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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A very serious story

Sometimes it's hard to offset the happy, happy election stories with serious stuff, but I'm not going to let that discomfort prevent me from posting this because this is a very, very important story that they're trying to hide underneath the election.

This study is from the Department of Veteran's Affairs, so this horrifying number is, if anything, likely low.
Nearly 15 percent of female US veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan experienced sexual trauma during their military service, the Department of Veterans Affairs said in a study.

The study, based on data from 100,000 veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom who used VA health care, found that more than one in seven women reported having experienced "military sexual trauma".

Even with the election, how is that not front page news?

posted by mikevotes at 7:45 AM

8 Comments:

  • Honestly, the same moms that have sons in the military are just as likely to have sons in prison. If you listen to 'mama' the sons in prison are innocent.

    There are a lot of these attention whore moms that think junior is a hero when he was really an unmotivated dead ass that wanted someone to tell him what to do. It's not a stretch for these men to rape their fellow soldiers. They've been programmed for it by worthless parents from day one.

    If 1 in 7 female soldiers were raped by soldiers how many Iraqi and Afghan women have been raped by American soldiers during this occupation? 1 in 3?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:24 AM  

  • Why isn't it a bigger story? Because we really don't care about women's "health issues." Or "sexual trauma." Or stuff like that... Just ask McCain.

    Seriously. We just don't care about real and serious issues. We don't have the stomach for it. We'd much rather argue about Joe the Plumber (a fraud and hypocrite on many levels) or Palin's clothing bill.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:27 AM  

  • A couple of things. First of all, I'm not going down your road on characterizing all soldiers.

    Second, that number doesn't say rape, it's "sexual trauma."

    However, because of the huge sample size, this should be taken very seriously.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:28 AM  

  • EPM, I really believe that this would be a bigger story had they released it in August rather than hiding it in the election.

    Unlike some of the previous surveys, this one is official/gov't vet affairs, and the sample is huge.

    Agreed, this is way down the list for most people, but, I think it would shock, and I think that's why they released it now.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:37 AM  

  • You make a good point about the story being bigger if it were released in Aug, but I still maintain a) We have little interest in women's issues, b) we don't want to hear anything negative about military grunts, c) we don't like news that makes us feel personally uncomfortable nor issues that challenge our myths of reality.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:58 AM  

  • I'll certainly buy that.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:01 AM  

  • I'm not making a gross generalization but you know that the AF are scraping the bottom of the barrel to meet quotas. Also the 'Lord of the Flies' affect takes over when these poorly socialized boys get into a wild-west setting.

    Anyway these are my relatives and neighbors I know how messed up they are.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:51 PM  

  • Yeah, I get your point, but even most of those "scrape their way ins" aren't criminals.

    Alot of them are low education or low crime like pot.

    I know what you're saying, but I just don't like the generalization.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:01 PM  

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