Military Justice Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. William Wilberforce wrote:

Having heard all this you can choose to look the other way, but you can never again say, ``I did not know.''

Having heard the stories of sexual assault in the military, we can look away, but we can never say that we have not heard of this problem, that we are going to ignore this problem. I don't think anybody in this body wants to, but the definition of ``insanity'' is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We have known that sexual assault in the military has been a problem decade after decade. I think it is time we tried something new.

When I heard of a young military recruit from my State--a young woman who was raped, attacked, beaten to a pulp, three nerves pinched in her back, her legs and hips bruised such that she couldn't walk, and she considered suicide--when I heard her rape kit was lost and the case was dismissed, I was disheartened. Her assailant is still in the Navy. We have to do something different. We cannot ignore this problem.

To me it is as simple as this: Should you have to report your assault to your boss? This is what we are talking about. What if your boss goes drinking with the person who assaulted you, who is friends with them? Wouldn't we want the person you complained to completely outside the chain of command? Wouldn't we want to have lawyers involved whose specialty is this type of situation?

I am not saying it is easy. Guilt and justice are sometimes hard to find. But we have evidence that people don't trust the system. They say there are 26,000 episodes of unwanted sexual contact. They say 50 percent of the victims, though, go unreported. There are a lot of reasons for this. Even in the private world, people are afraid or ashamed or don't feel they can talk about this publicly. But we should do everything possible to make sure it is easy to report this because we don't want this to occur.

This doesn't mean, for our men and women who serve, it is a problem that overwhelms the military. It is still a small percentage. But for the 26,000 people having this happen to them, we need to come up with a solution.

What Senator Gillibrand has done is an idea whose time has come. It is about justice for victims, but it also is about finding due process. Getting this out of the arbitrary nature of a commander making a decision and into a court with judges where there will be arguments on both sides I think protects the innocent as well as finds justice for the accused.

I overwhelmingly support this bill and this crusade Senator Gillibrand has led. I suggest to the Senate that we understand the problem goes on, and tweaking this problem or nibbling around the edges and saying: Oh, we are just going to wait and see if what we are doing is better--we have been doing this for 20 years. I think the time is now to make the change.

I stand with Senator Gillibrand, and I wholeheartedly support her bill.

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