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CONDUCT UN
On January 11, 2008, a North Carolina county sheriff found the charred remains of Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach buried beneath a backyard re pit. Her murderer, Cesar Laurean, was a fellow Marine, whom she had accused eight months earlier of rape. Prior to her death, Lauterbach had endured a drawn-out sexual-assault investigation and confronted a command hierarchy that failed to protect her from further harassment. During a press conference, four days after her body was discovered, a military spokesman praised her attacker, describing him as a stellar Marine. (The same spokesman called Lauterbach a solid Marine.) Though her ordeal had a singularly grim ending, experiences like Lauterbachs are commonplace, as became clear last February when a group of soldiers and veterans launched a class action alleging serious problems with the militarys handling of sexual-assault cases. Even in its bureaucratic paperwork, the Defense Department values obedience and decorum over justice for victims. Soldiers who want to report abuse must use Form 2910, the Victim Reporting Preference Statement, which serves as little more than a series of implied threats that effectively coerce victims into silence.

The militarys sexual-assault pro

The cornerstone of the militarys response to sexual assault is a network of coordinators and advocates who help survivors obtain medical assistance and le of cial reports. A lawyer for Maria Lauterbachs family called these advocates victim listeners, people good at expressing concern but not proactive and not independent. Drawn primarily from the ranks, response coordinators are torn between advocacy and self-preservationbetween prodding commanders and placating them. When Jessica Kenyon, a former Army private and a plaintiff in Februarys lawsuit, reported her rape, the coordinator advised her to put her sexualassault accusation on the back burner out of consideration for her career. Its not surprising, then, that overall reporting rates are low. The Defense Department estimates that the 3,158 sexual assaults involving service members recorded last year account for only a fth of the actual number that took place.

Should a survivor choose to report a sexual assault, Form 2910 gives her the option of ling a restricted report, which grants her access to medical and counseling services without opening an investigationprotecting her career while allowing her assailant to go unpunished. Restricted reporting also sets a statute of limitations. If a victim fails to derestrict her report within a year, all evidence of the rape is destroyed, leaving it no longer available for any future investigation or prosecution efforts. The majority of the militarys sexual-assault victims are under twenty- ve and come from the bottom of the enlisted ranks. They are new to military life, devoid of power, and susceptible to intimidation. Restricted reporting does little to help them. Sergeant Rebekah Havrilla, whose rape during a deployment to Afghanistan was photographed by her attacker, led a restricted report. When she later sought help from a military chaplain, one of the few con dants Form 2910 permits, he told her that the assault must have been Gods will.
66 HARPERS MAGAZINE / SEPTEMBER 2011

UNBECOMING
If a victim les an unrestricted report, military law enforcement launches an inquiry, promising survivors both the distant prospect of justice and the more immediate trauma of an investigation. Sergeant Myla Haider, another plaintiff from Februarys lawsuit, was raped while serving with the Armys Criminal Investigative Command; having seen her colleagues routine mishandling of sex crimes, she chose not to report her assault at all. Even a competently managed investigation does not guarantee a fair outcome. Military law gives commanders wide latitude to dole out so-called nonjudicial punishmentsverbal reprimands, docked pay, diminished rationsas a way of dealing swiftly with minor offenses while avoiding what the Manual for Courts-Martial calls the stigma of a federal conviction. Over the past several years, fewer than half of sexual-assault cases deemed viable by command have actually gone to trial. A third have ended in nonjudicial punishments, which are sometimes levied not just against accused rapists but against their victims as well. According to the lawsuit, commanders threatened to charge Corporal Sarah Albertson with inappropriate barracks conduct for drinking alcohol at the time of her rape. Later, after forcing Albertson to work in an of ce with her assailant, they reprimanded her for having a panic attack. In the event of a court martial, enlisted service members are customarily tried and sentenced by juries of their superiorsthe same kinds of superiors who are alleged to have asked a woman soldier whether she liked it in the ass, spit on another for failing a knot-tying quiz, and told a third, after watching a video of her gang rape, that she did not struggle enough. Juries are constrained in the sentences they can impose on of cers, a standard colloquially known as different spanks for different ranks. Perhaps the greatest problem in the prosecution of rape, however, is the prosecutors themselves. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has described a pattern wherein defendants hire seasoned attorneys while the military assigns inexperienced prosecutors. A Defense Department task force found that most prosecutors had little or no experience with sexual assault. One military lawyer told investigators, In the civilian world, you would not have a oneyear-out-of-law-school person working on a rape case. Last fall, the Air Force released a dramatized public-service announcement in which a gallant airman (known in the credits as Bystander) rescues a drunken airwoman (Potential Victim) from a pack of would-be rapists (Guys 1, 2, and 3). After Bystander plucks Potential Victim from the jaws of danger, she leans her head on his shoulder and swoons, Im so glad there are good guys out there, to which he manfully responds, Be safe, sweetie. The video is emblematic of how the military views sexual assaultas an offense invited by alcohol, perpetrated by a few hooligans, and corrected by heroic intervention. The 2012 defense budget, which will likely pass Congress this fall, promises some improvements to the militarys sexual-assault policy: more consistent training for victim advocates, better privacy protection, and legal counseling for victims. Unaddressed by these reforms is military culture itself, which views rape and harassment as anomalies rather than by-products of an institution built on submission to authority. As Clifford Stanley, who oversees the Defense Departments sexual-assault prevention initiative, admits, there are some real dopes out there in the armed forces. Everyone else, he says, is stellar.
ANNOTATION 67

ult problem, by Anthony Lydgate

Anthony Lydgate is a writer living in Brooklyn. This is his rst article for Harpers Magazine.