Recent studies conducted by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs estimates that as many as one in three women as well as men will experience sexual assault or rape while serving in the United States Armed Forces. According to the Department of Defense own statistics as many as 19,000 rapes   occurs within the ranks each year.

This first of it kind permanent memorial will be dedicated to all survivors and departed victims of MST. A dedication will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30, Military Sexual Trauma Awareness Day. The public is invited to join us as we listen to speeches from survivors and advocates and plant our healing garden. The Memorial Garden is in Garfield Garden Park (northwest corner of Garfield and 6th Street in Phoenix).

The Military Rape Crisis Center was started by then Active Duty Coast Guardswoman Panayiota Bertzikis because she was repulsed in the way that sexual assault survivors were treated in the United States Coast Guard. She founded the Military Rape Crisis Center from her barrack room at Coast Guard Boston to offer support and assistance to her fellow shipmates/survivors. The Military Rape Crisis Center is now based out in Cambridge MA with representatives throughout the country and at US military bases overseas. The Military Rape Crisis Center offers peer support, case management, legal advocacy, counseling referrals, support groups, and workshops for survivors of Military Sexual Trauma and their families. The Military Rape Crisis Center also provide training on Military Sexual Trauma and advocate on behalf of sexual assault survivors.

For more information about the MST Memorial Garden contact Panayiota Bertzikis at 802-578-4769 or Karen Kondej at 602-795-6378. For more information on Military Sexual Trauma visit www.militaryrapecrisiscenter.org. To read survivors’ testimonies about surviving rape in the U.S Military visit www.mydutytospeak.com 

Reports of sexual assaults in the military rose slightly in fiscal 2011, compared to the previous year, according to an annual Defense Department study.

A total of 3,192 reports of sexual assault involving service members as victims or perpetrators were filed in fiscal 2011, a 1 percent increase over the previous year, according to the study.

“Sexual assault has no place in this department,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement. “It is an affront to the basic American values we defend, and to the good honor of our service members and their families.”

“Since taking this office, I’ve made it one of my top priorities to do everything we can to reduce and prevent sexual assault, to make victims of sexual assault feel secure enough to report this crime without fear of retribution or harm to their career, and to hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable,” he said.

His statement said next steps would be announced next week during consultations with Congress.

Mr. Panetta will meet Monday with members of the women in the military congressional caucus, led by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, California Democrat.

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Recognized nationally for their work telling the stories of military sexual trauma survivors, Protect Our Defenders is a leader in the effort to reform the US Military’s system for handling rape and sexual assault. Since its inception in March, 2011, the organization has captured seven survivor’s stories in the mini-documentary format that helped earn them the DoGooder award. ProtectOurDefenders.com also provides a platform for survivors to share their written stories. In addition, the website offers a support services network, including a forum for survivors to connect with each other and a resource library to help survivors find help.

“We’re a relatively new organization but we’re proud to say that over 20,000 people have already joined us. We’ve been smart about using video and new media to raise awareness of the epidemic of rape in the military. This award will accelerate that,” said Protect Our Defenders President, Nancy Parrish. “This win is a reminder of the power of video to tell stories and a testament to the courage of the survivors whose stories we capture,” Parrish continued, “We’re grateful to See3, YouTube and Cisco Systems for giving us this opportunity to share these stories and amplify our mission of changing the culture of rape in the military.”

The winning video highlights the stories of four different US military veterans and survivors of rape or sexual assault. Among them is Terri Odom who has emerged as a leader in the community of survivors estimated to be around half a million veterans. Terri was one of the first survivors to come forward and have her story told. In Terri’s words, “Military Sexual Trauma does not define me. It is with me every day, but I have decided to let it empower me to share, to speak, to write and to advocate for those who feel as if they have no voice.”

The winning video was produced by Interchange Productions, a Chicago-based company specializing in mini-documentaries that communicate an organization’s mission and impact. Interchange, which is noted for combining video and viewer interactivity, utilized a unique storytelling approach to amplify the stories of survivors, allowing their voices and the power of the story itself to take center.

