this is "the big picture." now, to show you part of the big picture, here is sergeant stuart queen. the privilege of serving the united states in uniform is no longer limited to men. ["colonel bogey march" playing] woman: the value placed by the women's army corps on meticulous grooming and feminine grace is one of the first lessons learned by the recruit. man: there were demands that would require of her perfect physical health and stamina. woman: count... women: ...1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3-4! ♪ we're looking for ♪ dinner specialists ♪ lab technicians ♪ plumbers man: carpenters. ♪ electricians ♪ art illustrators, statisticians ♪ ♪ air controllers ♪ security police

man: auto mechanics. ♪ fire chiefs ♪ look up, be looked up to ♪ ♪ in the air force woman cadet: 2-1-2 radar contact, turn right heading 1-5-0. announcer: with a fog-bound helicopter hanging on your every word, it doesn't matter whether you're a man or a woman, only that you're good. ...coming up slowly. singer: ♪ be all that you can be... ♪ man: thanks for your help. roger. ♪ 'cause we need you in the army ♪ woman: i'm flying in a helicopter right now. different woman: don't second-guess yourself. different woman: it's a lot of work... different woman: but it's totally worth it.

woman, voice-over: i would just always see the movies of the military, and i just knew that was me. that's what i wanted to do. that's what i wanted to be. there was a waiting list for the navy, over a year, and i knew i didn't want to wait that long. so i had a friend tell me about the coast guard, and i went to the coast guard, and they said that they could get me in within a month, so i said, "ok, ship me off." woman, voice-over: i've tried college, and i had a good job at a vineyard in east texas. i bought my own little house, and the military was something i always wanted to do. i come from a military family. i was always taught that it's every citizen's duty to join the military. if you can, you should, and so i wanted to go ahead and join and start a career.

woman voice-over: i joined the air force. i was 17 years old. i had a boyfriend that encouraged me to go in, so that's what i did. my mom signed, gave me permission to go. woman, voice-over: when i was in high school, i was impressed with the marines that i had met. there used to be a lieutenant colonel that used to run laps around the track after soccer practice, and he said, "you'd be perfect for the marine corps 'cause you're really fit and smart, and that's what the marine corps needs." the professionalism, the camaraderie-- everything about it inspired me. woman, voice-over: after i graduated high school, i left for orlando, florida, which was the first time i was ever on an airplane in my life. [chuckles] initially, it was just wanting to go see the world 'cause i'm from a really small town. i had a college scholarship to go play basketball, but i instead opted to go into the military.

so it's what i chose to do. woman, voice-over: i come from a long line of military lineage. somebody from every generation on both sides of the family all the way back to the revolutionary war had served in the armed forces. i chose the marine corps because no one in my family had ever done it. woman, voice-over: i loved putting on a uniform every day and just getting out there and giving it my all, and it's a very proud feeling. men: one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand... kori cioca: i would have done boot camp over and over again. it was great--the camaraderie, the discipline, and everything it taught you, who i wanted to be. that's what they taught you there. trina mcdonald: obviously, it was different taking a shower with 80 different people all of a sudden, 'cause i was pretty shy. but just a great experience. i was a 4.0 sailor. every single report done on me was excellent, great.

i knew what i needed to do in my job. i was a great team leader. jessica hinves: i really enjoyed the whole challenge of it. i got several different awards and kudos. it was mainly men. i loved that i could blend in and keep up with the guys and work as hard as they did. [graduates cheer] ariana klay: the naval academy was challenging, the education was top-notch. my senior year, i was selected to be one of the top 30 leadership positions by the company grade officers there. trina: after basic, i went to naval security group, adak, alaska. i remember getting there. issued a parka, got set up in my room, and then he took me to the "bar," which was in our barracks, and sat down at a table where it was me and about 10 other guys. and i kind of felt like a piece of meat on a slab at that point, and i never wanted to turn around

and leave so much in my life, but i couldn't. girl: hi, mama! cioca: you go. go get it this time. girl: ok! cioca: get him! get him! [baby talk] hey. you give me that ball. roller derby style. get him. no, i got him. man, voice-over: i met kori december 17, 2007. i was on watch when she got to the station, and she kind of just blew me away when she walked in. cookies, right? is this what you ordered? uh-huh. ok, thank you. man, voice-over: the command told us that she was coming and there were some issues, but none of the crew knew exactly what had happened, and i didn't find out for a long time. kori: for mommy? where's the heart? kori, voice-over: i was stationed in saginaw river, michigan. i was the only female in my section. i had a supervisor.

