I took an Oath to protect the Constitution. Now here are my Constitutional rights. Written by Isabella Francis Mazotti
Here is a list of the military’s worst rape apologists. Names would be added as we receive them:
Commander Joseph Segalla, United States Coast Guard (retired)
Petty Officer Johan Hullien, United States Navy (separated from service)
Petty Officer Federico G Sanchez, United States Coast Guard (active)
Captain Scott Keene, United States Coast Guard (retired)
Lt. Commander Patricia Tutalo, United States Coast Guard (active)
Major General Joseph C. Carter, Massachusetts National Guard (on leave pending investigation)
Lieutenant Commander Patricia J. Tutalo (Patti Tutalo) of the United States Coast Guard is accused by dozens of service members and veterans for violating their human and civil rights. More to come soon.
The above screen shot was part of the OFFICIAL Coast Guard blog with a comment written by someone claiming to be a military sexual trauma survivor of the United States Coast Guard. They sign their name only as “Coast Guard veteran” and then went on from what I can see be a very sad but respectful post on how they’ll be marching in a veterans’ day parade waving a Coast Guard flag. “Coast Guard Veteran” wrote about MST veterans being shun out of service and how they may not feel that they have earned the title of veteran and that they indeed should be honored and respected like all other Honorable Discharged veterans.
Chris Lagan, United States Coast Guard public affairs, then went on and said because this veteran did not state his/her name that it can not and will not be approved to be posted on the Coast Guard blog. Okay, fine even though I did just went on the blog and there are MANY others who sign their names as “a veteran” or “wife of a BM2″ those are fine but “Coast Guard veteran” which is not offensive or anything at all is not okay?
Well that is the minor of the two issues. What is the bigger problem is how he automatically assumed that it was a false accusations. You do not know who this veteran is. You do not know their name. You do not know his/her story. You do not know if they were telling the truth. You do not know a damm thing about them since you already alleged that you can not approve the post since it was ‘anonymous’.
Christopher, what is your obsession on telling rape survivors that they are liars? Most women who are raped are raped and false accusations are very rare. However in the Coast Guard, 92% of women are involuntarily discharged from service but not before being told that they are “crazy, lying, whores” and this is no different. Chris Lagan, you said that this survivor posted anonymously so what do you know about them to cry false accusation?
As for the attack of the service claim. What it an attack that she or he is proudly representing the Coast Guard in a veteran day parade. Is it an attack that we should not forget those who been raped in the service and they are veterans like the rest of us?
Now that it is sexual assault awareness month and he is once again making a fool of himself by dismissing sexual assault and rape survivors-including those that are using their full name to say that they have been raped. Is saying that you have been raped an attack on the service? I feel the opposite is, allowing our brave service members to suffer in silence and those who are speaking out to be dismissed is an attack on the people who are serving. Assuming that anyone that come forward, even if you don’t know their name, that they are lying about an assault or lying about being discharged from service is an attack on those who are serving and have been raped. Numerous studies show that 92% of all rape survivors in the Coast Guard are INVOLUNTARILY DISCHARGED FROM SERVICE and this person is part of this 92%. Christopher Lagan, you are failing sexual assault and rape survivors in the United States Coast Guard. Rape survivor deserve to be validated, believed and respected. If you can’t accept that then maybe Public Relations is not for you.
Remember you are being paid for by tax dollars and not to withhold the public (aka “Coast Guard veteran”) opinion especially if it did not go against any policies. Do you find it humorous to silence a RAPE survivor. Does crying false accusations to every rape survivor who was involuntarily discharged from service make you feel more like a man?
Looks like Cgreport also picked up on this topic and devoted a week to it. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just allow a rape survivor to say that rape survivors are also veterans and let not forget them?
Congratulations Christopher Lagan, United States Coast Guard: You succeeded in being an A-hole.
My tax dollars hard at work promoting misogyny and hatred.
First week into Sexual Assault Awareness month this is the response from the military:
Air Force: they are actually starting to ‘get it’ Kudos Air Force. Obviously they need to continue what they are doing until their are ZERO assaults but it is a great start-finally.
Marine Corps: Great response coming out of Camp Lejeune The rest? The typical ‘zero-tolerance’ lies.
Army: Mixed. They are hosting tons of events for SAAM for awareness.
Coast Guard: Still the worst in the fleet. They are at least a decade behind the rest. I threw up by reading some of what is happening on their facebook page-still dismissing survivors.
Navy: They are using social media to spread awareness. There are SAAM events held throughout the fleet.
I’ll write more later.
This story is from 2006 but I just found out now so here I am writing about it.