About Protect Our Defenders: Protect Our Defenders is a human rights organization. We seek to honor, support and give voice to the brave women and men in uniform who have been sexually assaulted while serving their country, and re-victimized by the military adjudication system – a system that often blames the victim and fails to prosecute the perpetrator. Learn more about Protect Our Defenders at www.protectourdefenders.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProtectOurDefenders or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/#!/ProtectRDfnders.

About Interchange Productions: Interchange Productions is a full-service video production company that creates videos and interactive media for purposeful organizations and independent films. We work with social ventures, political organizations, and nonprofits throughout the world to transform complex ideas into a clear voice to advance our clients’ goals. We specialize in mini-documentaries that communicate an organization’s mission and impact. With a storytelling approach, our experienced and creative team aims to show the human experience behind our clients’ work. Learn more about Interchange at www.interchangeproductions.com.

“We have several new options for victims of sexual assault,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog. “First, if you’ve been a victim of sexual assault in the military you now have the option of requesting an expedited transfer. We signed that into effect in December.”

“If you find it untenable or unbearable in the organization that you’re at … you can request to be transferred,” she added.

Hertog said a service member’s local commander has 72 hours to respond to the request for transfer, and if denied there is an option to take it to the first flag or general officer in the chain of command who also has 72 hours to respond.

“We also have a new document retention initiative,” she said. “We heard loud and clear from our veterans that present themselves at the [Department of Veterans Affairs] years later that there was no documentation that they had ever been sexually assaulted [during] their military service.”

The issue arose, Hertog said, because varying standards of retention had existed among all of the services but has since been resolved.

“We now have one standard of retention so those individuals that file unrestricted reports will have their documents retained for 50 years,” she said.

“And those that file restricted reports will have their documents retained for five years,” Hertog said. “And of course our victims of sexual assault who file restricted reports have that option to convert over to unrestricted reports at any time and then we will retain their documents for that 50-year period.”

The director also discussed other innovations such as expanding legal assistance to encourage victims to participate in the military justice system “in order to hold that perpetrator accountable.”

And as of January, DOD civilians and contractors deployed abroad, and military dependents over 18 years old are now eligible to access sexual assault response services, Hertog said.

Hertog noted other changes implemented include new training for investigators of sexual assault crimes within the services.

“Some of our new training initiatives concern our investigators such as our [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] agents, Air Force [Office of Special Investigations], and Army [Criminal Investigation Division],” she said. “We think we have found the gold standard course … to send many of the agents to, to build a sexual assault subject expertise cadre of our agents to get them very familiar with these cases.”

Hertog said training frequency will increase, more seats will be offered and the training has expanded to include Judge Advocate Generals “because these are some of the toughest cases to investigate as well as prosecute.”

Perhaps the most useful option has been established for about a year, Hertog noted.

“You have the option of contacting our DOD Safe helpline,” she said. “We stood up a 24/7 crisis hotline — it’s operated by RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network — who have been trained by us so they’re very familiar with military terminology.”

“If you don’t want to go through your chain of command you can contact them and they will tell you where your nearest rape crisis center is in your community outside your installation gates,” Hertog said.

Hertog said the hotline has been “extremely successful” with about 30,000 unique visits to the site and about 2,500 referrals for counseling services.

She emphasized the Defense Department’s commitment to “eradicating” sexual assault in the military “from the Secretary [of Defense] on down.

“We have to eliminate this problem from our ranks,” Hertog added. “The American public gives us what’s most dear to them and that’s their sons and daughters. And they trust us that we’re going to take care of them [which] is a commander’s job.”

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Governor Deval Patrick placed the head of the Massachusetts National Guard on leave Thursday night after learning that he is under investigation in the alleged rape of a subordinate on a Florida beach 28 years ago while the two were on maneuvers with a military police unit.

The explosive charges against Adjutant General Joseph C. Carter were originally investigated several months after the alleged 1984 assault. The investigating officer recommended that the alleged victim, Susan Pelletier, take the matter to police, but Pelletier told the Globe she was afraid to press charges.

Pelletier’s allegations resurfaced late last year as Carter was under consideration for promotion from one-star to two-star general. It put a freeze on the promotion while military investigators questioned Pelletier and others involved.