it got to the place where i'd get calls at 3:00 in the morning and he'd be drunk at a bar, telling me to come get him. and i'm like, "i can't; i'm in bed," and he would then threaten me. i'd walk in from training, and he'd be sleeping in my bed. when we went to one of the higher-ups, the chain of command, they were all, like, his drinking buddy and they told me just 'cause i didn't like somebody, they weren't gonna switch me away from this guy. it was in the evening, around taps, and he'd unlock the door and he'd come in, and he had an erection and he tried to get me to touch him. i took my right hand, and i pushed him in the chest and started to yell for the other guys to kind of hear me, "hey, hey, hey!" he hit me across the left side of my face. i remember holding the closet thinking, "what just happened?"

and my face hurt so bad. and when we went to the command about it, i mean, this petty officer who saw my face, they just let it wait 'cause they didn't want any kind of problems going on. a couple weeks later, i needed the key to do my clean-up, so i knocked on his door. then he said, "ok, yeah, come on in here. it's in here." and i said, "no, no, i'm gonna wait out here." and he screamed at me, and he made me come in and he grabbed my arm. and he raped me in his berthing area. hinves: everything came to a complete change the day that i was raped. and i got there in february. by april, i was drugged and raped for the first time. robin lynne lafayette: i had, like, a cold

or pneumonia-like symptoms, and so they sent me to get checked out. and while i was waiting to be examined, he came in and he helped himself. hinves: he said he was going to the bathroom, and he came up to my room, and that's when he raped me. hannah sewell: the entire time, i was screaming and yelling for help and for him to stop. nobody came to the door. nobody came to help me, came to my rescue or anything. trina: they made it very, very clear that if i said anything, they were going to kill me. and then, of course, i didn't have anyone to go talk to because the people that were perpetrating me were the police. it was my first time ever. and it--well, i've had a tough time convincing myself that i'm still a virgin. trina: if this is happening to me, i can only--surely i'm not the only one, which i found out later, going through

the claims process, that i wasn't. it's just after 3 a.m. i see shadow of a human head over my body. the next thing you know, like, i wake up and he's on top of me. pushed my legs apart and put himself on top of me and started pulling at my shirt. woman, voice-over: and i wake up, and he's on top of me. he's already penetrated me. i was drugged. i remember the sounds, the smell. he put his locked-and-loaded .45 at the base of my skull, engaged the bolt so that i knew there was a round chambered. all i could do was continue to concentrate on breathing. he slammed my head against the concrete wall and very forcefully had sex with me.

i just went to my tent, pulled the sleeping bag over my head, and cried myself to sleep. so within the two-week period, he raped me 5 times. different woman, voice-over: when we got tested, i had trichan... uh, gonorrhea, and i was pregnant. he did... he raped me. different woman: in 1991 in congressional testimony, it was estimated that 200,000 women had been sexually assaulted so far in the u.s. military. if you take into account that women don't report because of the extreme retaliation, and that was more than a decade ago, i would say you could easily double that number, and it's probably somewhere near about half a million women have now been sexually assaulted in the u.s. military.

[whispers indistinctly] we have more in the cars, rob. i have some in here, too. this all was prescribed in the last 3 to 4 months. this is paroxetine. this is seroquel, seroquel, citalopram. this is xanax. i'm tired of taking all these meds. i just want the v.a. to fix my jaw. i was having the most horrible pain in my face that i went to the dentist 'cause i thought it was my teeth or something was wrong. the doctor came in after the x-rays and asked me if i'd been in a car accident. when he hit me in my face, he dislocated my jaw, and it sent both of my discs forward in my face, so i don't have any discs where they should be in my face. they told me i'd probably need a partial bone replacement,

from where my bone had been laying on my nerves for so long it's starting to actually disintegrate. i've been on a soft diet for 5 years now. i can't eat the foods that i used to eat. everything is mashed potatoes, jell-o. man on recording: we are sorry, but due to a large volume of calls and unusually long wait times, counselors are unable to answer your call at this time. woman on recording: please stay on the line. calls will be answered in the order received. [muzak playing] different man on recording: 15 minutes could save you hundreds on car insurance. different woman on recording: it's a st. louis holiday tradition. singer: ♪ been away for a while now ♪ ♪ you got me feeling like a child now ♪ man: hey, this is stan. kori: hi, stan. i just wanted to check the status of my v.a. claim. still no final decision on it yet. ok, it's-- it looks like it's about a year old now. yes, it is.

