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i 

49–634 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–4] 

SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE MILITARY: 

VICTIM SUPPORT AND ADVOCACY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 28, 2009 
(II) 

MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California, Chairwoman 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

DAVID KILDEE, Professional Staff Member 

JEANETTE JAMES, Professional Staff Member 

ROSELLEN KIM, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, January 28, 2009, Sexual Assault in the Military: Victim Support 

and Advocacy ........................................................................................................ 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 ................................................................................ 53 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009 

SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE MILITARY: VICTIM SUPPORT AND 

ADVOCACY 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative from California, Chairwoman, Military Personnel Subcommittee ............................................................................. 1 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Ranking Member, 

Military Personnel Subcommittee ...................................................................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Horwath, Sgt. First Class Michael, Sexual Assault Response Coordinator 

and Victim Advocate, U.S. Army ........................................................................ 10 

Katka, Capt. Daniel, Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, U.S. Air Force ..... 9 

McKennie, Chief Petty Officer Tonya D., Victim Advocate, U.S. Navy .............. 11 

Watterson, Laura, Former Airman, U.S. Air Force .............................................. 4 

Whitley, Dr. Kaye, Director, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, 

Department of Defense; Teresa Scalzo, Senior Policy Advisor, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, Department of Defense; and Robert 

Coombs, Director of Public Affairs, California Coalition Against Sexual 

Assault, beginning on .......................................................................................... 38 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Davis, Hon. Susan A. ....................................................................................... 57 

Katka, Capt. Daniel ......................................................................................... 61 

Whitley, Dr. Kaye ............................................................................................. 64 

Wilson, Hon. Joe ............................................................................................... 59 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Testimony of Suzanne Brown-McBride, Executive Director, California Coalition Against Sexual Assault .................................................................... 83 

Two articles on Lauterbach case submitted by Mr. Turner .......................... 86 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Ms. Tsongas ...................................................................................................... 91 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Ms. Shea-Porter ................................................................................................ 95 

(1) 

SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE MILITARY: VICTIM SUPPORT 

AND ADVOCACY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 28, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Susan A. Davis (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRWOMAN, MILITARY 

PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mrs. DAVIS. Good morning, everybody. We are delighted to be 

here this morning and to have you all here. 

Before we get started, I just wanted to introduce the members 

of the Personnel Subcommittee. This is our first meeting, and we 

wanted to give you a chance to get to know them. 

I am Susan Davis. I represent the area of San Diego, California. 

And our next ranking member is Dr. Vic Snyder. Vic is from Arkansas; Loretta Sanchez from California; Madeleine Bordallo from 

Guam; Carol Shea-Porter from New Hampshire; Dave Loebsack 

from Iowa; and Niki Tsongas from Massachusetts. 

And Joe Wilson, who is the ranking chair on the committee, will 

introduce the Republican members. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And it is an 

honor to be here with you, and I look forward to working with you 

on behalf of the soldiers and sailors and Marines and airmen in our 

military, the men and women who, indeed, make it possible for us 

to have the freedoms that we enjoy. 

I am grateful to be here with fellow members. With me is Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina. Congressman Jones has 

very extensive military facilities in his district. Tom Rooney is our 

rookie freshman. We are very grateful to have him on board. Mary 

Fallin, the former Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma; I want to 

thank her for her impending service on this committee. And we 

have a visitor who is here today, Mike Turner. Mike is the former 

mayor of Dayton, Ohio. 

And I would like to point out that I am very grateful that I represent the Second District of South Carolina, which includes Fort 

Jackson, it includes Parris Island, the Beaufort Marine Air Station, 

also the Beaufort Naval Hospital. But I have to tell you that my 

greatest appreciation is that I have four sons serving in the military, so I appreciate seeing these uniforms in front of us today. 

Thank you very much. 
2 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

And I also wanted to ask unanimous consent—we will have a few 

members joining us. So I wanted to ask unanimous consent then 

for the non-committee members who are participating, they will 

also be asking questions. Without objection? Hearing none, okay, 

thank you. 

Today’s hearing will be the first of a series of hearings the subcommittee will hold this year looking at sexual assault in the military. Sexual assault is a complex problem, where most, if not all, 

aspects are interrelated. Such a topic does not lend itself to a single 

hearing. So, as a result, we have chosen to hold multiple hearings 

on discrete topics so that the members and witnesses can have indepth discussions about various issues to build towards a comprehensive understanding of the problem. This will help guide our 

deliberations on what can and should be done next. 

Today we will be focusing on victim advocacy and support. Our 

next hearing will look at current and planned Department of Defense (DOD) programs to prevent sexual assault. I would like to 

say that we are encouraged by the level of commitment, resources, 

and expertise that the services are applying to prevention programs to educate service members and change cultural norms. 

And, finally, we will hold a hearing to examine how sexual assaults 

are prosecuted by the military. 

No one can deny our responsibility to ensure that victims of a 

sexual assault receive all the support that can be provided following an attack. The Department of Defense has made significant 

improvements in recent years to the depth and breadth of services 

available after an assault since the implementation of a new policy 

in 2005. But the question we need to ask is, has enough been done? 

What more can be done? 

This hearing will look at how the Department of Defense currently handles victim advocacy. We are very fortunate to have an 

impressive first panel. These are individuals who deal with the 

very real needs of victims of sexual assault. 

Our first witness is Laura Watterson. In 2001, Laura was an airman on active duty when she was assaulted by a fellow service 

member. She will tell her story of what she had to endure, usually 

by herself, after the assault. 

Laura, we thank you very much for your willingness to share 

your experience with us. We are humbled by your courage that you 

have displayed by coming forward. We know it is not easy, and 

many victims do not feel comfortable doing that. Thank you. 

Next, we have three witnesses from the services. These are not 

policy wonks. These are people who have helped individual victims 

in the aftermath of an assault. I would like to thank the services 

for dispensing with their usual policies and procedures regarding 

rank and vetting to make these service members available to the 

subcommittee. Their participation—your participation—will add 

greatly to our understanding of what victim advocates do on a daily 

basis and what resources they need to do even more. 

Captain Daniel Katka is a sexual assault response coordinator, 

or SARC, from the Air Force. He has worked as a SARC both in 

the United States and while deployed overseas, for both operational 

and training units. 
3 

Sergeant First Class Horwath has served as both a unit victim 

advocate and as a SARC in the Army, both here and while deployed. While serving in Iraq, he found himself performing the duties of both the SARC and as the first responding unit victim advocate. 

And Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Tonya McKennie has served as a 

sexual assault victim intervention advocate for the Navy, both in 

the United States and while deployed. 

Again, thank you all for being part of this hearing. 

Our second panel will include two witnesses from the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office 

(SAPRO), Dr. Kaye Whitley and Ms. Teresa Scalzo, as well as Robert Coombs, the public affairs director of the California Coalition 

Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA). And I will make more introductions later. 

I want to reiterate that the purpose of this hearing is to focus 

on victim advocacy and support. Other issues will of course come 

up, but I would like to save in-depth discussions on prevention programs and prosecution for our later hearings, so that we can give 

each of the topics the attention and the discussion that they deserve. 

Mr. Wilson, would you like to have a few words? 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Davis can be found in the Appendix on page 57.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

SOUTH CAROLINA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. 

And, as we have begun, we have been joined by another subcommittee member, Congressman John Kline of Minnesota. Congressman Kline is retired, but of course he still is a Marine colonel, 

and very proud of it, as you can tell from his pin. 

Today’s hearing continues the work this subcommittee started 

several years ago to address the problem of sexual assault within 

the military. We began our efforts during Chairman John 

McHugh’s tenure in response to increased reports of sexual assault 

at our military academies. In 2004, we required the Department of 

Defense to establish a task force to examine sexual harassment 

and violence in the United States Military Academy and the United 

States Naval Academy. We also asked for an assessment of the effectiveness of the corrective actions taken to address sexual harassment at the United States Air Force Academy. 

We followed these initial steps by expanding the mission of the 

Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the military 

service academies to include all of our Armed Forces. We then focused attention on strategies to improve the Pentagon’s response to 

sexual assault. As a result, we required the Department of Defense 

to implement a comprehensive policy for the prevention of and response to sexual assaults involving members of the Armed Forces. 

In response to concerns we received from the field over the 

length of time it took to process forensic evidence, we required 

DOD to eliminate the backlog of the processing of forensic evidence 

collection kits and ensure that an adequate supply of rape kits are 
4 

available for all military installations. We also made sure that military personnel who use forensic evidence collection kits receive 

training to ensure evidence is collected properly. 

Finally, working with the Congresswoman from California, Ms. 

Loretta Sanchez, we took an unprecedented and bold step to reform 

the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to establish a comprehensive and modern sexual assault law based on other federal 

laws and regulations that effectively addressed sexual assault. 

These legislative actions point to this committee’s consistent, 

thoughtful, and aggressive approach to addressing the issue of sexual assault in the military. Throughout this process, we have 

looked to the experts to help us find the right solutions, and we 

have worked with the Department of Defense to put in place policies that address both prevention and support for victims of this 

devastating crime. This has not been an easy task, but our commitment to protecting the health and welfare of our service members 

is unwavering. 

