Betrayal of Trust

There are reports of women being raped at both Annapolis Naval Academy and West Point. In a perfect world, if a young woman had one too many drinks while alone with a young man in his room, he would not take advantage of her but allow her to pass out unmolested. But we are not in a perfect world. Although people laugh at the idea of chaperones since we are now beyond all such primitive behavior which once was supposed to protect young girls from men with ignoble intentions, we are still shocked when a girl or two is assaulted for being alone and drunk at night with a man in his room. Personally, I think that women used to be protected much more than they are now. The situation appears to be deteriorating. To quote:

Marquet and Kendzior are not alone. Reports of sexual assault at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are up nearly 60 percent, and according to the Department of Defense, of the 65 reports investigated, only one resulted in a court-martial. And it's that rise in reports of sexual assault that has the top man at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, changing the rules.

"We've got to train commanders to understand that when these complaints are brought, they've got to do their damnedest to see that these people are brought to justice," Panetta told CNN's Kyra Phillips in an exclusive interview.

Panetta could not comment on Marquet's and Kendzior's cases specifically because of privacy issues, but he made clear that blaming of the victim needs to stop. "I think that's part of the syndrome that we're dealing with, which is that once a decision is made that somehow this prosecution is not going to move forward then you basically turn on the victim who brought that complaint," Panetta said. "That syndrome is what we have to break out of."

Just last week, after the CNN interview, Panetta announced he has created a Special Victims Unit to investigate sexual assault allegations, and that sexual assault allegations will be dealt with at the level of colonel instead of slowly making their way up through the chain of command. But the changes in policy have come too late for Karley Marquet and Annie Kendzior. Their military careers are over. (Read entire article.)

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