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An Air Force brochure on sexual assault advises potential victims not to fight off their attackers.

“It may be advisable to submit [rather] than resist,” reads the brochure (.pdf), issued to airmen at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, where nearly 10,000 military and civilian personnel are assigned. “You have to make this decision based on circumstances. Be especially careful if the attacker has a weapon.”

The brochure, acquired by Danger Room, issues a series of guidances on “risk reduction” for sexual assault. Among others, it advises people under sexual attack in parking lots to “consider rolling underneath a nearby auto and scream loud. It is difficult to force anyone out from under a car.” A public affairs officer at Shaw, Sgt. Alexandria Mosness, says she believes the brochure is current.

While the brochure also explains that sexual assault is not always committed by people who “don’t look like a rapist” — attackers “tend to have hyper-masculine attitudes,” it advises — it does not offer instruction to servicemembers on not committing sexual assault. Prevention is treated as the responsibility of potential victims.

“Rapists look for vulnerability and then exploit it in those who: are young (naive); are new to the base, deployment, area, etc.; are emotionally unstable,” the brochure (.pdf) continues.

All this comes as the Air Force, and the U.S. military more broadly, deals with the fallout of the service’s sexual-assault prevention and response chief, Lt. Col Jeffrey Krusinski, getting arrested on sexual-battery charges on Sunday. During a Senate hearing today, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), grilled Air Force officials on how Krusinski was placed in his post. “His record is very good,” Gen. Mark Welsh III, the Air Force’s chief of staff, said, citing a lack of warning signs in Krusinski’s prior service.

Welsh said he and outgoing Air Force Secretary Michael Donley were “appalled” to hear of Krusinski’s arrest. “We will not quit working this problem,” Welsh continued.
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Rape-crisis counselors sometimes advise, like the Air Force brochure does, that there are circumstances whereby fighting back against an assailant is a bad idea. Purchia doesn’t dispute that. “You can always identify some circumstances,” he said, “but as a general rule research indicates and it’s generally understood that fighting back often can fend off the attacker and usually does not lead to greater injury.”

“To any rational person this is completely backwards and shows the scope of epidemic,” Purchia continued. “Fundamental reforms are needed — the reporting, investigation and adjudication of sexual assault must be taken out of the chain of command.”

That’s a step that the military has been reluctant to take. At today’s hearing, Welsh and Donley expressed concern that doing so might pose a risk to “good order and discipline,” as Donley put it. (“This is not good order and discipline,” replied Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand of New York.) Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took a more limited step last month by proposing to prevent commanders from overturning verdicts in criminal cases, after the general in charge of the Third Air Force voided a lieutenant colonel’s sexual-assault conviction.

Congress needs to approve changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice for that to happen. Today, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) introduced a bill that would “refer cases to the general court martial level when sexual assault charges are filed or to the next superior competent authority when there is a conflict of interest in the immediate chain of command.”

This afternoon, the Pentagon will release its annual report on sexual assault prevention and response. Reportedly, it will estimate that there were 26,000 instances of sexual assault — about 70 per day, as Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) previewed — up from the 19,000 reported in last year’s report. As ThinkProgress’ Hayes Brown noted, only 3,374 such cases were reported to authorities. The military might be the one hiding under its cars.

Update, 4:45 p.m.: According to the newly-released report (it’s a huge, two-volume .PDF) the Pentagon indeed estimates there were 26,000 incidents of sexual assault over the past year, and 3,374 reported cases of such. Out of those reported cases, 1,174 servicemembers were recommended for “command action” — either judicial or administrative punishment. Of those, 594 were proffered for criminal charges; and 460 cases have been completed. Thus far, 238 people were convicted of at least one charge of sexual assault.

Defense Secretary Hagel, in a press conference this afternoon, said that “the frequency of this crime and the perception that there is tolerance of it could very well undermine our ability to effectively carry out our mission, and to recruit and retain the good people we need.” Hagel outlined a number of administrative steps to improve accountability for setting command climates intolerant of sexual assault throughout the military. But Hagel stopped short of removing responsibility for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault from the chain of command, as several members of Congress want.

“I don’t think taking it away — the ultimate responsibility away from the military, I think that would just weaken the system,” Hagel said.

But the door isn’t closed. An independent panel mandated in the last defense bill passed by Congress will study whether the chain of command ought to be removed in investigating and prosecuting offenses.