To that end, it is my understanding that the purpose of today’s 

hearing is to focus on the support provided by the military to victims of sexual assault and to assess whether DOD’s programs meet 

the needs of the victims or not. 

I sincerely appreciate the willingness of Ms. Watterson, who was 

a victim of sexual assault, to testify today. Although your experience took place prior to DOD’s new, comprehensive policy, I hope 

you can give us your assessment of whether the current policies 

and programs would have helped you and where there still may be 

gaps. 

I continue to hear in media reports and from various individual 

assertions that this system isn’t working well enough. I look forward to the views of the members of the second panel. How do you 

measure the program’s success? Where does the system fall short? 

Have you identified areas that need improvement? How can we 

help? 

I hope that our discussions today will be informative and productive. My purpose today is to continue the dialogue towards improving the support services and care available for military victims of 

sexual assault. 

With that, I would like to welcome our witnesses and thank them 

for participating in the hearing today. I look forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 59.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson. 

And I want to mention that we have been joined by Mr. Patrick 

Murphy of Pennsylvania, who was part of the committee last year, 

has an esteemed military career, and also Ms. Jane Harman of 

California, who has been very passionate and interested in this 

issue. Thank you. 

And now, Ms. Laura Watterson, would you please start? Again, 

welcome. We are delighted that you are here. 

STATEMENT OF LAURA WATTERSON, FORMER AIRMAN, U.S. 

AIR FORCE 

Ms. WATTERSON. Thanks. 
5 

I will just start off—this is very difficult. I don’t usually come out 

of my bedroom, so coming all the way to the District of Columbia 

(DC) is a little—well, freaking me out. But, however, comfortable 

I may be, I think it is more important that I be here instead of 

worrying about my own problems, because this really needs to be 

done. 

Mrs. DAVIS. If you could just get a little closer to the mike, that 

would be very helpful. 

Ms. WATTERSON. Is that good? 

Mrs. DAVIS. That is better. 

Ms. WATTERSON. When I entered the Air Force, I seriously considered making it a career for myself. I wanted to travel, and I 

wanted to have a stable life and career. After I was assaulted, I 

no longer trusted anyone on base, and my career was no longer an 

option for me. 

Because of my Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that resulted from it, I was forced to 

move in with my mother at the age of 30, because I could not take 

care of myself, keep a job, or feel safe outside, even in my own 

apartment. I lived on cereal and microwaveable dinners so I did 

not end up causing a fire because I forgot that I was cooking something. 

I was so depressed that I actually quit smoking, because the task 

of actually picking up a cigarette and lighting it was just too much. 

Of course my doctors were happy about that. But I had crying fits 

that were so powerful I could not even get my head off of wherever 

it landed because of exhaustion. One time my head landed in my 

shoe. And it would leave me hoarse for three days, from crying so 

hard. 

I have gained over 60 pounds, and I would go into violent rages. 

One time I ransacked the house to find every present I had ever 

given my mother, smashed them to bits, and dumped them on her 

bed. I would swear at her and throw things at her, as if I had 

Tourette syndrome. Any attempt at communication with me, I 

would just flip her off. 

This behavior was—I had never treated my mother like this before. I didn’t understand why this was happening, and it ruined my 

self-esteem that much further. 

I have missed most family functions since being in the Air Force 

because I am unable to be around many people, especially people 

who are asking a lot of personal questions, like, oh, how is life, 

what are you up to, what are you doing? I mean, yeah, that kind 

of brings the family celebration down a little. 

It has been only recently that I would even leave my bedroom. 

I used to have very good credit, and I was proud of that. Because 

of not being about to pay my bills because I couldn’t keep a job— 

just recently I had an attempt to have my wages garnished. 

I was too afraid to wear anything at all inviting, i.e., I would 

wear men’s clothing, usually in all black in several sizes too big. 

I didn’t want anyone to find me approachable. I am afraid of being 

assaulted again. I used to have my hair and makeup and nails 

matched every day, no matter what I was wearing, for years. Now, 

with the exception of today, I would only wear ChapStick and stick 
6 

my hair up in a bun. I rarely, if ever, even painted my nails. I don’t 

have the energy to look good, due to depression. 

I have had meltdowns in the supermarket because if I saw someone, especially if it was a man, I knew they were stalking me, and 

I would run from the grocery store. 

My marriage to a man who I am still friends with ended due to 

my PTSD symptoms. I didn’t realize why I was acting the way I 

was, and neither did he. Nonetheless, it ruined our marriage. That 

is probably the hardest part. 

Excuse me. 

I began therapy at the Veterans Affairs (VA) because I had lost 

everything as a result. I began to see patterns and realized that I 

needed to get my life back. I realized that there are many other 

people who need to be helped to get back on track, as well. And 

that is also why I am a victim advocate myself, out of my bedroom 

and out of my own pocket. 

Part of my wellness is testifying today, forcing me to get out and 

do things that are challenging because they are more important. I 

will leave here today, but hopefully my message will not leave. 

If I had a caring SARC representative, I believe that I would not 

have ended up in the mess that I have ended up in. I was never 

given a representative. When I called to have some assistance, no 

one came. It got to the point that I called the 15th Air Force commander, who was in charge of the entire western half of the United 

States and whose name was also in all of the sexual assault booklets and leaflets. And, since basic training, we had all been taught 

the same thing. I trusted in that. 

I also trusted because I had friends, before I went in, ‘‘Aren’t you 

afraid of the sexual harassment, like the whole Tailhook thing?’’ I 

was like, ‘‘No. With all this media, why would they—you know, 

they must be really careful about it now.’’ 

The 15th Air Force commander said, ‘‘Well, why don’t you just 

keep it on base and have them take care of it?’’ They wouldn’t. I 

reported it, as I was supposed to, to my supervisor, as well as his. 

They said it would be taken care of, and I trusted that. 

Two weeks later, I was at work, and everyone was asked to stand 

up because there was going to be a pinning-on ceremony. That pinning-on ceremony was for the man who assaulted me to now outrank me and become a supervisor. He was rewarded. This is when 

I got very angry. 

After fighting and calling everyone I could possibly think of, my 

commander finally called me into his office, with my supervisor 

here, the guy who assaulted me, my chair, and then his supervisor. 

So I was not even close to my supervisor or the one who should 

be protecting me or making me feel safe. 

I was told by my commander that I need to understand that different people have different personal bubbles. For example, when 

you go to England, sometimes when you meet people over there 

and you shake their hand, they like to hold onto your hand while 

they are speaking, and, as Americans, because we don’t do that, it 

is uncomfortable for us. And that is how he told me that I needed 

to get over what had happened. 

That is when I began—I started drinking obscene amounts. 

Again, not knowing anything about PTSD, I started yelling at my 
7 

husband over the stupidest things and having absolute fits of rage. 

And, again, this is not me. 

After this meeting I had with my commander, my SARC, or 

whatever he was called at the time, offered me therapy. I asked if 

it was going to be from someone on base or if it was going to be 

civilian. He told me it was going to be from someone on base. And 

from the treatment that I had gotten so far to try and help me, 

there was no way I was going to trust another military member to 

tell them how I felt and what was going on. So when I refused 

help, they had me sign a waiver saying that, because I refused 

treatment, I was not going to be eligible for any VA treatment or 

benefits. I, of course, did not realize that that was a load of malarky until several years later when I had to go to the VA because 

I couldn’t handle my own life. 

I was also told that punishment of my perpetrator was not my 

business. I think that is—I don’t know for sure what the real rule 

is about that now, but it is definitely my business, because I trusted them in the first place to take care of it. And promoting him 

two weeks later is not fixing it. 

All of the evidence that had been in my files about this was sanitized. This is a normal and way-too-often thing that happens with 

files, that things that are important that would have something to 

do with a claim are taken out of your files. So when you request 

them, over half of your file is no longer there. So trying to fight 

the VA to get benefits is next to impossible, because there is no 

proof anymore. Even if you reported it to the on-base police, even 

if you reported it to, like, anybody who would listen, like I did— 

nothing. This, again, makes us trust the government even less. 

I would be afraid. Even when the phone rang, that could make 

me cry. A few months ago I was at a friend’s house and her washing machine turned on, and I had a panic attack from that. I don’t 

know why. I have panic attacks all the time for the oddest reasons, 

I am sure. As I get further in my treatment, I will figure out why 

certain things trigger me. 

I believe that there are some good SARCs but not enough. The 

SARCs need to be on top of their game. A victim is not going to 

seek out help. They are going to do what I did; they are going to 

stay in their room and drink. They are not going to trust anybody 

else to go help them. 

I also believe that a SARC should not be a dependent of a military member, because the way that they would run their case may 

be far too influenced on their fear that, if they go against the way 

the command is saying things should be done, that it could be detrimental to their spouse’s career. 

Excuse me just a second. 

The SARC also needs to be able to have complete confidentiality. 

