tv Documentary RT September 22, 2019 3:30pm-4:00pm EDT
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great way to lie. and see the world. i got educated i love the military. was 19 and i went to the cello all alone and the next thing i know i was laying on the ground i was struck from behind and 2 guys hold me down and one guy was pulling my pants down. and. you know. he was taking care of his business and you know struggled and i was being struck and hit and told you know told to shut up or they'd kill me. and i see how it destroyed my life. i mean that i'm i've been married 3 times this luckily i have a wife right now who i've been married to for 25 years. you start wondering you start sort of you know you're coming up with reasons why things are the way they are and for a long time i kept thinking i don't know if this something something else. i had
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never told anybody over 30 years i decided to tell my wife. it was the scariest moment my life i was going tell my wife she was going to leave me and i would be lost without her i mean honest to god i couldn't i couldn't get up every morning without my wife. you know. and i told i felt horrified and i felt sad and i felt angry and you know along the course of the evening you know feelings just started to surface that were probably just simmering for a very very long time and she put her arms around me and we're both sat there and saw it was like. this great weight had been lifted off for me. i think it's important to recognize that military sexual trauma is not limited to
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women and in fact when it comes to the absolute numbers because of the proportion of men in much larger numbers than women actually the numbers are even greater. i think one of the last bits of research showed that about one percent of males had been victims of sexual assault within the past year in the military that equals to about 20000 you get labeled as a body and that's a. term to be related to so it's one of the things that you just don't you don't talk about it or you don't bring in what is your sense you just kind of keep yourself it's really really hard for you. you know. they live in my head you know i can hear them. i can see their faces i can see what they're doing to me. so i felt scared. and i was scared to tell my friends the people that really knew me the truth about
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what happened the shame as bad as it is for women is even worse for men because it's all tied in with him a phobia the people who are doing the raping are not gay that's not the problem they're worried about gays in the military the gays are not the rapists they're heterosexual man for the most part this is not an issue of sexual orientation this is simply an issue power and violence male sexual predators for the large part have charge of whoever is there to prey upon whether that's men or women whenever. there is. evidence of another when one has been sexually assaulted the question i keep asking myself is when does this ever. breaking news at this hour but maybe appears to be facing a huge sex scandal details are still covering yeah. this news today would be a good journey to do we're going to begin tonight by putting
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a human face on the worst case of sexual harassment of the navy's history at an annual naval aviators convention called the tailhook convention so your office who's. been included the so-called stand up or the specific purpose of targeting and sexually molesting women. i got off the elevator on the 3rd floor you can see it in the 200 men. it was just a few steps into the hallway before. they closed ranks around me and then it happened very quickly that from both sides and from behind men came in and started reaching in my shirt i was getting pushed down to the floor and some was reaching under my skirt point my underwear off and it was about maybe 30 or 40 feet 200 guys trying to pull my clothes off like i was a high value target and investigation was finally begun. but 1500 interviews later the navy's inspector general reported that his investigators were
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being stonewalled a great wall of silence had gone up to protect the guilty. the us army today is trying to establish the extent of a new and growing rape and sexual harassment scandal at all took place at the army base at aberdeen proving ground where 30 women have filed complaints of sexual advances that range from unwanted touching to rape and forcible sodomy acceptable conduct for shoulders to bow to the army and we have. 12 years ago. though shocked the u.s. navy and air force faces what may be an even bigger problem and other sexual abuse at the air force academy in colorado springs 100 out of 42 allegations of assault
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against women have been made in the last decade one highest ranking air force generals knew about serious problems of sexual assault at the academy yet fail to take action we don't intend to sweep this under the rug we take it very seriously we're going to address it publicly in congress outraged senators accused the air force brass of ignoring assaults on women we have a clear pattern. of reports of sexual assault where the reaction of the air force academy seems to be to blame the victim we are in the process of is to those changes now in the process when studios changes now obviously you and i and secretary of fundamental disagreement here. in a small post in washington d.c. karim prior history and tradition living. room barracks in washington d.c.
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is the most prestigious unit there is in the marine corps this is the unit where the best of the best go it is the marine corps showcase ceremonial unit it handles presidents and dignitaries security at the white house the silent drill team. after my deployment to operation iraqi freedom in 2009 my command officer recommended me for the marine barracks washington i was excited it was the tip of the spear as far as the marine corps is concerned. he would stay work late and then she would drive home and she'd call me and she'd be on some kind a little and she talked she loved her job she was. as sweet person who was trying really hard. and succeeding. one of the 1st things i was told
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my entire dinner was. don't worry because the marines will think that you want to sleep with them and i thought that's just ridiculous the atmosphere off the bat at marine barracks washington was was horrible people asked me what sexual favors had i performed to get my orders there. there was a senior officer in my command who the 1st time he spoke to me he said female marines here are nothing but objects for the marines to. sew the men in the female shows up at my work she's mentally ill. all of the new females get talked about how . they're having facts so i stopped all that and i mean i did it got progressively worse and worse they determined that i welcome the sexual harassment by wearing my regulation length uniform skirt and running and running shorts. there were several junior female marines that came up to me crying
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while i was there saying that they felt humiliated to come to work. the. one of the duties at marine barracks washington was a ceremonial drill. evening parades are what you would see on the news the. president everybody goes to those type of things. after the parades. all the officers are required to stay told midnight. drink inside our house is washington so we're talking about ones the happy hours that started 3 and . it was a pounding and drinking culture revolved around going out and partying and drinking i was ordered to drink i was ordered to attend the drinking of my boss even said.
