Are we making real progress in our fight to eliminate sexual assaults in the military?

At the company level, I know that certain things I have put in place has made a difference. I don't think I would have had an assault in my ranks (who does?), but I do think that I've mitigated the risk some.
1. We are a Family. Do not mess with your Family.
2. It is not her honor or his honor at stake, it is our honor at stake. Every one of us is tarnished when something like this happens.
3. If you hear talk veering towards the unprofessional. Fix it. Right there, right now. I HAVE YOUR BACK if you need to do this. Unquestionably.
4. Alcohol at events is not prohibited, because you are not children. But the environment will have control measures, to mitigate mistakes and regrets.

I think we all do what we can, sir. This is not the center of my universe, but I know very well just how destructive sexual assault and harassment is to a unit's cohesion and ability to accomplish it's mission.

It starts with our leaders. Leaders must continue to take a zero tolerance stand on sexual harassment and sexual assault.

This isn't a training issue, it 's a parenting issue. If a person, after 18 years of parenting, doesn't know sexual assault is wrong, doesn't know right from wrong, then their parents failed to instill both empathy and common sense. There is nothing any training, program, Powerpoint, vignette, or NCO can do to fix that. In the little time we have them, we can't fix 18 years of bad parenting.

The only thing you can do is ensure you recruit only the highest caliber personnel. The kind of people to whom sexual misconduct is inconceivable in the first place. So long as we keep accepting sub par people in, we will always have a problem.

The atmosphere of today's service members is completely different from when I entered the military 40 years ago. The nonchalant attitude of the sexual experience among high school adolescence is extremely prevalent and after they leave their peer group, (whether high school or college), they expect it to follow them. Living in a college town and near Florida beaches, I witness this attitude frequently as well as overhear provocative language coming from both men and women. It was brought up in an earlier thread; parental guidance. The ability of children to access pornography and lack of adult supervision has created much of the current problem we are having within our local communities. Changing the mental will take training as well as discipline and putting out into the faces of everyone; respect and professionalism.

Sir:

BLUF: SHARP is an issue because it doesn't tackle the problem objectively ie the victim is always the victim and it does not account for false accusations.

Here is the issue with sexual assault/rape in the military--and this is based on my own personal experience with the program--: rape is not clearly defined and there are incentives to filing sexual assault claims in the military. Here's my current situation:

I had a Soldier accuse me of raping her. Whatever charges she had pending against her were dropped and she was immediately PCS'd to America. CID then began to conduct an investigation into my entire past (all 50 states and all).

They come up on my ex-wife. Having filed several claims against me (10 in family court and 1 in criminal court for 2nd degree harassment; all unfounded) and never bringing up sexual violence, she files several rape claims against me and gives several names of women, to whom CID should talk. It has been 5 years and we are still dealing with custody issues and she stated in an email that I am a "sperm donor" and that "[she fights me] and nail and
would gladly sacrifice every single thing that [she has] to make [me] disappear from his life."

One girl claims that I raped her; however, she claims that I did not use any force, nor did she say no. She claims that I was "psychologically manipulative."

Another girl claims that I followed her into her house and that I assaulted her; however, she and I were living together and I had the keys to her apartment. She claims that we were just a fling despite letters emails against these claims.

I currently have the following restrictions in place: restricted to post, leave and pass privileges revoked, cannot consume alcohol, and I have to be in my room from 2200-0500. It has been this way for 10 months. I currently have been awaiting court martial for 15 months. Court martial is not until March 1.

So one year ago, I started working on a project called WithU. It is an app that will help decrease the amount of gray area and help make things a little more black and white. It is not perfect yet; however, we are working to perfect it.
http://www.facebook.com/withutheapp

TL;DR: WithU is our solution to fixing the SHARP issues in the military.

Sir,

Two parts:
Is sexual harassment in the military really as bad as it is portrayed?
A large number of cases are filed for frivolous reasons and inflate the number while having no foundation. They also detract and take up resources from cases that have merit.
Could the evidence or lack of evidence, the background of the accuser, ambiguity of statements be factors that were known to the command and have been a reason he was allowed to remain? We don't know the facts of the case, not knowing what the facts are leave us with a limited ability to judge.

It would seem those in positions of authority would be bright enough to have seen the consequences of senior ranking members falling into this situation and avoid it like the plague. Does too much of the old "boys club" mentality of looking out for each other or believing they are above reproach exist? Is this mentality what kept Kepner in place during an active investigation. If so then should the command structure be investigated for impropriety?