The things that a victim says and does with their SARC needs to 

be completely confidential. It was maybe a month or two ago that 

a victim’s SARC was subpoenaed to testify against their own victim. And, of course, they had no choice. Just like you are doing 

now, let the MST victims be involved in the training of SARC personnel. They know how it feels. They know what needs to be 

changed. 
8 

And commanders also need to be accountable, when it comes to 

the rapist. We have plenty of rules that are not worth the paper 

that they are printed on. For example, if somebody has done a sexual assault, it is supposed to stay in their record. They are supposed to sign up as—I am sorry, I am blanking out the name, but 

whatever the civilian thing is that a sex offender has to register 

under, that is a rule. I have very little—in fact, I don’t think I have 

ever seen that done, now that I am even do advocacy work for people that are still in. The next base they go to, that file does not 

follow them, so the next command does not know that they have 

done it. They are put in the same situation, and they know that 

they can get away with it. 

I do not believe a lot of the rumors and the little two-bit ideas 

that most people have about, ‘‘Well, it is the alcohol. Well, then 

maybe women shouldn’t be in the military. Well, well, well.’’ I believe it is due to the consistent and rewarded attitudes of misogyny, thinking that women and also men—there are plenty of men 

who have been sexually assaulted that I have worked with as well. 

They need to be able to be safe, feel like they have been taken care 

of. And when you find out that a person who has sexually assaulted you, did it at the last base, where is the safety? 

I felt like I was entering the band of brothers as their sister. I 

was then an outcast, alone and challenged on everything I did. 

There is also the Troops to Teachers Act. So a person who has 

sexually assaulted a member, when they get out of the Air Force 

or Coast Guard, whatever, so they get to go be Troops to Teachers, 

and their file does not follow them because they have not registered 

as a sex offender. So they get to be in schools with children as a 

sex offender. 

More often than not, the reason—is that for me? 

Mrs. DAVIS. No, keep going. 

Ms. WATTERSON. Oh, okay. I am like, ‘‘Am I talking too long?’’ 

Mrs. DAVIS. If you can try and summarize, that would be helpful, 

because we will talk to the other witnesses, and we may have a 

vote coming up as well. 

Ms. WATTERSON. Oh, okay, sorry. 

Mrs. DAVIS. But that is all right. We really are anxious to hear 

all that you have to say. Go ahead. 

Ms. WATTERSON. Okay. I will quit for now then and let somebody 

else speak. I will answer any questions you guys have. 

Mrs. DAVIS. All right. Thank you so much for your presentation. 

We will have some questions. And I think also what we want to 

do is have a chance to really engage together to understand what 

is different today, what of that that is different works and what of 

that doesn’t. How you can add to that discussion, we will be very 

happy to hear about that. Thank you again. 

Captain Katka, if you and the other witness want to introduce 

yourselves and tell us a little bit about your experience with the 

sexual assault program, that would be very helpful. I understand 

that you don’t have a long testimony but that you would just like 

to let us know where you fit into all these pieces. 
9 

STATEMENT OF CAPT. DANIEL KATKA, SEXUAL ASSAULT 

RESPONSE COORDINATOR, U.S. AIR FORCE 

Captain KATKA. Yes, ma’am, thank you. 

Good morning. And thank you, Chairwoman Davis and subcommittee members, for your interest in the issue of sexual assault. My name is, as stated, Captain Daniel Katka, and I am stationed at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, where I am 

honored to have the opportunity to be a sexual assault response coordinator. 

I have had the privilege to be in the Air Force for 20 years now. 

I enlisted in 1988 and commissioned in 2002. I have served as a 

squadron section commander for large units, as a military training 

flight commander for over 1,500 personnel. And, in those duties, I 

dealt with numerous personnel issues, to include sexual assault. 

Those experiences led to my desire to become directly involved in 

the care and advocacy of sexual assault survivors, for courageous 

people like Ms. Watterson. 

Thank you for sharing. 

In 2007, I was honored to be chosen as one of Lackland’s two 

SARCs. Supporting Lackland’s sexual assault survivors is my top 

priority. Air Force SARCs report directly to the installation vice 

wing commander. And reporting to the vice wing commander ensures top-level support and immediate access when needed. 

I also work directly with the Sexual Assault Response Team, or 

the SART, comprised of first responders from the chaplaincy, investigators, the Judge Advocate General (JAG), and the medical communities. The SART team meets monthly to review cases and discuss ways to improve response procedures. 

I recruit, screen, train, and supervise 70 victim advocates who 

are military and DOD civilian volunteers. Air Force victim advocates receive 40 hours of training to provide immediate and ongoing survivor support. Victim advocates and SART members are 

trained to understand restricted and unrestricted reporting options. 

The local San Antonio civilian community is also involved in supporting Lackland survivors. The local rape crisis center works with 

our survivors who prefer to receive one-on-one or group counseling 

off-base. We also have an outstanding partnership with a local civilian hospital for survivors who desire a sexual assault forensic 

exam. When utilizing the rape crisis center or the local hospital, 

survivors’ restricted reporting option is still protected. 

The majority of the reports made at Lackland are from trainees, 

which encompasses the Air Force’s youngest demographic. Training 

is essential to informing Lackland’s nearly 50,0000 personnel about 

sexual assault. Lackland is the Air Force’s largest training base, 

with the only Air Force basic military training center and numerous technical training schools. Every basic trainee receives a fourhour sexual assault awareness class. Airmen are presented an additional two-hour follow-on class during the introductory week of 

their technical school. 

To ensure our permanent personnel receive necessary sexual assault training, Lackland has over 200 sexual assault prevention 

and outreach representatives who conduct briefings and distribute 

awareness products. 
10 

The annual Sexual Assault Awareness Month also presents an 

opportunity to educate the base. We have had numerous activities 

to heighten awareness—base walks and runs targeting the younger 

population; leadership luncheons; Take Back the Night vigils; banner campaigns at base entrances; and strategically placed information booths at highly frequented locations, such as the Base Exchange. 

The experiences I have had at Lackland prepared me for the 

SARC mission abroad, as well. One of the most rewarding opportunities I had was to deploy as a SARC in support of Operations 

Iraqi and Enduring Freedom at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Most 

Air Force SARCs are DOD civilians, but, to ensure contingency and 

deployment capability, 30 are military members. 

In the area of responsibility (AOR), it is vital to have a robust 

sexual assault training and awareness program to ensure all know, 

regardless of military branch, that the SARC is there to support 

them. With strong base leadership support, I provided Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) information at weekly inprocessing briefing, reinvigorated monthly case review meetings, 

trained new SART members, and started new awareness campaigns using base organizations such as the Airman’s Group, First 

Sergeants Association, and the Desert Chiefs Group. I also supported Al Udeid’s geographically separated unit, Eskan Village in 

Saudi Arabia. 

It is a profound privilege for me to be here today, Chairwoman 

Davis. And it is very important that we have these kinds of hearings, to keep our most important resource in the forefront of our 

minds, and that is our human resource. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Captain Katka can be found in the 

Appendix on page 61.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Captain. 

And if we can, as quickly as possible because we do have a vote 

on and we want to hear from both of you quickly. And then we will 

come back and have the questions. 

STATEMENT OF SGT. FIRST CLASS MICHAEL HORWATH, SEXUAL ASSAULT RESPONSE COORDINATOR AND VICTIM ADVOCATE, U.S. ARMY 

Sergeant HORWATH. Good morning, Chairwoman Davis, Congressman Wilson, subcommittee members. I am Sergeant First 

Class Michael Horwath. I have been in the Army for 22 years, currently assigned to Fort Hood, Texas, with the Fourth Infantry Division, Fourth Combat Aviation Brigade. 

I have been working with the sexual assault program with the 

Army since 2004, after graduating from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, and I have been assigned to Fort 

Hood as an equal opportunity advisor. At that time, the program 

manager had mandated that all the equal opportunity advisors 

would become a part of this program, either as a victim advocate 

or a sexual assault response coordinator. Having had close ties to 

a victim of sexual assault and having a teenage daughter at the 

time, I was more than happy to step up and become a part of this 

community. 
11 

We spent most of 2004 coming up with programs to push awareness to the soldiers. We were using a draft copy of the Army Regulation 600–20, Chapter 8, Army Command Guidance. We pushed 

that as hard as we could, got the soldiers aware of the program. 

We did a lot of sexual assault surveys to find out what the awareness levels of the soldiers were. 

In 2005, I deployed to Camp Taji, Iraq, where I was assigned as 

the camp’s sexual assault response coordinator. I was responsible 

for 4 brigades, 52 tenant agencies. It was double duty for me because most of the tenant agencies didn’t have victim advocates, so 

I was required to respond to as their victim advocate. I was also 

required to respond for any sexual assault on camp that was reported to an alternate agency. 

Upon redeployment back to Fort Hood in November of 2006, I 

started working hand in hand with the contracted civilian Sexual 

Assault Response Team. I would fill in for them when they needed 

SARC help, I would fill in for them when they needed trainers, and 

I would work with them as a liaison between the military commands and themselves. 

