Military Crawling With Violent Sex-Crazed Men? I Think Not.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:  The military is NOT filled with a bunch of bottom-feeding, women-stalking, violent rapists. 

There are no perfect sectors of society.  Every city, town, country, and place of business can have an asshole or two in their employ.  I really take issue with the stories that media outlets are putting forth (not limited to left or right, all are guilty) highlighting the hesitation of female Americans to join the military because they are afraid of being raped.  As if there’s some huge infestation of insolent men creeping around looking for women to rape.  REALLY???  I’ve been enlisted.  Now, I’m an officer.  I’ve been stationed overseas, stateside, and deployed to the AOR.  I’ve even been deployed in an environment where I was one of only THREE females in the ENTIRE UNIT and the ONLY female in my living quarters.  I’ve never had an issue, and don’t know any other female who has had an issue.  Oh, and for the record, looks have very little to do with it.  Not that I'm a troll or anything...

Have I heard of incidents where people get drunk and put themselves into positions that put them at risk (both female and male)?  Of course.  But so has everyone.  Those are no different than any number of incidents that I witnessed as a civilian out at a club on any given Friday or Saturday night. 

Are there women who are sexually assaulted in the United States?  Yes there are.  Are there women who are sexually assaulted in the military?  Yes there are.  But it’s not any more prevalent in the military than it is in the civilian world.  They can twist those statics so they look however they want them to look.  

As a CIVILIAN in South Florida I saw drunk-ass women get taken advantage of in nightclubs, I’ve seen men spike drinks with god-only-knows-what, and “help” carry these girls who could no longer forward-mote on their own out to their cars or wherever they were taking them.   

But in my 22 years of eyes-wide-open experience since enlisting I personally know of no questionable incidents, even NOT limited to accusations of sexual assault, that couldn’t have been prevented had individuals taken responsibility for their own actions, maintained control of their faculties, or knew when to say ‘when’.   The same holds true in the civilian world.  The rules that govern military society don’t condone this behavior any more than the civilian world does.  As a female member of the military I resent the picture that’s being portrayed otherwise.

Soapbox alert! Cash vs Insurance Medical Practices

Today I read an article on CNN Business regarding the small but growing change in physician practices from traditional insurance-accepting businesses to cash-only practices.  Hooya!  I love it when a person can run a business how they chose.  The article highlighted two primary care doc’s and one general surgeon.  It talked about how each came to adopt a business model that is a cash only practice from one that accepted insurance.  Their reasons were everything you’d guess them to be, from insane hassles with insurance companies, lower payouts, higher overhead costs just to hire people who can siphon through all the paperwork required to file claims, etc.  Each of the doc’s recommended their patients have a high-deductible insurance policy to help cover potential costs outside their scope of practice such as serious or catastrophic illness/injury.  Ultimately the doc’s who switched get to spend more quality time with each patient, lower their overhead, eliminated the hassle of dealing with insurance, and were happier over all in both their practice and their personal lives.  Win-win for everyone!

Then they interview this woman, Kathleen Stoll, who is the director of health policy at the consumer advocacy group Families U.S.A.  This woman’s argument against this type of practice was, and I quote: “They cherry-pick among their patient population to serve only the wealthier ones.”  THAT’S YOUR ARGUMENT?  That’s what business is, moron!  That’s what makes people who run businesses, medical or otherwise, successful!  Do you think the company that sells Lamborghini’s or Maserati’s are marketing their product to the average “Joe”?  Hello no!  You have Ford, and Chevy to cover that market. 

She then tries to make the argument that perhaps the patients are being put at some higher risk.  Um, excuse me…being a cash-only practice doesn’t make a physician exempt from providing the standards of care set forth by the various certifying entities (OSHA, JHACO, etc.) any more than Lamborghini can manufacture a vehicle without seatbelts. 

Whether the business is medicine, cars or even food, it's no different.  Burger King has to follow the same rules set forth by the department of public health as Ruth’s Chris does, but you know what?  Ruth’s Chris “cherry-picks” among the population to market their product to the ones who can afford to eat there.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Ever. 

Of course, I still can’t afford a Lambo…

No regrets?

As a member of the military we work with literally hundreds of people over the course of our careers.  We develop friendships with people that in other circumstances, perhaps we wouldn’t.  People that you may not have much in common with otherwise.  I have several of these friends that were part of a small group of us that spent a harrowing 14 month together in Korea.  One of them is a woman that I have spoken of to others as “one of my favorite people on the planet”.   Very few people earn that distinction from me.  She happens to outrank me, but she’s a person who I just enjoy being around.  So smart and so driven that it’s almost scary.  But also the kind of person who brightens a room, brightens a day, and brightens a life.  She’s not my mentor or professional confidant or anything of the sort.  Our friendship is not based on what she can do for me or I for her.  Its foundation was built from simply being thrown into the same circumstances.  We understood each other as only someone who’s ‘been there too’ could.

As our time in Korea drew to a close, and the day came to say our goodbyes, numbers and emails were exchanged, hugs were shared, tears were shed.  We knew that at the same time tomorrow, thousands of miles would separate us.  Careers would take us in different directions, and we may never see one another again.  Then one day out of the blue, as so often takes place in the profession of arms, it happens.  You are walking down the hallway of your building that houses 3,000 other military members and you catch each other’s eye.  All military bearing goes flying out the window as you both let out screams of delight and almost knock each other over in an embrace that was 4 long years in the making.   Tears are shed again…

We were so excited to see one another.  We only work a hallway away.  We don’t live that far apart either.  Oh the fun we will have!   We’ll do lunch! We’ll have dinner together!  We’ll go SHOPPING!  Then things come up.  We get busy.  Our intentions are always there, though.  Lots of emails, lots of hugs as we pass in the hallway, lots of plans are made and broken.  Then a couple of weeks go by and I realize that I haven’t seen my friend in a while.  Emails aren't answered, phones just ring and my senses tell me something is amiss.  Today, I see her online.  First time in ages, and I’m so excited. I shoot off an IM…”OMG, you’re alive!  YAY!!”  "Yes, Weeble", she says to me.  "I’m here".  “How are you?”, I ask…

Things are not well.  As she tells me more, my heart begins to hurt.  As she tells me more, I selfishly think how happy I am that we are “talking” on IM, so she can’t see the tears welling up in my eyes, and she wouldn't have to hear my voice crack as I tried to summon up something positive to say.  “My friend”, I type to her through IM, “we will get together, even if only for tea, the moment you are feeling well enough to do so.”  I mean those words with every ounce of my being.

I have never been one to dwell on the urgency of doing things now because ‘there may not be a tomorrow’.  I’m not a fool.  I know that no one is promised tomorrow.  I've lost enough people to know that better than a lot of people my age, I suppose.

That said, I have a couple of friends at this assignment that I have the same kind of relationship with.  I think this week I am going to go find them one by one, plant myself in their offices, and not get up until we leave together to go have lunch.  They can put the phone down.  They can log off their computers for 30 minutes.  So can I.  Something tells me we’ll all be happy we did so.