Why do cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault continue to take place in the Army despite all the training and the education?

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 15:49:42 -0500

Currently at BLC and was hoping to start a discussion on one of our essays we have been assigned to write..

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 4:05 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 16:05:03 -0500

imagine that, terrible people being terrible people.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 4:11 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 16:11:29 -0500

It's a matter of culture. The Army has a culture of its own, and it creates and maintains that culture through the conduct of its leaders, not any classes. Those classes instruct leaders and Soldiers on policies and rules, but it's the leaders who develop the culture. However, Soldiers don't walk into the Army with Army culture and a few months of Basic training will not indoctrinate Soldiers on how to behave off duty. That takes time, mentorship, and maturity for young Soldiers to be molded and shaped into adults who live or at least abide by the Army values.

Then there's alcohol.... Alcohol throws fuel into the fire for everything and tosses all good sense out the window. The first thing that becomes impaired with alcohol is our sense of judgment, and our ability to tell that our judgement is impaired. The majority of misconduct cases have alcohol involved in them. Alcohol is involved in something like 80-90% of misconduct, and especially in sexual assault cases.

Sexual harassment is a different beast, not one that you can blame on alcohol. I'm not a SARC and I've never looked over the statistics for sexual harassment. But, from what I've seen SH comes down to a lack of respect. Of course, there are still predators and no amount of training will ever eliminate them, but the cases I've seen, 90% came down to disrespect. Often the person didn't think what they were doing was sexual harassment. For instance, in an earlier thread, one NCO was asking about another NCO who was flagged for a SH investigation. He thought the investigation was BS because the NCO made some remark about a female to another Soldier. He felt it wasn't SH because it wasn't said directly to her. It was a lack of knowledge and respect. Or you'll see Soldiers treating a coworker differently and making sexual remarks because they are a female. Again, it's a lack of respect. They wouldn't talk to their sister this way and they wouldn't let someone speak to their mother this way because they respect those people. You can't take someone off the streets and make them develop respect for females that they didn't have three months ago just by going through basic training. It takes time for the Army culture to penetrate into new Soldiers

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 4:14 PM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 16:14:10 -0500

My personal thought on this, are that is just how these individuals were raised. Unfortunately, not everyone in America is raised in a good home environment. This includes Soldiers that enlist in the military. Being that this is now their first time away from home, they revert back to how they were raised. I think for the most part the military is good for teaching and training some of these individuals what right looks like, but there are still many that still do not care and will do whatever they want to do. I think this will be a fantastic discussion to have in your BLC class, i would love to hear some the comments given. Good luck to you and please let us know how all of this turns out for you.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 4:32 PM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 16:32:54 -0500

Because there will always be those that cry wolf, when they regret their own voluntary actions. And wolf callers are hardly ever held accountable.

Response by CPL Gary Pifer made Jan 3 at 2020 5:34 PM

CPL Gary Pifer — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 17:34:29 -0500

The problems that gave me the biggest headache were the behaviors of the women both service members and married dependents .. filthy languare...drinking..lying.. affairs.. then there were Lesbians vs straights.. Pretty girls vs average ones..harassment assaults.. such drama... and combat.. then the racial aspect... And I was in charge of one 3 story barracks. Do an essay on woman vs woman...

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 6:24 PM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 18:24:22 -0500

Their are still some old ways of thinking in the military. Those ways are dying a slow death. SA will never be fully eradicated but can be drastically reduced once the old ways of thinking die out.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 9:06 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 21:06:26 -0500

Thank you all for your comments! Hopefully I can implement some of the different ways of thinking.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Jan 3 at 2020 11:06 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 23:06:04 -0500

Some people live by values. Some people don’t want to get punished. Some people take their chances.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 3 at 2020 11:38 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 23:38:08 -0500