In 2007, I was selected as a first sergeant to go be redeployed 

to Camp Taji, Iraq; continued my collateral duty as a SARC while 

I was over there this last time; returned in November of this year 

and have continued working hand in hand with the civilian team 

that works the Fort Hood sexual assault response since then. 

I have a 21-year-old daughter and a 19-year-old son, both who 

are active-duty Army, both deployed right now. And I am comforted 

and confident that this program is there for them; that, if something as traumatic as a sexual assault was ever to happen in their 

life, that this program that I have been a part of for the last four 

years would be there to see them through, to help them overcome 

the trauma that would take place in their life and get them back 

to their day-to-day business of being soldiers. 

I want to thank you all for allowing me to be here today to share 

my observations of how this program has evolved and grown over 

the past four years. I am extremely proud of the contributions I 

have been able to make with it, and I think it will just continue 

to become a better and better thing to make soldiers’ lives easier 

when something as horrible as this happens. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

And, Chief McKennie, we will come back to you, of course, after 

we come back, but if you could give us a brief introduction, that 

would be great. 

STATEMENT OF CHIEF PETTY OFFICER TONYA D. MCKENNIE, 

VICTIM ADVOCATE, U.S. NAVY 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Good morning, Chairwoman 

Davis, Ranking Member Wilson, and distinguished members of the 

Military Personnel Subcommittee. 

I am Navy Chief Petty Officer Tonya McKennie. I enlisted in the 

Navy in 1988, and my rating is aviation electronics technician. I 

am qualified as both an air warfare and surface warfare specialist. 

And I am also married to a Navy chief, and we reside with our son, 

Jeffrey Devonte, in Chula Vista, California. 
12 

I currently serve as my command’s training legal chief petty officer for Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30 at Naval Air Station 

North Island, California. I also serve as the command’s sexual assault victim intervention advocate. The program that we use in the 

Navy is called SAVI. It is spelled S-A-V-I, and it stands for Sexual 

Assault Victim Intervention. 

Throughout my 20-year Navy career, I have been assigned at 

several duty stations, ranging from Florida; Maine; California; 

Japan; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and I have deployed to Italy with 

a U.S. Naval Patrol Squadron (VP), VP–11. My sea duty assignments include Persian Gulf deployments onboard the USS Kitty 

Hawk and USS Carl Vinson. In 2004, I reported to the USS Ronald 

Reagan, where I not only served as a production control maintenance chief for 350 technicians but also a sexual assault victim 

intervention advocate. 

After two successful deployments during Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom aboard the Ronald Reagan, I reported to my current command. And I must say that, as I have continued to work 

with SAVI, it has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my 

Navy career. My work as a victim advocate has been absolutely 

awesome, and I plan to continue this as long as I can. 

I thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences with you 

today, and I look forward to your questions. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of you being 

here. 

We will return in probably about—we just have one vote, so 

within 10 minutes. 

Thank you very much. 

[Recess.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. I want to thank you all for being here. We are going 

to go on the clock, essentially. 

The members, we have five minutes to ask a question and also 

to hear from you, and if possible, we may have an opportunity to 

get into some exchange really. And I would invite you all to chime 

in when you think it is appropriate. 

Ms. Watterson, clearly the system did not keep you safe. And I 

know that you believe it doesn’t keep other members of the military safe today either. 

But the time that we are talking about was prior to some new 

policies that had been in place and with the work that you have 

done in your advocacy. I wonder if you could speak to a few instances, perhaps, where you think the system today would have 

served you better. And in those cases when you don’t think anything that has been done would really have made a difference—I 

think you alluded to some of that in your testimony—but if you 

could go back and talk to us a little bit about that, that would be 

very helpful. 

Ms. WATTERSON. Well, one big thing is the confidentiality so that 

the victims do feel safe and able to tell them that, you know, ‘‘I 

have insomnia, I am,’’ you know, ‘‘throwing up all the time, I am 

drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels a night.’’ You know, all of that 

kind of stuff. They need to be able to feel safe that they can tell 

someone about that so they can go get treatment. 
13 

And in my experience with working with active duty and also 

working with veterans recently, there is a big problem with many, 

many, many bases and commanders who have tried to brush off 

what the mandates and the laws are that have already been put 

in place. 

There is one commander, for example, who treated me like I was 

an absolute idiot. He was completely cocky about the whole thing. 

And I read off the mandates, like, this is what you should be doing 

for your troops and you are not doing it at all. And you are allowing other people—for example, I had one that was a male victim 

of MST and they were not protecting him as well. They were allowing people to walk by him and call him a fag, they were allowing 

people to beat him up because they were saying that he was a fag. 

He was being administered psychiatric drugs by his peers and not 

a medical professional. It was his peers. And he was still in training. He hadn’t got—it wasn’t basic training but the training for his 

job; that was where he was. 

And it was—it was disgusting and it has been—I have had to call 

the Inspector General (IG), and I asked these troops and things 

like, ‘‘Have you talked to your IG yet’’? 

‘‘What is an IG?’’ 

‘‘Well, have you talked to your SARC yet?’’ 

‘‘I don’t think so.’’ 

And a lot of the SARCs, they have the initial meet and ‘‘how are 

you doing’’ and ‘‘da, da, da’’ and that is it. They don’t call to check 

up and see how you are doing and let us make sure you get into 

the hospital and make sure your meds are correct. Basically to take 

care of them, make them feel like they have someone, because most 

of them, their families are very far away. And especially in training 

they probably don’t have any friends either. 

But that is a large thing. 

The SARC needs to be able to have enough power to fight the 

commander when the commanders are ignoring and basically 

mocking the system that has supposedly been put in place. That 

is a huge, huge problem. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I would actually like to turn to our folks here as well 

and see. 

Could you respond and help us with that as well because I think 

there is a big question of whether the SARC comes to a commander 

and says, Listen, we have got a problem here and nothing happens. 

What kind of authority do you have to follow up? 

Captain KATKA. Yes, ma’am. We report directly. At my base we 

report directly, and in the Air Force, to the vice wing commander, 

essentially the second on the base, which helps tremendously by 

the way. 

And so we are able to kind of go and interact with commanders, 

of course not tell them what they must do, but recommend highly 

with the vice—their understanding that the vice wing commander 

is who we report to. So it helps us tremendously in advocating for 

the survivor and whatever her or his needs are. 

Sergeant HORWATH. We are very similar, ma’am. We do a monthly sexual assault review board, and we report everything that goes 

on, that is involved in the program, goes to the senior movement 

commander at whatever installation we happen to be on. For me, 
14 

that happens to be the division commander, and it is reported up 

through there. And if there were any instances of anything like 

that going on, it would immediately come down. There is a lot of 

focus on command emphasis right now. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Quickly—I am out of time—I just want to get your 

response quickly. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Well, the Navy where I am affiliated in San Diego, all of our SARCs are civilian personnel so they 

are not normally subject to military intimidation and have free rein 

and have a lot of leeway in being able to deal with any commanding officers and any military personnel. So in my experience, 

we do not have that problem. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I think we will want to follow up with that a little 

bit more and see how we might be able to hold them accountable 

in a career sense as well. 

Thank you. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you all 

for your service and past service. 

Chief Petty Officer McKennie, I understand that the option for 

restricted reporting for sexual assault may be encouraging victims 

to come forward who in the past have been reluctant to report. 

From your experience, do victims often change from a restricted to 

an unrestricted report, and what factors would enter in? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Ranking Member Wilson, sir, I 

have not had any experience in dealing with any of the victims that 

did desire a restricted report. However, for some individuals who 

come out of restricted series to unrestricted series, they have a 

year to decide by policy to come from restricted to unrestricted, and 

any evidence that had been gathered for them on their behalf during that time would be available, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. And again, thank you for your personal service. It 

was very inspiring. 

Sergeant Horwath, please walk us through how a victim advocate and a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator provides assistance to a victim once a victim requests help. 

Sergeant HORWATH. Sir, once we receive the initial report, it will 

come up to the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator. We immediately take the victim, and if they need immediate medical attention, we take them to the medical care provider. Once we get them 

there, the victim advocates will show up. 

We work it so that the victim advocate in the Army, at least, in 

my brigade and the division, we ensure that the victim advocate is 

not from the same battalion as the victim in case they do want to 

go restricted. Once we have got them through the portion where 

they would make their choices of whether they want to continue on 

with it and do a forensic exam and so on, then it is a matter of 

the victim advocate is there to be that person’s go-to, the victim’s 

go-to person. We ensure that they go to their appointments. We ensure that they have a battle buddy to get them where they need 

to be, and from there it is just a matter of ensuring that they get 

counseling and the treatment that they need. And we stay with 

them through it until they come to us and ask us to no longer participate. 
15 

Mr. WILSON. And the person knows how to access you and the 

team? 

Sergeant HORWATH. In a deployed environment, we make a point 

of doing large campaigns. We will put up posters with the sexual 

assault response team’s photos on it; it will have the SARC; it will 

have all of the victim advocates. We put them up in the dining facilities. We put them up in the laundry area. They are basically all 

over the camp so the folks know how to get to us if they need to. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. And Captain Katka, you 

were deployed as a sexual response coordinator. How did you ensure that the victim advocates available were trained in your AOR? 