um, ok, it's still pending? yes, ma'am. did it say what status it was in? well, it looks like they've gathered all the information that they, um, need, but it still hasn't moved to their rating board yet. ok. hey, baby girl. hey, hey. all right, sit. sit. sit. can you sit, baby? hannah, voice-over: both my dad and my brother are prior navy and now army national guard, and it's kind of like it follows in the family and follows the footsteps. i was excited and completely just hyped up about going, and all my family was proud of me. my dad is my biggest hero. man, voice-over: i told her, i said, "you're gonna be taken care of." and i guess that's one of the hard things that i have

to accept because i told her that she would be... it was in february. we got a call. hannah, voice-over: once he was done, he rubbed his hand all over my entire body and told me--he said, "i own all of this." and i was just absolutely scared, didn't know what to do. i called my dad. one of the first things she said is, "dad, i'm no longer a virgin." and, uh--[sniffles]-- i said, "what happened?" she said, "i was raped." and i said, "hannah, you're a virgin because he took something from you that you didn't give."

[sniffling] i said, "so don't ever think you're not." hannah: my main nerve in my spine was pinched in 3 places and my hips were rotated. man, voice-over: my title is director of military plans and personnel policy for the navy. we have specifically trained judge advocates, our navy lawyers, and our naval criminal investigative service. those investigators are all specifically trained in sexual assault. any report of a sexual assault is fully investigated in the united states navy. they didn't take care of it. for a year and a half, they were tracking down witnesses. they had all these students there, and they could have locked them down and said, "hey, you're on legal hold until i get this statement," and they didn't. hannah went through 3 investigators. it was like, "ok, i'm given this case." that's what it sort of felt like.

"all right, i'm given this case, i got to take care of it." "oh, well, this is an e-1. i really don't have the time to deal with it." females would come up to their commanders or their ncos and say that they were either sexually assaulted or abused, and i don't think it was taken seriously. i think a lot of times, a cursory investigation was done and they were basically told to just suck it up. i remember bringing in a young service member who'd been brutally raped and bringing her in to see her command and trying to make sure that this young girl was taken care of properly. and this idiot-- [chuckles]-- this idiot chewed her out for crying, told her to stop crying over spilt milk. a lot of times, the credibility of the witness was called into account. had the potential victim-- had she made claims like this in the past? there was a lot of witch-hunting going on. i was ordered to advise a victim of her rights for false statement when i knew that she wasn't lying. i was asked to bring her in and advise her of her rights like a criminal and interrogate her for false statement "until i got the truth out of her."

[door buzzes] woman, voice-over: what we hear again and again from soldiers who have been raped is that, as bad as it was being raped, what was as bad, if not worse, was to receive professional retaliation in their chosen career merely because they were raped. when you report something, you better be prepared for the repercussions. if a man gets accused of rape, it's a setup. the woman's lying. i could choose to report it, but if they found that what i was saying wasn't to be truthful, then i would be reduced in rank. you could lose your rate, you could lose rank, you could lose your school if you file a false report. "so, do you want to file a report?" ha ha! even with the rape kit and everything and my friend catching him rape me, they still didn't believe me. different woman, voice-over: i reported it

two different times to my squad leader, and he told me that there is nothing he can do about it 'cause i didn't have any proof. different woman, voice-over: they actually did charge me with adultery. i wasn't married. he was. they took me before my lieutenant commander. he says, "you think this is funny?" and i said, "what do you mean?" he's like, "is this all a joke to you?" i was like, "what do you mean?" and he goes, "you're the third girl "to report rape this week. "what, are you guys, like, all in cahoots? you think this is a game?" man on recording: we are sorry, but due to a large volume of calls and unusually long wait times, counselors are unable to answer your call at this time. ok. [line rings] woman: your name, please? it's kori danielle mcdonald. ok. i show that we've got a claim open for a nonservice-connected disability pension, depression, tmj, bilateral disc condition,

ptsd, nerve damage. i'm showing that that's gone to the rating board in cleveland. ok, and how long does that usually take? anywhere from 102 to 139 days. really? and that's just an estimated time frame. 139 days? i mean, that's, like-- i've already been waiting, like, 14 months. what the ... is going on up there? what the ... is going on with the v.a.? like, my ... is new, and it's 14 months? i bet if we were there in person, they'd have to do something. [dog barks] are you ready? say "ready." do you know where we're going? kori and rob: where are we going? to... kori: no, to the doctor. why are we going to the doctor? what hurts on mommy? face. my face. that's right.

