As a physician, I make life and death decisions. When I lead a team of trainees, I am at the top of the chain of command. Medical students gather information to make decisions with the interns, who can seek the advice of senior residents, who in turn come to me. They try to limit it to major questions, but provided that they keep me informed, I’m ultimately responsible for everything they do.
When it comes to medicine, that is. If it comes to harassment or other potentially illegal behavior (drug use is unfortunately common in the medical profession), it’s out of my hands, except perhaps to give advice.
To me, that’s a good thing. I’m not an expert in law, and I would have competing interests. Unacceptable activity shouldn’t be acceptable because I think my resident has promise. If I happen to think there are mitigating circumstances, there will be a forum for me to express them.
So I frankly don’t understand why it can’t be the same in the military. I haven’t served, but I understand there are differences. There is less, or no, distinction between professional and other duties. In the military, life and death decisions involve not just a patient, but the team itself and the country as a whole.
I’m sure there are many more differences, but none seem to be at the heart of arguments presented for blocking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act, which would move harassment charges outside the chain of command. Instead, opponents trotted out the same tired arguments. Change will undermine unity and destroy morale. We’ve always done it this way. Commanders need to be in charge, and best understand their units.
Recent history begs to differ. Allegedly cataclysmic changes including women in combat roles and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell appear to have left unity and morale intact. Meanwhile, the scandals in various parts of the military, including one involving a sexual assault prosecutor, suggest the status quo of commanders in charge isn’t working.
We shouldn’t be surprised, particularly if we think about other institutions that lean on tradition and claim a unique situation. The Catholic Church hid a scandal for years, in part by moving perpetrators around in a way that offered access to new victims. Penn State managed to usher out Jerry Sandusky, but without helping prior victims or preventing new ones. The Miami Dolphins thought there was nothing wrong with their locker room culture. None of these institutions changed until they were forced to by people who weren’t interested in protecting the institution for its own sake, or the sake of the status quo.
The military may be more important than these institutions, and it may be unique. Its sexual harassment problem, however, is not. It needs the same medicine as other institutions that have tried to hide problems – sunlight and objective eyes, the kind prescribed by Sen. Gillibrand’s bill. Hopefully, it will get another chance. History suggests things won’t get much better until it does.
