue with primarily black soldiers, even 38 years ago when the military was restricted to 2% females we had a problem with mostly black soldiers committing street like crimes (rape and violent robbery) in post areas at night. We were advised to escort women through those areas when we saw one.
Today the women and the most aggressive soldiers with women are both in the same place, support units.
If you've ever heard that statistics can be misleading, this in one of those instances. While Women Marines (WMs) make up less than 10% of the total fighting force, the instant removal of those WMs would significantly reduce unit readiness and consequently combat effectiveness.
You see, woman are NOT billeted in combat roles in the Marines. As a consequence, WMs represent a much larger percentage of non-combat, but equally mission critical billets. If they disappeared tomorrow, there would be problems and you'd lose a tremendous amount of mission competency and overall experience.
To be honest, I've had WM's in my subordination only twice while I served, and that was while I was assigned to I&I duty. It wasn't that bad, although I'd by dishonest if I didn't admit there were some ancillary issues you just don't have in an all male environment.
I think on balance, WMs bring more the the Marine Corps than they cost.
You said — Sorry. It appears to me that you have an anti-military perspective.
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Well, the problem here, from the way I see it happening — is very simply that anything that would be said that is “negative” is taken to mean that this is a “anti-military perspective” — which it isn’t.
You can see that I basically never said anything about this until someone challenged me that the “stories” that I hear from close relatives and people I know in the military are not true. I then respond to show that they *are true*.
So, in answering back to “back up my assertions” in the first place about things that I had directly heard — it is said that *this* (i.e. the backing up of what I heard) is, therefore, “anti-military”.
That’s the problem, right there. It’s not anti-military to say what *is happening* and that’s basically what it is.
That *also* goes along with the *original story* here on this thread, about those women complaining about being raped in those situations that they described. Here is another “instance” of “facts being reported” and then other “denying the facts being reported” — because they feel that any facts that they don’t like to hear — is somehow “anti-military”.
And that’s not the case. It’s simply the “facts of the matter”. If women are getting raped, then this is what is happening — and it’s not *anti-military” to report those very facts...
"Youre the one who is misleading people around here, to give them the idea that no such things happen in the military."
You are just a little bit insane aren't you. See post 114 or post 131.
"All this doesn't make for God like perfection but it sure does mean that the military has a vastly smaller number of bad guys than civilian life and you dont have to be pick carefully to avoid them, for one thing you can bust their ass, nobody wants flakes in their unit."
I’m not the one who said — Like I said you dont know squat about the military, we military and veteran people do.
That was you who said that, when I brought up the issue about drug trafficking and weapons sales.
It appears that you’re changing your story now... that it is shown in the news stories... LOL...
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Yes. That's exactly the problem.
You are just a little bit insane aren't you. See post 114 or post 131.
"All this doesn't make for God like perfection but it sure does mean that the military has a vastly smaller number of bad guys than civilian life and you dont have to be pick carefully to avoid them, for one thing you can bust their ass, nobody wants flakes in their unit."
You have to be able to report “facts” and take them as something that is happening (especially if it pertains to these women being raped...) — and, at the same time — *not* have it being “anti-military*.
All that does — when you say it’s “anti-military” is contribute to covering up something that is happening to these women. And I don’t think that it’s right for these women in those cases...
You said — You don’t know squat about the military, anyone that watches TV or reads a newspaper knows about the crimes that take place in the military from guns from the war or murders or rapes or credit card fraud or wife abuse to anything else that humans do.
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Well, I do know exactly what I reported and what was told to me from those people who are in the military and who were in the military — which you wanted to deny happening in the first place...
Next time, it would be simpler for you to admit such things do happen, just like people in the military say that they do — and you wouldn’t have to go through “all that”... LOL...
And once again, reporting the “facts” of what is happening, especially from other military people — is not “anti-military”... as you want to try to “set up” the “straw man argument”... :-)
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Disputing the "facts" is not "covering" it up. Sorry, but imho, a reasonable person reading the entirety of your posts would not see them as showing concern for women. A reasonable person would see an anti-military agenda.
Harassment I believe. Rape I do not.
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Ah, the anonymous source. Always so convincing.
Well, I’ll clear that up for you, then. It’s not meant to be anti-military. And, indeed, those women need to be heard and those situations need to be investigated and addressed... for all the women who are in the military...
Anybody is better than nobody but replacing those females with men would be a much better value.
I like to ask people, if we aren't losing anything by replacing our soldiers with women then we can make the Marine Corp 100% female and they would be just as good right?
I think we all know the answer to that, so really what we are asking is how many females can the military absorb before it costs us our country?
The answer is that no one knows because you can't measure or know what the unknownable future holds in our fights for survival, so until recently we just tried not to deliberately introduce weaknesses that we could avoid.
You said — Ah, the anonymous source. Always so convincing.
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They’re not anonymous. They are the “same kind of people” that others claim to know about the military “themselves” — when they refer to “others” that they speak on these issues (i.e., those other military people they know).
As I said, originally, these are people that are related, personal and I know them directly. You can go back and see that they are close family members and relatives. No one anonymous here. And certainly no more anonymous than anyone else *here* asserting anything different than that — from “their military sources” that they bring up..., same difference...
BUT, for the sake of showing that it was not something “made up” — I also included “news articles” which covered the same things that I was reporting from the people I knew directly. And those are the articles posted above.
The two biggest problems that I’ve been told about are (1) drug trafficking and (2) weapons sales — in the military. And this is shown to be the case.
Now, how this came up in the first place, was in reference to these women reporting rapes in the military. And I said originally, that it was entirely believable, especially so, when considering other stories that I had heard from these close family members and relatives. That’s how *they* got into this thread...
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