Speaker 1: Hey, what's up, guys. I want to thank our sponsor PIAVPN.
Speaker 1: That's Private Internet Access. Have you, guys ever been at
Speaker 1: a coffee shop connected to that Wi Fi and just
Speaker 1: wonder how secure it really is? Turns out not secure
Speaker 1: at all. It's like sending a private text message to
Speaker 1: a group chat. Everyone can see all your personal data,
Speaker 1: from your passwords to your browser history. It's all out
Speaker 1: in the open, and now on need my browser history
Speaker 1: out in the open for people, that's a problem. But
Speaker 1: the solution is Private Internet Access PIA. It's super easy
Speaker 1: to use and the app protects all your devices. It
Speaker 1: hides your IP addresses, and it creates an encrypted tunnel
Speaker 1: from your internet connection, so no one can snoop on
Speaker 1: your data. And unlike a lot of the services out there,
Speaker 1: PIA is completely transparent. They have a proven no logs
Speaker 1: policy which means they never record or store your data.
Speaker 1: But really, the thing that I love about PIA the
Speaker 1: most is, like I watch The Office here in the US,
Speaker 1: it just pop over to like the UK or the
Speaker 1: Canadian servers and boom, right, you have The Office right
Speaker 1: on Netflix. Also, another show that just came out, Small Villagers,
Speaker 1: came out Netflix in the UK, Canada, France, all over Europe,
Speaker 1: so you can just pop over to one of their
Speaker 1: servers and watch that no sweat. You can actually change
Speaker 1: your location to ninety one countries and unlock new content
Speaker 1: whatever you want to watch, so you can check that out.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool and you can parect your entire family
Speaker 1: with one subscription. So if you want to protect your
Speaker 1: digital life and get eighty three percent off plus four
Speaker 1: months free at the Pia vpn dot com Slash team
Speaker 1: House and sign up today. They have a thirty back
Speaker 1: thirty day money back guarantee, so there's no risk to you.
Speaker 1: That's Pia VPN Slash Team House for eighty three percent
Speaker 1: off plus four months free. That's actually just two dollars
Speaker 1: and three cents a month, so it's totally worth it.
Speaker 1: If you're in the game for a VPN right and
Speaker 1: you don't want them, like you know, logs and stuff
Speaker 1: like that and worried about that, go to PIA vpn
Speaker 1: of the best. It's Pia vpn dot com Slash Teamhouse.
Speaker 1: Get eighty three percent off plus four months free.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Thank you Pia for sponsoring the show and continuing to
Speaker 1: sponsor the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks guys.
Speaker 3: This time of year, the pace doesn't slow down, but
Speaker 3: you still need to. The calendar's packed, the weather's changing,
Speaker 3: and your body's reminding you that it's time to rest
Speaker 3: and reset. That's where Ghostbed can help. It's a family
Speaker 3: run company founded by a team with over twenty years
Speaker 3: of mattress making expertise. They've spent decades perfecting how to
Speaker 3: build a bed that's durable, comfortable, and engineered to help
Speaker 3: you recover. Every ghost Bed mattress is made with premium materials,
Speaker 3: proven cooling technology, and their exclusive pro Core layer, a
Speaker 3: targeted support system that reinforces the center of the mattress
Speaker 3: where your body is the heaviest. It helps to keep
Speaker 3: your spine aligned and your back supported so you wake
Speaker 3: up ready to take on what's next. And ghost Bed's
Speaker 3: cooling materials don't just keep you from overheating, they help
Speaker 3: regulate your temperature year round. Each mattress comes with one
Speaker 3: hundred and one night sleep trial and a twenty to
Speaker 3: twenty five year warranty, plus fat free shipping. Most orders
Speaker 3: arrive in two to five days, so better rest is
Speaker 3: just around the corner right now. During ghost Beds Holiday Sale.
Speaker 3: You can get twenty five percent off site wide for
Speaker 3: a limited time. Just go to ghostbed dot com slash
Speaker 3: house and use the promo code house at checkout. That's
Speaker 3: ghostbed dot com slash house promo code house. Upgrade your
Speaker 3: sleep with ghost bed, the makers of the coolest beds
Speaker 3: in the world. Some exclusions apply. See site for details
Speaker 3: and thank you ghost bed for sponsoring the show. Please
Speaker 3: check out the link down the description and support our sponsor.
Speaker 3: All Right, So this is episode I think three and
Speaker 3: ninety two of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here
Speaker 3: with our guest tonight, Bethany McDonough. Bethany is a former
Speaker 3: Army officer and just to be completely candid and upfront
Speaker 3: with the audience, has a pretty terrible story tonight. So
Speaker 3: I've urged viewer discretion if you have kids running around
Speaker 3: as you're listening to this, but otherwise we're going to
Speaker 3: get into it. You know, mostly this podcast is sort
Speaker 3: of a celebration of military service almost, but there are
Speaker 3: times where we have to have some difficult conversations about
Speaker 3: things not working the way they're supposed to, and uh,
Speaker 3: this is going to be one of them. So Bethany,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us on the podcast
Speaker 3: tonight and doing this. I know it's it's not an
Speaker 3: easy thing to stand up and say the things that
Speaker 3: you need to say.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I'm I'm you know, really
Speaker 2: grateful that you have this platform and that we were
Speaker 2: able to connect and and you know, allow me to
Speaker 2: be able to talk about this. And again, like the
Speaker 2: reason that I was wanting to do this is it's
Speaker 2: not it is because it's because I believe this happens
Speaker 2: to other people. It is important for you know, other
Speaker 2: people that this that this happens to to know, I
Speaker 2: mean number one, that they're not alone and quite frankly,
Speaker 2: for people to make decisions about whether or not they're
Speaker 2: wanting to serve as a yep, that this can happen. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, take us back sort of to the beginning. Tell
Speaker 3: us about how you came to military service to begin with,
Speaker 3: and and sort of what your journey was like joining
Speaker 3: the military.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, so, I let's see, I enlisted while I
Speaker 2: was just out of high school. I enlisted in the
Speaker 2: National Guard. You know, I wanted to go to I
Speaker 2: wanted to go to college and do all these things
Speaker 2: and and I I wound up, like you know, on
Speaker 2: campus in like the ROTC program, and you know, they said,
Speaker 2: oh this, you know you can. I met all the
Speaker 2: other students there, and I was like, oh, these are
Speaker 2: other other college students that are also like serving in
Speaker 2: the military or figuring it out. And like when you're
Speaker 2: when you're like at that age, that's a huge thing
Speaker 2: to like have in common with other people. So I,
Speaker 2: you know, I wound up commissioning in O seven and
Speaker 2: then I, you know, I've served in the National Guard
Speaker 2: and the reserves my entire career. I was never straight
Speaker 2: active duty, and I mean that was you know, looking
Speaker 2: back on it, I might have done it differently, but
Speaker 2: at the time, like I always planned on being in
Speaker 2: the reserves and National Guard. That was what was That
Speaker 2: was what I chose to do. And uh so, I
Speaker 2: you know, I was a military intelligence officer. I say
Speaker 2: it was because I'm I'm now a veteran as of
Speaker 2: about two months three months, right, and thank you. I yeah,
Speaker 2: I've served in several different National Guard states. You know,
Speaker 2: I moved all over the country. I spent a signific
Speaker 2: at a time at Fort Wood, Chuka and let me see,
Speaker 2: I I you know, I went to Afghanistan in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, two thousand and seven, two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: twenty ten. And let me see, eventually I wound up
Speaker 2: in the Northern Virginia area for my civilian job and
Speaker 2: then wound up being assigned on active duty for about
Speaker 2: five years, you know, during during which time a lot
Speaker 2: of this kind of went on. So my active duty
Speaker 2: time most recently was in a like a budgeting capacity,
Speaker 2: So I have a finance background and then as a
Speaker 2: military intelligence officer at the same time, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a very niche like thing. Not a lot of not
Speaker 2: a lot of people like finance to begin with, especially
Speaker 2: in the army. So for me, it was just a
Speaker 2: really good fit. And so I was serving on active
Speaker 2: duty when you know, some of these other events.
Speaker 3: Transpired, and in the run up to being stationed at
Speaker 3: Fort Myers, your you know, your career up to that
Speaker 3: point as a military intelligence officer. You describe a little
Speaker 3: bit about your job for folks and kind of what
Speaker 3: what your day to day was like.
Speaker 2: Sure, so I was actually so I was actually assigned
Speaker 2: for beil War. I I worked at you know, I
Speaker 2: worked at the Military Intelligence Readiness Command on Fort bel
Speaker 2: War and I was a program manager, So I managed
Speaker 2: a program called Foundry and uh it is a military
Speaker 2: intelligence funds for military intelligence soldiers. And I just I
Speaker 2: administered the program. So I would recommend to commanders how
Speaker 2: to utilize those funds and how to disperse them to
Speaker 2: units and then account for them correctly and all of
Speaker 2: those things. So yeah, I did that for about five years.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, And so your station of Fort Belvoir for
Speaker 3: Fort Myers, I mean these are both bases in the
Speaker 3: Washington area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeap, very close to each other.
Speaker 3: So I mean, let's begin to kind of like unpack
Speaker 3: where things start to go downhill. I mean it starts
Speaker 3: innocuously enough, right with you know, just going out on
Speaker 3: a date.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, So I was on active duty from
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen until I mean so at the time this happened,
Speaker 2: it was twenty twenty two, so pretty normal active duty
Speaker 2: time up until that point. And so I I, let
Speaker 2: me see, I met someone on a dating app and
Speaker 2: this person was an five A sign at the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: And to me, that was like an automatic like Okay,
Speaker 2: I can be I can be safe around this person.
Speaker 2: I should be safe around this person. And to boot
Speaker 2: that person isn't going to They're not going to be
Speaker 2: someone who commits crimes, lives in their parents' basement, does
Speaker 2: drugs or you know, alcohol excessively. They this should this
Speaker 2: should be the safest type of person that I should
Speaker 2: be able to be around. And so that's why I
Speaker 2: I knew this person for about ten days give or take,
Speaker 2: and why I felt comfortable going to his house even
Speaker 2: though I didn't know him that well, because you should
Speaker 2: be safe around someone like that. At least that was
Speaker 2: my assessment at that time. Let me see, I I
Speaker 2: was also like sort of fighting my own instincts. So
Speaker 2: I had sort of like a creepy vibe when I was,
Speaker 2: you know, interacting with this person, where like any woman
Speaker 2: who who hears this will understand what I'm saying. Whereas
Speaker 2: you get this vibe that like, Okay, this person might
Speaker 2: not be as safe as as I. It's sort of
Speaker 2: like the hair stands up on the back of your
Speaker 2: neck every so often and but again, but then I'm
Speaker 2: like the other part of me was like, yeah, but
Speaker 2: he has all these things to lose. He's security planings,
Speaker 2: he's a No. Five on ACTI duty at the pen again, I,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't need to I don't need to
Speaker 2: be concerned. So I sort of brushed off those, if
Speaker 2: off some of those indicators.
