More prevention needed for sexual assaults happening in the military

In this editorial, “No more tolerance for sexual assault” posted in the Austin American Statesman on July 2, 2012, the author is advocating more prevention for the occurrences of sexual assault towards women serving in the military. The author emphasizes their point by discussing the recent sexual assaults cases that took place at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. They believe these events, which are not uncommon, are a clear indicator that the military needs to create new policies to deal with sexual assaults towards women in the military.

The author’s intended audience is the general public to inform readers how often this happens and also how often it goes unreported.  They clearly think there has not been enough done to prevent these occurrences from happening. The recently mentioned events that occurred at the Lackland Air Force Base include at least 31 reported cases of sexual assaults to women by at least 6 male instructors. It is stated in the article that the instructors have a lot of power and can cause the trainees to have to repeat boot camp or even be dismissed from the military. This is most likely why so many cases usually go unreported when they occur. According to a recent survey conducted by the Pentagon mentioned in this editorial, there are only about 13.5% of military sexual assault cases actually reported, making the number of actual assault cases probably around 19,000 nationally (only 3,192 were reported).

I could not agree more with the author that this is a very serious issue and more needs to be done about it. In another article I read about the sexual assault cases in San Antonio, Texas, it states that this sexual assault scandal is one of the worst to happen in the past 10 years in relation to an occurrence in Maryland in 1996 at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The fact that so many sexual assaults are happening in the here and now, and the severity of them, is a clear indication that there is not enough being done to prevent them. There need to be more preventative measures taken to stop them from happening and harsher discipline for those who commit these offenses.