Captain KATKA. Yes, sir. In the Air Force, if you go through victim advocacy training, you receive what is called a special experience identifier in your personnel record, or better known as SEI. 

So when a deployed person goes overseas or SARC goes overseas, 

they can run—they can request that a personnel record is run on 

the people on the base, and those who have had that special experience identifier in their record will be noted, and then that SARC 

will know that person is a trained victim advocate. 

Additionally, when a SARC goes into the AOR—or at least in my 

experience, I also put a bulletin to the base: If there are any experienced victim advocates here, trained victim advocates, please 

come see me if you would like to serve, if for some reason if their 

experience identified didn’t get updated in the system. 

Mr. WILSON. As a former JAG officer, myself, in the National 

Guard for 31 years, I am impressed with the ability to have restricted and unrestricted reports. How do you find that system 

working? 

Captain KATKA. It is working fantastic, in my opinion. Last fiscal 

year 2008 we received 43 percent, in Lackland now, not in the 

AOR. I had 43 percent of our cases were restricted reporting cases. 

In the AOR, I had eight cases in four months, and three of those 

were restricted. It worked fantastic to be able to speak to a survivor and say, ‘‘You think about what you would like to do,’’ and 

he or she—it brought them solace. 

Mr. WILSON. I think it is very impressive to protect the privacy 

of individuals, and so I want to commend you on your helping to 

promote the policy and educate and inform the personnel of the 

availability. So again, I am very grateful. 

And respecting the chairwoman’s five-minute strict rule, I yield 

back. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. 

Ms. Watterson, I missed the year, the date of the incident that 

led to all of the problems that you have had, that you described for 

us today. 

Ms. WATTERSON. What was the last part you said? 

Dr. SNYDER. I missed the date of the incident that led to the discussion that you gave us. What was the year or date of the assault? 

Ms. WATTERSON. Oh, of my assault? I just remember it was in 

2001. And I only remember that because it happened before September 11th. It was a good year. 
16 

Dr. SNYDER. Sergeant First Class Horwath, you mentioned Taji, 

and it has been several years since I have been there, but it is a 

bit like a boomtown, all kinds of personnel coming through, multiple services, even different nationalities of services, lots of private 

contractors, civilian local workers. 

How does this system work in that kind of environment? 

Sergeant HORWATH. The system, as for how well it works, it 

works fantastic. The process of the system is the report comes in, 

goes to the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, is delegated 

down to a victim advocate for the advocacy portion. The SARC 

would then report up to the next level, which for me at Taji would 

have been Multinational Division Baghdad and then goes to Multinational Forces Iraq where it is put into the database. 

Dr. SNYDER. Can an Air Force personnel end up with an Army 

advocate? 

Sergeant HORWATH. It is possible, sir. I would not turn anyone 

down for advocacy. I advocated for civilians, military, male, female, 

contractors. 

Dr. SNYDER. Tell me about the contractors. How did that work? 

Sergeant HORWATH. With the contractors, the way we worked— 

and this is from my personal experience—was we gave them advocacy service, got them to the counselors because they fall under the 

program for all medical and processing while they are over there. 

Dr. SNYDER. So if something happened to them at Taji, and so 

they come and see you or one of—— 

Sergeant HORWATH. Yes, sir. They will come to us. We were fortunate in that the agency they were contracted to also had a program internally. So we achieved the advocacy portion for the victim, and then the contractor processed it once the victim was comfortable with going back. 

Dr. SNYDER. Have you ever been aware of situations where a 

higher ranking officer than the three of you sent down word of— 

to change your normal kind of process or procedure with regard to 

a specific individual who makes an allegation of sexual assault? 

Sergeant HORWATH. No, sir. I am not. 

Dr. SNYDER. Does your system, as it is working now, which you 

think is working very well, does it have those kinds of protections 

in it if you have got—does somebody have the ability to order you 

to back off? 

Sergeant HORWATH. Starting at the division up to the core, at 

each echelon there is a program manager. If I felt I was being pressured in any way by a senior level commander, I would go to the 

program manager, and it would be pushed up to the next echelon 

as high as it needed to go. 

Dr. SNYDER. Captain and Chief Petty Officer, do you want to respond to that question? 

Captain KATKA. I have not received any pressure to reveal any 

kind of information or change procedures from a command. I think 

the closest I could maybe give an example of is one time a colonel 

was wondering about a case, and I said, ‘‘Sir, do you have the need 

to know?’’ And he goes, ‘‘You know what? You are right. I don’t 

have the need to know.’’ And it was as simple as that. He knew 

exactly what the policy was. 
17 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. I can also comment on the same, 

sir. I have not received any pressure. I have had an incident where 

I was asked for information and I immediately responded it was— 

they were not on the ‘‘need to know’’ list and I immediately talked 

with my Sexual Assault Response Coordinator and received no 

other problems after that. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I 

appreciate your leadership, and I look forward to working with you 

on this subcommittee this term. 

I want to say I appreciate the testimony from all of our witnesses 

this morning, particularly to you, Ms. Watterson. It takes a great 

deal of courage to come to testify before Members of the U.S. Congress on a situation like you went through. And I want to thank 

you for your advocacy work. There is no better advocacy experience 

than to be a victim yourself. And I am sure you will find that out 

as you go along your way in this direction. 

I would like to direct my question to any one of the sexual assault response coordinators. I believe that you are all active duty, 

but I am wondering how this system of coordinators works for 

members in the National Guard. Have you heard any stories from 

colleagues about implementation in the National Guard? Oftentimes the support systems are designed for active duty without 

thought of the Guards. 

So I will begin with you, Captain. 

Captain KATKA. Well, ma’am, I can’t speak for the Air Force, of 

course. I do know that if a survivor, if someone is in the National 

Guard and they are on orders, they receive all of the same exact 

care in regards to the restricted reporting that an active duty member would there on orders. 

But in terms of the Guard and what their way ahead is and 

things like that, I don’t know if I can speak officially to that other 

than to say that I believe—and you may qualify this in future panels with future leaders—I believe that there is a Guard, a separate 

Guard SARC course to respond to those. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Sergeant. 

Sergeant HORWATH. Ma’am, I have personally been involved with 

training the National Guard SARC at Fort Hood a couple of times 

when they come in to processing through for deployment. They go 

through the exact same sexual assault response coordinator’s 

course and unit victim advocates course that active duty soldiers 

do. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. I have not had any personal experience with working with National Guard. There is a community 

solutions, a civilian component available in California that I could 

refer them to if I could not provide any assistance to them. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, I feel if there are any rules or regulations 

in place at this current time that we have to include the National 

Guard. They are out there fighting with us shoulder-to-shoulder. So 

I would be interested to hear about programs and see that they are 

getting the same treatment. 
18 

To all of the witnesses, from your experiences, what lessons 

learned can and should be applied to improve sexual assault victims’ support in the military? 

Are all of the rules now from Ms. Watterson, from the time she 

was in, apparently there weren’t all of these rules and regulations. 

Now many new ones are in place. Are they enough or do you see 

anything that should be included? 

Captain KATKA. Well, ma’am, there is always room for improvement, to be sure. And although we have come a long ways from the 

time of Ms. Watterson, I do believe that we have work to do. Perhaps—and this is from my experience and again, maybe future 

panels may be able to answer this better than a layman’s position 

in regards to the legal issues. When a victim comes forward in an 

unrestricted setting where he or she says, You know what? I want 

to go forward. I want an investigation, whatever. They sign the 

paper. 

Unfortunately, it is tough, as we all know, for a survivor to come 

forward and go through the litany of interviews. It is estimated 

that 25 to 35 times from start to finish through court and such you 

will have to tell your story. That is extremely draining and perhaps 

retraumatizing and revictimizing. 

In that setting, right now it is difficult once that ball gets rolling 

for that survivor to say, You know what? I want to stop. I am tired. 

I don’t want to do this, family issues, as we heard from Ms. 

Watterson, and what have you. 

And again, I wish I had solutions. You know, we are taught in 

the military to come with a problem and a solution—and this, 

again, maybe this should go to other panels with regards to legal. 

So that can be an issue because there have been times in my personal experience where an individual originally had signed under 

restricted and then later on as they go through it is tough on them 

saying I really wish I could put the brakes on it, and it can be difficult. 

Ms. BORDALLO. So that is understandable. So this happens not 

just in the military but in other cases as well. But you do feel there 

could be improvement. 

Sergeant, do you have any comments to make on that? 

Sergeant HORWATH. Ma’am, I believe it is an ever-evolving thing 

that we are working with. The Army, in my personal experience, 

a lot of programs focus, and re-focus. This program will do the 

same, and it will continue to do that and focus in the areas as I 

have seen it do already. When we find something that is lacking, 

we change focus and attack that also. And I believe this program 

will continue to do the same. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. The Sexual Assault Victim Intervention Program in the Navy has afforded me a great opportunity 

to be very successful in supplying the support and guidance for 

those victims that I have dealt with. It is a good solid program. But 

as other programs, it is always evolving, and there are more things 

to come. I am sure of that. 