Speaker 3: If I can ask Bethany, I mean I would be
Speaker 3: and I think there are other people out there who
Speaker 3: would be interested to hear in retrospects, like what were
Speaker 3: those indicators? I mean, I understand that there's a certain
Speaker 3: amount of gut instinct here, but was there anything specific
Speaker 3: that was like.
Speaker 2: Let me see, let me see. So there are sort
Speaker 2: of like I'm there was sort of just generic red flags.
Speaker 2: And I say generic because these they're so it's so generic,
Speaker 2: Like there was a lot of calling and texting and
Speaker 2: like immediate clinginess, I would say, and whereas I, you know,
Speaker 2: I was like in my mind, I was like I
Speaker 2: barely know you, like back off, dude. But there was
Speaker 2: also like some that were in my mind I was,
Speaker 2: I brushed these off. But in retrospect, yeah, they were
Speaker 2: huge indicators. One was that he stored weapons in his bedroom,
Speaker 2: weapons and ammunition in his bedroom. And I know this
Speaker 2: because he showed them to me, not just not just
Speaker 2: one a case with several in them, like and uh,
Speaker 2: let me see, ah, not in m four. What's the
Speaker 2: other what what's what's like, what's the the civilian weapon
Speaker 2: that's like damp Yes, an air fifteen, a shotgun, a
Speaker 2: handgun in his closet, and like, I, you know, I
Speaker 2: I don't own any weapons. I don't utilize weapons outside
Speaker 2: of what I've needed to do in the military for training.
Speaker 2: But I know that a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: service members do have that as a hobby, so I
Speaker 2: brush it off. I would say, like, another really strange
Speaker 2: indicator was there was a lock on his So there
Speaker 2: was a point at which I was attempting to let
Speaker 2: this person's dog out in the middle of the night
Speaker 2: because it was whining, and I realized after like not
Speaker 2: being able to do that, that there was a lock
Speaker 2: on the back door where you had to have a
Speaker 2: key to open the back door, which was making me
Speaker 2: and so to me, I was like, okay, well, I'm
Speaker 2: I might be locked in the house. I didn't find
Speaker 2: that out until you know, some other I didn't find
Speaker 2: out that out in time enough where I would have
Speaker 2: been able to react to that red flag, But yeah,
Speaker 2: that was that was that was it was. That was
Speaker 2: definitely part of the creepy guye.
Speaker 3: And then at a certain point that night, you know,
Speaker 3: there was an actual assault.
Speaker 2: I reported to the police within twenty four hours that
Speaker 2: I had been sexually assaulted, and I, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: before I left, this person had a handgun in the
Speaker 2: kitchen kitchen island. This isn't I mean, I had I
Speaker 2: again that this was This was also after the fact.
Speaker 2: So this led me to all of these things. I
Speaker 2: reported within twenty four hours to a police station that
Speaker 2: I've been sexually assaulted, and I named this person, and
Speaker 2: I got, you know, several restraining orders like right away,
Speaker 2: and I did within the week. I I you know,
Speaker 2: I did a full interview with the molass Manasa's police
Speaker 2: department about what all of the events that had occurred.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to avoid talking about some of the
Speaker 2: specifics because they're they're kind of painful and also not
Speaker 2: not as relevant to kind of the broader picture of.
Speaker 3: What would I would just point out, you know, Bethany,
Speaker 3: for you know, viewers, there's questions that always come up.
Speaker 3: I mean, in the documents you sent me, I mean,
Speaker 3: you told this guy no multiple times. But yeah, pretty
Speaker 3: pretty clear.
Speaker 2: Cut, yeah, correct. Yeah, So some of the documents were
Speaker 2: you know, the congressional inquiry that went to Senator Earned
Speaker 2: Senator Gillibrand, And to my understanding, what I'm told is
Speaker 2: they you know, I asked them, please share my experiences
Speaker 2: so that when you decide whether or not you're going
Speaker 2: to take further action in legislation for military sexual assault,
Speaker 2: please take my experiences into consideration. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, so you reported to the local police, which I'm
Speaker 3: sure you didn't. This wasn't even on your mind at
Speaker 3: all at the time. But my experience in investigating some
Speaker 3: of these stories is a very interesting game ends up
Speaker 3: getting played between the installation and the civilian police department.
Speaker 3: I was like, here's jurisdiction. Who has the case first?
Speaker 3: This guy has it, now, this guy has it. It
Speaker 3: gets bounced back and forth. What was sort of the
Speaker 3: next step for you after making that police report? And
Speaker 3: then you know you you informed the military like shortly thereafter.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, so I recall like, while I was in
Speaker 2: the police station, I heard I so in the back
Speaker 2: of my mind, I didn't know if this person was
Speaker 2: still in active duty anymore. This person told me, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm retired, But what you know, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Like this that doesn't just because you say you retire
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you're not on active duty, right Like, so I,
Speaker 2: in my mind, I reported somebody that I barely knew
Speaker 2: and I so I didn't know. So while I was
Speaker 2: sitting in the police station, uh they I heard one
Speaker 2: of the officers say something like that. So when I
Speaker 2: first went there, they were like they were doing this,
Speaker 2: you know, flirring around like I didn't know what they
Speaker 2: were doing. I was sitting there for like two hours
Speaker 2: waiting for them to say something or do something, and
Speaker 2: they just said, okay, wait here and and went off
Speaker 2: to do something. And like what I what I learned
Speaker 2: kind of later on was that they were probably checking
Speaker 2: this person's background and also learning that he had a
Speaker 2: whole criminal criminal record. That's probably what.
Speaker 3: They were realizing right this time.
Speaker 2: But they told me later that they were they were
Speaker 2: deciding whether or not that I that they could tell
Speaker 2: me to go home safely. That's what they told me later.
Speaker 2: But at the time I was just like sitting there,
Speaker 2: and then I heard somebody say, oh, she can go
Speaker 2: home now. We called c I D and so I
Speaker 2: So in my mind I was like, oh, they already
Speaker 2: told the military, Holy crap. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: damn it, because I in my mind I was like, well,
Speaker 2: the right thing to do is to report it, but
Speaker 2: you know, maybe he's not an active duty and I
Speaker 2: don't want my boss to know, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: want I don't want my I the command where I
Speaker 2: was at was a one star general, like that was
Speaker 2: going to be the person that was, you know, the
Speaker 2: who has to know about the assault, That was going
Speaker 2: to be the person that was going to have to
Speaker 2: like hear about it. And so knowing that, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, like no, I So I just sort
Speaker 2: of pulled the band aid off and did it reporting.
Speaker 2: And then you know, within the week I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, the start got notified and like I so
Speaker 2: I did like a Saint exam and like again me,
Speaker 2: I was kind of like just kind of an autopilot
Speaker 2: the whole time. Like within the first twenty four hours
Speaker 2: the well to get saine exam, I just called the
Speaker 2: sharp Port Bulwar number and somebody picked up the phone.
Speaker 2: That was the criteria of how I got to get
Speaker 2: a sane exam. And then once I was at once
Speaker 2: I was getting the sane exam, the nurse was like, well,
Speaker 2: do you want me to call the police, and I
Speaker 2: in my mind, I was like, what what you know?
Speaker 2: I didn't. I was like, I didn't. I was making
Speaker 2: decisions on autopilot.
Speaker 3: Like survival of the SARK is if I recall right,
Speaker 3: sort of like a special representative like a victim's advocate
Speaker 3: on installations.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, So the SARK is a sexual assault response coordinator.
Speaker 2: They're like, they're the SHARP program, They're the administrators of
Speaker 2: the SHARK program. So are you do you recall the
Speaker 2: SHARK program harassment Assault Response Prevention?
Speaker 3: It's I remember, I remember the briefings exactly.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like this fluffy, nice to have program.
Speaker 2: And I like my experience working with these people I've
Speaker 2: worked with a lot of them over time, is that
Speaker 2: they're very caring people. It's just their program doesn't have
Speaker 2: any teeth to it, right.
Speaker 3: They don't have the party to do.
Speaker 2: Anything that is correct. So commanders very frequently like disregard
Speaker 2: a lot of things associated with the SHARP program and
Speaker 2: nothing happens. So, but the people are really nice. So
Speaker 2: I was interacting initially with a SARK, a sexual assault
Speaker 2: response coordinator from my organization, and she was like, well,
Speaker 2: what kind of a report do you want? To do. So.
Speaker 2: Service members probably recognize that you can do a restricted report,
Speaker 2: which basically means, well, the report exists in a database
Speaker 2: somewhere and you can get like I don't know, access
Speaker 2: to counseling or something like that, and an unrestricted means
Speaker 2: that it's going to be full uninvestigated. So the stark
Speaker 2: was like, well, okay, now you told me, and now
Speaker 2: you have to Now you you told the military, so
Speaker 2: like I didn't realize that at the time, but she
Speaker 2: was kind of telling me, you already reported, so now
Speaker 2: you were doing one or the other. You have to pick.
Speaker 2: And I hadn't even thought about that. So I said,
Speaker 2: we'll find out if the guy's on active duty. Then
Speaker 2: if he's if he's still on active duty, I'll do
Speaker 2: an unrestricted report. So within the week she finds out he's,
Speaker 2: you know, still on active duty, and I'm sitting down
Speaker 2: with a one star general telling him that I got assaulted. Really,
Speaker 2: that commander was great, Brigadier General Tzinski. I don't know
Speaker 2: where he is and what he's doing in life, but
Speaker 2: he's fantastic. He was probably the best him. And then
Speaker 2: like the HHD commander at the time, they were great.
Speaker 2: But again like the reserves. Like the reserves in the
Speaker 2: National Guard, one really big difference is they don't have
Speaker 2: sexual assaults getting reported. There's a really limited amount that
Speaker 2: the reserves actually has to do with it. Basically, the
Speaker 2: majority of what they do is administer the SHARP program
Speaker 2: because they don't have court martials, so there's there's not
Speaker 2: really going to be like the charging and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's easier for them to it's easier for the
Speaker 2: National Guard Reserves to be supportive. I don't know, so
Speaker 2: my experience with that, you know, that commander at the
Speaker 2: Mert commander was fantastic.
Speaker 3: They were great at that time, and they did take
Speaker 3: some like positive action too as far as like getting
Speaker 3: you in order of protection and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they assisted with getting a military protective order
Speaker 2: right away. And then then I also I went, you know,
Speaker 2: I went to the the local town, like my town,
Speaker 2: and I got a protective order from uh, like the
Speaker 2: city of Alexandria. A couple actually, and then I kind
Speaker 2: of reached my limit of being able to do that.
