Jennifer Smith, an Air Force technical sergeant, walked into the office of a senior officer at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea with an armful of paperwork. Instead of signing the documents, she said he insisted that she sit down. "He said to me, "It's Friday afternoon, why don't you take off your blouse and get comfortable?'" The Defense Department found that about one in three women in the military has been sexually assaulted, compared with one in six civilian women. About 20 percent of female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced some form of sexual assault or related trauma. "Female soldiers continue to experience sexual harassment and assault and are reluctant to report incidences," a 2011 Labor Department report concluded. |
Read the rest of the story HERE:
At www.nytimes.com
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a Managing Editor for OpEd News, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.