when. i've interviewed limits of you and world and rape is a very very traumatizing thing to have happen but i've never seen trauma like i've seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma. i cannot remember how many times a young female marine that had been raped or sexually assaulted told me that she looked at these guys as your brother or the suspect as your brother it's a kin to what happens in a family with incest because you know in the military when we're functioning at our best a cohesive unit with brothers and sisters one of the band of brothers and sisters i mean we are family when that ball and of trust is violated.

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 and i open it up i'm like oh my god. my suicide letter. bomb i'm sorry for the grease 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 on duty a mother brought. 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 and you know. 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 into the garage which separate from the house and i turned the car on. the car and fix it myself and it was pulled blondie out a little w. door and she scratching and helling at the door to shut up to me to wake my wife up so i got to shut the car off for a minute i'll just take her in the garage the memo says why would you kill

a dog that's stupid and then the world 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 nozick nazia ate it and. they took my urine and they told me that i was pregnant i. was like you know there's a wife in there you know and maybe a great wife will be better than mine and i got to make sure that so. she was very special. sometimes it takes

a different kind of action to cause change to calm. and sometimes that's. a loss. 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.

i mean the sick to see everybody stories. how they kind of closely tied together everybody's story somehow has that it's consistent that the military does to people like us all the things that they've 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 awning 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 cia 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 that'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 attempt on me aside and tell me that you know she had heard about my case and she thought she could talk to me as 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 that. human after it happened they mean to go out tonight with them and try to having everybody advocate for me to not make me go because i just couldn't deal with seeing him so their solution to that was just to put him right in front of me as i see him the whole time so that i could know where he was and know that he wasn't able to do anything right in front of me and i remember thinking the entire time we're up on the hills and camp when i

define him 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 that's those are your only 2 options suicide a wall or deal with it right now i'm just barely appreciating. learning how to appreciate being a woman again as 11 years. and. i'm trying to have fun with it not forcing myself to have fun. i'm trying really hard not to cry but it just. you know and watching you girls having to. go through it i mean it makes me want to explode being here and like knowing that me wanting to commit suicide i'm not alone me being hidden raped and not only everything the way that they treated me the way that they

made me feel not alone and we have all you guys with all your knowledge and everything you guys are going to stand right you know it's all sort of this instance is the. i think the woman who are coming forward in this lawsuit are very courageous they because 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. 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 were telling 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 considering my investigative experience and the fact that the military justice system allows so many offenders to escape justice. these are. thanks for being willing to fill me in a little bit on some of the experiences i name is regina basque is and i served

honorably in the united states marine corps for 4 years playing miss corey choke and i served in the united states coast guard i was harassed and sexually assaulted i was administrative leave those charges no benefit for 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 for time a criminal activity we're talking about a vicious. attack that it is criminal it isn't assault. almost none of the cases means court martial and all of the ones that do almost none of their resulting convictions teams to me and all the tough times that looked at these things said 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 has been going on for as long as it's been going on and we've never addressed it all people in the military must know if you are

a perpetrator of sexual assault against someone else military will be to you you're going to be held accountable. if we have something like this and she's taken a whole new coast coming up to really take arms. try to defeat and. really loose. this isn't a coaster can. be series 3 seen me it's not going to. be so to add to. the need for good. but on the but i'm going to do the book on you still so let me just say. instead of

. running t.v. must go if you will still be stuck with the muscles from the media which mrs cheney used to. go chill the. to. be soldier the boot she's wearing. the sold to move. in with some russian to use force. and. i found a 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 don't i do not think it should be in their hands so he was just taking to the discretion away from the 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 on 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 story. makes it much easier for us to go back and to 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 stand up for us thank you so much for everything they do. me. thank you again for your service and 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. she now suffers from p.t.s.d. and abnormal e.g. did nerve damage in her fake job or later told the press it's like they didn't care it wasn't important i wasn't important. going to get the mail. she was cross. there is my pay.

this is. effective october 20th 2009 my overall combined rating is 70 percent. service connection for anxiety is denied service connection for displacement and bilateral bilateral this displacement is denied. you. will be right there. my face doesn't have any discs in it but that's what the x.

rays show that's what dr karp those letters show you do not medical 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 already is was risk reduction risk reduction are ideas like telling women to if they're going to go somewhere together always have a buddy with them or there are other examples of risk. i didn't i'm not familiar with that's out of my area of expertise. well i want to continue where dr whitley left off you know looking at what our focus is and that's on prevention as well as as a 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 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 how silly that is imagine if you told civilians that oh geez sorry you were raped go talk to your congressman. you could say something to this guy but would you honestly. i don't think it's affected his life it on. and people in my old squadron 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. 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 proper. big that would be great there'd be an exciting but i price over and. i hope this reaches them too 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 has an obsessive quantities to 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 of bad words were

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 cape. criminal a much more dangerous criminal they go on to literally prey and if we don't care

about women or men in the military then we 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 our

young people love and that. increasingly women are becoming some of the best trained professionals that we have in the military these are great soldiers and we can't afford to lose them. can happen after. 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 even don't we just there purple hearts 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 she 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.

chose seemed wrong on one old rule just all. the way to get to shape out just to become educated and in gain strength it was betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. you have to do it. because you need to go through it you see it when you because you knew you could you could only get you to go we just can't do it with you because it. seems to me. he took it all somewhere in the deal is going to exist which is one of. those who sure these millions of us believe he's influenced focused on just the cute little name you cling to you see

if there's no one. mustang to get asleep if you don't look for goodness are you finished. the old film sure you know this new book might be on the menu for me my siblings sort of do you know for the slow play them but also acknowledge. that and. the artwork. part of the way for. all.

follow them to do so because this year is he said he should not say 75 years ago in the darkest episodes of human history has ended how has the humanity. change how has the psychology changed after the end of world war 2 to consider this and much more i'm joined by legendary film director screenwriter. filmmaker producers screenwriter actor really. are today.