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Shockibg But True Storires - Rape in the Military
31 January, 2007
Former USAF cadets
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Being accepted into the United States Air Force Academy means you are the best of the best. Now the academy is being rocked by one of the biggest scandals in military history. This year, 61 courageous women broke the code of silence to allege that they were raped. Six of these women are shown here.

In the last 10 years, 142 Air Force Academy cadets made formal charges of sexual assault. Not a single one of the accused has ever been prosecuted. It is estimated that 80% of these rapes go unreported, and the actual numbers could be in the thousands.

 

 
Sharon
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Sharon says that the culture of the Air Force Academy promotes a laissez-faire attitude toward sexual assault. Rape is treated as a part of a female cadet's life, she says.

"From the day you get to the academy, you're told as a female that you are going to be raped. [Clinicians] push birth control on you. They tell you that you need to be on birth control in case this happens to you."

 

Beth
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Beth says she was repeatedly harassed by an upperclassman, and eventually brutally raped and attacked by him. She says the Air Force knew that he had serious problems. "He was an alcoholic; the Air Force diagnosed him as a sociopath, and they didn't do anything about it."

Instead, when Beth reported the rape, she received demerits. "She got a demerit for having sex in the dorms because she was raped," explains fellow cadet Sharon. "She got a demerit for fraternizing because the upperclassman who raped her was an upperclassman."

 

Kira
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Kira believes that justice will be served only when the culture of the Air Force Academy changes.

"This is a cover-up from top to bottom. They're still blaming the cadets. At first they blamed the female cadets. Once they realized they couldn't get away with that anymore, they just switched to blaming the male cadets. It's not a problem of a few bad cadets. It's a problem of a few bad generals, colonels, and majors.

"We don't trust the Air Force to regulate [itself]. The Senate-mandated independent panel said as much: the Air Force cannot be trusted to bring justice to us. We need a chance to be able to work outside of the Air Force; we need a chance to be able to tell the senate all of what happened to us. Because so far it's not really being heard."

 

Hannah
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Hannah believes the Air Force Academy needs to take a different approach to changing its rape culture.

"The changes they are making are doing absolutely nothing to fix the problem. The problem is about the culture, not about the training that we go through—and that's what they've taken out.

"The rapes did not occur necessarily because of the training or because of the way that we lived. It occurred because the men knew they could get away with it. They knew they could get away with it—and not only that, they would be supported by their classmates."

Mr. U.S. Navy 1989-1993 | 29/01/2007!This is the administrator of this site. Should you want to insult me on the basis of what I have proved here, I would be willing to give you a blow by blow count for that by I don't understand why you insult a man who has been deceased for the past thousand of centuries? You call yourself a soldier? You are nothing but a bigot! Hell you have not even accepted your own kind in your own country soldier? How can you accept any other race/creed/nationality or religion?

You are telling me that the rapes mentioned here are very less than the per capita? That’s supposed to make it ok for them to be raped by animals who call them selves soldiers? You are nothing more than animals! You are worse than the people whom you claim are to be Tterrorists/Fundamentalists/Fascist. You rape your own kind just to get your kicks. How the hell are you going to save anyone else? You come into other peoples country on the basis of lies. Riding on your HumV’s and your Tanks and your Stealth Technology as well as your precision guided missiles and than murder everyone because everyone to you is a threat. Than you rape there wives, mothers, sisters and not to forget there brothers, as a lot of you are gays also who are working in the army/navy/airforce & the “Marine Core”. Who swing the other way and what better way to get there hardons than to screw some foreign ass who wont be able to complain to anyone and than you kill them after you and your comrades in arms have fucked the life out of them and make a story out of it of how you just destroyed the biggest terrorist plot with the head of Al-Qaeda who just five minutes ago was had your dicks inside him/her.

Bravo Commander! I compliment you on how strong you are and how well informed you are about Mohammed (P.B.U.H.). if I was to be a pedaphiles, I would be fucking your kids in your towns and cities not you coming into my towns and cities and fucking my kids, my mothers, my sisters, my daughters, my SONS! So I guess you are the pedaphile here… Huh mate!