But as in use right now, it has really afforded me a great opportunity to—and the resources that are available under this program 

have been supreme in the recovery and restoration of many victims 

that I have worked with. 
19 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. I hope as we go forward 

when the rules and regulations are in place that we perform them 

in the strictest ways. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Rooney. 

Mr. ROONEY. Madam Chairman, first of all, I want to say to Ms. 

Watterson, you know, I was nervous for you when you testified. I 

think you showed a lot of courage. And as a former prosecutor at 

the Federal level and State level in Florida and as a former judge 

advocate, your testimony here—and I know everybody agrees with 

me, and I know you have probably heard this a million times already today in coming up here—it is so vitally important that you 

continue to tell your story and, you know, try to pave the way for 

in the future so other victims don’t have to deal with what you are 

having to deal with. So I thank you for that, and I really appreciate 

your testimony here today. 

My question as a former judge advocate in the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, what is the process, just for the good of 

the group here, with regard to a situation like Ms. Watterson went 

through and coordination with the military police (MPs) and with 

the judge advocates, staff judge advocate and we are sort of looking 

at the other end of this spectrum. What is supposed to happen to 

the person who commits the assault? And I know in your story, obviously, it didn’t work the way it was supposed to work. But with 

regard to the branches sitting at the table, what coordination do 

you all do with the military police and the staff judge advocate in 

a normal case? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. That is a very good question, 

Congressman Rooney. 

In the Navy as an advocate when I am dealing with a victim, my 

first and sole duty, of course, is to advocate for the victim. So the 

only interaction that I would ever have on behalf of the victim is 

to just put—be there for support and guidance while they are doing 

any interviews or going through the process, the legal process that 

they need to go through. 

So my interaction is solely focused on the victim themselves. So 

no dealings with the perp. Not my concern. My concern is that victim, and that is who I am there for. 

Sergeant HORWATH. Speaking from personal experience, as a victim advocate against the same thing as CPO McKennie said, I 

focus on the victim as a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator. It 

is my job to have coordination with the JAG, the MPs. It is a point 

of the training that I go through. It is a point of something I have 

to do every time I set up a new sexual assault response team. I 

have to make those contacts, and I have to be able to receive that 

information. And I will be the one as the Sexual Assault Response 

Coordinator who will back-brief the victim on any information that 

is passed back to me through the JAG office, the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) office, the MP office. And it all comes 

through me as the SARC and will go directly to the victim from 

there. And I have never had any contention whatsoever with any 

of the agencies that I have worked with. 

Captain KATKA. Sir, in the law enforcement realm, there are 

checklists. If a survivor would present themselves or a case would 

be, you know, investigated, there is a checklist for the investigator 
20 

in security forces to call the SARC. We are actually on the top line. 

They would call us. We would ask them to not interview that survivor until our victim advocate gets there so that they can—have 

solace to know that somebody is there with them. 

In terms of the legal sides of it, the Air Force assigns what is 

called a victim/witness assistance program representative. That 

person is a liaison to tell that survivor everything that is going to 

happen should this go to court, or if it doesn’t, what would it look 

like if the commander is going to assign judgment or punishment 

to the perpetrator or what have you. 

So that person is assigned to that survivor specifically. 

And myself, as the coordinator, is intimately involved with that 

victim witness program representative. So we kind of form this 

kind of hug, if you well, with this survivor so he or she is fully 

aware of everything that is going on. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

As you know, we have been working on this issue for so many 

years now, and I think a lot of the task forces and the changes in 

the law, I hope, are helping. But I continue to receive information 

from victims and from people in the forefront that with respect to 

having somebody there in the field with everybody, that it is different between the services. 

For example, with respect to the Navy, I think you all sort of 

move around in a grouping and you get on a ship and you are there 

for however many days, 90 days, 3 months, what have you. So everybody sort of understands who the person is that is kind of in 

charge of taking care of things if some victim should emerge and 

everybody knows who to go to and you have the support system to 

help with that. 

But for example, with the Army, in particular, if someone is in 

combat, in the combat zone, let us say Iraq, we are filling positions 

with reservists, with National Guard, with pieces of volunteers 

from other units, that it is not necessarily true that an advocate 

is stationed or in a zone with a particular person. It is not that 

well known who that person would be or there is not that much 

emphasis placed on it because you are in a war zone, and other 

things are going on. 

So I would like to get some comment in particular from you, the 

Army, as to what are the challenges with respect to having these 

special advocates or special counselors assigned. What is the commitment to that? What could we do better to ensure that if someone is in Iraq—because we have had—I think now I want to say 

almost 600 reported assaults in Iraq or more at this point, the last 

number I checked. Given the difficulties of Afghanistan or Iraq, in 

particular, how are you coping with that and what are the mechanisms or the procedures you have used to identify that, the fact 

there is somebody to turn to if an assault takes place? 

Sergeant HORWATH. Ma’am, I can only speak with my personal 

experiences working with the 4th Infantry Division. The policy is 

in place. There will be two unit victim advocates per battalion and 

a SARC for every brigade. When we deploy out, the SARC is the 

one who oversees the program. I have had several small units that 

have detached and gone on to different forward operating bases 
21 

(FOBs) where they were away. I make it a point of my job as the 

SARC to contact whatever group is running that and find out who 

their victim advocate is and making sure that the chain of command and the soldiers are aware of it. 

Again, we do poster campaigns. We put it out as much as we possibly can. I can’t make a soldier come forward and report, but I can 

definitely throw it in their face if there is someone available for 

them. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. What is the mix going on with respect to the Air 

Force in this? Because again, I think I am more familiar with—the 

Navy is more stable in respect to that. What do you see in the Air 

Force happening? 

Captain KATKA. With respect to advocacy in the AOR, ma’am? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Yes. Down all the way to the airman or airwoman 

who might be involved. 

Captain KATKA. Yes, ma’am. 

There is a challenge, I will admit to you, in the forward operating bases. The GSUs, the Geographically Separated Units, and I 

will speak to that experience. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And that is what I would like to hear about and 

any comments you might have as to how we might make it better. 

Captain KATKA. I will try. 

In the base I was at, we had victim advocates without problem 

because it was such a large installation. But I also supported the 

geographically separated unit in Saudi Arabia. I think perhaps 

about 300 airmen were on that Army installation. So victim advocacy—the spirit behind the victime advocate program is volunteerism, all right, to keep people who really have a passion for 

this program to ensure those are the people who are serving us not 

for a performance report rating or what have you. 

So when we set up the GSU or when the GSU is there, if we 

don’t have any volunteer victim advocates, it can be difficult to fill 

that victim advocate slot over there. We don’t assign. We don’t 

make people do victim advocates in the Air Force. 

What I did when I was over there before I left is I found out a 

month or two prior to me leaving who was going to be coming into 

that GSU, and I found out people’s names, very frankly. And I 

called back to those bases and I asked them or I asked the SARC, 

‘‘Could you ask those people if they would like to volunteer to be 

a victim advocate in that arena.’’ 

Fortunately, it worked out. We got three or four victim advocates 

for that GSU in the next rotation. And I have made up a continuity 

binder for my successor to understand this is what I did. I highly 

encourage you to do the same. And that is how we began. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Do you see that the volunteers—because this is 

based on volunteer. Do you see that it is mostly women stepping 

forward to volunteer? 

Captain KATKA. Yes. At Lackland on my main base, we have approximately 65 to 70 victim advocates. We have about 15 that are 

male. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Ms. Fallin. 

Ms. FALLIN. I, too, appreciate your coming to testify. It has been 

very interesting. Madam Chair and I were co-chairs in the Women 
22 

in Military Task Force, so we appreciate having another hearing on 

this important issue. 

Ms. Watterson, I appreciate your testimony today, and I know it 

is very difficult to come forward but just would like to encourage 

you to keep telling your story so you can help other women as they 

go through this process, and hopefully your healing will continue 

to carry forth. 

I had a question for you. After listening to all of the testimony 

today by various officials and our victim advocates, do you feel like 

since your incident in 2001 that we have made progress in the military in establishing procedures and advocates and programs that 

you would find today more helpful than what was available to you 

back then? 

Ms. WATTERSON. To be honest, no. I have seen a lot of new mandates and a lot of new, you know, whatever, but the fact is that 

the majority of what I have seen and dealt with and heard from 

other survivors is that nothing has changed. They are still using 

the McDowell checklist, which basically they can turn it around 

and make it look like the person is lying. And so someone who 

comes forward and wants to report it could be charged with conduct unbecoming, filing false charges, and if either the victim or 

rapist or assaulter is married, they can be charged with adultery. 

That is a big reason why people do not come forward. And other 

women will see what happens to one woman about what happens 

about them, basically getting their lives torn apart just because 

they went forward and asked for help. They get stalked by the 

friends of the perpetrator. I don’t see any change. 

Ms. FALLIN. I appreciate those comments, and I hope the men 

and lady here will listen to those comments and hopefully make 

improvements on that. 

