Who's protecting who?


When I thought of military personnel I used to imagine people who never committed a crime. I imagined a strong man or woman who could do basically anything. I failed to realize that just because you’re in the military doesn’t mean that you can’t do any wrong. I failed to realize that they’re still people and people have faults. Reading a couple of articles by Steven Myers I was able to see that there are crimes that can happen on military bases.

Women who serve in the military are sexually assaulted with little regard to their emotional state. Commanding officers often neglect to do something about assault charges, finding some reason to blame the woman or some way to silence her. I find it crazy that in the military women are less likely to report a crime of rape than civilian women are. In class we read an article that discussed how police officers take advantage of the people they are supposed to protect. If the people who are supposed to protect us are the ones harming us, who are we expected to turn to in a time of need?

Steven Myers made a point in his article “A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I’s” that women in the military are more likely to get raped than to get killed from an enemy in war. It’s sad that women are being taken advantage of and no one is doing anything. In one instance instead of the male perpetrator getting in trouble for sexually assaulting someone the women who was the victim was discharged from the military. It was an honorable discharge but on her file it was said that she had a misconduct. The woman did nothing wrong except report a crime and for that she was the one who is punished.
 
 
-Tatiana F.

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