unit with brothers and sisters of the band of brothers and sisters i mean we are family when that ball and of trust is violated. i. the wound penetrates to the very most inner part of one's soul one psyche. i have this folder that i keep i have all my boot camp letters in it for my mom and my sister and. people and. i was just going through some of this stuff and i'm like what's this you know nailed it i'm like oh my god. my suicide letter. bomb i'm sorry for the grief that you must feel. just because i'm gone physically doesn't mean i will be there spiritually i truly feel that god will take me without

question even though i took my own life. i've had the most broken thoughts of dreams and physical pain to remind me of the her if it acts upon me that happened while a duty a mother brother sister and husband should never live with knowing the horrible acts upon me find peace in knowing that my that the body left behind doesn't consume my soul i am free now and i'm not afraid. ready to soar. i took a whole bottle of pills and woke up strangely enough i'm not sure why. i at that point in my life i just wanted to be over. and think i was 2021 and then. within the next year i tried again i went out into the garage which separate from the house when i turned the car. to go sit in the car on the fixie it was so

it was all pulled blondie went out a little w. door and she's scratching and helling at the dog shot up to me going to wake my wife up so i get to shut the car door for a minute i'll just take her in the garage would be the nicest what would. to kill a dog that's stupid and then the me would you kill yourself i thought of it so many times and so many ways i thought about. at one point in time hanging myself from the flagpole was a song on me. saying exactly what happened to make him feel bad. i was going to. overdose on pain medication and sleeping medication. and just hope that i'd fall asleep in my body it would just shut down or something. when i went to the doctor i had been feeling sick and dizzy and not as it did and. they took my urine and they told me that i was pregnant it. was like you know there

is a life and there you know i may be a great wife will be better than mine and i got to make sure that so. she is very special. sometimes it takes a different kind of action to cause change to calm. and sometimes. a lot. i grew up on military bases my dad was career army when i was a child when we answer the phone we just have to say colonel brooks quarters and because of that i have as i have an understanding of the level of control that the military exercises that perhaps most in civilian life don't have. the fairness doctrine is a judicial doctrine that was developed by the supreme court that says if you're in the military you cannot sue for something that happens to you that's incidental

your military service if you military doctors amputate the wrong limb you're out of luck you cannot sue for that for that harm that's been done to you so we filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of 16 men and women seeking to bring former secretary rumsfeld and secretary gates to justice. i heard about the lawsuit and decided to become a part of it. because i never wanted another woman to go through what i would. be a lawsuit alleges that they have overseen a system that has deprived the rape survivors of their constitutional rights specifically we allege that they deprived them of their substantive due process

procedural due process equal protection and 1st amendment rights. he's sick to see everybody stories. how they kind of closely tied together everybody story some who has a it's can. i think that the military does to people like us all the things that they put in place are all pretty much intended to help women deal with being raped better that's what they're about. and join the military halfway through my superior of high school wanting to serve my country and do new things and challenge myself in a different way. i was in the army about 7 or 8 years before anything ever happened to me. by another cod agent who was senior to me.

i was contacted by an agent with 4 riley c. id who said they were investigating the suspect as a serial rapist who had raped several military law enforcement women and i thought there was no way that you know she wouldn't be convicted and i have a difficult time with anything it's not the fact that i had an almost 10 year career which i was very invested in and i gave that up to report a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry and he's probably doing the same thing right now. it was a female attendant pull me aside and tell me that you know she'd heard about my case and she thought she could talk to me is one female marine to another and she told me what he did was capitalize on an opportunity that you presented to him that's not the same thing as rape and you need to know. him after it happened they may need to go on i think with them and try to having everybody advocate for me to

not make me go so i just couldn't deal with seeing him so their solution to that was just to put him right in front of me so i could see him the whole time so that i could know where he was and know that he wasn't able to do anything to sit right in front of me and they remember thinking the entire time we were up on the hills and camp when they define steeper. there's no way out of it i mean if you think about it the only way out of it is like a suicide or a wall so those are your only 2 options suicide it all or deal with it right now i'm just barely appreciating. learning how to appreciate being a woman again that's 11 years. and. and i have fun with it not forcing myself to have fun my. i'm trying really hard not to cry but it just. you know and watching you girls having to. go through what i did it makes me want to explode being

here like knowing that me wanting to commit suicide i'm not alone me being hidden raped and not on everything the way that they treated me the way that they made me feel i'm not alone and we have all you guys with all your knowledge and everything you guys are going to stand right you know. i think the woman who are coming forward in this lawsuit are very courageous the cause they're putting their names out there for criticism. they're putting their names out there to go down and his truth is they were the ones who got raped and there's anything you want to go through life with. us. today i stand in solidarity with the courageous women and men who serve in our