But the one I have been listening to, I feel like there has been 

progress made. And I appreciate the steps that you have taken in 

your various divisions, but I do want to ask some of the things that 

she brought up earlier today. 

She talked about if someone has been accused of sexual assault 

or rape that they might be moved to another military base. Is that 

what I was understanding you to say earlier? 

Ms. WATTERSON. They have the option of either changing jobs, 

changing bases, and they also have the ability to get out of the 

military on an administrative discharge. 

Ms. FALLIN. You were saying that the files do not follow them. 

If I could ask you to comment on that, on the procedures, that if 

someone is accused of assault and if there has been something that 

has happened, do you move them to another base? Does their file 

follow them, or what is their procedure in that? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Yes, Congresswoman Fallin. 

In the cases that I have dealt with of victims, there has been an 

opportunity for either to be moved. In some cases that I have dealt 

with as a victim advocate when I have made the needs and wants 

of the victims that I have been dealing with known, they have had 

an opportunity to being moved to a different department or division 

away from the perpetrator. In other instances, the perpetrator has 

been moved off the facility completely. 
23 

It is always, in my experience in dealing with the victims I have 

worked with, it has always been the command’s intent to make the 

victim as comfortable and be supportive as they possibly could. 

Ms. FALLIN. Let me ask you about that real quick. So you are 

saying that the victim can request to be moved during the process 

of determining guilt or the other person accused could be moved? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. I apologize, ma’am. 

I make those needs and wants made available to the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, and they make a recommendation to 

the command. It is an opportunity to them available. However, the 

command does have final approval over who will be moved. 

Ms. FALLIN. So it is optional. And the reason I ask—and I see 

the Lauterbachs are here and I had an opportunity to meet with 

Mrs. Lauterbach on her daughter’s case where she lost her life because she and her accused were kept in the same battalion, if I remember right; and that wasn’t moved and she ended up losing her 

life. And so it is an important point that we do all that we can to 

separate the victim and the accused. And I know everybody has the 

right to due process, to be found guilty or not guilty. But if there 

is a situation where the accused feels like their life is threatened— 

excuse me, the victim, I should say—they should have those options of being moved. 

Let me ask you about the sexual assault. 

Mrs. DAVIS. We going to come back and have another round. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. Shea-Porter. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I want to follow up on that very question that the Congresswoman asked because when I was hearing about what happened 

to the victim, I kept wondering what was happening to the alleged 

perpetrator. So what I heard on that testimony, that it is not necessarily so that the alleged perpetrator is removed. 

And I also wonder about the damage for the victim losing—having to be the one to request the transfer, losing the friends, the security and the comfort of the job, the familiarity of the routine and 

allowing the perpetrator to stay in place. 

So I wanted to ask that question also. Is this something that the 

commander must do, or is it still optional? I know that you probably recommend that they be separated. But I didn’t quite understand what actually does happen. Is there something in stone, 

something codified that says this is what they have to do, they 

have to be separated? And who leaves? Is it up to the victim about 

whether he or she stays and the alleged perpetrator has to leave? 

Could you go a little bit further on that? And I think, Captain, 

if you will tell me what happens in the Air Force, please. 

Captain KATKA. Let me speak to a recent case. 

Recently—and I won’t speak in specifics because it is still going 

on—a young lady presented and she asked that she be removed as 

the survivor. She is the survivor. As the Sexual Assault Response 

Coordinator in concert with the mental health provider, we were 

both able to write letters recommending to her functioning community that she go to a base of her choice to be around family members for support. 
24 

And so she got what was called a humanitarian reassignment. 

And it was all predicated on her assault. 

Now, in other instances, I work in a training base and so there 

are training units where men and women obviously are together. 

And if there is an assault, and we will use a male-female, a male 

assaulting a lady, there will be an automatic ‘‘no contact’’ order 

given. Now as a SARC, I can’t—I am not an authority in terms of 

this is what will happen. I am only a recommender. I am a liaison 

to the command. I help the command understand the survivor’s situation, their mental well-being and things of what is important. 

So I recommend to them the no contact order, but it is just automatic that the survivor—or excuse me, the offender will be moved 

from that squadron into another squadron. 

It is hard to move perpetrators because they need to stay, often, 

to be brought up on charges, so on and so forth, at the base that 

they are assigned to. And quite honestly, in my experience, the victims have always wanted to be the ones to be moved in terms of 

the permanent party division so they could be around other families members at other continental United States (CONUS) locations. So I hope that helps. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. But ultimately it still is not a rule. It is a recommendation. And you hope they act upon their recommendation. 

Captain KATKA. Ultimately, but future panels may help you understand that better. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. And Sergeant, do you have anything to add to 

that? What is your experience where you are, please? 

Sergeant HORWATH. For the Army, there is an automatic flag 

placed on the perpetrator, which means they cannot move just because of the difficulty it would make in going forward with the 

prosecution if you moved the perpetrator around. It is optional for 

the victim. If they would like to be moved, we work with them. We 

work with the command as much as possible and we will move 

them around. I have never been refused to move a victim. It has 

always been made available. 

With the exception of redeployment, we will move them within 

theater if they are over in Iraq or Afghanistan. They have moved 

them around, but they don’t redeploy them automatically. 

But the flag stands for the perpetrator to ensure the individual 

is there to be investigated and put through the processes that have 

to come forward. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Sergeant, I want to ask you, I realize you 

have different sets of circumstances, but the rate of rape continues—at least reported rape—continues to climb in spite of these 

programs, and the Army has a much more significant problem 

than, say, the Navy does. And to what do you attribute that, and 

can you tell me that when recruits come into the Army, are they 

allowed to have anything on their record whatsoever that would 

suggest that he or she could be a risk to other troops? 

Sergeant HORWATH. Ma’am, I have never ever been a recruiter. 

I am not aware of anything that would be looked at. I have no 

knowledge of that. 

My personal belief on the reason that you are seeing higher number of reports is because the program is working. The soldiers are 

being made aware of the program, they know that we are there to 
25 

help them, and they are coming forward in higher numbers and reporting situations that may have gone non-reported for a number 

of years. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. So you think there is a higher reporting of 

rape, Captain? 

Captain KATKA. Yes, ma’am. I think it may sound contradictory, 

but I think it is a good story. I think the higher our rates go up, 

we hope—and it is anecdotal, of course—but we hope it is because 

young men and women are feeling more comfortable to come forward so obviously the numbers would be higher. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Same to you, Petty Officer. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. I believe that the training that 

the Navy provides and the continuous training that we do every 

year, it does instill a confidence in our sailors to come forward and 

report any type of sexual assault. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Ms. Watterson, do you feel the same? Let me 

thank you for being here and sharing your story. Do you agree with 

that that we have better reporting now? 

Ms. WATTERSON. From what I have seen and what I have dealt 

with honestly, I don’t think so. I don’t—I just don’t think so. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. That is the purpose of the committee, to keep 

looking. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you all. I appreciate very much your testimony, Ms. Watterson. As others have said, it has taken great courage, and we learned very much from it. 

Among other things, I think it reminds us, one, the assault in 

and of itself is horrible but our response to it can really aggravate 

that circumstance and how important it is, as we go forward, that 

we recognize our obligation to put in place mechanisms that have 

real teeth. 

One of the things as I listened that I am concerned about is the 

chain of command structure in the military works to our advantage 

in many instances, but it seems to me that in this area it is one 

which really works against our being able to respond in a way that 

is truly meaningful. 

So I have just a couple of questions. 

In terms of the reported assaults, do you keep any track of how 

often the assault is by a superior? I know that in the military academies, for instance, we heard reports of one upper classman, one 

class up could make a difference in a woman’s willingness to report 

it, take it on in some way. 

So do you keep track, you know, keep records of how often it is 

a superior of any kind that is involved in assault as a perpetrator? 

Captain KATKA. Yes, ma’am. We have in our tracking database 

ranks of both the subject and the survivor so we know exactly what 

the rank breakout is. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Can you quantify percentages at all? 

Captain KATKA. I would say approximately the survivors’ status 

is—73 percent of the survivors are about E–1s through E–3s, and 

then the offender status is 54 percent E–1 through E–3. So obviously the leftover would obviously be of the higher rank of the E– 

3. 

Ms. TSONGAS. That would be how much? My math isn’t great. 
26 

Captain KATKA. I am not good at public math either. 

Ms. TSONGAS. How about for you? 

Sergeant HORWATH. Ma’am, the Army uses a self-reporting system. All sexual assaults that are reported goes into one database, 

so they do have it available. It does have the rank of the alleged 

victim and of the perpetrator, so it is tracked throughout the Army. 

As far as statistics, I do not have any available with me. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 91.] 

Ms. TSONGAS. I would like to see those, if possible. 

How about the Navy? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. As an advocate, I do not track 

members, and the Sexual Assault Response Coordinators track and 

keep files of any victims that happen in our area. I am not aware 

of any formula or percentage data that they have available to 

them. 

Ms. TSONGAS. If there is any way of getting that data, I would 

appreciate it. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 91.] 