Speaker 2: So if if I if I had wanted like a
Speaker 2: long term one, it involves it involves basically a mini
Speaker 2: trial of proving that you have reason to need to
Speaker 2: have it. So I had one that was enforceable for
Speaker 2: I think a few months, six weeks something like that
Speaker 2: for the town, and then the military protective order went
Speaker 2: until until the charges got dropped. Yeah, so let's see
Speaker 2: during this time that I was reporting like nothing was happening.
Speaker 2: So I, you know, those things happened, like I got
Speaker 2: the protective orders and that stuff right away, but I
Speaker 2: was still just like I was waiting around. I was
Speaker 2: waiting for the Virginia Manassa's police department to say what
Speaker 2: they're going to do. I was waiting. You know, supposedly
Speaker 2: it's a joint investigation. That does not mean anything. That
Speaker 2: means that that means that the military is sitting on
Speaker 2: their heels waiting for the civilians to decide what they
Speaker 2: were going to do. So I had found out at
Speaker 2: that point that I had reported this person ninety days
Speaker 2: prior before he was about to retire. So the military
Speaker 2: also they assign you a lawyer. That's one really good
Speaker 2: thing that has come out in like I think twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen and on, is there's a special Victims Council basically
Speaker 2: a lawyer for for the victim that is something that's
Speaker 2: a positive change in the SHARP program. So you know,
Speaker 2: interacting with this lawyer who's you know, all the way
Speaker 2: Fort Bragg. He he was also really great and I
Speaker 2: think he's still out there. He's still an SVC somewhere.
Speaker 2: He he kept following back up with the Military District
Speaker 2: of Washington, saying, what are you going to do with
Speaker 2: this case? What's going on with this case? And I
Speaker 2: eventually like, because it was getting to the point where
Speaker 2: are you just gonna let him walk out the door
Speaker 2: and retire? Like and I was also like worried because
Speaker 2: what the what this person that I had reported, this
Speaker 2: officer that I reported this five What he had told
Speaker 2: me was that he had a job lined up as
Speaker 2: a civilian contractor on Fort Belvoir at the what's the
Speaker 2: what what's set schoolhouse called Force Force Management, the School
Speaker 2: of Force Management on Fort Belboar. He he had a
Speaker 2: job lined up there, and that was a mile away
Speaker 2: from where I worked. So like, if you know, you know,
Speaker 2: like the thing you know, I kind of told you
Speaker 2: some of like the creepy vibe factors, and I was
Speaker 2: just like, oh my gosh, Like he's going to work
Speaker 2: right down the road for me like, if they let
Speaker 2: him go and they do nothing, I have a problem.
Speaker 2: I have an immediate problem because so I you know,
Speaker 2: I kept asking and asking like what are you going
Speaker 2: to do? What are the circumstances under which you are
Speaker 2: going to delay this person's retirement pending the outcome of
Speaker 2: the investigation, And what they were doing instead of instead
Speaker 2: of that was like dragging me into the Military District Washington,
Speaker 2: like Fort McNair. That's where there their legal office is,
Speaker 2: and they were basically having me go in for interviews
Speaker 2: with them under really strange circumstances, like basically to accommodate
Speaker 2: the fact that this person was about to retire. So
Speaker 2: like I think I drove there while my hand was
Speaker 2: was not broken, but I had surgery on it. Uh
Speaker 2: I the lawyer wasn't able to be there because he's
Speaker 2: assigned for brag like all this stuff, where like why
Speaker 2: don't you just delay? I kept asking like why are
Speaker 2: you how? How are you how? And when are you
Speaker 2: going to just delay the person's retirement pending the outcome
Speaker 2: of the investigation, And they kept saying that they needed
Speaker 2: me to come in and basically do these additional interviews
Speaker 2: to quote unquote state whether they had problem, because they
Speaker 2: had to decide whether they had probable cause, which led
Speaker 2: me to ultimately get a civilian lawyer because I was
Speaker 2: just like, why can't they why can't they answer basic questions?
Speaker 2: And like, I mean, you've served in the midll, like,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're not getting an answer, it's because
Speaker 2: they don't like the one that they would give you.
Speaker 3: Right in the military has a tendency to if they
Speaker 3: do an investigation and they find a result that they
Speaker 3: don't like, they'll reinvestigate it and reinvestigate it again until
Speaker 3: they get the answer that they're looking for. This is
Speaker 3: a technique they'll use. You know, if you interview a
Speaker 3: soldier in an aar and he says I saw this,
Speaker 3: this and that, and the community doesn't like that, they
Speaker 3: will go back to him a second time, a third time,
Speaker 3: and it's like, are you getting the message? Are you
Speaker 3: getting the message here? Buddy? This isn't what you're supposed
Speaker 3: to be telling us. The same. Yeah, the inspector general,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry about this little rant, I'm on, but the
Speaker 3: inspector general plays the same games in the military that
Speaker 3: they will wait two years. They have two years to
Speaker 3: do the investigation. They will wait one week before that
Speaker 3: expiration date and then contact the witnesses after two years.
Speaker 3: You guys know how the military works. Half of these
Speaker 3: people more out of the military. They've been moved to
Speaker 3: other bases. There's no way they're going to respond. That's
Speaker 3: it's just another tactic that they used to not have
Speaker 3: to address things that they really should.
Speaker 2: Be Oh yeah, absolutely. So I was like kind of
Speaker 2: I kept I kept asking point blank, what what are
Speaker 2: you going to do with this? Like, and they kept
Speaker 2: not giving me answers, but they were also saying stuff
Speaker 2: like I think so this person was the military justice advisor,
Speaker 2: one of the lawyers, you know, was in the room,
Speaker 2: and I recall hearing him say that we don't want
Speaker 2: to mess up somebody's life unnecessarily, which was their justification
Speaker 2: and reason for asking me all these questions. And these
Speaker 2: questions were like, oh, what did you have for what
Speaker 2: did you have to drink at dinner? Oh you had wine?
Speaker 2: What type of wine did you have? Or like did
Speaker 2: you ever willingly touch specific parts of his body? It
Speaker 2: was it was just really gross. Where I had already
Speaker 2: given a two and a half hour interview in a
Speaker 2: police station, they already had it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah, what's the point, Like, was it
Speaker 3: red Wine or white? How the hell does that make
Speaker 3: any difference.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they were just trying to decide
Speaker 2: if they believed me. At least that's the body that
Speaker 2: I got. So I wound up like, I got a
Speaker 2: civilian lawyer, And I would recommend anyone that goes through this,
Speaker 2: I would recommend immediately getting a civilian lawyer, like one
Speaker 2: hundred percent of the time. I would not recommend relying
Speaker 2: on a military SBC. They are great, but a military
Speaker 2: lawyer can do things. They can do things that or
Speaker 2: excuse me, the civilian lawyer can do things that a
Speaker 2: military lawyer cannot. For instance, challenge a case outcome because
Speaker 2: the person that decided the case is Colonel David Bolink
Speaker 2: for instance. Let me see, so, so you.
Speaker 3: Tell us about that that that preliminary hearing, that that happened.
Speaker 2: Next Sure so eventually they yeah, eventually he the military
Speaker 2: paused this person's retirement and then then you know, did
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of delay delay, delay, and uh, some
Speaker 2: people switched out, you know, more delaying, and by this
Speaker 2: time I had the military lawyer, or excuse me, the
Speaker 2: civilian lawyer, and there was a preliminary hearing that took place,
Speaker 2: you know, probably eight months something like that after I report,
Speaker 2: after I had reported, and the so I wasn't present,
Speaker 2: the civilian lawyer was present on my behalf, and you
Speaker 2: know what they what I heard as being the outcome
Speaker 2: was the office the preliminary hearing officer was inexperienced. He
Speaker 2: admitted this during during the hearing, he he asked he
Speaker 2: did something very non standard, which is he basically asked
Speaker 2: the prosecutor and then the defense attorney to outline like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: what how do you think that there is or is
Speaker 2: not probable cause? So the defense attorney stated he did
Speaker 2: this long like to a three page document seeing why
Speaker 2: there is no probable cause, which was basically a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of rape myths, stringing stringing, rape myth after rape
Speaker 2: myth together to basically.
Speaker 3: Like what did they try to say?
Speaker 2: Let me see, let's see here. Uh, here's one example.
Speaker 2: There was like a ring video, like the doorbell ring thing,
Speaker 2: and that it said, oh, well she was smiling when
Speaker 2: she walked away from the door. And then the prosecutor said, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: because she was smiling because he was watching her walk
Speaker 2: away five minutes after he took out a gun in
Speaker 2: the kitchen island, so like stuff like that. They were
Speaker 2: like just there, you know, twisting what happened. And then
Speaker 2: to like just any anything anything that they could. There
Speaker 2: was like some some texts that they tried to say
Speaker 2: that I was I was mad at the guy because
Speaker 2: he didn't want to go out with me again or
Speaker 2: something like and this it was just it was just
Speaker 2: really like it was really bizarre. It was like any
Speaker 2: way that they could just kind of twist the situation.
Speaker 2: They were doing that to make it look like I
Speaker 2: was lying or probably lying or could be lying, or
Speaker 2: you know. And then the comparatively the prosecutor was like, oh,
Speaker 2: she reported this, this happened, this happened, this happened. This
Speaker 2: is what the law says. Therefore there probable cause. So
Speaker 2: I mean, and then I started to look at the
Speaker 2: statistics of probable cause hearings, and I could tell like
Speaker 2: the outcome of like uh, probable cause versus no probable
Speaker 2: cause and it gets sent to court martial or not.
Speaker 2: Like they were not adding up in this circumstance. The
Speaker 2: whole like it was a sham hearing is my takeaway.
Speaker 2: It was it was just kind of a sham hearing.
Speaker 2: So and then we weren't allowed to see the report.
Speaker 2: So the preliminary hearing officer develops a report about what
Speaker 2: he about why he thinks there is there isn't probable cause,
Speaker 2: Well they don't the military doesn't provide those. So he
Speaker 2: has a copy. The person I reported has a copy,
Speaker 2: his lawyer has a copy, but I don't have a
Speaker 2: copy of this day, and so like basically I was
Speaker 2: just sort of told and then I didn't even know
Speaker 2: that it and so I kept I asked the attorney's
Speaker 2: like who decided this? Who made the decision? They come
Speaker 2: back and they state it's Colonel Bowling, And I didn't
Speaker 2: know who it was at that point that was going
Speaker 2: to decide because the Military Distard Washington has a really
Speaker 2: weird like it's supposed to be an O six or higher,
Speaker 2: which was usually brigade commander who is the disposition authority,
Speaker 2: but not the general Court martial convenient authority, Like the
Speaker 2: Military District Washington has a really weird setup of who
Speaker 2: gets to decide. So I didn't really understand that at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: And this is I mean, it leads me scratching my
Speaker 3: head sort of as well. How this is all set up?
