Barbara Franco joined the Army in the mid-1970s, hoping to get some money for school and to serve her country in the deal.
Instead, Franco says, she experienced a two-year nightmare; she was twice raped by fellow soldiers – once while in Virginia Beach and again at Fort Hood, Texas.
An 11-month investigation by The Orange County Register shows that despite what the Pentagon says are great strides in recent years, rape remains a frequent reality on U.S. military bases.
More than 400 women a year report they have been raped on military installations, statistics provided by the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines show.
The Army alone has identified 2,116 cases between 1986 and 1991 in which soldiers were suspects in rapes on and off Army posts. The other branches said they did not have statistics on off-base rapes.
Those aren’t the only statistics the Pentagon says it doesn’t have. The Defense Department says it doesn’t have a system to compile records on reported rapes, arrests, convictions and jail terms involving military personnel or occurring on military installations.
”The problem is that everybody reports things a different way, and there is no money to change the system,” said Lt. Col. Jim Vance, a Marine spokesman in Washington.
The Pentagon says it takes the rape issue very seriously. Every branch of the service includes gender-sensitivity instruction in its basic and advanced training, and top officials have gone on record saying there is ”zero tolerance” of sexual assault and harassment.
”Each military department handles military justice under their own department,” said Lt. Col. Doug Hart, a Pentagon spokesman.
Separate and not compatible records from each branch of the service show that over three years, 1,592 women reported that they had been raped on U.S. military installations around the world.
Most of these reported rapes – 832 cases – occurred on Army bases. That’s reason enough for investigation by the Army’s Criminal Investigative Command.
Carolyn Becraft, an ex-Army captain who does consulting work for the Pentagon and the Ford Foundation, cited reasons the Army tops the reported-rape list, besides being the largest service.
Air Force personnel are by comparison older, better educated and likely to live off base, she said. Navy personnel are assigned at sea where there are few females or to small urban bases where they are more likely to live off base.
Rape and sexual harassment in the military have come forward because of the Tailhook naval aviators’ convention September.
After the convention, 26 women alleged they were assaulted by male officers at the Las Vegas Hilton.
That led to the resignation of Navy Secretary Lawrence Garrett III and the institution of strict policies on sexual harassment.
Becraft said the problem is the military’s policies on rape, sexual harassment and sexism are often paper tigers in which the message is lost amid a male-dominated culture that sends different signals.
”The official message is: `We have this nice policy statement – no harassment – see our policy statement,”’ she said. ”But somewhere that message is getting lost. Tailhook shows there is this `open city’ or `Animal House’ mentality that can take over.”
