reply to post by liquidsmoke206
Maybe it's just my horrible math acting up again, which it does frequently, but if 71% are assaulted and/or raped but 80% aren't ever reported then
something is horribly wrong with the numbers there. And as I said, sexual assault can be as innocent as a male soldier squeezing a female soldier's
shoulder and she decides it was unwanted sexual attention.
I was in the National Guard a few years back. At drill I was standing with a few male soldiers talking and kidding around. One told a joke just as a
CO walked by. The CO decided the joke was inappropriate simply because I was the only female standing there and told the guy he shouldn't talk like
that around me because he didn't know me well enough to know if I would take it wrong. By wrong he meant sexual assault. I didn't of course, I
thought it was pretty funny actually.
My point here being that there are women who have a stick up their rear and think that every look, pat on the back, and shoulder squeeze is sexual in
nature when it's not. There are women who will yell sexual assault if a male soldier so much as winks at them or pats them on the back as they walk
by. All it takes for some women is for them to be having a bad day and they will intentionally cry foul when even they know nothing inappropriate has
happened. Once again, it does happen as does rape. But not every claimed sexual assault really is, just as not every female who has cried rape telling
the truth. Most are, but there are some who lie about it for various reasons.
I broke my own rule and read through the rest of the thread after I made my initial post a few pages back and the majority of what I have seen here
has been more of the same "soldiers are brain-washed, puppy-killing, murdering rapists" crud that floods every thread on this board about the
military. I have never in my life came across a group of people as large as the one that inhabits threads like these that is so anti-military they
will take any excuse to bash the entire group instead of the few morons that actually do things they shouldn't. Not specifically you, I would have to
go back and re-read your posts to determine if I am including you in this statement as I simply can't remember specifically who said what. Never in
my life have I seen this happen, except here.
Do some soldiers rape people? Yes. Do all soldiers rape people? Heck no. And the worst part is that some people on this board latch on to stories such
as this one and take it to mean that all military men are like that. I know more military men and women than I can count and not a single one of them
would ever rape someone. I personally have spent time alone with several military men I am friends with and not once have a single one of them done
anything to make me feel uncomfortable, sexually harassed, etc. And not once have any of them even attempted to rape me.
I honestly think that a lot of the posters, not all but a lot of them, are missing the point that while rape is horrible regardless of what occupation
the perpetrator happens to have, and that yes some men manage to get into the military and then go and rape someone, it is not something that happens
more often in the military than in the civilian world. I provided my own research a few pages back that shows this. Yet it was over-looked and ignored
by the majority of the posters since then because it does not fit in with their view of reality. And again I say, that is just asinine.
Edited almost immediately to say: Sorry for the rant! I just become really irritated by gross generalizations about our military by people, no
specific person being targeted here, who have never been in the military and have no clue what does or does not happen in it except what they read in
an article or whatever theories they make up off the top of their heads. Again, not denying that rape and sexual assault happen in the military but it
is not something that happens to as great an extent as some members here would like to believe. Just as many other beliefs that some members here hold
about the military are so far off the mark that they couldn't get any further from the truth if they tried.
[edit on 4-11-2008 by Jenna]