Speaker 3: Because Colonel Bowling was the installation commander out there at
Speaker 3: Point Base Myers. He's a former or he is a
Speaker 3: Special Forces officer, but he, as far as I know,
Speaker 3: he has no background as being a lawyer, a judge,
Speaker 3: or any sort of like legal background. Why is the
Speaker 3: installation commander? Why does he have purview over a probable
Speaker 3: cause hearing? Why? Uh? I mean, why does he even
Speaker 3: have this authority? How was he qualified to make a
Speaker 3: decision like that.
Speaker 2: That's a very interesting question. So, like I mean, I
Speaker 2: would say, from from my viewpoint, he doesn't. And then
Speaker 2: the manual for court martial would also say that it's
Speaker 2: not appropriate that he was in the mix at all.
Speaker 2: It's pretty clear about what they consider to be implied bias.
Speaker 2: And like for instance, with his with his background, he
Speaker 2: could not be on he could not be on a
Speaker 2: jury in a sexual assault trial. He would be dismissed
Speaker 2: because he could possibly be biased. But in this instance
Speaker 2: he was allowed to decide the whole case. And that's
Speaker 2: what So I found this. I found the dick Pick
Speaker 2: six article and this is this is the first time
Speaker 2: I came upon it at like probably within you know,
Speaker 2: twelve twenty four hours after the after I'd been notified
Speaker 2: the charges were dismissed, and I was like, oh, well no,
Speaker 2: and I was like immediately I was incensed, but I
Speaker 2: didn't really I didn't understand you see him JA very
Speaker 2: well at the time. So I kind of sent it
Speaker 2: to my lawyers and I was like, this, jack wagon,
Speaker 2: I can't believe this. And they didn't look at the
Speaker 2: article until much later when I brought it up again,
Speaker 2: and then they looked at it again and they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: hell no, this is this isn't you know? It's not legal.
Speaker 2: And to your question of why was he in the
Speaker 2: mix at all, well, most so, I've obviously since since
Speaker 2: this has all happened, I now know way more about
Speaker 2: the military justice system that I would ever care to
Speaker 2: hope for, uh hope to and uh they the military
Speaker 2: just Washington has a withholding policy, and I've since learned
Speaker 2: so I'm again I'm the reserves, like, we don't have
Speaker 2: court martials. This isn't something that I had ever come across.
Speaker 2: A general court martial convening authority withholding policy such that
Speaker 2: every senior enlisted and every officer. The disposition of those
Speaker 2: cases is the g C MCA, not the O six.
Speaker 2: So to your point, yeah, I don't. I think it's
Speaker 2: completely inappropriate that he was in the in the mix
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 3: So the uh, yeah, the Dick Picked six article. I
Speaker 3: published that like seven or eight years ago, the seventh
Speaker 3: Special Forces Group Sex and Blackmail network. That is a
Speaker 3: totally insane story that I interviewed people, and and what's
Speaker 3: in that story is like really only the half of it.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff that I didn't include, yeah,
Speaker 3: and things that you know, I couldn't anything I couldn't
Speaker 3: shore up, I didn't put in there. But there were
Speaker 3: there were definitely more people involved than were mentioned in there.
Speaker 3: There was additional crimes that were committed that are not
Speaker 3: mentioned in there. It's a it's a nasty story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so I I found that right away, and
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was like a legal issue for
Speaker 2: like a little while. And but when so right after,
Speaker 2: right after the charges were dismissed, I was, you know,
Speaker 2: I had found the article and I was just like
Speaker 2: pissed off, and that I think I was in Germany
Speaker 2: at the time on ty and I think that was
Speaker 2: the point where I connected with you because I was
Speaker 2: trying to figure out if there was anybody that would
Speaker 2: talk about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I remember that phone call because I didn't
Speaker 3: know who you were at all, but I remember you.
Speaker 3: You were very upset at the time, understandably, and I
Speaker 3: remember you tell me a little bit about what you
Speaker 3: had experienced, but without specifics. And I remember telling you
Speaker 3: because I I understand how these organizations will gaslight victims. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I remember, I remember telling you you're not crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: remember that, because they will make you feel crazy. They
Speaker 3: will make you feel like you're the one that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely that's That's definitely how it felt. And
Speaker 2: then like everything thereafter and like what's crazy is like
Speaker 2: if this was the worst part of the entire story,
Speaker 2: that would you know, we wouldn't have another however long
Speaker 2: in this podcast is going to be But there's more.
Speaker 3: But wait, there's more exactly.
Speaker 2: So so I found that out. I talked to you,
Speaker 2: and I think we were exploring the idea of writing
Speaker 2: a story about it, and I chickened out at least time.
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember you. Yeah, you kind of disappeared, and
Speaker 3: I understood why you know, you weren't you weren't ready.
Speaker 3: I get it, But I see, I didn't know the
Speaker 3: larger context. You told me that there's an assault Myers
Speaker 3: Fort Belvoir, like any of the names of the people
Speaker 3: in like, I didn't know any of that. So on
Speaker 3: my end, you were sort of like an anonymous victim
Speaker 3: that that came to me in the dark. And I
Speaker 3: really was like, I didn't know then there really there
Speaker 3: really wasn't anything else I could do with with that
Speaker 3: information at the time. Yeah, but we'll get to you know,
Speaker 3: this this journey that you took.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that I think when we spoke it was
Speaker 2: is I think sometime in November or early December of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, I believe, And so what what wound? What? Uh?
Speaker 2: I think Within twenty four hours of me having learned
Speaker 2: that the uh the charges were dismissed, I like I
Speaker 2: in my mind, I was like, well, I can probably
Speaker 2: get away with doing whatever the heck I want for
Speaker 2: about twenty four hours, so I called up Colonel Bowling
Speaker 2: and I asked, can I have an open door with you?
Speaker 2: And he hemmed in hot and eventually after me badgering
Speaker 2: him and after me emailing Major General Peppin and the army.
Speaker 2: What's that?
Speaker 3: Is it an open door policy or not exactly? That's
Speaker 3: another little game in military play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I emailed. I think I don't think
Speaker 2: I emailed this. I think the Vice chief of Staff.
Speaker 2: I cannot remember exactly who. But I emailed people I
Speaker 2: had no business emailing because I was like, this is
Speaker 2: your this is your install this is the Pentagon, Like,
Speaker 2: what the hell is it that you people are doing here?
Speaker 2: And I finally I got my open door meeting, and
Speaker 2: I let's see, it didn't take place because, like COVID
Speaker 2: was still a big thing at that time, So it
Speaker 2: didn't take place until January of twenty twenty three, at
Speaker 2: which time, my excuse me. The person I reported, the
Speaker 2: lieutenant colonel I had reported he had been retired by
Speaker 2: Colonel Bowling at that time by that time. And so
Speaker 2: I attended this meeting with myself my civilian attorney, and
Speaker 2: you know, Colonel Bowling was there, and then to two
Speaker 2: members of like the the jag staff, not one of
Speaker 2: one of them was the prosecutor, and then one of
Speaker 2: them was like the deputy the deputy jag I'm his
Speaker 2: name I'm blanking out his name right now. But you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't have any particular concerns with those people personally
Speaker 2: except that they were enforcing or they were they were
Speaker 2: allowing this to happen. So during this meeting, I, you know,
Speaker 2: with my attorney president, I basically asked questions. I I
Speaker 2: asked questions of like, you know, there was like a
Speaker 2: an MPO protective order that they basically slow rolled and
Speaker 2: then eventually denied. So I requested, like a change to
Speaker 2: a protective order. They deny it because nothing had happened
Speaker 2: therefore it was unnecessary. And I, you know, by this point,
Speaker 2: I'd looked up all the regulations and I knew the
Speaker 2: regulations then, like, I didn't believe that the guy was
Speaker 2: ever flagged appropriately. I believed that because because because ninety
Speaker 2: days went on and they were basically like not doing anything,
Speaker 2: and he was on terminal leave this entire time. So
Speaker 2: for them to have flagged him, I think they would
Speaker 2: have had to take him off termal leave. So I didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, I thought that maybe he wasn't flagged and
Speaker 2: the MPO and then and then we got to the
Speaker 2: Dick Pick six article, which I had a copy printed
Speaker 2: out in my hands, and I basically handed it to
Speaker 2: the prosecutor, to the to the deputy and and I,
Speaker 2: you know, we said, like, here's here's the last thing
Speaker 2: that we have questions about. You know, this, this article,
Speaker 2: according to what I can read in the manual for
Speaker 2: court martial, indicates that you shouldn't be you should not
Speaker 2: be anywhere near any sexual assault case because of implied
Speaker 2: bias like it. I mean, the manual for court martial
Speaker 2: is pretty clear that he, you know, he couldn't be
Speaker 2: on a on a jury, so a panel member, he
Speaker 2: couldn't be a part of that. So how can he
Speaker 2: decide the whole thing? How can he decide the whole case?
Speaker 2: And they ham did had said, oh, no, he's not bias,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and Colonel Bowling specifically, he like got up,
Speaker 2: stopped around the room and said that no, he was not,
Speaker 2: in fact biased. And I think I asked at one point, well, sir, like,
Speaker 2: how how did this article come to exist? Like how
Speaker 2: did this even come? You know, I was just kind
Speaker 2: of waiting to see what he'd say, and he just
Speaker 2: he looked at me and he said, well, I don't
Speaker 2: think I owe you an explanation, and I was just like, oh, wow, okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's interesting. So you feel entitled.
Speaker 3: I'm sure. I'm sure all that went over like a
Speaker 3: lead balloon.
Speaker 2: So another thing that I was at was asking in
Speaker 2: this meeting was did you look for other victims? Well?
Speaker 2: I met this person on a dating app, so I
Speaker 2: know you got the information from the app company, So
Speaker 2: did you look for other victims? That's where the other
Speaker 2: victims will be, and did you look for them? And
Speaker 2: when I asked this question, I had already sometime like
Speaker 2: over the Christmas holidays, I had texted with this officer's
Speaker 2: ex wife, like I and I initially like I I
Speaker 2: found her like on Facebook, and I just I I.
Speaker 3: Just like, look, I'm sorry, you're doing your own investigation
Speaker 3: because no one else will.
Speaker 2: And I kind of said like well, I was just
Speaker 2: kind of say like, hey, I'm like, I'm sorry for
Speaker 2: what you went through. And she had no idea of anything.
Speaker 2: I was kind of expecting some kind of response of like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's been really tough for us, blah blah blah. I
Speaker 2: was expecting something like that, but she had no idea
Speaker 2: that anything. I mean, she knew that something had gone
Speaker 2: on because she'd been contacted at some point, but nobody
Speaker 2: ever interviewed her, and nobody had interviewed the first ex wife.
