Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

letter to the editor:

We’re failing our military members

The story “Nevada senators lose fight on military sex assault bill,” on March 6, gave me a troubled feeling about the “Iron Gate” of military courts.

Why are sexual assaults within the military still climbing — to 26,000 cases in 2012?

I understand the reason the military wants to keep its infrastructure self-maintained. The problem is that when abuses happen against men, women and children behind base walls, it’s just not good enough to say, “We’ll handle it,” as if the military has a private life nobody should ask about.

In any corporation, there’s a restructuring if divisions within are being run inefficiently.

The military court has skeletons in the closet and is ready for a rebuild. First and foremost, those victims are Americans.

The same way it’s wrong to look the other way when a veteran rolls by you in his or her wheelchair due to a service injury, it’s wrong to look the other way when a battered wife is hushed up and told the military court is too backed up to hear her problems.

Military men and women deserve our greatest respect, but it’s also disrespectful to not offer help.

I say we bring the stories out in the open and expose the horrors of post-traumatic stress disorder and its effect on military families.

It’s time to take responsibility for what we ask of our military, look them in the eye and offer our support.

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