In 2006 a Coast Guard petty officer did soft porn for a major, national magazine. According to a Coast Guard public affairs officer, the magazine with the help of the Coast Guard found this petty office to strip almost nude to pose on what looks to be on a Coast Guard base. The body parts that was covered was done so with Coast Guard issued gear but for the most part remained nude. The article went on to promote the Coast Guard, the work that they do and specifically what this petty officer does. Coast Guard using soft porn to promote themselves, how fucking sick.
Here the photo.
so why am I posting this? No, not cause he is hot (he not my type even though Coast Guard public affairs went gaga over him when questioned by the media) but imagine if it was a woman who posed half nude or-with a bikini top. What if she was wearing a miniskirt? We would have heard it all, whore, slut, women are getting raped at an epidemic rate because look at what they are wearing…but it is okay when a male enlisted member goes in the pages of a national magazine and does what I consider soft porn. Was he dishonorably discharged? Was he called a slut by his own shipmates? Why do I have a feeling that the Coast Guard viewed this as something positive.
Enough with the double standards. If a woman did this she would have been considered a whore so with the same mentality Josh Miramontez is a whore. If a man gets raped was it because men in the Coast Guard go around showing their bodies to everyone who asks? You see how stupid your argument is now Coast Guard?
A recent returning veteran of the Massachusetts National Guard who was raped by a fellow Guardsman committed suicide late last week. I do not have much details expect from what she personally told me for months prior to her death. We talked often, having met at a sexual assault support group and she told me gruesome accounts of what happened to her when she was raped and even worse the way that Lori Alix and Kelly Souza “helped” this woman-aka DID NOT GIVE A DAMM THAT SHE WAS RAPED. For her privacy I won’t go into details about what she told me except that it was disgraceful.
What I do want to talk about is the “improvements” or so they say. The twenty-four hours hotline at 508-889-6644 is still a hit or miss and most often a miss meaning we can not get through. The “Safe Helpline” at times do require up to a 2 hours wait to talk to someone. TWO HOURS WAIT TO TALK TO SOMEONE ONLINE? To be fair that is the DOD headquarters SAPR aka Kaye Whitley and not the Massachusetts National Guard fault but still putting a link to a on-line chatline is not an improvement. It only brings more stress to a survivor. If it was not for pure scientific purposes I probably would not have stayed the entire two hours to wait to chat with someone on line. The actual chat was not worth the two hours wait.
There and Back Again, a combat-veteran PTSD program that is often filled with MEN and many rape survivors find even the website to be triggering let alone the actual program is still up there. It is run by a JAG in the Army , Sue Lynch, so obviously this is a case that they rather please a military officer than to do the right thing and take it off. If only Sue Lynch if you reading this do what is right and tell them that the safety and protection of rape survivors is more important than shamelessly advertising your program.
Also what is up with that man on http://states.ng.mil/sites/MA/resources/SAPR/default.aspx. Don’t want to look like I am all nit picking but with over 90% of all rapist being MEN many survivors don’t want to be reading about rape and how to get help by looking at pictures of men.
I was raped in the military. I have also worked with rape survivors specifically with NOW and RAINN for many years before RAINN went downhill (NOW still rocks) and unless you been in our shoes you just won’t get it. Massachusetts National Guard, I know you read this on a daily basis (I check IP addresses of people that visit this blog) so take these FREE advice from someone that been there if you are seriously about helping survivors.
This is the email from Boston University. This is the patriarchy system that we need to fight. This email below is why I am writing this post and why I am dedicating all my time to ensure that students at Boston University are safe. Scott Keene may be in the finance department but he may or may not have connections, friendships and talk to others in departments that have a say in how a rape case is handled. The email has shown, to me, that without even requesting further evidence including the official documents that at least one victim is willing to make public that Larry Elswit by automatically dismissing our case.
If Boston University does not like what I say they have two options: They can sue me or they can work with me and the survivors to improve Boston University and take all who been involved in rape or victimization of rape victims removed from their campus regardless if they are a janitor or a Director. Boston University does not need them. Protect your student or sue me. Your choice.
Good morning Isabella -
By Isabella Mazotti
Imagine if you were the CEO of a large company and a lawsuit was just filed against you by one of the nation’s most powerful lawyer on behalf of seventeen former employees. Your former employees claim that they were raped by fellow colleagues while being employed by your company and that their allegations resulted in them being fired while the rapists were still being employed by the company. Every major media in the world from the Washington Post to the China Times made mention of the story detailing first person detail of the rape. All eyes are now on your company waiting for it to respond to the lawsuit and correct it mistakes.
That is exactly what has happened this past Tuesday to the United States Military when seventeen service members filed a lawsuit against Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld for knowingly allowing service members to be raped and further abused after reporting a rape. Less than forty-eight hours later the military responded through their actions.
