The military’s sexual assault crisis has been in the headlines consistently for the past two weeks, leading two members of Congress to call on President Obama to take executive action and fix it.

Sen. John Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced the Ruth Moore Act of 2013 earlier this year to help the victims of sexual assault receive benefits once they leave the military. At present, the burden of proof for victims of rape and sexual assault to qualify for disability benefits for conditions related to their trauma, including treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, is shockingly high, leaving many men and women unable to receive the care they need. A scheduled hearing on the bill was meant to take place on Wednesday, but has instead been delayed until June 3.

Rather than waiting for the Ruth Moore Act to pass, the bill’s sponsors sent Obama a letter on Thursday calling on him to use his authority as president to act now:

We commend your willingness to work with Congress to address the prevalence of sexual assault in the military. However, given the increasing rate of these assaults and the dramatic implications they are having on our service members, veterans, and their families, we strongly urge you to take further action to confront this crisis. In particular, you have the ability to provide justice for thousands of survivors of service-related sexual trauma by calling for more fairness in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims process, and increasing their ability to access the benefits they desperately need. [...]

Our legislation continues to garner support in Congress and has been endorsed by every major veterans’ service organization. Legislation, however, is not necessary to keep faith with these veterans. In 2010, the VA relaxed evidentiary standards to make it easier for combat veterans suffering from PTSD to get the disability benefits they need. It is past time the VA make a similar regulatory change for MST survivors. And you can direct them to do so.

Sexual assault and rape culture in the military has reached a tipping point in the last two weeks, with multiple stories about officials in positions to prevent assaults being charged or investigated for sexual assault themselves. “We’re losing the confidence of the women who serve that we can solve this problem,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Thursday. “That’s a crisis.”
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Ahead of possible major actions from the Pentagon and Congress on sexual assault in the military, the U.S. Army is forced to confront yet another instance of a member of the armed forces involved in a shocking sexual assault scandal.

In the latest incident, the Department of Defense revealed on Tuesday a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army stationed at the Ft. Hood, TX military base is under investigation for sexual assault. Along with allegedly sexually assaulting two of his peers, the the sergeant is being investigated for possibly forcing a subordinate into prostitution. Making matters even worse, the soldier under investigation was assigned as the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) program coordinator for an eight-hundred person battalion stationed at the base.

The investigation draws a parallel to a case just last week in which the head of the entire Air Force’s sexual assault response program was himself charged with sexual battery in Arlington, VA. No charges have yet been filed against the individual at Ft. Hood, but Pentagon spokesman George Little issued a statement about DOD’s response to yet another alleged instance of rape culture in the military:

I cannot convey strongly enough [Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's] frustration, anger, and disappointment over these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply.

Secretary Hagel met with Army Secretary McHugh this morning and directed him to fully investigate this matter rapidly, to discover the extent of these allegations, and to ensure that all of those who might be involved are dealt with appropriately.

To address the broader concerns that have arisen out of these allegations and other recent events, Secretary Hagel is directing all the services to re-train, re-credential, and re-screen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters.

Lawmakers quickly lined up to add their voices to the long list of those condemning the latest outrage and sexual assault in the military writ large. “These allegations only add to the mounting evidence of the need to change our military justice system to better hold perpetrators accountable and protect survivors of sexual assault,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said in a statement. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) head of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement he was “outraged and disgusted” by the latest reports from Ft. Hood, pointing to his own granddaughter in the Army and the “feelings of worry and doubt” many feel when family members join the service.

Much as last week’s case came just days ahead of the Pentagon releasing its annual report on sexual assault in the armed services, Tuesday’s story broke with major implications for the military on the horizon. Wednesday is the deadline for branches of the armed services to provide their plans for how to integrate women into combat units to the Pentagon. Last year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters that the move could help reduce the number of sexual assaults in the military in the long-run as “the more we treat people equally, the more likely they are to treat each other equally.”
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On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning, two female Iraq War veterans currently serving their first terms in Congress sharply criticized the military for its failure to address the increasing number of cases of sexual assault within its ranks.

