lookarounditshappening:

In the United States, women in the military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.  Over half a million women have now been assaulted in the military & the Department of Defense estimates that approximately 19,000 military sexual assaults took place in 2010 alone.  

I watched The Invisible War this week, a documentary that investigates the grossly unattended epidemic of rape & sexual assault in our military.  I was stunned, as I so often am, at how little I know about the realities around me.  How very much I live within untruths every day.  We entrust these soldiers with our guns, our weapons.  With trillions of dollars.  We live under the illusion every day that they can be entrusted with the impossible tasks of protecting our freedom, securing peace.  And yet, so many can hardly be trusted with the very simple task of respecting another human’s body & agency.  I tremble to think of how many other sexual atrocities have been committed outside the ranks - to civilians, to ‘enemies’.  Or perhaps the victims before Iraq & Afghanistan.  All those stories that have gone unsung.  And the men engraved so boldly on our monuments & scribbed in our books - what have we not been told?  So much, I fear.  Watch this film, share it, and pray that this may be a battle our country will one day win.