Thousands of men have been raped by other men while serving in the military. It's something that the U.S. Marine Corp and Navy flatly refuses to even acknowledge. The statistics in the articles below represent 50% of our Armed Forces due to the denial of the problem. After listening to the NOW story Public Television last night about our service women being victims of rape by male soldiers, I thought about veterans I've known who have been subject to rape as well. So I went searching on the Internet this morning and found the following great articles. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Boston Globe Sexual assault in the shadows
Male victims in military cite devastating impact on career, life
EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- The call came shortly after dinner on a raw night this winter. Mark Partridge sprang to the phone, eager to talk to his 20-year-old son, Brian, who had been based for more than a year on the USS Ardent, a minesweeper patrolling the Persian Gulf. Fulfilling a childhood dream to follow his father into service, it had been a moment of triumph when Brian landed a berth on the sleek gray ship. But what his father now heard on the other end of the line was anything but triumphant. His only child was nearly hysterical, on the brink of tears. "Dad, I've been raped," the young man shouted, as both men recall it. "There's blood all over the place." "Who did this?" demanded his father. "Where is he?" "I don't know," said Partridge, standing in the apartment of the man he says assaulted him. "I beat him up bad." "Go to the base security," his father commanded. "Right now." Partridge did just that. And then, almost immediately, he found himself caught in a legal labyrinth: Partridge's account met mounting skepticism from military investigators, and he soon faced charges himself -- a familiar pattern, according to other servicemen who have alleged abuse and some counselors who treat them. In the end, humiliated and terrified of what might await him in the brig, Partridge agreed to an other-than-honorable discharge, abandoning his military career. His case is unusual only in that he is talking about it. At a time when sexual assaults on women in uniform -- from the Air Force Academy to Iraq -- have scandalized the public and put the Pentagon on the defensive, the troubling incidence of sex crimes against men in the service has languished in the shadows, comparatively unremarked. It is well-populated shade. A Pentagon study of sexual assault in the military released in May found that 9 percent of the 2,012 reported victims of sexual assault in the armed forces in 2002 and 2003 were men. Most said they were assaulted by fellow servicemen. Those figures include 118 service members, some of them men, who say they were sexually assaulted during the current conflict. In addition, the US Department of Veterans Affairs has found more men than women reporting that they experienced unwanted sexual attention during their service years -- from rape to verbal harassment. In fiscal year 2003, for example, 10,693 male veterans told the VA they had experienced such treatment, compared with 9,348 women. The gender gap between those totals isn't surprising; far more men than women are served by the VA. Still, the sheer number of men who raise this issue with the VA screeners hints at the magnitude of the issue the military confronts. "This is a subject that has been vastly overlooked," said US Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, and a strong advocate for sexual assault victims in the armed services. "I don't think any of us think of men as being rape victims, and certainly the military does not. I suspect men are quiet about it, because they want to preserve their career in the military." The US Department of Defense declined to discuss the incidence of sexual assaults on men or how the armed services are addressing the issue. But the department did express concern that the number of male rapes may be underreported. "We recognize that sexual assaults are seriously underreported," said Charles S. Abell, principal deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in a statement, "and we have no reason to doubt that it is even more so in the case of male victims." The Globe interviewed eight men who said they were victims of sexual assault while in the military. While four of them said they never reported the offenses during their time in service, the other four said they did and wound up facing penalties themselves. One, a former US Marine who said he was beaten and sexually assaulted in 1975 while in basic training, said he was dubbed a "training failure" after he complained and was required to leave the service. Another, a Boston man who said he was raped while in basic training in the Army in 1978, was fined for an offense he says his commander never specified. Partridge was apparently the only one of the eight whose alleged assailant faced charges. All of the men were reluctant to be named, in part out of fear that going public could jeopardize their VA benefits, in part out of embarrassment or shame. For if male rape is a topic that causes squeamishness in civilian society, it is, the men say, nearly taboo in the overwhelmingly male and hierarchical culture of the military, where two men having sex remains a crime. In the end, only four of the eight would consent to be quoted by name. Met with disbeliefPetty Officer 3d Class Brian Partridge says he did precisely what a rape victim in the military is supposed to do. After hanging up with his father, he called his superior officer and remained in the apartment until two officers from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrived. He told them that after a night of drinking with other sailors at several local bars, he returned to the apartment of one of them for the night because the base curfew had passed. Shortly after he went to sleep in the guest bed, he woke up to find his friend sexually assaulting him. Partridge, a slender man with trim blond hair, said he threw off his assailant and, enraged, beat him until the other man fled. The following day, Partridge was questioned again at length. But this time, he said, the investigating officers did not seem to believe him. "They were making sly comments. They asked me three or four times if I was sure I wasn't gay, which I most definitely am not," Partridge said. "They were just not listening to me." Several weeks later, Partridge said, his story had been "completely turned around" by investigators, and he was given a choice: admit to participating in consensual sodomy and to beating up the other man, or face court-martial on both counts. If convicted, he would probably have received a prison sentence and dishonorably discharged. Partridge decided to accept what he and his father concluded was "the lesser of two evils." In March, he admitted to the charges and received an other-than-honorable discharge. Now living with his parents, he recently started work on a construction site. Lieutenant Christopher Servello, a spokesman for the US Navy, said the other sailor was charged with an offense in lieu of a court-martial and discharged. Servello would not say what the charge was or what kind of discharge the sailor received. The sailor could not be reached by the Globe. Although Partridge authorized the release of his military records, the Navy declined to provide them to the Globe. Servello said that Partridge's naval attorney and his sexual assault counselor were unwilling to be interviewed. But one naval official, in a letter to US Representative John N. Hostettler of Indiana, who looked into the matter at Partridge's request, said that service investigators "determined that the alleged sexual assault was actually a case of consensual sodomy." For Mark Partridge, a Navy veteran himself, the outcome has been shattering. Devastated by the emotional storm that engulfed their only child, he and his wife separated for four months before reuniting in July. But he wonders whether his son will ever recover. "They ruined him for life, you know," declared the elder Partridge. "What happens to you when they throw you out and make you look like the dirty guy? How do you explain any of this to an employer? How do you explain any of it at all?" And then he cried. Culture of aggressionMale victims in the service tend to be young, often newcomers to the deck or the field. Some have experienced personal misfortune, such as a previous incidence of abuse or the breakup of their family, and may project vulnerability, according to therapists who work with them. But because so few cases are reported, little more is known about why some men in uniform become victims of sexual assault. Like rape of any kind, male-on-male assault is viewed by specialists as, in most cases, an act of power, not sexuality. Only about 2 to 5 percent of the men assaulted in the military are believed to be homosexual, according to estimates by some therapists. The therapists know less about the perpetrators; they rarely have clinical contact with them. But some believe that aspects of military culture may abet sexual abuses. "Sexual assault in the military goes back to the beginning of time and mostly of men," said John Carracher, a clinical psychologist with the VA Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., who works with men who have been sexually assaulted. "The culture itself contributes to all forms of aggression, and that includes rape." Still, there is little, if any, evidence that male-on-male rape is more common in the armed services than in civilian society. The finding of the 2004 Pentagon Task Force Report on Care For Victims of Sexual Assault -- that 9 percent of those alleging sexual assault are men -- falls in the midrange of similar surveys outside the military. While the surveys cannot be compared directly, the US Department of Justice's National Violence Agains
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