Monday, February 13, 2012

Picking Up the Pieces From Military Sexual Assault

Picking Up the Pieces From Military Sexual Assault: "Nearly 90 percent of soldiers wounded in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - some 35,000 - survived battle injuries, thanks to breakthroughs in US state-of-the art military medicine, among them, surgical techniques, regenerative medicine and prosthetics. Neither the Department of Defense (DoD) nor the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), though, was prepared with the same cutting-edge treatment for the one in three women soldiers in those same wars - an estimated 70,000 - who were sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers.

The VHA is the agency within the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) responsible for picking up the pieces of lives injured and shattered by combat, war trauma and military sexual assault. It will be faced, over the next months and years, with a tsunami of severe injury and illness from the DoD's largely feckless sexual assault prevention programs...."

4 comments:

Lyndsey Garza said...

To the author of Underground Politics,I wanted to express how interesting and thought provoking I found your post titled, “Picking Up Pieces from Military Sexual Assault”. You pointed out a scary statistic, that is, according to the Department of Defense and the Veterans Health Administration, one in three women soldiers (an estimated 70,000) were sexually assaulted by peer soldiers. A sexual abuse report from the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Preventions and Response Office cited a 64 percent increase in violent sexual assault over the past six years. Those statistics are numbing and shocking. In statements to CNN late last week, Rick Santorum, one of this year’s Republican Presidential nomination, suggests that men and women have “physiological differences” that could illicit a difference in women in terms of strength and capability. What I really think is being “compromised” in Santorum’s mind is if the dinner is going to be on the table when he comes home to his stay-at-home wife, Karen. More women in combat will help boost our troop numbers. More women in combat does not illicit violent sexual assault. More women in combat incites the progression of the gender through society. Santorum told CNN, “I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission, because of other types of emotions that are involved." I couldn’t disagree more. These soldiers are meticulously trained for combat and are regarded as some of the most respected people in our nation. They put their life on the line to protect us and it’s beyond defamatory to say that these male soldiers actively compromise their country to violently sexually assault a fellow battalion mate.   I thought you might find the following video clip about women in combat interesting. I hope you will embed it into your blog and maybe in the future, we could swap blog roll links and widgets. http://www.newsy.com/videos/analysis-the-debate-over-women-in-combatThe clip does a great job of concisely sourcing and compiling news reports to emphasize the scope and context the content is being reported on. Newsy synthesizes and analyzes news into neutral comprehensive video clips showing a variety of opinions on the same topic.I really appreciate your input, time and consideration. Thank you, Lyndsey Garzalyndseyg@newsy.com

MotivatedinOhio said...

They need to help the women who suffer from sexual abuse, and they need to prosecute the men  committing those atrocities 

Underground Politics said...

You have some good points and thanks for sharing that link. I hope that I'll have time tomorrow to look at it!

Underground Politics said...

That is so true. We're failing our heroes.