‘‘He raped and beat me and left me,’’ said Pelletier, who was a 23-year-old secretary at the time and now lives in Kentucky. Pelletier said she was so traumatized by the assault that she deserted the National Guard for several months to avoid seeing Carter again.

‘‘I was embarrassed and scared,’’ she said in an interview.

Carter, a Boston police superintendent at the time of the alleged assault, issued a statement Thursday night flatly denying the attack or even knowing Pelletier.

This is not the first time the rape allegation has come to the attention of top military officials. The officer who conducted the original investigation, Lieutenant Colonel Mark P. Murray, testified about the unresolved allegations against Carter during a failed 2010 court-martial initiated against him by Carter.

Carter, in his statement yesterday, said the rape allegations first came to his attention during Murray’s court-martial, which centered on Carter’s allegations of financial impropriety by Murray.

Murray ‘‘claimed a sexual assault allegation was made against me in the early 1980s,’’ Carter said in the statement. ‘‘I was shocked by the allegation when it was made in 2010. I categorically denied the allegation in 2010 and continue to deny it today. I don’t know or recall a Susan Pelletier, and I am cooperating in an investigation by the Army.’’

A Patrick aide said yesterday that Carter did not inform the governor about the allegations until Thursday.

‘‘He told the governor that he is innocent of the allegation,’’ said Brendan Ryan, a Patrick spokesman.

Nonetheless, Ryan said that Carter would be placed on administrative leave with pay until the investigation is complete. Carter is paid $173,214 a year by the state, as well as federal compensation, to oversee the nearly 9,000 members of the National Guard, the vast majority of them part-time soldiers.

‘‘The governor will wait for the result of the investigation before taking any action,’’ Ryan said.

Carter, 56, had a distinguished career in law enforcement before Patrick picked him as the commander of the National Guard in its 370-year history. Carter was the youngest member of the command staff in Boston police history, and he served as chief of the MBTA Transit Police for four years. In between, he was police chief in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard.

On weekends, meanwhile, Carter rose through the ranks of the National Guard, which he joined in 1974. By the mid-1980s, he was serving in a military police unit based in Hyannis with Pelletier, who was a secretary.

The alleged rape took place while the unit was on a two-week training mission in Florida after a night of drinking and dancing with a group of Guard members, according to Pelletier. Although the Globe usually does not identify rape victims, it is identifying Pelletier because she chose to speak on the record to describe the alleged assault.

When her supervisors, Captain Charles Mouris and Carter, left to go to the store, she said she asked to go along to buy cigarettes.

As Mouris drove, however, Pelletier said she felt nauseated and asked him to pull over in a beach parking lot.

When she got out of the car, Carter followed, she said.

‘‘We walked on the sand near the water,’’ she said. ‘‘He was all over me. My boots were ripped. My clothes were ripped. He raped me. He was violent about it. I remember begging him to leave me alone.’’

She said she was left there, bruised and bloodied, until soldiers from the motor pool discovered her later that night.

Initially, Pelletier decided not to report the attack, she said, in part because she was afraid of Carter. Instead, she asked to transfer to another unit, and, when the request was denied, she stopped reporting for Guard duty. As a result, she said, she received a dishonorable discharge.

But Pelletier said she soon regretted her actions and, several months later, she asked to be reinstated. That is when National Guard officials at headquarters in Milford learned about the rape allegations, and the adjutant general at the time, Anthony C. Spadorcia, asked Murray, then a Guard lawyer, to investigate.

Murray interviewed Pelletier, but not Carter, about the alleged attack before recommending that she take up the matter with civilian police, in part because civilian penalties for rape are more severe than under state military law, which permits only a $200 fine or 200 days in jail.

‘‘This matter was best handled by civilian authorities,’’ Murray said, according to a transcript of the court martial.

Pelletier could not remember Murray’s advice from 1985, but she recalled that she did not file a complaint with the police.

‘‘Why go to the police?’’ she said. ‘‘I was military police. What would civilian police do?’’

That might have been the end of the episode if not for a serious falling out between Carter, who rose to become commander of the Guard, and Murray, who was appointed quartermaster, overseeing the guard’s state-owned armories and other property.