you're gonna want to get on 75 north. on 75 north? yep. [baby talk] this goes everywhere with me, and then this goes everywhere with me. you always have protection with jesus, but sometimes you need just a little bit more. i love you. i love you, too. mommy, mommy. be good. mommy will be out in a minute, all right? say bye to mama. bye-bye. mommy... [babbling] we'll get you a big surprise. come on. how'd it go? what did he say? it was good. of course, they ordered a back x-ray instead of a face x-ray, but--here. here's some makeup. they should know what's wrong with me.

like, read my stuff, and you'll see that it's my face. it's not my back. it's not my legs, my arms. it's my face. so the people who need the proof don't even know what your case is even about? like, i don't even know why we wasted the gas money, the trip, anything. it was completely a waste of time. what a good veterans day, right? yeah, it's a perfect way to spend it. yeah. screw it. [wind] trina: because it was an isolated duty station, they were in charge, and we were just kind of like cattle. so that was the first time i was drugged and raped. i was in this room with some of my friends, and i only had, like, one or two drinks, and i went and laid down. it was, like, instantly i was not feeling well, and came to to having a pillow

over my head, and my "friend" raping me. and that went on repeatedly. man: most sex offenders are hunters. just like any hunter, they study their prey. they study their movements. they study their behaviors. they study the environment. stace nelson: you have rapists that prey on other human beings. they stalk them. they wait until the victim is at the most vulnerable point in time to perpetrate their crimes. a lot of times, the victim is somebody that the suspect is very familiar with, and they're very aware of what's going on. russell strand: most sex offenders have this hidden persona that nobody ever sees except for the victim. therefore, when they're caught or if somebody reports, people don't tend to believe that because they don't see the typical sex offender. if it's an officer, it's an officer that has habitually in the past preyed on an enlisted.

they would do it once, they'd get away with it, and then they think, "wow. this was pretty easy. i'm gonna try it again." particularly for a savvy perpetrator, to work within a relatively closed system like the military, it becomes a prime, um... target-rich environment for a predator. when i was discharged, i moved to seattle, where things got really bad. i started to lose everything. i was homeless. there was addiction.

i was selling drugs, packing a gun. 40% of homeless female veterans have been raped while they were serving. they spin into such depression and abuse that they can't hold jobs, they can't hold their lives together, and they end up on the streets. trina: my partner amy, i met her a few years ago. i was going and trying to do some stuff at the gym, and--heh! woman: when i first saw trina, i was at the gym, and i look over and it was like the universe was like, "there you go." and in my head, i was like, "oh, there you are." well, i knew there was something "special" about her. ha ha! wow. for sure. when we first started dating, it was hard. the biggest hurdle was not taking ptsd personally.

it does get really stressful. [simulated gunfire] what's that? a trader. traitor. amy rosaaen-mcdonald: oh, like a vendor? yeah. oh. not like--a traitor like "you bastard traitor," and that kind of thing? ha ha! ok. trina: if i've ever lived with anybody, it's just been with that person. so when i moved in, it was like, "oh, my god." heh! you know, it was amy and 3 boys. amy: "i'm not just moving in with amy. i'm moving in with an entire family." yeah. i was like, "oh, my god." so they were so used to such open space. and with my ptsd, you know, we had some moments. i'm sort of sad to have never known trina beforehand... yeah. when she was sort of in her prime. now she's anxious and sad a lot.

you gonna go protect me, mitch? susie, come. let's go. mitch: yeah. trina, voice-over: a lot of times, if we're out doing something, mitch will be, like, checking in, like, "oh, it's ok, trina. it's all right." i'm appreciative of it, you know, but it makes me really sad that here's this little 11-year-old boy that's watching out for my well-being. it hurts. you know, i want it to go away, you know, and it doesn't go away. move it! yes, sir! [dramatic music playing] let's go!

