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 ...
Having commanded soldiers I can speak from experience on this.
First, not all the sources of harassment and assault are necessarily males. I had female soldiers who were the victims of female assault. And it gets a lot harder to exersize military authority in female living areas
Secondly, just as was shown in Abu Ghrab, the authorities can’t monitor every individual every moment.
Third, yes they are victims, but those who urged caution in driving women farther and farther into combat zones warned that this would happen. Your leftist ideologues insisted in placing women in situations where victimization can be expected.
All that said, and contradicting this leftist feminazi, I believe American soldiers are a cut above their 18-24 year old counterparts and the incidence of this is far lower than is measurable than at most large universities.
Again I speak from personal experience having last week spoken to the dean of stuents at the local university about a drug-alcohol death our daughter witnessed in the dormitory.
This dean explained that my generation can’t conceive how predatory male female relationships have come to be. Date-rape and incapacitating drugs are common and even if a grl just gets drunk enough to lose control the men who observe her will feel no inhibition to sexually using her. And these are MIDDLE CLASS college student. What must it be like in neighborhoods where mysoginistic rap music sets the social climate?
This is the brave new world you leftists wanted. When women were prtected you said they were enslaved or dominated. Can’t wait for the next dehumanizing iniative that you force upon us using the benevolent power of liberalism.
You said — And I fully expect the I know so and so and she is a great American soldier posts, but the bottom line is, we dont need women in the military. The plusses dont nearly overcome the minuses.
—
Exactly right, but I might say not in combat situations or any situation that can potentially turn into that. There’s still a lot of opportunity in other areas.
It means whatever the harassee wants it to mean.
Juan Williams knows what it means. About 20 years ago there was a big kerfuffle at the WaPo when a bunch of the women whined he was harassing them. The problem? He would compliment them saying such horrible things like "You look nice today."
He issued an apology. I thought he should have told them where they could put their suffering.
In all my years in the Marines I only encountered one rape victim. A dependent that had somehow wandered onto the flight line in the wee hours of the Morning and had been raped by a guard at the wrong end of a shotgun.
She ran up to me dazed and confused in a state of undress. At the time I was armed with a 45 locked and loaded with a round in the chamber guarding pallets full of 50 calibers and M-60’s as well as M16’s and other assorted weapons.
It was a surreal moment.
Is every unit perfect? Heck no. I'm just not convinced that this is as wide spread as described.
Does it strike anyone as typical of liberals that FIRST they argue that you have to include women in the service and in combat and you can’t put them into segregated units, and THEN they complain that the military is abusing women in the service?
It was an obvious ploy. First they say, “Women are BETTER and STRONGER than men, so include them in all aspects of the military.”
Then they say, “These poor, victimized women are being abused by men. Why are you subjecting them to abuse by forcing them to use the same latrines as men?”
Then predictably we will soon hear the third complaint: “We must solve this injustice by abolishing the military. Women are being abused in the military, so we will replace it with Obama’s civilian security corps.”
You said — The solution is discipline, not doing away with the victim.
—
Yeah, like the discipline that a child molester would engage in, in being allowed to be around, close-by and near children...
I think the standard practice is to make sure that kids and child molesters are not in the same proximity to each other...
The mother doesn’t tell the child to remember that this man has “discipline” and they can stay in a dangerous situation and/or environment, but rather for the child to remove himself or herself from the dangerous situation... (sorry, don’t trust “discipline”... LOL...)
wow, really? What kind of guys do you hang out with? I have a hard time believing that more than one in a thousand guys is capable of rape. I certainly wouldn't wouldn't put it at more than one in ten.
First the DHS report and now this. Don’t believe for a second this isn’t all planned out. And where was the military training for these women? In the Marines, every soldier is a rifleman and trained in hand-to-hand combat. If a fool tried to rape one of them, he’d get his jewels handed to him.
I do too. Rape is very serious and this woman should not lie about it.
“have more to fear than roadside bombs or enemy ambushes”
Good grief. What stupidity
You are not the only one that knows what goes on. And a lot of things are either fabricated, exaggerated or biased, and then some are true.
More often than not, they will include a “non-rape” category to bolster the percentages. “Assault” and “harassment” are 2 of the most common.
They hardly ever report actual rape as a separate category, because the percentage would be very low, and would therefore lack journalistic sensationalism.
In this case, the headline says “rape”.
but the article bundles other types of offenses to get to a dramatic conclusion.
Gee, I wonder if we allowed “gays” in the the military . . .
would there be any fear of homosexual rape or sexual harassment?
Would Ms. Benedict Arnold write a subsequent book about that?
Well, I’ve heard the stories and I don’t even want to find out if some of them are true... LOL...
lol Only someone with the screen name Non-Sequitur could make such a completely and utterly off topic and pointless post. Well done. How is the weather in your own little world?
Did you bother to read the post I was replying to? Their solution was ban women in the military. Now which is more pointless?
So you're saying that military personnel cannot be trusted around women during trying circumstances? Doesn't say much about them, does it?
I think the standard practice is to make sure that kids and child molesters are not in the same proximity to each other...
I think the solution would be to punish the child molester for his actions, not spank the child for being molested.
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