Speaker 2: So there were two. And this the one that I
Speaker 2: spoke to, she kind of spilled the beans. She she
Speaker 2: told me that he had this person, this officer I reported,
Speaker 2: had a history of abusing both you know, both the
Speaker 2: you know her and then the previous ex wife and
Speaker 2: then his children. So she's I think a quote is
Speaker 2: he abused all of us. And then she told me
Speaker 2: that how they had met was, uh, that she was
Speaker 2: assigned to him when she was a cadet for training purposes.
Speaker 2: Is that's how she met him? And so I, you know,
Speaker 2: I knew that these so I knew that there were
Speaker 2: some kind of abuse allegations, but I didn't know what
Speaker 2: they were at that point. So I said, like, did
Speaker 2: you guys look for any other victims? And around the
Speaker 2: table there was just like crickets. Nobody would answer the question.
Speaker 2: And so then so we left and h then you know,
Speaker 2: we were told within a couple of days or maybybe
Speaker 2: maybe a week that the military just Washington felt that
Speaker 2: Colonel Bowling was not biased and therefore they were not
Speaker 2: going to pursue the matter further. So my attorney wrote
Speaker 2: a letter to Major General Peppen h requesting that the
Speaker 2: case be re viewed by somebody who did not have
Speaker 2: who did not have the potential or the appearance of bias.
Speaker 2: And so Major General Peppins response to receiving this letter
Speaker 2: was to request that oh Stick the office of Special
Speaker 2: Trial Council, who had basically just been stood up, to
Speaker 2: review the case independently and offer their opinion. And so
Speaker 2: they did that, and I this case was the first
Speaker 2: case in the United States Army that Ostick reviewed, like
Speaker 2: number one. They hadn't even hired, they didn't have lawyers
Speaker 2: hired yet. It was it was a civilian. It was
Speaker 2: a civilian who was standing up the case or standing
Speaker 2: up the office with like the the first. So the
Speaker 2: commander of the Special trialut councilor I think his name
Speaker 2: was Wells, I can't remember, I can't remember. But anyways,
Speaker 2: so she reviewed the case and at some point I
Speaker 2: met her, and at that point I basically said like, look,
Speaker 2: here's all of the here's all this other stuff. I
Speaker 2: don't know what this means, but this is this is
Speaker 2: what was told to me. That you know, there might
Speaker 2: be other abuse allegations out there, and so she, you know,
Speaker 2: she kind of takes that and runs with it. And
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly, like while all of this is
Speaker 2: going on, I'm you know, I'm kind of waiting for
Speaker 2: this investigation to take place. I filed an IG complaint
Speaker 2: because my you know, my opinion at that point was
Speaker 2: they've already said they don't want to do anything. They've
Speaker 2: already said they're not going to pursue the matter further,
Speaker 2: even though like the manual court martial is pretty clear
Speaker 2: that this is really inappropriate. And you know, then there
Speaker 2: was all the other issues that I told you about,
Speaker 2: like the flagging and the MPO and just random stuff
Speaker 2: that that I felt was a mislandling of a sexual
Speaker 2: assault case. So I filed an IG complaint against Colonel
Speaker 2: David Bowling, and that, like I filed it with a
Speaker 2: DoD ig highline that kind of hit their that hit
Speaker 2: the fan kind of quick like that, like my them
Speaker 2: receiving that that went around and around. It took six
Speaker 2: months between like MDW and MCom and the Department of
Speaker 2: the Army, Like nobody wanted it. They didn't want to,
Speaker 2: They not want to investigate this, like they kept trying
Speaker 2: to say that it was somebody else's jurisdiction. So six
Speaker 2: months goes on where I'm just like, Okay, are you
Speaker 2: going to investigate this or what? And it wound up
Speaker 2: going to the Military District Washington their I G And
Speaker 2: I knew I found this out because I called him
Speaker 2: and I said, look, have you received this? Are you
Speaker 2: investigating it? What's the deal? And he said, oh, I've
Speaker 2: received it. And I said, well, why are you going
Speaker 2: to Why is your office receiving it? Because you're going
Speaker 2: to investigate it. But the people that you have to
Speaker 2: investigate are the same ones that I have to adjudicate
Speaker 2: your findings. This is they're the same people that are
Speaker 2: that are potentially like part of the investigator. This is
Speaker 2: a conflict of interest, right. So then so then it
Speaker 2: got kicked back to like somebody else. Eventually the investigator
Speaker 2: was somebody from the the g NIE, so the g
Speaker 2: the h q T A G nine, they hold like
Speaker 2: sharp suicide Prevention, substance abuse, all of those like programs.
Speaker 2: It was somebody from that office. And to this day,
Speaker 2: I like, I don't have the results of that investigation.
Speaker 2: I have the results saying that it was unsubstantiated. But
Speaker 2: I don't have the results of it, which I will
Speaker 2: get into in a couple of minutes of why that's incredible.
Speaker 3: The results being they were saying that your claims were unsubstantiated.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the whole thing was unsubstantiated because it's perfectly
Speaker 2: they don't state the reason why. And I filed the
Speaker 2: foy foya like immediately, you know, so again, still I
Speaker 2: still don't have it. What ultimately wound up happening with
Speaker 2: this IG complaint. I'm just going to point this out
Speaker 2: so I can like kind of close out that part
Speaker 2: of the story was it wound up getting entered into evidence.
Speaker 2: This IG complaint was entered into evidence, and so the
Speaker 2: the officer I reported, the defense attorney requested it and
Speaker 2: he got it. So he's got it. The defense attorney
Speaker 2: has it, the results of the you know, IG complaint
Speaker 2: of a mishandling of sexual assault. The person I reported
Speaker 2: as having assaulted me has the results of this complaint
Speaker 2: two years later, you know, three years later, and I
Speaker 2: don't have it. I think that's just it's just bizarre
Speaker 2: to me. But in any case, so waiting around, waiting around.
Speaker 2: You know what, you know, what exactly is MDW going
Speaker 2: to do? I'm thinking they're going to do nothing. What
Speaker 2: actually what winds up happening is the UH Major General
Speaker 2: Peppin at about sixteen hundred, the day before has change
Speaker 2: of command in twenty twenty three, he's sends a response
Speaker 2: letter and I mean you can look at the dates
Speaker 2: of his change of command and the date on the
Speaker 2: response letter and it's literally the day before he sends
Speaker 2: it to my civilian attorney and saying, well, and I'm
Speaker 2: paraphrasing here, we don't really believe that Colonel Bowling has
Speaker 2: done anything improper, but out of an abundance of precaution,
Speaker 2: we're going to send the case to another GCMCA for
Speaker 2: any and all further action. When does the Army do
Speaker 2: anything out of an abundance of caution, particularly legal matters?
Speaker 2: Never like So, so they send it to Fort Belbar
Speaker 2: and then it like sits and sits and waiting for
Speaker 2: like a prosecutor to show up. And finally finally they
Speaker 2: have the people like assigned to like properly review it,
Speaker 2: and and I you know, I met with them. I
Speaker 2: think I get the I get the timeframes a little
Speaker 2: bit mixed up, but I met with them. I want
Speaker 2: to say it was in twenty twenty three, Okay, I
Speaker 2: want to say it was in the fall of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I think it got reviewed and then finally it got reviewed,
Speaker 2: and like I met with the prosecutor at Port Beobar,
Speaker 2: and like the first thing that they say is, well,
Speaker 2: are you still interested in pursuing the case, because we
Speaker 2: want to we want to pursue a court martial. And
Speaker 2: I almost fell out of my chair because this guy's
Speaker 2: retired at this point. And again, how often does the
Speaker 2: military ever ever pursue any charges against retirees I taken.
Speaker 3: A sexual assault, if I can add my two cents.
Speaker 3: I think what may may have been happening at that
Speaker 3: time is the military was getting some really bad press
Speaker 3: about violence against female soldiers and sex assaults. You remember
Speaker 3: the as one. Yeah, you know, all these kinds of
Speaker 3: stories were coming out, and there was a lot of
Speaker 3: political pressure on the military to start taking these investigations seriously.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so they said they wanted to pursue you know,
Speaker 2: court martials, court martial and I said, okay, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: by all means. And so they you know, they they
Speaker 2: pursued a court martial. They you know, they charged him
Speaker 2: as a retiree and let me see it. I think
Speaker 2: it wound up in the Stars and Stripes at some
Speaker 2: point at the point of I think at the point
Speaker 2: where it was officially charged, and it like it hit
Speaker 2: the It hit like the court martial database.
Speaker 3: When I read that article in Stars and Stripes, that's
Speaker 3: when like all this sort of clicked for me that
Speaker 3: I put two and two together because I've read in
Speaker 3: the article there's this assault that happened, you know, joint
Speaker 3: based Myers. You know, Colonel Dave Bowling may have done
Speaker 3: something wrong in dismissing the case, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And then it all came together. I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, that woman that called me those years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 3: googled Dave found me having written that article and then
Speaker 3: and reached out. And that's why you were reaching out
Speaker 3: to me. I didn't put two and two together until
Speaker 3: that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it, you know, it hit the Serves and
Speaker 2: Stripes and then you know, eventually they did a preliminary
Speaker 2: hearing shortly thereafter. And so this preliminary hearing at the
Speaker 2: time I was assigned in Germany. I went to Germany
Speaker 2: for about a year, I assisting assisting YUKOM European US
Speaker 2: European Command and doing like some functions as I was
Speaker 2: doing at for Belmore, but you know, for a for
Speaker 2: the active active component basically. And so I so I
Speaker 2: was listening in to this on like a team's call
Speaker 2: with like the second Special Victims Council. So they cycled
Speaker 2: in and out, you know, and at this point, I,
Speaker 2: you know, I've had I had PTSD like pretty much
Speaker 2: right away, and it by this point, it's just it's
Speaker 2: it's like ongoing, you know, it's just kind of continuous
Speaker 2: at this point. So I'm listening in on this team's
Speaker 2: call and they were the chart sheet. It it listed
Speaker 2: like there was chunks blocked off because there was another
Speaker 2: victim on the chart sheet. And but I didn't know
Speaker 2: who it was for sure. I had ideas of who
Speaker 2: it might be and what. Well I learned the team's
Speaker 2: call because they discussed the other charge. When they discussed
Speaker 2: all of you know, all of it with the preliminary
Speaker 2: hearing officer, and so they made a point to you know,
Speaker 2: to appoint an experienced preliminary hearing officer for this one,
Speaker 2: so that was a positive. He you know, he asked
Speaker 2: questions about the other charge specifically, was was he needing
Speaker 2: to be concerned about uh, like, uh, what's the word like?
