The Military's Secret Shame

Submitted by Matt on Tue, 2011-05-24 00:14

A Newsweek article from April, which I only just saw. Men have the right to be free from assaults of all kinds, whether it be from men or women, and the governments under which they live (for good or bad) have a duty to ensure this. Article here. Excerpt:

'Blake Stephens, now 29, joined the Army in January 2001, just seven months after graduating from high school. The verbal and physical attacks started quickly, he says, and came from virtually every level of the chain of command. In one of the worst incidents, a group of men tackled him, shoved a soda bottle into his rectum, and threw him backward off an elevated platform onto the hood of a car. When he reported the incident, Stephens says, his platoon sergeant told him, “You’re the problem. You’re the reason this is happening,” and refused to take action. “You just feel trapped,” he says. “They basically tell you you’re going to have to keep working with these people day after day, night after night. You don’t have a choice.” His assailants told him that once deployed to Iraq, they would shoot him in the head. “They told me they were going to have sex with me all the time when we were there,” he says.

Stephens twice attempted suicide. His marriage fell apart. He became paranoid and explosive. In June 2003 his mother wrote a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, detailing her son’s “continued humiliation.” “Congressional inquiries have been know [sic] to jeopardize a soldier’s rank and standing,” Boxer’s office responded. “There is no way for our office to administratively protect your son’s military standing once a congressional examination is in progress.” The following August, Stephens was discharged for his “physical condition.”

Fear of a ruined career is a major factor preventing victims from coming forward. In 2010 the Pentagon anonymously surveyed active-duty soldiers who had been sexually assaulted about why they declined to report their attacks. Almost half the responding men said they kept silent because they didn’t want anyone to know, a third said they didn’t think anything would be done, and almost 30 percent said they were afraid of retaliation or reprisals.'

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Comments

Rape is about humiliation and control over another person no matter if it is done to a male or female.

It is sickening that this is happening in our own military to our own soldiers.

I can only hope that the crimes are taken seriously and every effort is made to stop this type of abuse and that justice is served to the perpetrators.

It is hard for me to believe that the male soldiers who commit these crimes would do so if they were civilians. Does the military train soldiers to be so void of emotions that they can turn on each other? Are they so trained to follow orders and never divert from the group that some perpetrators may have felt like they had to participate or become victims themselves. Is the military making monsters out of men?

I wonder if the light-hearted and "humorous" attitude that is associated with male rape attributes to this sort of thing. Perhaps the perpetrators do not even think of themselves as rapists.

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Submitted by Kris on Tue, 2011-05-24 03:50

I have always been amused at socalled men who would have forced sex with another man homosexual or not and still not think of themselves as homosexual. Magical thinking I guess. Sort of like jumping in a pool of water and not getting wet. We men as a group have a lot of "fixin'" to do to ourselves before we can criticize others. Of course stupid is not fixable but we must try. I also hope the article is not totally accurate because I would hate to live in a country that would tolerate this type to trashy behaviour in its military.

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Submitted by Luek on Tue, 2011-05-24 15:36