In 2010, Carter sought to remove Murray from his job, which, under Massachusetts law, can be accomplished only by seeking a court-martial. Carter accused Murray of offenses including misusing federal money, hiring a convicted felon to do legal work, and threatening a whistleblower.

During his trial, Murray brought up the alleged rape to suggest that Carter was biased against him because he had investigated the charges.

Murray said he reported his findings to Spadorcia, who, in turn, spoke to Carter. According to Murray, Spadorcia quoted Carter as saying, ‘‘Well, I hope this doesn’t impact me some time in my future.’’

However, Major John Benson, a prosecutor at the court martial, strongly objected to Murray’s comments, saying that he had no documentation and that Carter had no chance to defend himself.

Murray was cleared of all charges, and he remains the Guard’s quartermaster.

But the rape issue did not go away, in part because the Army is obligated to investigate any allegations of serious misconduct no matter when they occurred. When Carter came up for a promotion, which must be approved by the Army and confirmed by the US Senate, Army investigators began looking into the alleged incident in Florida.

Pelletier said she was shocked when the Army investigator got in touch with her late last year and wanted to discuss her allegations against Carter.

On February 12, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta said, on air, that women in the military should “expect” to be raped.

Just a few weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented on a new Pentagon report on sexual abuse in the military. I think they’ve actually discovered the difference between men and women! And the sexual abuse report says that there’s been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? Uh, these people are in close contact. The whole, uh, airing of this issue has never been done by Congress. It’s strictly been a question of, uh, pressure from the feminists. And the feminists have also— directed them, really, to spend a lot of money. They had a sexual counselors all over the place, victims advocates, sexual response coordinators….

Trotta apparently believes that the way to prevent rape in the military is to simply take all the women away rather than try to do something to help these women who are being “raped too much.” But has she considered that maybe something is wrong with the male culture of the military that the men can’t seem to stop raping? Nope!

Please sign the petition demanding Fox News fire Liz Trotta for these outrageous comments and issue an apology to all female military personnel.

Petition

During the 2010-2011 school year, there were 65 reports of sexual assaults involving cadets and midshipmen at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Air Force Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy. In the previous school year, only 41 reports were filed.

In fact, the 2010-2011 total number of reported sex crimes is nearly equal to the total of the previous two years combined. But authors of a Defense Department report on the service academies’ assaults called that figure “encouraging, as it is consistent with the Department’s goal to bring more victims forward to report the crime.”

Earlier this year, defense officials used similar rationale to explain the 11 percent increase in sexual assault reports in the services in fiscal 2010. Service-wide reports of sex crimes have been on the rise since 2008, when the Pentagon updated reporting and confidentiality rules for victims.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that one sexual assault at the academies is too many.

“Whether it’s in our academies or our ranks, at sea or ashore, there’s no place for this unacceptable behavior,” he said. “I’m confident the steps we are taking are the right ones, but we must continue to improve.”

Most of the academy victims were female, but the total includes a few male victims. The report authors noted that the actual number of rapes and assaults is likely much higher than the reported total, because sexual assault remains one of the most underreported crimes in the United States.

The report also says that academy sexual assault reporting policies at the three institutions “fulfilled, and in some cases surpassed the requirements of existing DoD policies and directives,” news they labeled as encouraging steps to combat the problem.

Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, director of the Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said in a statement that when these assaults occur, “we owe it to those who have been victimized, and to every cadet and midshipman, to do everything possible to provide needed support and to hold those who commit sexual assault appropriately accountable.”

With the release of the report, defense officials also highlighted two new rules in the recently passed annual defense authorization bill regarding military sexual assaults.

The first requires the department to hold onto sexual assault records for longer than in the past. Restricted reports, where the victim can receive medical treatment and counseling without triggering a criminal investigation, will be kept for five years. Unrestricted reports, where a criminal investigation is launched, will be kept for 50 years.

The second, in the case of an unrestricted report, requires commanders to respond to a sexual assault victim’s request for transfer within 72 hours, and provides for a new appeal process if that request is denied.

The statistics does not include the United States Coast Guard which falls under the Department of Defense. Two monthly support groups are held by the Military Rape Crisis Center near the Coast Guard Academy offering support to survivors of sexual violence at the Coast Guard Academy

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