In a July 31 story by Z. Byron Wolf, ABC News notes the murder of pregnant Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach and the wider story of sexual assault against women in the U.S. military. The news report, drawing on testimony given before he Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs – a panel of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – is titled “Sex Assaults Against Women in Military ‘Epidemic’”:
Mary Lauterbach, the mother of murdered pregnant Marine Maria Lauterbach, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the military must change the way it deals with sexual assault to avoid more tragedies like her own.
“I believe Maria would be alive today if the Marine system had been different,” her mother told a panel of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held a hearing Thursday on sexual assault and rape in the military.
There were no representatives from the Marines at the hearing, and the head of the Pentagon office tasked with responding to the problem of sexual assault in the military was ordered by her superiors not to testify despite a subpoena from the committee.
The refusal of the Department of Defense to allow subpoenaed witness Dr. Kaye Whitley, director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, has been noted by activist and retired Army Col. Ann Wright writing for Truthdig, by Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake, and elsewhere. More from ABC:
Lawmakers could not ask [Whitley] to address the issue of sexual assault and what steps have been taken because Deputy Defense Undersecretary Michael Dominguez had barred Whitley from testifying, despite a Congressional subpoena.
Dominguez told the lawmakers he knew everything about the program and didn’t need Whitley’s input to answer their questions.
Dominguez was given a bipartisan dressing down on this point by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the Oversight Committee. “I don’t know who you think elected you to defy the congress of the United States,” he said.
Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., the ranking member, said he will support Waxman’s pledge to hold Whitley and Dominguez in contempt. They dismissed Dominguez without taking his testimony.
As the family of PFC LaVena Johnson continues to press Congress and the Army to investigate the possibility that LaVena died in connection with a sexual assault, the refusal of the military to address these crimes against women will come in for even greater criticism.
As stated before, it should be noted that the chairman of the subcommittee
Sexual assualts will ALWAYS be a constant until the military confronts the issue head-on and stand behind the women who report sexual assualt/harassment. As a former senior enlisted soldier in the Army, I too was sexually harassed by a Command Sergeant Major, and this was covered up by the Army, DESPITE the overwhelming physical evidence presented. His filthy behavior was well known by Army officials, however, instead of addressing the issue, removing him from the ranks, they virtually gave him free reign to continue this behavior by relocating him outside of the United States. His written request for “worn” underwear was evidentially something the Army encouraged. Those who were in a position to demand punishment, but didn’t, are a total disgrace to women in uniform. May their female loved ones never endure what they have condoned!
Women in the war zones have the same war zone experiences as their male counterparts–but it is shameful that they have the added stressors of constantly fearing for their lives because of lawlessness and cover-ups of sexual assaults. An hornorably discharged veteran, I was in Iraq for 15 months as a contractor, injured twice after refusing to comply with sexual demands (and reprisals–another company’s security even reported the stalking behaviour of one man who hit me). Both times, I was merely moved to another site. To my knowledge, nothing was done with the men. Part of the problem, I believe, is that while Bibles were banned, Maxim magazines and pin-ups–nude pin-ups for quite awhile– were permitted/encouraged in many of the work areas. The pin-ups depicted women as “meat” or “toys”. Added to that, some units openly referred to women in demeaning terms, and they did not mean “B.abe I.n T.otal C.ontrol of H.erself. Many of the CHUs (Containerized Housing Units), when we moved into them from tents, could be easily opened by sliding an ID card between the door and the door jam. More than once I had men trying to break in at night. There were many felons hired, too, and though some are very patriotic and great workers, we read what recidivism rates are…and in the war zoen all too often, in my pinion, they were given ready access to guns, vehicles, women’s sleeping areas. Most men were decent, but a very small percentage were very dangerous. Most men were very supportive of women, but also most would not get involved to stop the harm, because if they did–from what I saw–they were likely to be terminated. The woman on the other side of my CHU told me that she had to move to another site because the older female H.R. Rep. told her, when she reported the sexual harassment she was experiencing, that she should have known what she was getting into when choosing to work in a male-dominated field and therefore the most they (KBR) would do would be to move her to another camp. KBR pursued Jamie Leigh Jones all the way to the Supreme Court, until the Franken Amendment passed, to try to thwart her from bringing her rapist(s) to court because being raped in Iraq they considered to be part of the work environment and therefore subject to company-chosen arbitration. It is hell when you have reason to fear every hour for your safety and your very life because you do not know when the next attack will occur. I am a survivor. Many others, like Lavena Johnson terribly are not so fortunate.