strand: i think the men that we attract to the military, you know, we've got the army of one, be all you can be, all those themes that we've had throughout the years, very, very heavily masculine. masculinity cannot be victimized because if you're a leader, if you're a masculine person and you're victimized, then you're weak. the problem is that anybody can be a victim of sexual assault. man: i joined the service in 1972. the military was an important way of life. you got to see the world, i got educated. i loved the military. i was 19, and i went to the chow hall alone, and the next thing i know, i was laying on the ground. i was struck from behind, and two guys were holding me down, and one guy was pulling my pants down.

and, uh...you know, he was taking care of his business. and, you know, i struggled, and i was being struck and hit and told to shut up or they'd kill me. and i see how it destroyed my life. i mean, i've been married 3 times. just luckily, i have a wife right now who i've been married to for 25 years. woman: you start wondering and you start sort of-- 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. there's something else." michael matthews: i had never told anybody over 30 years. i decided to tell my wife. it was the scariest moment in my life. i was gonna tell my wife, she was gonna leave me, and i would be lost without her. i mean, honest to god, i couldn't get up every morning without my wife, you know?

and i told her. i felt horrified, and i felt sad, and i felt angry and, you know, along the course of the evening, 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 both sat there and sobbed. it was like... [sniffles] this great weight had been lifted off of me. loree sutton: i think it's important to recognize that military sexual trauma is not limited to 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. strand: i think one of the last bits of research show that about 1% of males had been victims of sexual assault within the past year in the military. that equals to about 20,000. you would get labeled as a buddy ...

and that's not a nice term to be related to, so it's one of those things that you just don't talk about or you don't bring to anybody's attention. you just kind of keep to yourself. it's really, really hard to forget. you know, up until now, i saw--they live in my head, you know? i can hear them laugh, i can see their faces, i can see what they're doing to me. [sighs heavily] i felt scared. and i was scared to tell my friends, the people that really knew me, the truth about what happened. the shame, as bad as it is for women, is even worse for men because it's all tied in with homophobia. 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 men, for the most part. this is not an issue of sexual orientation.

this is simply an issue of power and violence. male sexual predators for the large part have targeted whoever is there to prey upon, whether that's men or women. woman: whenever i see that there is evidence that another woman has been sexually assaulted, the question i keep asking myself is, when does this ever end? announcer: breaking news at this hour. the navy appears to be facing a huge sex scandal. details are still coming in. second announcer: from abc, this is "world news tonight" with peter jennings. peter jennings: good evening. we're going to begin tonight by putting a human face on the worst case of sexual harassment in the navy's history at an annual naval aviators' convention called the tailhook convention. senior officers have known since 1985 that the convention included the so-called gauntlet, set up for the specific purpose of targeting and sexually molesting women. woman: i got off the elevator on the third floor.

you could see maybe 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 someone was reaching under my skirt, pulling my underwear off, and it was about maybe 30 or 40 feet of 200 guys trying to pull my clothes off, like i was a high-value target. jennings: an investigation was finally begun. but 1,500 interviews later, the navy's inspector general reported that his investigators were beings stonewalled. a great wall of silence had gone up to protect the guilty. announcer: the u.s. army today is trying to establish the extent of a new and growing rape and sexual harassment scandal. it 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. that is unacceptable conduct for soldiers. it's unacceptable to the army, and we have zero tolerance. announcer: 12 years ago, the tailhook sex scandal shook the u.s. navy, and now the air force faces what may be an even bigger problem. rape and other sexual abuse at the air force academy in colorado springs. 142 allegations of assault against women have been made in the last decade. the highest-ranking air force generals knew about serious problems of sexual assault at the academy yet failed to take action. we don't intend to sweep this under the rug. we take it very seriously. we're gonna address it publicly. reporter: in congress, outraged senators accused 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 instituting those changes now. john mccain: you're in the process of instituting those changes now? obviously, you and i and the secretary have a fundamental disagreement here. man: at a small post in washington, d.c., marine pride, history, and tradition live on. the marine barracks at eighth and "i" streets is the oldest post in the corps, and for a hundred years, from the early 1800s, it was marine corps headquarters. [officer shouts order] woman: the marine barracks in washington, d.c., 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 2008-2009, my commanding 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. man: she would stay at work late, and then she would drive home, and she'd call me, and she'd be on some kind of little high, and she'd talk about how she loved her job. she was a...this sweet person who was trying really hard and succeeding. ariana: one of the first things i was told when i tucked in was "don't wear any makeup 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 horrible. people asked me what sexual favors had i performed to get my orders there. ariana: there was a senior officer in my command who, the first time he spoke to me, he said, "female marines here are nothing but objects for the marines to ..." so the minute a female shows up at my work, she's immediately pounced on. all of the new females get talked about, saying that they're having sex, sleeping with so-and-so. apparently i slept with all these men, and, i mean, i didn't. ariana: it got progressively worse and worse. they determined that i welcomed the sexual harassment by wearing my regulation-length uniform skirt and running in running shorts. there were several junior female marines that came up to me crying while i was there, saying that they felt too humiliated to come to work.

