The military community is starting to admit it was wrong about sexual assault

When Steven Kiernan was a young Marine in the mid-2000s, neither he nor any of his friends believed a female Marine when she said she had been raped by a commander. They ignored her, Kiernan said, and sat around and did nothing while other Marines shared vulgar stories and fantasies about her. They said she only said she'd been raped because she had been fooling around with the commander and got caught.

“I don't remember any of us taking her claims seriously at the time,” Kiernan said.

Years later, a Marine who had been on duty that night disclosed to Kiernan that he had seen her looking disheveled and frightened, and that there was no doubt in his mind that she had been assaulted.

Today, Kiernan is willing to say "#IWasWrong," joining in on a new movement that's bubbling up in the military community.

“Some people have told me that I was just some 18-year-old private first class, I couldn't have made any difference,” Kiernan said. “But the truth is, that's no excuse. I was taking part in that toxic culture and no matter where I was on the ladder, I bear that responsibility and helped in her silencing.”

A growing chorus of veterans are speaking out on Twitter, using the hashtag to add to what’s becoming a chilling log of the many ways people have been complicit in the culture of misogyny plaguing the U.S. armed forces.

The confessions span rank, service, and gender.

“I would pride myself as better than some women because I told myself I could handle the degrading jokes, sexism, & misogyny. And it worked to be trusted as 'one of the guys.'” Jennifer Dolsen, an Army veteran, tweeted. “I regret not being a more supportive ally & friend to women.”

“As a leader in the Marine Corps, I helped perpetuate a culture of sexual violence and victim-blaming. I wanted to protect my Marines, and so I echoed sentiments and beliefs to them that I now know to be wrong,” a Marine Corps veteran tweeting under the handle "TheWarax" wrote. “It's my greatest failing as a leader, and I want to talk about it.”

“As I look back on my career in the Army and now my career working with the Army as a civilian I know #iWasWrong far too many times as I listened silently to conversations among peers that have no place in the military or any workplace. #NeverAgain,” Gabriel Morris, an Army veteran tweeted.

Sexual assault and sexual harassment are pervasive issues in the military, and no branch of service is immune. In 2016, one in four women and one in 15 men faced “severe and persistent sexual harassment or gender discrimination,” according to Protect Our Defenders, an organization dedicated to ending sexual assault and harassment in the military.

READ MORE: #MeToo is coming for the U.S. military

Kiernan said he came to terms with his actions after so many years because of the #MeToo movement, which forced him to reconsider the way people are treated in the military and its systemic culture.

“The MeToo movement has brought a lot of attention to the issue and got me thinking a lot more on my own role in the problem,” Kiernan said. “What I did or didn't do to help spread it or keep it hidden. There's a lot I'm ashamed of.

But Andrea Goldstein, a Navy veteran who has been outspoken on gender bias in the military, says there’s another element in why veterans are coming out with their stories now.

“The era of Trump has done two things,” Goldstein said. “It has made a lot of people feel a lot safer to make these jokes, but it has made people a lot safer to raise opposition to it.”

“That’s kind of the irony,” she added.

Still Goldstein points to yet another side to the story — one that many, women in particular, have been voicing in the comments on Twitter. “The part of it [the #IWasWrong movement] that can be very emotional, that can be very difficult to witness, is that it can be like, where the hell were you when I needed you?” she said.

Cover image: U.S. Military competitors prepare for their 12mile foot march during an Best Competition at Camp Casey in Dongducheon, South Korea, on 12 April 2018. (Photo by Seung-il Ryu/NurPhoto via Getty Images)