Speaker 2: Parental discipline? So I guess as a parent you can
Speaker 2: use physical some a level of physical force to punish
Speaker 2: your child and discipline your child. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: he was asking questions like that because the other the
Speaker 2: other person that was named as a victim was the
Speaker 2: h at the time, the minor son of the officer
Speaker 2: I reported, and the details that I heard on this
Speaker 2: team's call was that there was some sort of like
Speaker 2: altercation where he hit the sun with a bottle of something,
Speaker 2: and then some altercation happened that resulted in like strangulation,
Speaker 2: and then the the then minor son fled to the
Speaker 2: neighbor's house and told somebody. And I missed this part
Speaker 2: of the told somebody that he felt like he was
Speaker 2: going to die, and so I was I was just like,
Speaker 2: oh my god. And then the date of when this
Speaker 2: transpired was three years prior to when I ever met
Speaker 2: this person on a dating app So I initially hearing this,
Speaker 2: I was kind of just like really kind of floored.
Speaker 2: Like I was just like, oh my gosh, but I
Speaker 2: was also sort of like I was right. I was,
Speaker 2: I was, I was exactly right. He's he's every bit
Speaker 2: of a violence. Like all of my instincts were right.
Speaker 2: And but then like it kind of hit me several
Speaker 2: days later that this meant that number one, the Army
Speaker 2: could have Okay, I missed, I missed one of the points.
Speaker 2: What was also discussed was that when this altercation occurred,
Speaker 2: it went through it went through the Virginia court system,
Speaker 2: and the officer I reported pled no contest to domestic
Speaker 2: violence in a court in the state of Virginia, and
Speaker 2: in Virginia it's that's the same as a conviction. So
Speaker 2: this person was walking around the Pentagon for three years
Speaker 2: before I ever met him with a domestic violence conviction,
Speaker 2: well the same plating no contest, it's the same as
Speaker 2: a conviction with at TSSI and the military did nothing
Speaker 2: with that, like and so what started to sink in
Speaker 2: for me was, well, number one, you could have prevented it,
Speaker 2: and you didn't. And then when I reported it, even
Speaker 2: if even if you didn't believe me for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: you still did nothing with this other this other victim
Speaker 2: that was out there and instead you just you just
Speaker 2: slap a bow on him and retired him. And so
Speaker 2: like there's the get I mean, I was kind of
Speaker 2: just disgusted at that point that I had and like
Speaker 2: a year and a half of my life gone because
Speaker 2: and then not only that, but like Colonel Bowling, who
Speaker 2: was the one that did it, Dick pick six is
Speaker 2: the one that signed off on all this. It was
Speaker 2: just the most It was disgusting to me that that
Speaker 2: that can happen at the Pentagon because if that's happening
Speaker 2: to me, and I mean, I I'm not the smartest
Speaker 2: person in the world, but I have two degrees, I
Speaker 2: had access to multiple lawyers, and I did this because
Speaker 2: this is what the Army tells us that they want
Speaker 2: us to do. So if this is happening to me,
Speaker 2: you know, with oh stick being involved, what else is
Speaker 2: happening out there? For like young soldiers, right, they don't
Speaker 2: know to do all this. They don't have like twenty
Speaker 2: years of experience where they, you know, a little light
Speaker 2: can go on in the back of their head and go,
Speaker 2: something's not right here, getting I'm getting a shade shoddy deal.
Speaker 2: They don't have that experience to make to recognize that
Speaker 2: when it happens. And I mean I can tell you
Speaker 2: that like what you probably also experience, you know, talking
Speaker 2: to other like victims of sexual violence and domestic violence,
Speaker 2: is there's a lot of like there's like a shame component.
Speaker 2: So if somebody tells you it's your fault or they
Speaker 2: can't do anything or blah blah blah, it's sort of
Speaker 2: like you don't want to believe it. But then there's
Speaker 2: part of you that just sort of repeats that lie
Speaker 2: to yourself over and over again. It's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like the shame part of it. So, I mean
Speaker 2: that's a really big part of why I'm glad to
Speaker 2: be coming on your podcast today is because this can
Speaker 2: happen to me, Like I cannot imagine what's happening for
Speaker 2: specialists twenty you know, twenty year olds going through this.
Speaker 2: So let's see here. Okay, So after you know he's
Speaker 2: charged a second time, then there's like a series of
Speaker 2: like motions, there's a there's a trial schedule, the trial
Speaker 2: winds up getting delayed and delayed. There at a certain point,
Speaker 2: there's like a plea agreement offered and I reject it.
Speaker 2: Outright because they wanted to call it conduct becoming. They
Speaker 2: wanted to take sexual assault all the way down to
Speaker 2: conduct on becoming. And I was like, no, No, If
Speaker 2: you say that it's conduct on becoming because he's actually
Speaker 2: assaulted me, that's fine, But otherwise no. During one of
Speaker 2: the one of the motions, Colonel Bowling was was listed
Speaker 2: as a witness to testify, and I like the attorney,
Speaker 2: I mean the defense attorney I think was going to
Speaker 2: make it was going to make this. I think what
Speaker 2: was going to happen is he was going to try
Speaker 2: to make this like side show of like it's not
Speaker 2: about that, it's about Colonel Bowling. I think he was
Speaker 2: going to do that. And I think Colonel Bowling was
Speaker 2: going to testify to the effect of how awful it
Speaker 2: was for having his promotion packet delayed all this time,
Speaker 2: and how awful that was for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean taking it from you know, the real
Speaker 3: victims or actually all of these officers who were mightily
Speaker 3: inconvenienced by these allegations that you made.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So and so I think also that had something
Speaker 2: to do of why the case ultimately got dismissed. So
Speaker 2: the case ultimately was dismissed a month before the trial
Speaker 2: was scheduled, So there was a trial scheduled in January
Speaker 2: of excuse me, there was a trial schedule for February
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five, and it was dismissed in January,
Speaker 2: and they were citing evidentiary concerns, and they also wouldn't
Speaker 2: say what exactly the evidentiary concerns were. And in my mind,
Speaker 2: I just I don't believe it. I don't believe that
Speaker 2: you charge a retiree for a crime that occurred, you know,
Speaker 2: two and a half years prior, and then a month
Speaker 2: before the trial dismissed the case because you're concerned about evidence.
Speaker 2: I think what what I think what happened is that
Speaker 2: they knew that this was going to be some sort
Speaker 2: of circus. I think it was. I think it was
Speaker 2: because it was related to that I told you so.
Speaker 2: I told you before, like my IG complaint naming Colonel Bowling.
Speaker 2: Colonel Bowling was all over it. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: one hundred percent against him and nobody else that was
Speaker 2: in the evidence, and it like I think the defense
Speaker 2: attorney was going to make it about that so that
Speaker 2: they could get, you know, the guy off I think
Speaker 2: the other thing that like what was going on was
Speaker 2: so I told you there was quote unquote concerns about evidence,
Speaker 2: but they also weren't saying what evidence they were keeping out.
Speaker 2: So with all the motions, they can be like motion
Speaker 2: to dismiss because of blah, motion to exclude evidence because
Speaker 2: of blah blah blah. Well what you might already know this,
Speaker 2: Like I'm guessing you have some you have some experience
Speaker 2: like working with people that in the U cum J.
Speaker 2: Like you have some experience, it sounds like where and
Speaker 2: they don't have to they don't have to provide those motions.
Speaker 2: So I would say a comparison is the federal the
Speaker 2: federal court system. Every time something happens in one of
Speaker 2: these cases that the president is involved in or even like, uh,
Speaker 2: you know that that the guy that shot the or
Speaker 2: allegedly shot the healthcare CEO. Yes, and he's being he's
Speaker 2: being prosecuted. You can look online and you can find
Speaker 2: out the last motion his attorney filed to exclude evidence.
Speaker 3: You can find that because because we don't have secret
Speaker 3: trials in this country, like supposed to be public.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it is public immediately. Like that's how like
Speaker 2: for an attorney to file emotion, it becomes immediately public.
Speaker 2: But the military doesn't do that. And it's not because
Speaker 2: they're not supposed to do it. It's not because that
Speaker 2: there's any like there's I mean, these aren't classified. This
Speaker 2: is not classified information. It's not. The hearings are open
Speaker 2: to the public, and it should be public, like the
Speaker 2: motions should be public. Because a judge is explaining, he's
Speaker 2: explaining the law, he's explaining how he's implementing the law,
Speaker 2: they should be public.
Speaker 3: Sidebar on that is that obviously, because again we don't
Speaker 3: have secret trials in this country. Court martial transcripts are
Speaker 3: supposed to be made available to the public, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't like an automatic thing necessarily, but you file Foyer
Speaker 3: report and you can get a court martial transcript back
Speaker 3: the last like maybe three years or so, the military
Speaker 3: is not even releasing court martial transcripts. They behave as
Speaker 3: if they're classified. You can go in physically to the
Speaker 3: hearing and listen into what's being said. But after the
Speaker 3: trials complete, if you request those transcripts of it, they
Speaker 3: start citing the Privacy Act. They start citing that the
Speaker 3: trial it just ended. But the case is still in appeals,
Speaker 3: so we can't release it. Like they're literally making stuff
Speaker 3: up because they don't want to release that information to
Speaker 3: the public. And as far as I can tell, that's illegal.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it's an illegal act for them to
Speaker 3: withhold that information from the public.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is they just I mean, you're absolutely correct,
Speaker 2: they just cite Privacy Act or I mean there is
Speaker 2: a law that there's a law that directs the Secretary
Speaker 2: of Defense to define institute specific policies and procedures related
Speaker 2: to making information available to the public. There's also Defense
Speaker 2: Advisory Committees, which our Secretary of Defense is to dismissed
Speaker 2: all of the members of all these advisory committees. But
Speaker 2: these advisory committees review u CMJ on an ongoing basis,
Speaker 2: like every five years, they look at the u CMJ
Speaker 2: and they recommend, well, we should change this, we should
Speaker 2: change that, you know, we should change how this hearing
Speaker 2: is structured, what like little things. What they recently suggested
Speaker 2: was all of all of these things that we're talking about,
Speaker 2: is that Congress should I mean, this is like I
Speaker 2: want to say, either December of twenty twenty four or
Speaker 2: January of twenty twenty five. Their recommendations for the changes
Speaker 2: to u CMJ included Congress should blah blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. And there's information in there about victims rights.
Speaker 2: There's information in there about making court filings, all of
Speaker 2: all court filings pre and post trial available to the public,
Speaker 2: in the same manner as as they call it, the
Speaker 2: PACER systems, in the same manner as all the other
Speaker 2: court cases in the country. So it's out there. It's
Speaker 2: just being ignored, which I and okay, the let me
Speaker 2: see here. Okay, I guess I need to wrap up
Speaker 2: some of the stuff I got. I got a long tangent. Okay,
Speaker 2: so it again. The the got dismissed, and I like
Speaker 2: went out of my way to ask questions because I
Speaker 2: can't complain about not getting something unless I unless I
Speaker 2: ask for it, and I don't receive it. So I
Speaker 2: asked the Office's Special Trial Council, like, what's you know?