The Pentagon report found that of active-duty servicewomen who reported experiencing sexual assault to a military authority, only 38 percent said they experienced no form of retaliation. Of the much-larger cohort of active-duty servicewomen who did not report their sexual abuse, 50 percent did not do so because they “did not think anything would be done”; 51 percent declined to report “did not think [the] report would be kept confidential”; 47 percent “were afraid of retaliations/reprisals from the person(s) who did it or their friends”; 43 percent “heard about negative experiences other victims went through who reported their situation”; 28 percent “thought [their] performance evaluation or chance for promotion would suffer.”

Fully 94 percent of mid-career to senior officers who declined to report their sexual assault — that is, majors/lieutenant commanders; lieutenant colonels/commanders; and colonels/captains — did so because they “felt uncomfortable” making such reports. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/air-force-sexual-assault-broch
ure/

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Purchia told Danger Room. “The Air Force should be passing out pamphlets to our men and women in uniform on how not to commit sexual assault. … This brochure is just the latest in a long history of failed programs and policies. The military’s sexual assault prevention campaigns are rooted in a wrong headed 1950's paradigm.”

The military does some of that — not without controversy. An artistic group called “Sex Signals” has performed for airmen to teach scenarios about sexual assault in what an official Air Force release called “a ‘lively and humorous’ way.” (The group’s founder, Gail Stern, says the effort “utilizes the strategic and intentional use of humor to reduce the emotional and cognitive resistance audiences have to the subject of rape.”) The Army has a video game designed to instruct soldiers about the dangers of “alcohol-induced date rape.” The military has also come under criticism for a poster advising servicemembers to “Ask When She’s Sober,” which the New York Times blasted as a “grotesque parody of an etiquette poster.”

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Air Force officer's sex assault sentence thrown out by commander despite jury's decision

Lt. Col. James Wilkerson, a pilot who was also the inspector general of the 31stFighter Wing at Aviano Air Base in Italy, was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to one year in military prison in November. His charges included “abusive sexual contact, aggravated sexual assault and three instances of conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman,” the Air Force Times reported.

But last month, Lt. Gen. Craig A. Franklin, commander of the Third Air Force base, dismissed the sexual assault conviction – even though there was plenty of evidence of the defendant’s guilt. On Feb. 26, the case was dismissed and Franklin even recommended Wilkerson for a promotion, the New York Times reported.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) allows commanders to overturn military convictions – a law that has been a source of outrage, especially among victims of sexual assault. The victim in the Wilkerson case, a civilian physician’s assistant, was so upset when she heard about the dismissal that she reached out to an advocacy group.

“She was devastated,” Nancy Parrish, president of Protect Our Defenders, told the Huffington Post. “Franklin hadn’t bothered to speak with her as a part of his decision and he hasn’t reached out to her since… Just when she felt like she was getting her life back, this happened.”

In response the overturn of the conviction, which has sparked anger even among lawmakers, a group of senators are preparing to announce legislation that would amend the code.

"What this case has done is it has opened a window into what I think are some very weird provisions of the UCMJ, and they are the kind of provisions that are offensive to most Americans," Sen. Claire McCaskill, who will announce the legislation, told The Huffington Post. "The notion that this convening authority can overturn a jury decision for any or no reason at all."

Amid widespread criticism from senators about Franklin’s decision to overturn the sexual assault conviction, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this week announced that he would review the UCMJ provisions – but that he lacks the authority to overrule the Air Force general’s decision.

"Under the [UCMJ], the convening authority's action is a final decision," Hagel wrote in response to a letter from Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H). "The decision of the convening authority cannot be changed."

But although Hagel said the decision cannot be reversed, he admitted that it would be worth examining the law that permitted it in the first place.

"I believe this case does raise a significant question whether it is necessary or appropriate to place the convening authority in the position of having the responsibility to review the findings and sentence of a court-martial," Hagel wrote.

The issue sheds light not only on the UCMJ provision, but also on the US military culture that makes sexual assault cases so recurrent. Documents connected to the Wilkerson case describe testimonies by women who say that the culture among Air Force fighter pilots encourages misogynistic behavior. And with the ability for lieutenant colonels to dismiss any and all charges, military personnel are able to get away with their crimes.

“For women who have been sexually assaulted, it means that their bosses decide whether charges are brought against their assailants, and that information about their assaults is shared in their workplaces,” writes James Risen for the New York Times.

And for the victim in the Wilkerson case, going back to work after being assaulted by one of the military’s top leaders is intimidating and disheartening.