nation's armed forces the inspirational plaintiffs you see before you are a small handful of the 10s of thousands of troops and veterans who've been sexually brutalized by their fellow service members while defending our nation it is time to finally acknowledge that the military judicial system is broken when it comes to these cases my name is and in my case my command was unwilling to help me i went for help several times with other petty officers and i i was denied help even with other men saying please get her away from him and it was it was still out many. people personally me don't go to the public don't let this get out because it'll make the military look bad i really feel like my. social responsibility to speak out about this issue especially from centering my investigative experience and the fact that the military justice system allows so many offenders to escape.

his or her thanks for being willing to kill me in a little bit on some of the experiences that i name is reaching and i served honorably in united states marine corps for 4 years let me miss corey chokin i served in the united states coast guard i was harassed and sexually assaulted i was administrative charges after 9 and a half years of service women should not bear their burden that is not part of what we should have been doing to do our jobs were home a criminal activity we're talking about a vicious attack that it is criminal it is an assault. almost none of these is music or martial and all of the ones that do almost none of them result in convictions seems to me in all the time times that i've looked at these things and the command is the one who has so much discretion i think our advocate should actually be civilians not ones that work in the military i think we should have

actual units civilian units it absolutely tears in my inside to think that this is been going on for as long as it's been going on and we've never addressed all people in the military most know if you are a perpetrator of sexual assault against someone else military will be to you you're going to be held accountable. as the great american buxom ahmed ali once said he who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life risk. this is one thing that seemed to catch me is not from being a key member of the mit blackjack team to investing in promising migrant into print knows but what is a risk and how do you know if it's worth taking. dollar

for it do 50 noise simply number 2 number one when you have no kids of you to completing the moment phone and don't come to. see him all the good that you need done up and that of all of you singapore the only surprise i popped off all since i was in the uk of the conflict are young they seem ok long simone. and others misunderstand i don't think i'm pretty all that he was and then that is not allowed to play out to the players or. something to motivate to alter the other sr so some of it to get up to the subject to go to shows. because the will put him in his initial initial usual years of pool with the most from. the new put

a commodity for you performing with this approach will mean are just. a fairly super cool for sure at all to look like there was a news new york at the salon in china to start with the shirts are the cheapest we are stuck you feel and i missed these full well for your clothing or now don't i do it is a 1000000 foreclosures but i will push the castle for the sugar. i

found it tremendously frustrating when i would demonstrate that an offender commit an offense and taking it to a commander and having a commander be the deciding authority you know i don't think commanders are capable of making. an object of decision i do not think it should be in their hands so he was just seeking to do discretion away from yes absolutely congresswoman davis and i are both on the armed services committee there are a number of issues that you've raised that makes me want to go back and particularly take another look an emotional one individual basis what happens after a crime like that has been committed it's a very difficult thing to go through and don't think i don't know i know. the fact that you're willing to tell me your stories 1st base it much easier for us to go back and just say you know these are policies that we have to change it's a big it's a big big deal but you do it really find people like you who will stand up for us

thank you so much for. me. thank you again for your service thanks for your time mr speaker last year the military received over 3000 reports of sexual assault involving other members into service this week 17 veterans are saying that the military ignored their cases of sexual assault while they were on active duty today i'm going to talk about the men corey. who served in the coast guard from august 2005 to june 2007 he now suffers from p.t.s.d. and abnormal e.g. did a nerve damage in her fate. jo'burg later told the press it's like they didn't care it wasn't important i was. going to get the mail. here's cross.

here's my way. this is. effective october 20th 2009 my overall combined rating is 70 percent. service connection for anxiety is deny service connection for displacement and bilateral bilateral this displacement is denied.

oh my god. i'll be right there. my face doesn't have any desks in it that's what blacks ratio that's what dr karp those letters show you do not have medical or there were mirrors. nice to see you again and thank you for coming i'm going to play a short public service announcement and then we can entertain questions i think the prevention aspect of sexual assault goes back in some ways to risk reduction what it what is risk reduction risk reduction are ideas like telling women to if they're going to go somewhere together always have a buddy with them. are there other examples of risk. i mean i didn't i'm not familiar that that's out of my area of expertise.