Speaker 2: You believed in the case back then? Why aren't you?
Speaker 2: Will you take it now? And so then that meeting
Speaker 2: was very interesting. That meeting was pretty interesting. Prior to
Speaker 2: that meeting, I attended another trial because my attorney the
Speaker 2: civilian attorney I worked with. He like was the attorney
Speaker 2: for another trial US versus John Batt. So you may
Speaker 2: or may not be familiar with that case, but that
Speaker 2: person was that officer. He was a major assigned in
Speaker 2: the Military District of Washington, and Colonel Bowling was the
Speaker 2: initial disposition authority when some of those cases were initially reported.
Speaker 2: And that case went to trial I think in like
Speaker 2: June maybe of twenty twenty five, so it was local.
Speaker 2: It was at Fort Mead. So I went to it.
Speaker 2: My attorney suggested it. He's like, if you wanted to
Speaker 2: learn more about all of this, you know, this is
Speaker 2: what you don't get or this is what you didn't
Speaker 2: get basically, so I did out of curiosity, and I
Speaker 2: what struck me immediately was well, the defense attorney was
Speaker 2: the same attorney for my case, like soame same guy.
Speaker 2: And then it also, like the timelines was some of
Speaker 2: the victims was Colonel Bowling was the initial disposition authority
Speaker 2: for those victims. And then I realized there's I mean,
Speaker 2: there's public information out there about John Batt and he
Speaker 2: was able to he was able to go to the
Speaker 2: U what is the Command Selection School? I forgot what
Speaker 2: it's called be CAP. He was able to go to
Speaker 2: be CAP and also make the promotion list for H
Speaker 2: five while he was being investigated for sexual assault. So
Speaker 2: I was just he was also like his previous duty
Speaker 2: assignment was a seventy fifth agent regiment, so I was
Speaker 2: just like kind of really floored. I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, like Number I was absolutely right, like all
Speaker 2: all of these things where I was like, oh, they
Speaker 2: didn't flag him right, and blah blah blah. I was
Speaker 2: right about all that stuff. But was also really interesting
Speaker 2: was watching this trial where this guy, you know, what
Speaker 2: the other victims were saying was he was like a
Speaker 2: serial rapist and strangled people. Pretty gruesome stuff. There were
Speaker 2: fifteen victims in that case. But what was bizarre to
Speaker 2: see was they met the guy the same way they
Speaker 2: met him on a dating app. And like when I compared,
Speaker 2: So I'm not an attorney, but I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: a pretty smart person. And when I compared what I
Speaker 2: knew as evidence in my own case and then I
Speaker 2: compare the evidence of like each individual, you know case,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, the evidence in my case was better.
Speaker 2: So I went, you know, when I had this meeting
Speaker 2: with Ostick I kind of brought that up. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: the evidence in my case was better than any one
Speaker 2: of those individual like reports of rape that you just
Speaker 2: prosecuted and you won and the guy got sentenced to
Speaker 2: fifty years, So what the heck? And they kind of said, like, well,
Speaker 2: there was only one of you, and there were fifteen
Speaker 2: of them in that case, and there was only one
Speaker 2: of you that was the that was like them. I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 2: but that was the gist of the discussion. And so
Speaker 2: I mean, again, like I'm grateful that I can talk
Speaker 2: about this with you because on you know, on a platform,
Speaker 2: because because Ostick hasn't solved like there's I mean, we've
Speaker 2: just listed off like dozens of things, right We've just
Speaker 2: talked about dozens of things that that O Stick was
Speaker 2: never going to the Office's Special Trial Council was never
Speaker 2: going to be able to solve lots of these things
Speaker 2: that that we've listed out, And you know, now military
Speaker 2: sexual assault is like it's no longer on Congress's radar,
Speaker 2: and obviously, like I know the world has a lot
Speaker 2: of things to deal with right now. Arguably, we you know,
Speaker 2: need to figure out what we're doing as a country
Speaker 2: in order to deal with military sexual assault. Right, But
Speaker 2: I suppose I just, you know, I'm grateful to have
Speaker 2: this platform just to be able to talk about some
Speaker 2: of the stuff.
Speaker 3: And you then, you know, kind of the case got
Speaker 3: dismissed the second time you went through the appeals process,
Speaker 3: kind of the last it seems like maybe the last
Speaker 3: thing you tried to do is to go to Congress.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I asked some really specific things, such as, you know,
Speaker 2: how how is a rape victim supposed to be able
Speaker 2: to report her rape or his or her you know,
Speaker 2: or sexual assault to knowing that the person's you know,
Speaker 2: the person they're reporting to is nicknamed Dick pick six
Speaker 2: and and or you know, the Secretary of Defense is
Speaker 2: a conveniing authority position. I'm just throwing that out there.
Speaker 2: It is, so I asked some really specific questions of like,
Speaker 2: you know, when are you when are you going to
Speaker 2: appoint members to the advisory committees that recommend, you know,
Speaker 2: updates and changes to how sexual assault cases are prosecuted.
Speaker 2: When are you going to do these things? I was
Speaker 2: blown off. I I think I's not you like that response. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was summarily blown off. So I you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's I mean, that's where it is right now. Again,
Speaker 2: like I I understand that the country has lots of
Speaker 2: things to contend with right now, but the Secretary of
Speaker 2: Defense is harming more than he is helping this this
Speaker 2: issue of sexual assault. So the congressional inquiry, it did
Speaker 2: go to Senator Earned, Senator Gillibrand, you know, with citing
Speaker 2: your article all over the place, and supposedly they reviewed it,
Speaker 2: and they reviewed the contents of it with the Senate
Speaker 2: Armed Services Committee Personnel Subcommittee, and Major General Peppin is
Speaker 2: still out there in some command position, I believe, so
Speaker 2: I I yeah, from a personal standpoint, I'm not quite
Speaker 2: sure where I'm going after this, but definitely some kind
Speaker 2: of like advocacy of some sort in the future.
Speaker 3: So you're recently separated from the military, and I know,
Speaker 3: I mean, on one hand, you have these experiences that
Speaker 3: you know sway you in one direction. But I mean
Speaker 3: you're in a much better place to have some perspective
Speaker 3: on this than I am. What do you think is
Speaker 3: the current feelings of female service members today about this issue?
Speaker 3: You know, sort of like what's it like being a
Speaker 3: woman working on a military installation in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Let me see, So I was assigned well to read
Speaker 2: for a chunk of time, and every time, I mean
Speaker 2: every time I was asked how I felt in a
Speaker 2: command climate survey, I would say that I was. I
Speaker 2: was very bothered by the fact that trends people are
Speaker 2: getting kicked out, that black and female general officers are
Speaker 2: being fired. And I mean, I've I had people tell
Speaker 2: me that Secretary of Defense heg Seth's meeting at Fort
Speaker 2: Belvoir when he brought all the generals in. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a quote from a friend who said, I
Speaker 2: don't know how anybody could take that as being basically
Speaker 2: just a dog whistle for sexual assault. That was this person's.
Speaker 2: That was a friend of mine's interpretation. So I hmm,
Speaker 2: let me see other other service members that have experiences
Speaker 2: that I've that I've talked to. I will refer to
Speaker 2: that bat case John Batt. Fourteen of the of the
Speaker 2: fifteen victims that participated in the trial were civilians. And
Speaker 2: this case went to trial because a group of civilians
Speaker 2: got on a Facebook page and talked about who was
Speaker 2: raping everyone one So they're obviously like, you know, fifteen people,
Speaker 2: well he he didn't just start doing that yesterday. He
Speaker 2: was assigned in the Military District Washington for probably two
Speaker 2: and a half years, three years before you got before
Speaker 2: you got court martialed. There was one and I think
Speaker 2: somebody that was close to the case told me that
Speaker 2: she thought that maybe the only reason that that victim
Speaker 2: was included was so that it didn't look like it
Speaker 2: was a bunch of civilians and no female service members.
Speaker 2: So there were What I'm saying is that there were
Speaker 2: female service members, lots of them chose not to participate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it says something of itself.
Speaker 2: I Yeah, I think it. Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: It kind of says a lot when we've supposedly got
Speaker 2: this great system set up in the Office of Special
Speaker 2: Trial Council is advertising. They're advertising that case as being like, well,
Speaker 2: this is evidence that this will not be tolerated. We
Speaker 2: don't tolerate this in our military. They cited this case
Speaker 2: as evidence of that. But I looked at it and
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, so you mean you mean the
Speaker 2: case where ninety eight percent of the victims or civilians
Speaker 2: that's the case that you're citing, is no tolerance, none
Speaker 2: of many.
Speaker 3: There's so many women coming forward that they couldn't deny it,
Speaker 3: they couldn't hide from it at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So in any case, I I suppose, like
Speaker 2: having gone through this, I feel like, like like the
Speaker 2: meme where you can take like the red pillar or
Speaker 2: the blue pill, like I took the pill and now
Speaker 2: I know what's behind the curtain, and I can't ever
Speaker 2: I can't ever not know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like I never would have imagined that
Speaker 2: all of the all of the politics that exist in
Speaker 2: the military about you know, even like the IG, even
Speaker 2: the way decisions are made, who gets promoted, who doesn't,
Speaker 2: who gets assigned to special command positions. I never dreamed
Speaker 2: that the same politics exist in who gets court markeial
Speaker 2: for sexual assault and who doesn't. They absolutely exist. I
Speaker 2: think a few other things.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's how well connected that officer is.
Speaker 2: A few other things that shared with me in that
Speaker 2: meeting was, you know, they they they provide extra scrutiny
Speaker 2: for anyone who's five and above automatically that that charge
Speaker 2: decision is afforded extra scrutiny. They also shared with me
Speaker 2: that they didn't believe that panel members, so the jury members,
Speaker 2: would convict someone with who was retirement eligible, and that
Speaker 2: goes into their charting decisions. So these are all like
Speaker 2: the same things that we all sort of think, and
Speaker 2: they said them aloud.
Speaker 3: And things that are immaterial to a crime. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I think, unfortunately, you know, your story is emblematic in
Speaker 3: how many of these officers close ranks and protect one
Speaker 3: another when push comes to shove. Yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 2: Sad, and I mean the way that it's done. It Like,
Speaker 2: I mean, what was what was also interesting watching the
Speaker 2: bat trial was I was watching like the same thing
Speaker 2: that happened to me, where you know, I read all
Speaker 2: this stuff about like a rape myth after rape myth
Speaker 2: just kind of tied together and let's just fling a
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff against the wall and call it legal,
Speaker 2: you know, call it a legal justification or a legal position.