If one reads the courts-martial in the Army Times, the war against assaults is not going well. Yes, the people committing these acts are getting caught and punished.....but the acts of violence are still happening.

The SHARP Program is, in and of itself, ineffective. Most units treat it like they do any other "check the block" training; as a result the SM's aren't taking it seriously. Forcing them to undergo the same training with the same slides and the Same videos over and over again doesn't fix the problem, it only makes them tune out.
One of my SM's was raped by a civilian/ family member of a military spouse while under the influence of a date rape drug in while stationed in a foreign country and this is what I learned:
*The SARC rep was completely unprepared for our call. They acted as if it were the first time they'd ever dealt with a sexual assault victim
*The physician had not been properly trained in how to do a rape-kit and botched the whole procedure, even down to forgetting to take pictures of the bruising and physical signs of assault and did Not do a blood test for drugs.
*The Lawyer was a temp stand in for the actual, trained legal counsel and had no idea what they were doing.
*The MP's and CID Questioned the Owner of the home where the assault occurred BEFORE questioning the alleged rapist (a family member) and then, didn't pick up the alleged rapist until much later---not only giving the family time to warn the Civilian Guest but also, clean up any evidence the victim had been in the Home. They never searched the home for physical evidence, of which I was told, there was plenty. The perpetrator got on a plane back to the U.S several days later without being charged.
*The Spouse/sister of the alleged perpetrator began harassing the SM on line, spread false rumors to the community and followed the SM on post to intimidate them. If it were not for this family member, no one would have known of the alleged assault. The Spouse even went so far as to contact the SM's CSM and make false allegations to smear the SM's good name in her unit. When the SM protested she was told there was nothing to be done because it wasn't a service member but their spouse who was the perpetrator of the harassment. As a result, the SM was forced to take a compassionate reassignment if for no other reason than to flee the harassment.
The case was never followed up on or went any further. The SM is now considering a civil case once they return to the United States, against both the military spouse and the alleged rapist. It is the only recourse they feel is left to them.
You ask if we are making progress? I say, NO, we are not. The entire system is broken. SARC's and doctors are not being properly trained; Military law enforcement are still acting under a "the victim is always suspect/lying" mentality and not properly executing their duties; the lawyers for the victims are under-staffed and under-trained. And victims are given little or no recourse beyond being forced to uproot their own lives and careers, in effect, making them a victim twice.

Now days when people want to correct a problem they talk about eliminating the problem, this however is not possible. Getting rid of sexual assault permanently is not possible and yet every time I have had a sharp brief or discussed it with the representatives and NCO's the implied goal and by there statements is to eliminate. So I will anger people who are gung-ho about sharp with the truth.

We will NEVER completely eliminate sexual assault and sexual harassment.

BUT. We can drastically reduce the incidences by proper and compleat investigations, prosecuting the violator, and publicly announcing what he did and the punishment for that act. Especially in small community's out side of modern society public punishment is meant so that every one will know that it will be them up there if they do what "he" did. If we do not know what the punishment is and how heavy it is what motivation is there for others to stay away from these acts? I had a co who would not just post it to a bilirubin board, he would have the company in formation and read court findings from sexual harassment and assault to dui and the punishments the soldier received, and before finishing he would say that if we did these things it would be our names in the reports. This is what must happen announce there was a criminal act and the courts judgment and make it personal to those listening that if they do these things the report will be about them.

Now to clarify even more why we will never eliminate sexual assault.

There will always be people who regardless of the law will do what they want. To keep these people from perpetrating the crime requires vigilance on the parts of countless soldiers to watch their brothers and sisters backs and to take the responsibility to head off the problem wether it be warn the intended target get a leader or a cop to take care of it. There will be some times where we didn't see it coming or they acted at a time when even our vigilance could not help the only thing we can do then is to find the truth, prosecute if they did commit the crime, publicly announce the punishment, and warn that if someone els does what they did it will be them up there next.

As long as people are willing to get what they want however they want even going outside of the law there will always be people who commit this crime. But with the methods above and others besides we can greatly reduce the times we here about this crime being committed.

If you had told me 30 years ago that sexual assaults were happening in my Air Force family I would have called you a liar. Unfortunately though there is overwhelming data that proves otherwise, and while we have increased the awareness of it, by doing so we have also increased the confidence in victims to report incidents which can make the problem look even worse.

I believe anytime you increase awareness of an issue though, you are making progress to solving it.