Sexual Assault During the Gulf War
HIS340: Recent American History
March 29, 2015
There are thousands of brave men and women that fight for the safety, well-being and freedom of every single citizen of the United States of America and many others around the globe, and those are the men and women of the United States military forces. Without those brave soldiers, and the ones who served before them, the United States would not be the great country that it is today . From the moment that they join any branch of the military, whether it be Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, or Coast Guard they are heroes. But while they are busy risking their lives to protect you and I, and all of our neighbors, who is protecting them? Who is making sure they are safe?
In 2014, there were over 5,000 sexual assaults that were reported to the Department Of Defense by military personnel. While this number may or may seem high, it has gone up almost 50 percent from the previous year when just over 3,000 sexual assaults had been reported. A much more staggering figure is that from a confidential military survey in 2012, nearly 26,000 men and women from the military claimed to have been sexually assaulted during their duty in the United States military (Murdoch, 2014). A disturbingly low 3,300 of those assaults were actually reported to the Department Of Defense (Cooper, 2014).
One may ask themselves, if you were sexually assaulted, why would you not report it to the officials, especially in an institution such as the United States military which was built to protect. Of the 5,000 sexual assaults that were actually reported in 2014, a pathetic 484 went on to see a trial (Cooper, 2014). That means that 1 out over every 10, so 10 percent, of the sexual assaults reported by United States military personnel actually go to trial. From the 2014 reported cases of sexual assault that did go to trial, there were 376 convictions (Cooper, 2014)....