April is ‘Sexual Assault Awareness Month’ in the U.S. military.
Last year, the Department of Defense prepared a 136-page, write-up titled, “Report to the President of the United States on Sexual Assault Prevention and Response,” at a cost of over $9.2 million. For the amount of money spent on it, one might think sexual assault in the military is an epidemic.
However, it’s not.
You’d never know this though, had you only read the December 3, 2014 article, “Reports of Sexual Assaults in Military on Rise,” in the New York Times: “A new military study says that reports of rapes and sexual assaults in the military increased eight-percent in the fiscal year ending September 2014, Obama administration officials said.”
“More than 5,400 sexual assaults were reported in 2014,” it added, “compared with around 5,000 the year before, officials said.”
However, the 2014 presidential report shows sexual assaults down 4.3 percent, from 6.1 percent two-years before.
Unfortunately, what has gone up are the reports of sexual assaults. In 2012, there were 3,604 reports of assaults and in 2014 that figure increased 50 percent to 5,518 reports.
Furthermore, all three military service academies showed declines in the number of sexual assaults during the 2013-2014 school year. About eight-percent of females and one-percent of males reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact, compared to more than 12-percent for women and two-percent for men in 2012.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno, while speaking at this year’s ‘Sexual Harassment/ Assault Response and Prevention Summit’ in February continues to toe the Obama Administration line, claiming, “Anybody who thinks we don’t have a problem should reassess.”