Military blames civil society for sexual assault

The Washington Post has published yet another story of sexual assaults within the military. This time it’s at military academies:

    David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the frequency of sexual assaults and the reluctance of victims to report the crimes seem to reflect trends among other college campuses, based on department research. Rape is considered the most under-reported violent crime in the nation at large; Schmitz said the share of such crimes reported within the academies is actually somewhat higher than in the civilian population.

    Chu said: “I think the broad conclusion I would reach is that we are about where the college campuses are, tragically. That is not, frankly, terribly surprising. These individuals, these young men and women, come from civil society.”

Actually, Chu has a point, but it sounds a lot like saying, “Don’t blame us.” Meanwhile, in the “Golly, gee, whodathunk” department, we get:

    “Our goal is to produce military leaders of character,” [Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph E.] Schmitz said at a news conference. “And obviously, sexual assaults are not a good indication of character. In fact, they’re a very bad indication.”

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