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they were mandatory to me she's like we do our best work at these events we went to various bars and the goal was to do a shot at each one paid for by the marine corps you're talking about you're going to runs for other senior officers that are drinking to the point of hands you know pass it on lawns this is the norm at one bar i had water and i was ordered to shot anyways and told i needed to take 2 shots to make up for that. i left the bar to get a cab my company commander followed me and said i need to talk to you about some things so we walked up the stairs into his office there was a little bit of a struggle he tried to kind of make an advance and try to kiss me i tried to leave any slammed the door on my arm. i fell on the ground and hit my face on his desk and the next thing i realised was i had woken up wearing his shorts with all of my
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clothes off and tremendous pain i knew enough about me that something wasn't right and i had felt entirely violated. the kernel of one point said you know who's had a home or boys girls now call just don't mix well never really know what happened inside that office. only you were in the major now and he's not talking so at this point the investigation is closed for lack of evidence and we have reopened a new investigation against you for conduct unbecoming an officer and public intoxication. join me every thursday on the alex simon shore and i'll be speaking to the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see if.
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they all see themselves as going swans in their dreams. but only one of the styles will ever make it to the told. they're ready to give their lives for the chance to die on stage if only it's. not even broken wings computer. for generations at the moment. but they sweat and tears. but if she warned you and i do the dishes at the bottom or those. speeches see me we need to view truth.
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in the news i mean that is without infringing ball. a lot of you will see sawing during fuzzy parts about 2 kids each other both. are true. cabo but for. days doing. say the 85 people who simply do so in new. england in total. were going to the bar. was an officer that said about shots for us after i'd had a couple drinks. that's all.
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we're doing is fellow officer 5 was that he had. got called up to the majors office and he charged me with fractionation adultery he was married i wasn't and i was tried but i don't think. i told them. about the comments and he said. you know you should do what a marine officer should do and that's to ignore it and move on. i used to live where he compared to you know wondering. what i could do to help her get out. and that he was going to have his friend marvin from india to kill me and throw me
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because that's how they take care of things in india. she went to war. years for a life. for them to take it. and come back and say. yes they called you a yes they called you a yes they called you a walking mattress it's documented over and over and over again and you deserved it and you and when you complained about it. you are welcoming it do actions of my seniors both in the assault and and the ensuing arrest a geisha and have really destroyed me. when she when your wife doesn't come home to. do you remember homage to that house searching for the suicide note be to
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call the police one hand. put the restraining her from killing herself with the other the. i think the thing that makes me the most angry is not even the repeat itself it's the commanders that were complicit in covering up everything that happened. this is an organization that gives commanders an unbelievable amount of power and i felt it as a lieutenant in iraq it's scary you appoint the prosecution you appoint the defense
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you appoint the investigator you're in charge of the police force you're in charge of the community. you're on everything you are a judge or jury or executioner most americans assume that there is access to a system of justice so that for example if your civilian and you are raped you can call the police and then you have prosecutors other federal prosecutors state prosecutors local prosecutors they bring the perpetrator to justice the problem with the military is that instead they have to go to their chain of command now in our system of military justice it is the commander who's responsible you know to the chain of command for how that investigation proceeds i know that there's been numerous times in my career that i regretted the new vigil commander hood the the total see saw over a case and most them don't have the training or the education to determine what's
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appropriate and serious fairly commodus cations the problem in the military is the convening authority who is not legally trained makes the final decision. they had it to command at my old squadron where they got it right and he was still station. he'd only been and command for 4 days and he made the decision over illegal to stop the case what i saw was was commanders i mean these are field grade officers lieutenant colonels colonels. who have been in 2025 years you know they're career officers they sweep cases under the rug the last thing a company commander in the army wants to do is make the phone call to his or her battalion commander to say i have had a allegation of a rape in my unit this is viewed in many cases as a failure to command that will adversely then affect their career sometimes you'd
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see a guy get for 5 years for selling minor amount of drugs and you'd see a guy get you know 2. weeks should do for the military hides behind this notion that it is really really hard almost impossible to prosecute rape but when you look at prosecution rates in the 2010 department of defense reports you begin with 2410 unrestricted reports and 748. what that means is they've already funneled 748 sexual assault victims into a system that has absolutely no adjudication whatsoever. then you take the 2410 that have been reported of those they identify 3223 perpetrators know what happens once you send a perpetrator over to command well the command has just completely unfettered discretion to do whatever it is they want and what is it that they do do 1st off they drop $910.00 of them they just don't do anything then of the $1025.00 where