elle helmer: one of the duties at marine barracks, washington, was a ceremonial drill. evening parades are what you would see on the news. the silent drill platoon, president, everybody goes to those type of things. [officer shouts orders] ariana: after the parades, all the officers are required to stay till midnight and drink in center house at marine barracks, washington. so we're talking about wednesday night happy hours that start at 3:00 and end at 2 a.m. active duty marine: it was a partying and drinking culture. the atmosphere revolved around going out and partying and drinking. i was ordered to drink. i was ordered to attend the drinking events. ariana: my boss even said that they were mandatory to me. she's like, "we do our best work at these events." helmer: we went to various pubs and bars, and the goal was to do a shot at each one,

all paid for by the marine corps. ariana: you're talking about drinking events where other senior officers are drinking to the point of peeing in their pants, you know, passing out on lawns. this is the norm. helmer: at one bar i had water, and i was ordered a shot anyways and told i needed to take two 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 tried to kiss me. i tried to leave, and he slammed the door on my arms. i fell on the ground and hit my face on his desk. and the next thing i realized was, i had woken up wearing his shorts with all of my clothes off and in tremendous pain. i knew enough about me that something wasn't right and i had felt entirely violated.

the colonel at one point said, "you know, "lieutenant helmer, "boys, girls, and alcohol just don't mix. "we'll never really know what happened "inside that office. "only you and the major know, and he's not talking. "so at this point, the investigation is closed "for lack of evidence, and we've reopened a new "investigation against you "for conduct unbecoming an officer and public intoxication." active duty marine: i remember going to the bar. there was an officer that started buying shots for us. after i'd had a couple of drinks, that's all i remember. this officer bragged to his fellow officer friends that he had bagged me.

i got called up to a major's office, and he charged me with fraternization and adultery. he was married. i wasn't. and i was charged with adultery. ariana: i told the battalion xo about the humiliation and 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." ben: i used to lie awake in bed, you know, wondering what i could do to help her get out. ariana, crying: he said that if i told anybody that he was gonna have his friend marv from indiana kill me and throw me in a ditch because that's how they took care of things in indiana. ben: she went to war and gave 9 years of her life.

and for them to take it and come back and say... "yes, they called you a whore. "yes, they called you a slut. "yes, they called you a walking mattress. "it's documented over and over and over again. "but you deserved it, and when you complained about it, you were welcoming it." ariana: the actions of my seniors, both in the assault and in the ensuing investigations, have really destroyed me. ben: when your wife doesn't come home, to, uh... rummage through the house searching for the suicide note... to call the police with one hand, while you're restraining her from killing herself with the other...

ariana: i think the thing that makes me the most angry is not even the rape in itself, it's the commanders that were complicit in covering up everything that happened. ben: 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, you appoint the investigator, you're in charge of the police force, you're in charge of the community. you own everything. you are judge or jury or executioner.

susan burke: most americans assume that there is access to a system of justice so that, for example, if you're a civilian and you're raped, you can call the police and then you have prosecutors--either federal prosecutors, state prosecutors, local prosecutors-- that 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 to the chain of command for how that investigation proceeds. nelson: i know that there's been numerous times over my career that i regretted that an individual commander had the total say-so over a case, and most of them don't have the training or the education to determine what's appropriate in serious felony criminal investigations. the problem in the military is the convening authority, who is not legally trained, makes the final decision.