The day after the lawsuit Maj. Gen. David Quantock of Fort Leonard Wood said: “Young kids make mistakes…But they have to understand that in the Army, those mistakes . . . will not be tolerated.” This sort of mentality is exactly what this lawsuit is trying to change. Rape is just a mistake, admit that you learned from your mistake and we’ll continue to give you a slap on the wrist each time you make this mistake.Rape is NOT a mistake. A rape is not an OOOPS I forced my dick into you. It is a violent act and a felony and should be treated as such.
A rape survivor of the United States Coast Guard been in the long process of joining the Coast Guard Auxiliary, a volunteer, non-paid civilian-based Coast Guard group, finally gathering the strength to join she contacted her local Flotilla weeks ago and was invited to attend their orientation meeting on Wednesday; the day after the lawsuit was filed. The meeting was held on a Coast Guard base. Despite being on the approved list of attendees she was turned away at the gate without reasons why except “you are barred from the base”. Rear Admiral Daniel Neptun of Coast Guard Boston has put an order in to forbid her from going on base. When asked why-the Officer of the Day on duty, Petty Office First Class Sanchez said “you know why.” Actually she does not know why, was it because she reported a rape or was it because she went public with the rape? Either way reporting a rape and using her constitutional rights to speak publicly about her rape doesn’t merit a reason to bar her for attending the event, especially since she had an invite from the CG Auxiliary.
On the Today Show, Dr. Kaye Whitley, spoke proudly of improvements made to the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program including a new on-line chat option called Safe Helpline that gives survivors the chance to talk to “qualified” professionals about military sexual trauma over the Internet. After an hour and a half wait I was finally able to speak to someone.
*note, this is a fictional case used for research purposes.
This is basically what millions of our tax dollars went to just like $250million of our tax dollars went to a janitorial firm in Alaska to develop a global campaign to prevent sexual assault and harassment in the military. Dr. Kaye Whitley just does not get it.
Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell said in a statement that sexual assault is a wider societal problem and Mr Gates has been working to ensure the military is doing all it can to prevent and respond to it as a “command priority”. Command priority and yet rape victims are left out of attending events on a military base that they been invited to and high ranking military officers calling rape a ‘mistake’ instead of a violent crime. This is the military twenty-four hours the lawsuit, the military that is putting their best foot forward as the world is now watching. This is the best that the military at this point and time has to offer and their best is not acceptable.
We have received copies of emails from a Massachusetts National Guardsman who was raped. Lt. Lori A. Alix, was her Sexual Assault Response Coordinator which whom she filed a complaint against via email (I did see copies of the email) complaining what every other Mass National Guardsman complaints about, a SARC is rarely available when needed. She felt that her rape allegations were going no where and not taken seriously and she also felt that her allegations against this specific SARC was also not taken seriously. This was confirmed by the ill actions of the Massachusetts National Guard that despite valid and serious complaints about a SARC that they went and awarded this SARC “2010 Exceptional Sexual Assault Response Coordinator” even with open complaints about her. Talk about a slap in the face and the emotional damage that this caused the survivor. You just don’t award someone while there is a pending investigation against something as serious as losing an investigation, doubting the survivor and allowing abuse to occur towards a survivor. A SARC’s job is to protect the survivor from further victimization not contribute to it! Finish the investigation against the SARC and if you still feel she should be awarded then go and do so but not when there is an open investigation against her!
When a rape report is filed, often the perpetrator is promoted while 92% of all rape survivors report being involuntarily discharged from service. It is the same that we see in this case, when a complaint is filed against a SARC they turn it around ans award the SARC. I’ll be following the Massachusetts National Guard and expose their unethical behavior until they change and become pro-helping their own comrades who been raped.
Some SARCs were upset that we put all SARCs in one group and talked badly about them so now I am going to write about specific SARCs that failed our survivors.
We received many complaints against 1st Lt Kelly Sullivan Souza. She was temporary incharged of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program which many credit Souza for running it to the ground. Several survivors who have tried to work with her reported not having their phone calls returned, being forced out of the office so that Souza can go to lunch and one survivor even reports that Souza reverse the roles and found herself offering support to Souza, who was newly married and was facing her husband being deployed. We don’t really care what is going on in your personal life, do your job and leave your personal problems at home.
A survivor report that she was given information about a male-combat veteran yoga program which she found very triggering considering her rapist was a male-combat vet instead of programs specifically for sexual assault survivors. The yoga program according to Souza was for the survivor “to get over the rape”. I checked the website and the yoga program is the only local program that is advertised on the website–it is also run by a Massachusetts National Guardsman Jag officer so it seems to me that advertising for their own officers instead of doing what is best for a survivor. Ethically not right. Shame on you. Rape survivors should come before pleasing a military officer.
1st Lt Kelly Sullivan Souza, you failed Massachusetts, you failed rape survivors and you failed the Army.
If you feel that your SARC was horrific and want to nominate him/her email me and tell me why she should be listed here. If you feel that your SARC was awersome we’ll love to hear from you too.