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they actually take some action through the court martial them know only half of them 529 actually got court martialled the rest 256 were subjected to article 15 punishments 190 administrative discharges and then 131 to quote other adverse administrative actions whatever that means and then of the convictions where they actually get jail time when you work your way all the way through the numbers what you're looking at is that out of $3223.00 perpetrators only $175.00 end up doing any jail time whatsoever. i have been in congress for 7 terms now and every single term we have had meetings with d.o.t.d. and they come in and they confirm to the us to us we're going to be serious we're going to take care of this we're going to stop this 0 tolerance but the rhetoric is not being turned into the reality of protecting our women and in some cases men
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in our military and their like but we have to start contemporary programs like great. what is that. they can strongly suggest to the military to do something. brothers and sisters. personal duty to prevent sexual assault they can't order them they can't enforce it they don't back it up and i pull of this year we will debut a social marketing campaign as part of our prevention strategy that inside. my. school i saw my buddies did. it's ludicrous you know it's. you know we have posters that say wait until she's sober and it's remarkable that that's allowed to pass and in today's military we've implemented training at each and every level of military service from the moment they enter the service and basic training they are given that campaign consist of
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a series of posters that are actually training tools and each of those posters has a different focus you cannot perform sexual assault with pretty posters posters do not prevent sexual predators from preying upon women and men in the military we're talking about people barging into rooms in the middle of the night posters going to prevent a criminal from version of these are violent people but one of the things that we do in our prevention strategy is to focus on bystander intervention and strategy and in that training we ask for each soldier sailor airman or marine to be aware of what sexual assault is and how to prevent it sark is a joke the things that they say ignored or there may. be displaced. you know there might be
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a video or 20 slides it's like a lot of military training words once a year check in the box. welcome back a little yeah it's just a short walk to watch you. and all the money seems to be spent on advertising which is just right with victim blaming. the right for this i just want to let you. know there. are you by yourself i don't think i need a wife sexual assault is. are you doing your part and so this notion that you know essentially like anyone could be a rape as we all have to be on alert it misses an opportunity to take real steps towards preventing rape if they actually had systems of accountability that prosecuted and imprisoned perpetrators you would get rid of
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a lot of the rapes right away how would you characterize the typical sex offender well if i look at our data from the department of defense young people that are ages 18 to 2425 when you say that most of them are serial rapist. i don't have data one way or the other to determine that what percentage of the rapes you think are caused by serial predator. i don't i don't have any numbers and i don't know how to i don't think we collect that type of data there's been studies done on people who enter the military are twice as likely to have committed rape as their equivalent population in the civilian world not aware of that study my area of expertise focuses primarily on prevention and victim care but we're. focusing on the perpetrators.
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i notice that dr kay whitley is not in her chair is it under your direction that she has not shown her testimony this morning yes or do you have an executive privilege to do a search or you've instructed her not to come what is your reason for doing that if you find the department's response in provisions efforts fall short of your expectations responsibility for that shortfall rests with me the ridiculous answer when and how the military tried to cover that up i don't know who you think elective you to defy the congress of the united states were an independent branch of government so for now it's the biggest you're dismissed. intimacy is definitely in fact it. will go for months without stats. i have to initiate if i'm comfortable enough if i'm having a good day and i think my husband looks off in the day i have to initiate. when he
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comes up and hugs me sometimes i'll cringe and i just want him to you know like he'll feel it. sometimes i think if when he has sex with me is he thinking about even me getting raped as he upset is he now because i think i thought. about that it all right never does it not enter my head that's why i didn't want to have sex for a while. when we almost split up because i feel like response. i don't know what. he's like me only supporter. like they own.
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the big pain your existence crossed started 10 years i think it's time to shake things up maybe change the branding maybe the format here is what i've been thinking about next season related episodes filmed on an island 10 experts fight it out for a trophy what do you think ok a more affordable option $25.00 text birds. and one red rose another suggestion political jeopardy parody no political cookout where we will literally wrote the elites. late night show it's a rare form of these days and it's cheap all you need is an old microphone in a printed banner but to leave me with one of my goals i can do this and laughter politics gone wild like music. ok crosstalk is not about hype it's about meaning 10 years of talk and still going strong.
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peter if you want to change something why don't we get rid of the gotye no that is too much. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. a good morning. she don't. work. as long as on the course and. when he does it's all in the fall so. you can sleep. with the bullets of the someone on some of the blocks also lots and lots you know something. you're
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stories that shape the week here on oxy tensions escalated the gulf with the. u.s. sending troops to saudi arabia and imposing new sanctions on iran all over tehran's alleged attack on an oil facility. is more chaos in hong kong where anti beijing protesters have clashed with police who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. on the fate of israeli prime minister hangs in the balance the 3rd place arab political alliance in recent elections backs netanyahu his main rival for the new government.
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