Laura's Post #3

I have done quite a bit of research since my last blog post on many different aspects of my topic which is the reformulation of sexual assault and rape education in hyper-masculine culture. Two things strongly stuck out to me and that was that the different branches of the military are allowed to implement the DoD’s mandated learning objectives however they would like and correlations between female veteran suicide and sexual assault.

The DoD has been doing a much better job to tighten up the learning objectives that they set forth for Sexual Assault and Rape education.  However every branch is allowed to accomplish those however they want. This explains the varying rates of Sexual Assault among the different branches of government.

The above graphic shows the varying levels of sexual assault amongst the different branches of government. What is extremely disturbing to me as a Marine Corps veteran is that the Marine Corps has the last amount of women in their branch and they rape the highest amount of women. It makes complete sense though that there are different rates of sexual assault amongst the branches with different education programs present. The information was found at GAO and RAND reports done for the DoD.

The second thing I found interesting was the level of female veterans who commit suicide every year. A previous VA study found that 22 veterans and 1 active duty service member kill themselves every day. What is extremely bothersome about what the LA Times reported is that the normal gap of suicide between men and women in the civilian sector is almost non-existent amongst female veterans. The article goes on to theorize this is due to the high levels of sexual assault amongst the ranks.

I plan to include both of these into my paper and dig deeper into this issue while I prepare my presentation.