“The defense did everything they could to drag my name and character through the mud. I still went to work and did my job,” she wrote in a statement for the Senate hearing. “What really scares me is that (the perpetrator) will remain in a position of military leadership. Really? Leadership?” http://rt.com/usa/air-force-rape-law-218/

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A military judge says two servicemembers cannot be punitively discharged -- even if found guilty -- because of "unlawful command influence" reflected in comments by President Obama.

Citing court documents, Stars and Stripes reports that "Navy Judge Cmdr. Marcus Fulton ruled during pretrial hearings in two sexual assault cases -- U.S. v. Johnson and U.S. v. Fuentes -- that comments made by Obama as commander in chief would unduly influence any potential sentencing."

Attorneys for the defendants cited these May 7 comments by Obama on sexual assault in the military:

"The bottom line is: I have no tolerance for this. ... I expect consequences. ... So I don't just want more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way. If we find out somebody's engaging in this, they've got to be held accountable -- prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period."

From Stars and Stripes:

"The judge's pretrial ruling means that if either defendant is found guilty, whether by a jury or a military judge, they cannot receive a bad conduct discharge or a dishonorable discharge. Sailors found guilty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice's Article 120, which covers several sexual crimes including assault and rape, generally receive punitive discharges.

"'A member of the public would not hear the president's statement to be a simple admonition to hold members accountable,' Fulton stated. 'A member of the public would draw the connection between the 'dishonorable discharge' required by the president and a punitive discharge approved by the convening authority.

"'The strain on the system created by asking a convening authority to disregard (Obama's) statement in this environment would be too much to sustain public confidence.'" http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/08/15/obama-hawaii-military
-judge-sex-assault-stars-and-stripes/2658687/]

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Why Are We Drugging Our Soldiers?

SINCE the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a large and steady rise in the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among our troops. One recent study of 289,000 Americans who served in those countries found that the rates of the disorder jumped to 22 percent in 2008 from just 0.2 percent in 2002.

Given the duration of these wars and the length and frequency of deployments, when compared with other wars, perhaps such high rates of PTSD are not so surprising. Prolonged exposure to a perilous and uncertain combat environment might make trauma common.

But there is another factor that might be playing a role in the increasing rates of the disorder, one that has escaped attention: the military’s use of stimulant medications, like Ritalin and Adderall, in our troops.

There has been a significant increase in the use of stimulant medication. Documents that I obtained in late 2010 through the Freedom of Information Act, and have recently analyzed, show that annual spending on stimulants jumped to $39 million in 2010 from $7.5 million in 2001 — more than a fivefold increase. Additional data provided by Tricare Management Activity, the arm of the Department of Defense that manages health care services for the military, reveals that the number of Ritalin and Adderall prescriptions written for active-duty service members increased by nearly 1,000 percent in five years, to 32,000 from 3,000.

Stimulants are widely used in the civilian population to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because they increase focus and attention. Short of an unlikely epidemic of that disorder among our soldiers, the military almost certainly uses the stimulants to help fatigued and sleep-deprived troops stay alert and awake. (A spokesman for Tricare attributed the sharp rise to “the increased recognition and diagnosis of A.D.H.D. by medical providers.” However, while there is greater recognition of the disorder, the diagnoses are concentrated in children and adolescents.)

Stimulants do much more than keep troops awake. They can also strengthen learning. By causing the direct release of norepinephrine — a close chemical relative of adrenaline — in the brain, stimulants facilitate memory formation. Not surprisingly, emotionally arousing experiences — both positive and negative — also cause a surge of norepinephrine, which helps to create vivid, long-lasting memories. That’s why we tend to remember events that stir our feelings and learn best when we are a little anxious.

Since PTSD is basically a pathological form of learning known as fear conditioning, stimulants could plausibly increase the risk of getting the disorder.

The role of norepinephrine in the enhancement of memory was demonstrated in an elegant experiment led by Larry Cahill at the University of California, Irvine. He randomly gave a group of subjects either propranolol, a drug that blocks the effect of norepinephrine, or a placebo just before they heard one of two stories: an emotionally arousing one or a neutral one. He then tested their memory of the stories a week later and found that propranolol selectively impaired recall of the emotionally arousing story but not the neutral story. The clear implication of this study is that emotion raises norepinephrine, which then enhances memory. Block norepinephrine and you can impair emotional memory. With PTSD, a shocking combat situation elicits a hard-wired fear response — the flight-or-fight reaction — with intense emotional arousal and a surge of norepinephrine in the brain. This burns in the memory of the traumatic experience. It also promotes fear conditioning, a form of learning in which previously neutral stimuli in the environment — sights, sounds and smells, for example — become linked with a trauma. So, for a soldier injured in a bomb blast, anything like the sound of an explosion or the odor of burning is now a potent conditioned stimulus that can evoke the trauma and trigger symptoms of PTSD, like a flashback or startle reaction.

