Sexual Assaults on Female Soldiers: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

For too many American women in uniform, the danger also comes from their male comrades

Ryan McVay / Stone Sub / Getty

What does it tell us that female soldiers deployed overseas stop drinking water after 7 p.m. to reduce the odds of being raped if they have to use the bathroom at night? Or that a soldier who was assaulted when she went out for a cigarette was afraid to report it for fear she would be demoted — for having gone out without her weapon? Or that, as Representative Jane Harman puts it, "a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire."

The fight over "Don't ask, don't tell" made...

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