Speaker 2: Let's And I was watching that for you know, fifteen
Speaker 2: other people, one right after the other. And then I
Speaker 2: think the other thing that I noticed a lot of
Speaker 2: was all of the victim's rights. So if you are
Speaker 2: a victim of a crime, you automatically get you get
Speaker 2: this little pamphlet and it says here's your rights. Like
Speaker 2: seventy percent of the time and this was just interesting
Speaker 2: because there were so many people. Seventy percent of the time,
Speaker 2: whenever there was like a conflict between the perpetrator's rights
Speaker 2: versus the victim, the judge was favoring the perpetrator. The
Speaker 2: John batt the individual accused of the crime, like seventy
Speaker 2: percent of the time if there was like a conflict
Speaker 2: between the two, he would side with the perpetrator. So
Speaker 2: I think, I'm what I'm getting at is that we
Speaker 2: were allowing this. We are setting the conditions to allow
Speaker 2: these rape myths to drive, charging decisions to drive. If
Speaker 2: people don't get charged, then everybody thinks, well, the problem
Speaker 2: isn't that bad. And if the problem is not that bad,
Speaker 2: well then probably that person's just they're just they're exaggerating
Speaker 2: their stories. And if the evidence doesn't wind up going
Speaker 2: into the trial, well you think will There's only one person.
Speaker 2: It's like a self flicking ice cream cone, and the
Speaker 2: legal apparatus is there to allow for it to happen.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm That was my takeaway of all of this.
Speaker 2: And so again like I you know, I took the
Speaker 2: pill and I can't unknow any of this anymore. But
Speaker 2: I don't think that younger female service members do not
Speaker 2: understand like that.
Speaker 3: That was actually that was going to be one of
Speaker 3: my my next questions here, Bethany's what would you say
Speaker 3: to a seventeen year old in high school or a
Speaker 3: twenty one year old in ROTC, a younger person female,
Speaker 3: specifically a woman that's thinking about joining the military, what
Speaker 3: advice would you give them?
Speaker 2: Five years ago, I would have said, I would have
Speaker 2: like supported it. Five years ago, we were kind of
Speaker 2: going in the right direction. Okay, five years well, five
Speaker 2: years ago was twenty twenty, the implementation the Office of
Speaker 2: Special Trial Council. I would have supported it at that time.
Speaker 2: And now I would say, no, this is this is
Speaker 2: not like these are years of my life I can't
Speaker 2: get back. Even if even if I hadn't like dug
Speaker 2: my heels in and said like no, I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not backing down. The Army is gonna they're going to
Speaker 2: go through this until it's done. It's it's not going
Speaker 2: to be me that is the person that decides that
Speaker 2: all this is over. If I even if I hadn't
Speaker 2: done that, well, I was still exposed to a person
Speaker 2: that should have been kicked out three years before I
Speaker 2: met him and assaulted. Even if I hadn't participated in
Speaker 2: the court martial process at all, that still happened. And
Speaker 2: then when I reported it, people covered it up. So no,
Speaker 2: I would not recommend. I my goodness, I think I
Speaker 2: have like twenty twenty five nieces and nephews right now.
Speaker 2: I would not I would not recommend to pursue military service,
Speaker 2: especially not now, especially not so.
Speaker 3: And that's reflected in the recruitment numbers, and especially a
Speaker 3: lot of those of us who are veterans are not
Speaker 3: encouraging their children to join the military, and I think
Speaker 3: it's reflective also in public approval polls of the US
Speaker 3: military are at its lowest point. I think since like
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight. It's kind of been precedented, and it's unfortunate.
Speaker 3: It shouldn't be like that, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: things that you've been talking about on this show, Beth
Speaker 3: and A. It's very frustrating for me as sort of
Speaker 3: an outside observer of some of these things, because these
Speaker 3: are problems that do have many of them have solutions.
Speaker 3: I mean, getting to justice is Getting to justice is
Speaker 3: difficult sometimes a lot of times it is. It's a
Speaker 3: tough process. But there are solutions to many of these
Speaker 3: things that you've mentioned. Many of these like bureaucratic hurdles
Speaker 3: that don't work, they don't make sense, and we could
Speaker 3: have resolved them. Man, we could have resolved a lot
Speaker 3: of this stuff in like the nineteen nineties if we
Speaker 3: wanted to. But then you see all these like scandals
Speaker 3: coming out and women being murdered, sex assaults, and the
Speaker 3: public becomes very aware of it. And even then, as
Speaker 3: you point out, the military has still not fixed these problems,
Speaker 3: and they will gaslight victims but also gaslight the American
Speaker 3: public and tell them in these hearings we're doing things,
Speaker 3: We're fixing this. We found no malfeasance in our ranks,
Speaker 3: no ethical concerns at all, et cetera, et cetera. I mean,
Speaker 3: just going through their teeth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. I mean the SHARP program. They tell
Speaker 2: you that every I mean, you get a briefing every year,
Speaker 2: and it tells you that there's no tolerance for sexual
Speaker 2: assault and sexual harassment. So you believe it. And I
Speaker 2: believed it for twenty years. Twenty years. I believe that,
Speaker 2: And I like Tailhook was tail Hook was thirty years ago,
Speaker 2: and we're still screwing around with the same the same
Speaker 2: problems that have solutions that in any case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Bethany, tell us, you know, you're recently separated
Speaker 3: from the military, if you're want to, you want to
Speaker 3: tell us kind of like where you're at now, where
Speaker 3: you planning to go in the future, as far as
Speaker 3: your plans.
Speaker 2: Let me see, So I have a civilian job that
Speaker 2: I went back to. I'm going to refrain from mentioning
Speaker 2: my employer on this podcast, but you know, I work
Speaker 2: in I work in a like a financial analyst capacity,
Speaker 2: and I enjoy it it. I I also, you know,
Speaker 2: I do want to pivot toward some kind of advocacy
Speaker 2: at some point. And I think, you know, I'm very
Speaker 2: newly separated. So what I didn't realize that getting out
Speaker 2: is kind of like a it's kind of it's a
Speaker 2: big life change, and I you know, it's twenty you know,
Speaker 2: twenty two years of my life. I've always been accountable
Speaker 2: to a commander somewhere and I'm not now. And it's
Speaker 2: a really good feeling. I have to I have to
Speaker 2: say or just to be able to talk about some
Speaker 2: of the things, to be able to go on this
Speaker 2: podcast and talk about what I dislike about what the
Speaker 2: government did or didn't do. Just the ability to do
Speaker 2: that is really refreshing. So I would say, yeah, like,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm intending to pursue some kind of advocacy in
Speaker 2: this space, and I'm still trying to I'm figuring out
Speaker 2: what that means. Still still I'm figuring out what that
Speaker 2: looks like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as you're saying this, I can think of
Speaker 3: a couple of people I'd like to put you in
Speaker 3: touch with too that you know what. One one woman
Speaker 3: in particular, went through absolute you know hell in the military.
Speaker 3: She was the spouse of a soldier, but she's in
Speaker 3: a advocacy and is doing much much better today. I'd
Speaker 3: love to put you guys in touch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, I would appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Any any other final thoughts before we get going for
Speaker 3: tonight again, And I really appreciate you coming on the
Speaker 3: show and speaking so candidly about you know what is
Speaker 3: a very difficult subject. There's no getting around that.
Speaker 2: I think, like, aside from the need for further legislation,
Speaker 2: A big part of why I decided to speak about this,
Speaker 2: if and when I had the opportunity to do so
Speaker 2: was that when I was going through it, I read
Speaker 2: everything that I could get my hands on. I read
Speaker 2: probably a lot. I read lots of your articles about
Speaker 2: these issues. I read any other experience that another service
Speaker 2: member had going through this, and I couldn't I couldn't
Speaker 2: find a lot. I couldn't find very much that was
Speaker 2: like recent that of somebody that had gotten through this
Speaker 2: like recently. And I mean a lot of people never
Speaker 2: speak out about it at all. So I decided really
Speaker 2: early on, like if I had the opportunity to do so,
Speaker 2: I'm doing that because when I was going through this
Speaker 2: and I was absorbing all this, you know, everybody else's experiences,
Speaker 2: it made me feel less alone. So that's the other
Speaker 2: big piece, you know, is that if you are going
Speaker 2: through this, you're not alone. It's not you. You're probably
Speaker 2: being gas lit every which way to Sunday. It's not you.
Speaker 2: It this is this is a The SHARP program has
Speaker 2: come a long way, but but there's still so many
Speaker 2: more things that could be that could be improved upon
Speaker 2: and allowing for somebody to go through this and have
Speaker 2: a better experience as opposed to just ensuring that justice
Speaker 2: has served for the perpetrator. So that's it. Thank you Jack.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you allowing me to come on here.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Bethany.
Speaker 2: It's so wild to like, you know, this has been
Speaker 2: like three years of my life and a lot of
Speaker 2: it started from your article.
Speaker 3: So yeah, now I'm I'm sorry to hear all of this,
Speaker 3: and you know, I hope that you're able to find
Speaker 3: a little bit of closure through telling your story publicly
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, absolutely, yes, you have no idea.
Speaker 3: And yet everyone else I'm watching this, listening to this.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us tonight. I hope you'll share
Speaker 3: this with other service members or potential service members in
Speaker 3: your life. It's important information. As Bethany mentions hire a
Speaker 3: civilian attorney, that's an important and otherwise we will see
Speaker 3: all of you guys on the next show. Thank you
Speaker 3: for joining us, and thank you Bethany.
Speaker 2: Thank you Jack. Have a good one.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, I want to tell all of you today
Speaker 3: about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both
Speaker 3: the Teamhouse podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the high
Speaker 3: Side News outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. Uh.
Speaker 3: The newsletter is gonna be once a week it's gonna
Speaker 3: come into your inbox and you're gonna get the most
Speaker 3: current podcasts on eyes On and the Teamhouse and whatever's
Speaker 3: topical or current on the high side. So it's another
Speaker 3: way for us to get the information out to you
Speaker 3: as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never
Speaker 3: really know what you're gonna get. So this is a
Speaker 3: once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and
Speaker 3: it will have you know the greatest hits of that week.
Speaker 3: It's really good checking it out. The website for it
Speaker 3: is Teamhouse Podcast dot kit dot com, slash Join, Teamhouse
Speaker 3: Podcast dot kit dot com slash Join. You go there
Speaker 3: and you enter into your email list or you enter
Speaker 3: your email into you uh the little thing on the
Speaker 3: website and you're good to go. And that'll be it.
Speaker 3: So we really appreciate your support and I hope you'll
Speaker 3: consider signing up. Where's the link. The link will also
Speaker 3: be down the description if you're looking for it there,
Speaker 3: and that's Teamhouse Podcast, dot Kit, k I t Kilo India,
Speaker 3: Tango dot com backslash joint