Waiting for Accountability in a Rape Culture
3 of 5 in a series highlighting the abuse of power in the military during the month of April to advocate and bring awareness for the military sexual trauma epidemic in the US military. #webelieveyou #neveralone #abuseofpower
Fifteen years ago, the DoD established a program to combat sexual assault and rape in the ranks. Since then, the military has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on prevention efforts with a stated policy of zero tolerance.
The Unifrom Code of Military Justice Article 120 (rape & sexual assault) and Article 80 (attempts) are used to charge a service member of the United States Armed Forces who rapes, sexually assaults, or physically abuses or threatens to abuse another person with sexual contact, groping or unwanted sexual advances.
According to the DoD in 2018, 20,500 service members were sexually assaulted or raped including 13,000 women and 7,500 men. The rate of sexual assault and rape jumped by almost 40% from 2016. For women, the rate increased by over 50% to the highest level since 2006.
In 2018, of the 5,805 unrestricted reports of sexual assault, 307 (5.3%) cases were tried by court-martial, and 108 (1.9%) offenders were convicted of a nonconsensual sex offense. Less than 2% actually were held accountable in the military justice system.
Every one in four women leaves service after being sexually assaulted because they not only don’t feel safe, they are completely dissolved of any trust, security, the loyalty they once had in the force, most importantly they are tired of waiting for a change in policy that actually works. Not all women are afforded the opportunity to leave the military, women like Pvt. Nicole Burnham, Pfc. Asia Graham and Cpl. Thae Ohu.
All three of these women have suffered tragic circumstances, two have died and one is locked away in a world of isolation and retaliation. All three of these women have yet to see the military hold their predators accountable.
The UCMJ is currently not successful at addressing the prevalence of sexual misconduct, it does not build trust or encouragement for rapes to be reported and it definitely fails at bringing justice to perpetrators.
Burnham was assaulted on at least three separate occasions; once by then Pvt. Hara, who ran a wrench tool up the depression between the cheeks of Burnham’s buttocks, then again by then Staff Sgt. Chan who not only had an affair with his wife but an inappropriate relationship with his subordinate who later would disseminate nude photos of Burnham to the platoon, and lastly when she was held down and sexually assaulted by numerous soldiers within her unit, Headquarters Service Company, 70th Brigade Support Battalion on Camp Casey, Korea in 2017.
However, the inconsistency of disciplinary levels within the command is alarming. Pvt. Hara received a “general, other than honorable” discharge for his behavior. Staff Sgt. Chan was demoted to specialist and was able to serve for a few years longer exiting the military with a “general, under honorable conditions” discharge following a string of other UCMJ violations. Out of the multiple men that violated Burnham, minimal accountability was achieved.
Both these men are now walking free in the general population, one of them securing another government job at a commissary on an Army installation.
Graham was assaulted in her barracks on Dec. 30, 2019, by Pfc. Christian G. Alvarado, a Fort Bliss soldier, assigned to the 1–501st Attack Battalion, 1st Armored Division Combat Aviation Brigade. He is also accused of several other charges of sexual and physical assault, as well as charged with firing an AR-15 in his El Paso apartment in March 2020, yet a year later Alvarado is walking freely in the community of El Paso and still serving in the Army.
There is a court-martial trial pending but no date has been set.
Ohu’s reported rapist, Staff Sgt. Carlos Salazar was her direct supervising sergeant while stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Ohu’s unrestricted report was allegedly never uploaded into the database. Four years after unfair and abusive treatment to include a denied request to the Wounded Warrior Battalion in February 2020, Ohu had a mental breakdown that resulted in her arrest.
She now finds herself locked up as a pre-trial prisoner with seven different exacerbated charges, while her perpetrator is currently serving in the Pentagon.
This leads to the glaring failures of the UCMJ processes and responsibilities to which violators of article 80 and article 120 be held accountable for their actions that are unbecoming of a service member.
There is no place in the military or the general population at large to have violent men freely moving about the country, possibly lurking in the shadows to capture another victim. There is clear corruption in the current military courts when in 2018 less than 2% of offenders were punished and 5,697 other reported cases failed to obtain justice.