Because norepinephrine enhances emotional memory, a soldier taking a stimulant medication, which releases norepinephrine in the brain, could be at higher risk of becoming fear-conditioned and getting PTSD in the setting of trauma.

This possibility is supported by both animal and human studies. In rats, tiny injections of norepinephrine into the amygdala, a region of the brain that encodes fear, can enhance fear conditioning. And Marieke Soeter at the University of Amsterdam recently conducted an experiment in which college students were shown a picture paired with a small electric shock. Before viewing the pictures, subjects were randomly given yohimbine, a drug that releases norepinephrine in the brain, or a placebo. When students were tested 48 hours later, those who had received yohimbine had greater fear-associated learning and had a harder time “unlearning” the fear — when presented with the picture in the absence of a shock — than those students who had taken the placebo.

The study implies that soldiers exposed to elevated norepinephrine levels from taking stimulants are also at risk of relapse when re-exposed to the initial stressor. And because the treatment of PTSD involves unlearning fear responses, soldiers exposed to stimulants during trauma could well be more resistant to treatment.

And in fact, blocking the effects of norepinephrine with beta blockers can stop fear-conditioning and possibly even prevent post-traumatic stress disorder.

Roger Pittman, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, led a small study in 2002 in which he randomly assigned emergency-room patients to either the beta blocker propranolol or a placebo within six hours of their experiencing a traumatic event. After one month, subjects who took the propranolol had significantly fewer symptoms of PTSD than subjects who took the placebo.

Does all of this prove that stimulants promote the development of post-traumatic stress disorder?

No. Because two things are correlated doesn’t mean there is a causal link. There are other factors that might play an important role, like incurring a traumatic brain injury, which is a known risk factor for the disorder, and growing steadily during these wars.

Still, it is an open question whether the use of stimulants in combat does more good than harm. The next step should be a rigorous epidemiologic study of a possible link between stimulants and PTSD in our troops. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/why-are-we-drugging-o
ur-soldiers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Pentagon issues new regulations aimed at combating sexual assault in military

Under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon on Thursday announced several revamped policies to prevent and prosecute sexual-assault cases, but the measures did little to satisfy some lawmakers and advocacy groups pushing for bigger changes.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel approved a raft of new regulations designed to provide more support to victims of sexual assault, standardize policies among the armed services and ensure senior commanders are notified immediately about every reported incident.

Many of the rules were under consideration by Congress, and lawmakers generally welcomed them. But some said they would continue to press for an overhaul of military law that would require uniformed prosecutors, instead of commanders, to oversee investigations of sexual abuse and other serious crimes.

“The Pentagon taking action is a good thing, and these are positive steps forward, but it is not the leap forward required to solve the problem,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a member of the Armed Services Committee. She is the lead sponsor of a bill that would take sexual-assault cases and other crimes out of the chain of command.

Gillibrand’s proposal has met strong resistance from the Pentagon and the leaders of the House and Senate armed services panels, and it was voted down in committee in June. But her staff says support for her plan has grown since then, with 46 senators publicly backing it. A strenuous debate in the full Senate is expected this fall.

Among the policy changes announced by the Pentagon on Thursday is a rule that will assign legal representatives to all sexual-assault victims so that they have someone to formally advocate on their behalf during investigations and trials. Victims would also be granted the opportunity to submit statements and be heard during the sentencing of convicted offenders.

The Air Force already provides legal advocates to victims of sexual assault as part of a pilot program. Defense officials said that the program has worked well and that they want to extend it to the other branches of the armed forces.

“These are best practices that we have garnered from all of the services,” Jessica Wright, the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary for personnel, said of the changes. “The bottom line is, sexual assault is not tolerated, it’s not condoned, it’s not ignored.”

Even lawmakers who said they generally supported the measures said the Pentagon had been slow to act. “I think it’s wise for our military leaders to get on this train rather than get run over by it,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the assignment of victim advocates in particular “a major step forward,” noting that she has introduced a bill that would do just that.

“While these measures are by no means a silver bullet, it is inexcusable for us to wait any longer to address this issue and I’m glad Secretary Hagel understands these actions are long overdue,” she said in a statement. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-issues-
new-regulations-aimed-at-combating-sexual-assault-in-military/2013/08/15/7eb6b760-05d7-11e3-9de4-09c98719e734_story.html?hpid=z4

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