Lastly I never have and I never will ever want to even spit in that stinking place called the U.S. Of A as its already full of assholes like you who have no idea what you have just done in IRAQ. You have no Idea how big of a mistake you have made. You guys used to remember your War Vets of Vietnam? Well pal, these Arabs they are like the camels. You fuck with them once and they never foget! Vietnamese are nothing compared to theses assholes. Your dead are already coming back in the black bags… just ask your DOD how many men have died? How many more are on the list? How many more will it take to clean this shit which people like yourself created? Body bags after body bags are coming and maybe down the lane your commanders might need you again for service to be rendered in IRAQ. Than I will see you down a barrel of an AK47 or maybe a sniper rifle or maybe I wont kill you. May be I will just fuck you as I would love to do that and tell the whole world that I fucked America in the ass.
 

I just want you to ponder on this last thought… You are going to be getting off of your high and mighty horse soon. You and people like you are going to be left in a minority and than where will you be? How will you protect yourself? Your families? As nearly everyone would like to do the same that you are doing to them right now. Just remember What Goes around… Comes Around.

 

Laura
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For Laura, being raped was a traumatic experience. But when she reported the crime, she was ostracized within the academy.

"From the moment I reported it, I was persecuted in my squadron. I was treated as a horrible cadet. They thought I was the worst person ever. I was accused of getting [my rapist] kicked out, but that never happened."

Jessica
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After the Air Force academy failed to seek justice for the rape victims, Jessica became a whistleblower. She sent 150 e-mails to reporters, congress members, senators, and news stations trying to get somebody to listen to the rape charges. Her e-mails led to the problem's exposure.

"I pretty much said that I knew too many girls who had been sexually assaulted, including myself—and the Air Force Academy was so bent on keeping its image that we were being neglected and ostracized."

 

Investigative journalist John Ferrugia reported on the Air Force Academy rape scandal
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John Ferrugia, a reporter in Denver, received one of Jessica's e-mails and began investigating. He says once reporters dug deeper, they realized the issue wasn't simply the act of the rapes.

"The issue was that the victims were being investigated and the system turned this whole thing around on the victims and made the victims feel as though, not only were they at fault, but they went after and prosecuted the victims, for lesser charges—for fraternization, for drinking, et cetera."

Lt. Gen. John Rosa
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The Air Force declined an invitation to the show, but the new superintendent of the academy, Lt. Gen. John Rosa, did speak out on the allegations of sexual assault.

"We've got a climate and culture here that is conducive to sexual harassment, which leads to sexual assault and in some cases rape. Our administration took over in April. Since April, 19 folks have come forward and said they had been sexually assaulted or raped. One of the frightening things for me is that in our surveys, young people told us that 80 percent of them did not report. Eighty percent.

"There are cadets here, in fact one in five of our last survey, that think women should not be at the academy. And it absolutely floors me. I'd like the American people to know that we understand that we have a problem. We take this very seriously. We're working day and night to fix this problem. But I will tell you that the Air Force is intent on prosecuting criminals. They don't belong in our air force. And we'll do everything in our power to make sure these criminals are brought to justice."

 

Clara Bingham wrote in 'Vanity Fair' about the Air Force Academy rape scandal.
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Clara Bingham, who wrote about these six women in an in-depth article in Vanity Fair, says the Air Force is reeling from the scandal that was exposed.

"So the question is, what is the Air Force going to do about it? I mean, that's really the question that has not been answered or really addressed by anyone yet. [The alleged rape victims'] educations haven't been finished and a lot of them need counseling and they need to be compensated. And the Air Force needs to pony up, or at least address what they think they can do to try to help them."

 

Joe Madonia
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Joe Madonia is one of the attorneys for all six women.

Oprah: Will any of the men who allegedly raped these women be prosecuted, ever?

Joe: We hope so…but again, so far, out of thousands of rapes, there's never been one punishment rendered on a cadet for raping a fellow cadet.

Oprah: In the history of the Air Force Academy?

Joe: In the history of the Air Force Academy. Instead the lives of these ladies have been destroyed—no medical treatment, no continued education…The Air Force has not once apologized to these women. It has not once said anything about what are we going to do to make their lives better. Not once.

 

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