Mark Thompson | TIME Magazine | Reader Supported News | May 18, 2013
Sexual assaults in the military, long simmering on the Pentagon‘s back burner, moved to a roiling boil 10 days ago – and threatened to explode with the announcement Tuesday night of yet another probe into sexual assault by a uniformed member of the U.S. military charged with preventing that very crime.
It was less than two weeks ago that local police near the Pentagon arrested Lieut. Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, the Air Force’s sexual-assault prevention chief, for drunkenly groping a woman in a parking lot. Now, with the Army investigating an unnamed sergeant charged with preventing sexual abuse at Fort Hood, the pot is rattling atop the stove and threatening to blow up.
There is growing concern inside the Pentagon that the two latest cases make clear the fact that the military cannot be counted on to defend those in its ranks against sexual predators. Followed to its logical conclusion, that means some elements of combating sexual assault may have to be pulled out of the military’s treasured chain of command.
That’s what a growing number of lawmakers want. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the armed services committee, said his panel will begin studying such changes next month. “Tragically, the depth of the sexual-assault problem in our military was already overwhelmingly clear,” he said late Tuesday, “before this latest highly disturbing report.”
Daily Queer News 