Reps. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) — who continue to serve in their reserve unites now that they have been elected to public office — are advocating for a measure that would remove sexual assault cases from the military’s chain of command. As the two Congressmembers explained to host Candy Crowley, changing the way that the military currently handles rape cases would empower women to speak up without fear of repercussion from their commanders, as well as ensure that their complaints are handled objectively and fairly.

The Pentagon has traditionally opposed dealing with sexual assault complaints outside of the traditional chain of command. But, according to Duckworth and Gabbard, that drastic change is necessary because the military leadership has failed to adequately diffuse the victim-blaming rape culture that pervades the male-dominated armed forces:

DUCKWORTH: It’s absolutely unacceptable, Candy. I want the military to be a place where women can succeed and thrive the way I was able to. And the military leadership at this point have shown that they have not been capable of fixing this problem.

GABBARD: There are no excuses. It’s not enough just to say this is not something we’ll stand for, we’ll hold these people accountable unless you’re providing a system and process to actually do that. And I think there are two things we really need to look at. What is the core reason why this hasn’t really gotten better over the years? One being we have to make sure it’s a victim-centered response, from the moment the victim makes that report all the way through to the point where the perpetrator is prosecuted, charged, and punished. And secondly, making sure we are investigating those who are retaliating and abusing their positions of command or power.

DUCKWORTH: This issue is a power issue, it’s not a sex issue… The military, because it’s built on power and rank, has the ability to fix it based on that same tradition of power and rank. Commanders can put an end to this. And I am very, very disturbed that they have not been able to do this… We need to do something and we need to come up with a different system.

Duckworth and Gabbard agreed that the current sexual assault crisis signals that the military justice system has failed women. Ultimately, Duckworth explained, “this goes back to empowering the female service members to stand up, to know that when they speak up that they will be listened to and they will be treated fairly.”

Earlier this week, the Pentagon released a report that revealed there were an estimated 26,000 incidents of sexual assault in the military last year, as well as an alarming spike in sexual crimes that went unreported. President Obama called the rate of sexual crimes in the U.S. military “an outrage” and pledged to stand with victims of sexual assault. “I want them to hear directly from their commander in chief that I’ve got their backs. I will support them,” Obama said. “And we’re not going to tolerate this stuff and there will be accountability.”

Just one day after the Air Force’s chief of sexual assault prevention was arrested for sexual assault himself, a new Pentagon report shows a sharp increase in the estimated number of assaults in the military annually.

The report from the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office for Fiscal Year 2012 found a 6 percent rise in reported assaults over the last year, for a total of 3,374. But much more troubling is the estimated number of sexual assault incidents that were never officially reported. In last year’s report, there were an estimated 19,000 instances, but this year the number has jumped to an unprecedented 26,000 instances of assault, leaving thousands unreported.

The disparity in the total number of instances of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) compared to those fully reported — where the victim fills out an official report and action is taken — can be seen as being due to victims’ fears of retaliation, including possible discharge from service or being overlooked for a promotion. The new results line up with those seen in a 2011 Pentagon health survey released in April. According to that report, more female service members were willing to come forward about sexual abuse and assault, with roughly one in five women saying they were victims of unwanted sexual contact from another member of the military, but under reporting remains a serious issue.

“Sexual assault has no place in the United States military,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement released Monday night in reponse to news that Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, the Air Forces’s chief of sexual assault prevention, had been arrested on charges of sexual assault. “The American people, including our service members, should expect a culture of absolutely no tolerance for this deplorable behavior that violates not only the law, but basic principles of respect, honor, and dignity in our society and its military.”