hinves: they had a change of command at my old squadron, where the guy that raped me was still stationed. he had only been in command for 4 days, and he made the decision over legal to stop the case. what i saw was commanders, and these are field-grade officers-- lieutenant colonels, colonels-- who have been in 20, 25 years. they're career officers, and 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 an 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 see a guy get 4, 5 years for selling a minor amount of drugs. then you'd see a guy get two weeks' extra duty for a rape. 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 2,410 unrestricted reports and 748 restricted. 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 2,410 that have been reported; of those, they identify 3,223 perpetrators. now, what happens once you sign 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? first off, they drop 910 of them. they just don't do anything. then of the 1,025 where they actually take some action, do they court-martial them? no. only half of them, 529, actually got court-martialed.

the rest, 256, were subjected to article 15 punishments, 109 to administrative discharges, and then 131 to "other adverse administrative actions," whatever the heck 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 3,223 perpetrators, only 175 end up doing any jail time whatsoever. carolyn maloney: i have been in congress for 7 terms now, and every single term, we have had meetings with dod. and they come in and they confirm to us, "we're gonna "be serious. "we're gonna take care of this. we're gonna stop this. zero tolerance." but the rhetoric is not being turned into the reality of protecting our women-- and in some cases, men-- in our military. and they're like, "but we have this sarc and sapr program." it's like, "well, oh, great." what does that do?

they can strongly suggest to the military to do something. announcer: as a band of brothers and sisters, it is our personal duty to prevent sexual assault. susan avila-smith: they can't order them. they can't enforce it. they don't back it up. in april of this year, we will debut a social marketing campaign as part of our prevention strategy. woman: preventing sexual assault is part of my duty. man: so when i saw my buddy's date was drunk, i told him, "ask her when she's sober." anu bhagwati: it's ludicrous. you know, it's the year 2011 and we have posters that say, "wait until she's sober"? i mean, it's remarkable that that's allowed to pass in today's military. we've implemented training at each and every level of military service. from the moment they enter the service in basic training, they're given that. and our campaign consists of a series of posters that are actually training tools, and each of those posters has a different focus. you cannot prevent sexual assault

with pretty posters, all right? 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. no poster's gonna prevent a criminal from barging into your room. these are violent people. well, one of the things that we do in our prevention strategy is to focus on bystander intervention. and in that strategy and in that training, we ask for each soldier, sailor, airman, and marine to be aware of what sexual assault is and how to prevent it. sarc is a joke. the things that they say are ignored or they're made fun of. singer: ♪ turn the other cheek is a thing of the past ♪ ♪ up close and real when they try to harass ♪ ♪ when they there in the dark ♪ and the predator persists ♪ ♪ step up in his face, you can tell him this ♪ ♪ we stand, we fight intervene... ♪ ariana: it might be a video or 20 slides. it's like a lot of military training, where it's the once-a-year check in the box. singer: ♪ intervene, act, motivate ♪ you need to intervene, act, motivate... ♪

sapr can't fix anything. you walking back alone? yeah, it's just a short walk to my jeep. all right. bhagwati: and all the money seems to be spent on advertising, which is just rife with victim-blaming. what's your name? hey, stop. come here, come here. let me talk to you for a sec. no. man: i just want to talk to you. oh! are you ok? no, there's this guy. he grabbed me. why are you by yourself? where's your buddy? i didn't think i needed one. announcer: sexual assault is preventable. are you doing your part? and so this notion that, you know, essentially, like, anyone could be a rapist, 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 a lot of the rapes right away. interviewer: how would you characterize the typical sex offender? well, if i looked at our data, from the department of defense, it's young people that are ages 18 to 24, 25.

would you say that most of them are serial rapists? i don't have data one way or the other to determine that. and what percentage of the rapes do you think are caused by serial predators? i don't--i don't have any numbers. i don't know how to-- i don't think we collect that type of data. there's been studies done that people who enter the military are twice as likely to have committed rape as the equivalent population in the civilian world. i'm not aware of that study. my area of expertise focuses primarily on prevention and victim care. but wouldn't prevention include focusing on the perpetrators? john tierney: i notice that dr. kaye whitley is not in her chair. is it under your direction that she has not shown for testimony this morning? second man: uh, yes, sir. do you have an executive privilege to assert?