well i want to continue where dr whitley left off looking at what our focus is and that's on prevention as well as as response we've really done a very good job there and the credit goes to dr whitley and her staff that has been working this for the last 5 to 6 years i don't think the department of defense has has really yet embraced that they have a sexual assault problem that it's not just an issue of the culture environment so that the people are at risk for sexual assault that their system itself though just does not value the rights of victims and doesn't provide the medical protection you know i have heard the accusations as well that you know commanders are sweeping this under the carpet now what i would say to the people that have come forward to you is if you feel your commander is ignoring what you have have asked them to do if they're not taking care of you within that chain of command you need to go to the d.o.d. that are part of the fence inspector general g.a.o. general accounting office just did a study

a report and guess what not one. one case of more than 2500 has been reviewed and investigated by the inspector general and when asked about that the inspector general said we have other higher priorities what what you really want is you want there to be a system akin to a civilian system where you go to the police and you're in the crime is prosecuted by an impartial judicial system as a commander you have no favorites you are equally to take care of every single person in your organization that's what commanders are all about these are human beings just like everybody else you cannot be impartial when you are already involved with people in other settings i would take exception with your characterization that the disposition of the case is based on the relationship between the commander. and he alleged perpetrator.

i'm going to speak to you with my former commanders had on there is absolutely no conflict of interest you do what the right thing is to do. 'd you have other avenues and those if you feel like you have not been taken care of adequately by your commander go up through your congressman or congresswoman and file a complaint that way you cannot you can't go to a congressman to be to obtain justice for being raped i mean imagine ringback how silly that is imagine if you told civilians that oh geez sorry you were raped go talk to your congressman. you could see something that's going to honestly.

i don't think it's affected his life at all. and people in my old squadron that i've talked to. they say they don't see any effect that it's had on him and that hurts. because it's a struggle every day it's completely changed who i am. i'm really hoping that he falls off the coast guard but they never find him i'm really hoping for that like they fight for so poor mishap got chopped up by the prop. big that would be great there'd be an exciting but i price over and. i hope this reaches them to you know i hope that someone or someone sees my face you know wherever it is and goes. i know them and they're talking about me. because they know what they did you know and then although half the mater is some

friend there goes a station with her. you know and then they can't be a secret anymore. so hopefully they have to deal with it to you know some way shape or. most rapists. repetitive criminals that it's a kind of crime that's and has an obsessive quantity of people do it again and again so the tragedy of that is that every one of these guys who gets off free will be doing it to other women again and again often for years. the average sex offender in their lifetime has about 300 victims and the vast majority of sex offenders will never be caught a lot of civilians see it as being a military problem but it really isn't because 5 percent or a louse of reported offenders are convicted. so almost none of them wind up on the sex offender registry there is no military sex offender

list that i'm aware of but if you're convicted in court felony conviction of sex offense of a sex offense you're going to go on the national list for any sex a very correct that is not the case it depends on what level conviction they got if they received over a year then that's considered a felony but a lot of these cases are pled down so that they're not felonies the military doesn't like to prosecute people and keep. as felony convictions i often ask myself the question why wouldn't why would they stop and if there's nothing to stop them like incarceration or some other light major life change they're going to continue. if you run that the sexual predator through the judicial system and then you get a slap on the hand all you've done is you've done the equivalent of the kitchen release program you've caught to educate and now you release them back in the home town america he knows a lot more about the law enforcement judicial system than he did when he 1st

started which makes him a much more capable criminal a much more dangerous criminal they go on to litter. they prey on women and men in our neighborhoods across the united states i mean if we don't care about women or men in the military then we hopefully should care about women and men in our girls and boys in our neighborhoods back home. were. the thing that broke my heart more than anything about this story was the young

women who went in with such ideas and i want to serve my country i want to give back to see a young person's hope and idealism crushed in that brutal way i think we owe people love and that. increasingly women are becoming some of the best trained professionals that we have in the military is a great soldiers and we can't afford to lose them. can't have it interact with. people deeply believe in their hearts to serve their country they should be given that chance with respect. you know it's part of really harm american way if you don't leave just your purple heart because we were wounded in time or you know you're going to give us one you know very just saying maybe there should be written for women you. are served and 3 who have survived it is your. we have

a good army a good military but not a great one and this is the kind of issue that they keeps our military from being great. we can view this as a shared challenges not just a women's issue it's not just something that the military has to deal with but as a society we're all in this together. it's our national duty.

they all. fell. asleep oh. yes so well this is how the. load.

from which. i think is a must for for you or the trip improved for. you never to try. to. do this because the global was going to have to sit in your voice you. have the thing about us moving in the sports let it be the funny thing you're fighting a fight for the buck for about. a minute left. about 4 to 6 months because in the south.

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