Despite that pledge, assault and abuse in the military has been under increased scrutiny in recent months, following a series of high-profile scandals. In February, Lt. Col. James Wilkerson was reinstated into service after an Air Force general overturned a jury, voiding Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction. In 2012, Lackland Air Force base saw 12 instructors investigated for sexual misconduct toward 31 trainees, with at least one trainer sentenced to twenty years for rape and sexual assault. Army Gen. Jeffery Sinclair was likewise charged in 2012 with sexually assaulting a female subordinate, then threatening her career if she went public.
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The officer in charge of the U.S. Air Force’s response to sexual assault was himself arrested for sexual battery this weekend, drawing attention yet again to the extent of rape culture in the armed services.

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski is accused of assaulting a woman in an Arlington, VA, parking lot early Sunday morning. According to the police report of the incident, Krusinski approached the woman in question after a night of drinking:

On May 5 at 12:35 am, a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, of Arlington, VA, was arrested and charged with sexual battery. He was held on a $5,000 unsecured bond.

Krusinski is the head of the Air Force’s branch of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program, a Department of Defense initiative to combat sexual assault in the ranks. A spokesperson for the Air Force confirmed to local blog ARLnow.com the man described in the police report is in fact Lt. Col. Krusinski, but gave no further comment. ARLNow also confirmed that the woman and Krusinski did not know each other prior to the encounter.

The Air Force’s response to sexual violence was last scrutinized following a controversial case involving an Air Force general overturning a jury’s sexual assault conviction. That case launched a review of the military’s approach to cases involving sexual assault, resulting in Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel sending Congress a series of recommendations for them to pass into law. As it stands, however, an estimated 19,000 instances of sexual assault occurred in 2011 alone.

(HT: Graham Jenkins)

A report aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday shed light on the under-reported threat combat soldiers faced when sent back out into the theater with a concussion, a decision that has had long-lasting repercussions on American veterans.

For years, concussions have been an invisible and therefore neglected injury within the armed services. At the height of the Iraq War, the standard operating procedure was to have soldiers who had sustained head injuries from the explosion of IEDs or other trauma to go back out into the field soon thereafter. In doing so, these soldiers — suffering from symptoms including severe aches, double vision, and nausea — were put at risk of suffering a second concussion before the first had healed, an event that heightens the chance of permanent brain damage.

Maj. Ben Richards, a retired Army veteran, was one of the soldiers sent back out after a concussion who has now been diagnosed with brain injury. “If I could trade traumatic brain injury for a single-leg amputation, I’d probably do that in a second,” he told 60 Minutes, underscoring the difference between visible injuries and those hidden inside the brain. Before his new diagnosis, Richards was told he instead had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “If you have PTSD and you are not improving through counseling, then it’s your fault,” Richards said of the stigma that still accompanies such a diagnosis. “It was my fault that I wasn’t getting better.”

Watch the full segment here:

Dr. David Hovda, head of UCLA’s Brain Injury Research Center, tried to explain the severity of even mild concussions on soldiers to the Pentagon in 2008. Instead, he was told it was “bad medicine” to keep soldiers out of the field to rest after a concussion, with an assembled team of Army doctors claiming that, because of the stigma that would entail, allowing for rest before being sent back out would make soldiers worse. Gen. Peter Chiarrelli — then the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, now an advocate for mental health in the military — chose to side with Dr. Hovda in 2009 anyway, issuing an order saying that all forces who suffered concussions would be pulled from combat until their recovery.

Despite Chiarrelli’s decision, the numbers still aren’t good for veterans. 357,000 veterans — or about 20 percent of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — have experienced a traumatic brain injury as of January 2009. Despite that, only 46 percent of those who experienced a mild traumatic brain injury were screened for a concussion. At its peak in 2011, the Department of Defense reported 16 new concussions were inflicted per day.

Last year, the NFL donated $30 million to study concussions, in partnership with the U.S. military. Efforts are also under way to raise some $90 million to construct more brain injury centers along the lines of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, the military’s most advanced brain injury evaluation center. Nine additional centers would enable the military to care for 9,000 brain injuries per year, the amount of new injuries officials expect as the war in Afghanistan winds down.