![]() ![]() “The commission encourages the Secretary of Defense to address DoD assets that highlight the KKK in Defense Memorialization processes and create a standard disposition requirement for such assets,” the panel said. Because the Naming Commission is responsible only for Confederate names, it merely brought the image to the Pentagon’s attention in its second (PDF) of three reports on the topic. Unlike the nine Confederate-named Army bases scattered across what used to be the Confederacy, most of which were so named between the two world wars, the KKK figure went on display in 1965. It raised eyebrows August 29 when it revealed that there’s a hooded, rifle-toting, bronze figure labeled “Ku Klux Klan” adorning the science building at the U.S. military installations - it already tackled Army posts (PDF) - has moved on to the U.S. The congressionally appointed panel charged with ridding shameful names from U.S. YESTERDAY’S BRONZE, TOMORROW’S BRASS Out of line at the military academies ![]() And if spending translated into success, the Pentagon would never lose a war. The nearly half-billion dollars “is going to go a long way towards funding and sustaining these changes.” ![]() “One of the things that we’re really seeing that I think is going to make the greatest change is that investment,” Galbreath said. But there is $479 million for efforts to address sexual assault in the military in the proposed Pentagon budget for next year. Many Defense Department recommendations on the subject haven’t come with money to carry them out. So, the Pentagon is moving on to its favorite solution: cash. There are multiple causes, and the current political climate isn’t helping, either. But for just as long, there has been a persistent undercurrent of sexual harassment and assault that has acted as a brake on many careers. The Bunker has covered women in uniform for decades, ranging from successes to failures. The Pentagon has rolled out numerous programs and training exercises designed to reduce sexual assault, yet reports of sexual assault have generally increased every year since 2006. That’s a big problem, given the military’s difficulties in getting enough recruits to fill its ranks. The Pentagon is seeing “declining confidence in potential recruits and in their influencers, in terms of whether the military is doing a good job addressing sexual assault,” Ashlea Klahr, a Pentagon health researcher, said. “Sexual assault responders indicated significantly higher rates of burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma” than in the past, the report said. Even the Pentagon’s own press release detailing the report said, right at the top, that “unhealthy conditions have been on the rise in the military.” The deluge has swamped those in uniform charged with handling such cases. Last year, 8.4% of military women reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact during the prior year, the highest rate since the military started keeping track in 2004. Reports of sexual assaults jumped 13% from 2020 to 2021. “the increase in rates of reporting as an indicator of a continued trust in our response and support systems.” In 2021, a one-third drop in such reporting means that trust is evaporating. “That’s down from what you see in 20, when we estimated that one in three, or 30 percent, were reporting their crime.” At a press conference five years ago, a top Pentagon official said the department identified “Only about 20 percent, or one in five, service members impacted by sexual assault reported their crime,” Nathan Galbreath, the acting director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, acknowledged. Even as the Pentagon estimates, via confidential surveys, that the total number of sexual assaults continues to climb, the share of those troops coming forward to report such crimes is dropping.
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