uh, no, sir. henry waxman: 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. waxman: that's a ridiculous answer. what is it you're trying to hide? we all remember tailhook and the scandal, and how the military tried to cover that up. i don't know who you think elected you to defy the congress of the united states. we're an independent branch of government. so, for now, mr. dominguez, you are dismissed. kori: intimacy is definitely affected. he'll go for months without sex. i have to initiate. if i'm comfortable enough, if i'm having a good day, and i think my husband looks hot for the day,

i have to initiate. when he comes up and hugs me, sometimes i'll cringe and i'll just want him to-- you know, like, he'll feel it and then he gets mad 'cause he didn't-- like, "why aren't you hugging me back?" or whatever. i still do that. there's a time when-- i don't like him grabbing my hips and, like-- but i didn't understand, you know, why 'cause it's like, "i'm your husband. why?" and i don't fully understand now. i see it in my dreams. that's what you don't get. i don't want to talk about stuff and you know that. i just... yeah, well, that's the hard part. i don't know... i want to help you, but i don't know, you know? but-- i want to. i guess-- you can't. you can't help me. but that's the thing is you can't. sometimes i think, if when he has sex with me, is he thinking about me getting raped? is he upset? is he--you know? because i think about that. it'll never--doesn't not run through my head.

that's why i didn't want to have sex for a while. what if you were in my spot? it would suck so bad. i'm not saying i don't appreciate you. you're gonna make me cry, baby. this is why i don't express it to you, rob, because it does upset me. [sniffles] like, we almost split up 'cause of this stuff, and i feel like i'm responsible for it. i don't know what i'd do if i lost rob. i don't. i'd be so lost. he's, like, my only supporter, like my own blood. amy herdy: i've interviewed women in the civilian 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 had told me that she looked at these guys as her brother, or the suspect as her brother. it's akin to what happens in a family with incest because, you know, in the military, when we're functioning at our best, in a cohesive unit with brothers and sisters--you know, the band of brothers and sisters--i mean, we are family. when that bond of trust is violated... [sighs] the wound penetrates to the very most inner part of one's soul, one's psyche. kori: i have this folder that i keep. i have all my boot camp letters in it from my mom and my sister and people. and i was just going through some of the stuff,

and i'm like, "what's this?" and i open it up and i'm like, "oh, my god. my suicide letter." "mom, i'm sorry "for the grief that you must feel. "just because i'm gone physically "doesn't mean i won't be there spiritually. "i truly feel that god will take me without question, even though i took my own life." [sniffles] "i've had the most broken thoughts, dreams, "and physical pain "to remind me of the horrific acts upon me "that happened while on duty. "a mother, brother, sister, "and husband should never live "with knowing the horrible acts upon me. "find peace in knowing that the body left behind "doesn't consume my soul. "i am free now, and i'm not afraid. ready to soar, kori danielle." trina: i took a whole bottle of pills and woke up, strangely enough.

i'm not sure why. heh heh! at that point in my life, i just wanted it to be over, and i think i was 20, 21. and then within the next year, i tried again. i went out into the garage, which is separate from the house, and i turned the car on. was gonna sit in the car and asphyxiate myself. and we had this little poodle, blondie. she went out her little doggie door, and she's scratching and howling at the door. i said, "shut up. ... damn it, you're gonna wake my wife up." so i got out and i shut the car off, and i thought for a minute, "i'll just take her in the garage with me." and then i says, "why would you kill a dog? that's stupid." and then it dawned on me: "well, why would you kill yourself?" i thought of it so many times and in so many ways. i thought about, at one point in time, hanging myself from the flagpole with a sign on me saying exactly what happened to make him feel bad. kori: i was gonna overdose on pain medication

and sleeping medication, and just hope that i'd fall asleep and my body would just shut down or do something. when i went to the doctor, i had been feeling sick and dizzy and nauseated, and they took my urine and they told me that i was pregnant. it was like, you know, there's a life in there, you know? and maybe her life will be better than mine and i got to make sure of that, so... she's very special. wilma l. vaught: sometimes it takes a different kind of action to cause change to come. and sometimes that's a lawsuit. burke: i grew up on military bases. my dad was career army. when i was a child, when we answered the phone, we used to have to say, "colonel burke's quarters." heh!

and because of that, i have an understanding of the level of control that the military exercises that perhaps most in civilian life don't have. the feres 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 incident to your military service. if military doctors amputate the wrong limb, you are out of luck. you cannot sue 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. kori, voice-over: i heard about the lawsuit and decided to become a part of it because i never wanted another woman to go through what i went through. interviewer: how have you been feeling