Biden backs major changes in way military investigates sexual assault
CBSN
President Joe Biden has formally approved a report calling for major changes in the way the military investigates sexual assaults within the ranks. The report amounts to a vote of no-confidence in the mostly male leaders of the American military to combat sexual assault.
According to the report, roughly 135,000 active duty service members have been sexually assaulted since 2010. Among many of its "hard truths," consider this damning sentence: "Military leadership has failed America's daughters and sons, and the service members know it."Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.