This is a good question to start a debate. I have been in a while and have seen the emphasis of this become a major effort. I have also worked in law enforcement as a civilian. I would say that it is not that the Army isn't trying to address this enough but we have predators in the Army. We don't have the means to catch them until it's too late. This was most evident with the Fort Hood NCO charged with taking advantage of female Soldiers that were victims of sexual assault. To me it is far fetched that a Soldier got to a position like that and did those horrible acts without any prior incidents. I have heard stories of female Soldiers face challenges where harassment was exposed but it didn't get some much traction. No commander wants to say that it happened under their watch. I have also know some female Soldiers that cried wolf after issues were brought up. With males and females are in the same place stuff like this will happen. I have even had a female DA Civilian at Benning try to ask if I was going out that weekend and ask for my number. I was shocked but I didn't report anything. We obviously don't want to make a "big deal" about it. But regardless of how much training Soldiers have it won't stop a predator that is already in the military from devious acts. You have to think how much this happens in high school and college. They don't stop when they join the military. Making things even worse that these predators don't see an issue with it and don't see it as an issue which makes them think no one else will care.

Response by SPC Stewart Smith made Jan 4 at 2020 2:41 PM

SPC Stewart Smith — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 14:41:53 -0500

There are multiple factors. Alcohol, upbringing, and maturity, to name a few.
In an ideal world nobody would sexually harass anyone and training and education would teach everyone to do the right thing. This isn't an ideal world and there are a large amount of people from a large amount of different places that join they army. Some people grow up thinking it's alright to talk about sex, no matter who's around, while others think it's never ok. When you're brought up thinking it's fine to talk about sexual situations, no matter where you are, you're going to have a more difficult time curbing that habit. Even someone who doesn't have any ill intention behind what they say can be brought up on sexual harassment charges if the right, or wrong, person hears them speak.

Response by CSM Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 4 at 2020 11:26 PM

CSM Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 23:26:46 -0500

The simple answer for sexual assault is that the Army primarily recruits and retains young adults from the United States. Sexual assault plagues many institutions in which there is a large number of people from that demographic. This issue is not just one for the Army and other uniformed services, but also for many colleges and universities (and, as has been mentioned, alcohol often plays a role in fueling sexual assault). Consider the statistics. According to source A below, in 2016 66% of the enlisted population was under age 30. According to source B, 54% of the victims of sexual violence are aged 18-34. In other words, the majority of enlisted Soldiers fall well within the most commonly victimized age group. Training and education are important, even necessary, but even if it were always taken as seriously as it ought to be, it would be a Herculean task to completely overcome the culture of the society from which Soldiers are primarily recruited.

Sources:
A: https://m.goarmy.com/content/dam/goarmy/downloaded_assets/pdfs/advocates-demographics.pdf
B: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

advocates-demographics.pdf

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Response by SPC Kenneth Koerperich made Jan 9 at 2020 10:11 PM

SPC Kenneth Koerperich — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 22:11:16 -0500

It's bad people being BAD!
Real soldiers won't get into trouble.
Remove drinking, drugs, women in the wrong MOS's, and alot of it would stop.

Meaning, DO NOT put women in the Infantry. It's never been, and never will be PC.

Back in my day, NOT ONE of us would have made it past day 1 of a SHARP course, the way we talked, and acted, because in this day and age you have way to many touchy feely snowflake --sies in the MILITARY!

People need to grow a pair!

Response by Mackenzie Flowers made Nov 30 at 2022 8:08 PM

Mackenzie Flowers — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 20:08:16 -0500

If you think about it, during an armed conflict, sexual violence is often used as psychological warfare to demoralize the enemy. There are both isolated rapes on the own initiative of individual combatants and cases of forced prostitution. In the army, this is more controlled, but still not enough. And no one knows how to stop sextortion. It depends on the people, no rules and restrictions help. https://www.digitalforensics.com/blackmail

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Response by LTC Jason Mackay made Nov 30 at 2022 8:16 PM

LTC Jason Mackay — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 20:16:17 -0500

Because predators don’t care about the training or potential consequences. The training keeps honest people honest. The predators are only stopped by prosecution or direct action. So you have to wait until they reveal themselves, which is then too late for at least one victim.

Until there is a bar code reader for predators, we’ll continue to have these assaults. They happen in and out of uniform, DAs don’t have to answer for unprosecuted civilian cases. Bet there is as many there too

Response by SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM made Nov 30 at 2022 8:26 PM

SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 20:26:07 -0500

It starts with the command climate at the unit level! When it's positive at the unit level good interactions occur!