Ms. TSONGAS. The other question I have is I happened to attend 

a session last year for those who are returning, wounded warriors 

who are returning, and happened to go over and speak to some of 

the women, several of whom who had been victims of sexual assault although that was not why they were in this setting. And one 

of them did comment to me that while she was in Iraq she felt 

more afraid of her fellow soldiers than she did of the enemy. So 

that told me that we have a serious problem, especially in the theater of war, and that whatever we are doing clearly to deal with 

the victim, those who are victimized, we really haven’t put in place 

sufficient mechanisms to sort of alert women, help them figure out 

self-defense mechanisms to empower them in some way as we go 

forward. And I think that is particularly important in the chain of 

command context. That is just a statement. 

I am wondering what you all have as leverage with your commanders if they refuse to take action after you have gone up the 

chain of command in reporting what you think should be appropriate action. If they do nothing, what can you do? 

Captain KATKA. Could you explain the nothing? Nothing against 

the perpetrator? Nothing to help the survivor? 

Ms. TSONGAS. Maybe against the perpetrator. 

So, for example, the story of the soldier who gets promoted in the 

face of your reporting, but what you can do to have a commander 

take this very seriously? 

Captain KATKA. What we could do is—what we would do is we 

would interact with that commander, and obviously that commander would be aware of what happened. 

Now, I should point out that the interaction with commanders for 

a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator is going to be with the survivor’s commander primarily. It wouldn’t be with the perpetrator’s. 

We are very survivor centric. We are victim centric. So everything 

that supports her, that is what we would take care of. 

In terms of the perpetrator’s commander, admittedly very little 

interaction. 
27 

But to help the survivor, obviously we would ensure that we 

would talk with our vice wing commander if necessary. That is 

base level commander, and we would bring it up to his attention 

to see if he needed more mentoring, if you will, from one commander to another. 

I hope that helps. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I applaud you for 

holding this hearing today on this very important subject. 

Ms. Watterson, I want to convey to you my deep respect for having the courage to take on this kind of cause and to share your experience publicly. 

And every one of you at the table, I want to thank you for your 

service to the Nation. 

I will say, being—my background is in law. I have practiced law 

for 27 years. Most of that time I was a criminal defense lawyer, but 

also for 12 years of that time I was a magistrate court judge. And 

I find that it is bad when we have a culture in the military of ‘‘boys 

will be boys’’ kind of, and so there is not a real serious investigatory effort. And I know that that culture is changing, as it should. 

But I would hope that we would also keep in mind that some 

complaints of sexual assault are unmerited. And so therefore when 

we talk in terms of the victim, the perpetrator, the survivor, depending on what phase of the process that we are in, if it is pretrial or pre-disposition, I think probably a better language would 

be the ‘‘accused’’ and the ‘‘accuser’’ instead of assuming that the accused is guilty by calling him or her the ‘‘perpetrator.’’ 

Now aside from that, I do think that in the civilian world a deterrent for people committing sexual assault crimes is a vigorous 

law enforcement approach which begins, of course, when there is 

a call to the law enforcement agency; and most law enforcement 

agencies in the civilian world in a large department will have a 

sexual assault investigatory team. 

And I would like to know whether or not when a complaint is 

made, is it an untrained MP—untrained in sexual assault investigation techniques—that is brought to the scene, or is it someone 

who has been trained specifically to investigate these kinds of 

issues, collect evidence, crime scene unit. You know, how do we do 

that? Protocols for doctors. Are medical doctors trained to investigate or from a medical perspective and preserve evidence and document things? 

I mean, is that something that people are trained in? And in 

terms of chain of custody issues of the, say, rape kit, you know. Are 

there protocols for passing those on up the chain? 

If we have a vigorous, well-trained enforcement and investigatory 

apparatus, what is your opinion as to that issue? And I know you 

all get the cases—well, you get the case at some point after a complaint is made. Tell me how you get that case, how does it come 

to you? 

And then Captain Katka, you mentioned something about you 

ask that no one talk to the survivor first without you being the one 

or your office being the one to speak with the complainant. Can you 

explain the reasons why and whether or not that includes the po-
28 

lice investigating the matter first with a exposure to the complainant? 

Captain KATKA. Yes, sir. The reason that we want to ensure that 

we get to speak with the survivor first is, first of all, remember the 

restricted and unrestricted reporting options. We don’t know what 

she had said or he had said at this point. So to preserve her privacy or his privacy, to get to them to help them understand the reporting option is key to understand that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I am sorry. I am going to have to cut you off because 

I have been cutting everybody else after five minutes. Mr. Johnson, 

we will come back on another round, and we will have some more 

time, I think, for additional answers. 

Thank you. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. Watterson, I also want to, as everyone has, thank you so 

much for what you have done. Coming forward, I know, has to be 

incredibly difficult. Your story is very moving. But what is important is you are bringing light really to an issue in a process that 

is really about people. It is about people like yourself, and we can’t 

make it right if we don’t know what the problems are; and your 

doing that makes a difference for others, and hopefully it makes a 

difference for you. 

I have with me today—I want to tell you also, Ms. Watterson, 

that I agree with your comment that we don’t have it right yet. It 

is not fixed. And that is why this committee—and I want to thank 

the Chair for undertaking this issue. We know this does not just 

happen in 2001, but as many members have said, this is an ongoing issue and we don’t have it right. 

I have with me today Mary Lauterbach. She is the mother of 

Maria Lauterbach, who was a Marine who, upon coming forward 

with an allegation of rape, was subsequently murdered, and that 

was in 2007. And in working with the Lauterbach family, we have 

basically seen that there are two different types of issues we have 

to deal with. There is the cultural issue—and it is a strong cultural 

issue that needs to be addressed in the military with the issue of 

this being acceptable and the issue of the treatment, how sexual 

assault victims are treated. 

The second is our rules and regulations, what the processes that 

we go through. And there are some things that we find along the 

way that need to be changed. For example, from the Lauterbach 

case, two things that we just changed in the last National Defense 

Authorization Act applied to protective orders because in Maria 

Lauterbach’s case, her protective order was allowed to lapse. So we 

changed that in the last law so that now will be permanent. And 

also the local authorities knew nothing of the protective order so 

that when she was off base they had no idea that there was an 

issue that was ongoing, and that has been changed in the last act 

that we did. 

But we need to learn more of these things and more culturally. 

And I want to thank Madam Chairman for undertaking this. I 

know she has met with Mary Lauterbach, and I want to thank 

Jane Harman for her work on this. She has met with Mary 

Lauterbach, and we appreciate your advocacy on this. 
29 

Now getting to that issue, we have two—we have culture and we 

have rules and regulations. I have two separate sets of questions 

for representatives of the military. 

I want to set this up by telling you that after Mary Lauterbach 

and she had the detailed report from the base as to their description of what had happened to Maria, the family was very concerned 

because it appeared that the base was saying that we had no 

knowledge that there was any risk to Maria, that in fact because 

they had no knowledge there was no protection that needed to 

occur. 

So from my office, I inquired, asking the Marines to explain to 

me how they could have no notice that someone is at risk when 

they are coming forward with an allegation of rape. And I know 

you are very familiar that the safety of the victim is very important. And I want to read to you part of the response that I got because I want to get your thoughts on it because it was very repugnant to me. 

When I got this response from the Marines, I thought it went 

right to the culture. And this letter is dated March 31st, 2008, and 

it is from Lieutenant General Kramlich, and I asked this question: 

Doesn’t a rape accusation inherently contain an element of force 

or threat? 

And then they go on in their answer to relate that according to 

their information, there were two sexual contacts: one being alleged 

rape, one being consent. And then they write this sentence, which 

I would like you to respond to. It says, ‘‘Lauterbach never alleged 

any violence or threat of violence in either sexual encounter.’’ 

Now, I don’t know how there could be a rape where there is not 

an allegation of violence or threat of violence. And that was my reaction, and it has been the reaction of the members that I have 

read this to. 

And I am certain that as you advocate for victims, you run into 

cultural issues and responses like this, which I happen to have 

from the Marines in writing. 

Could you each please respond what your thoughts are when you 

hear someone say that there was never alleged any violence or 

threat of violence in relationship to a rape? 

Mrs. DAVIS. This is to your personal experience. You are not representing the services here. 

Captain KATKA. If I understand you correctly, just because there 

was no physical force, then there wasn’t a rape. Is that a simple 

way of—— 

Mr. TURNER. No, they are acknowledging that there was a rape. 

But, see, the question that we had is there was a rape and that 

we believed that the victim, Maria Lauterbach, was therefore at 

risk for future violence. She’d come forward with the allegation of 

rape. And so we were inquiring, because there was a rape, didn’t 

you know that there was a threat of violence? And they wrote back 

and said that Lauterbach never alleged any violence or threat of 

violence in either sexual encounter, meaning, of course, referring to 

the rape itself. That the rape itself did not include an allegation 

of violence or threat of violence. 
30 

And that is just so shocking to me, and I would think it would 

be in your experience. And this is—again, this is dated March 31st, 

2008, from Lieutenant General Kramlich, U.S. Marine Corps. 

What are your thoughts? 

Captain KATKA. Well, in regards to—I notice the time going 

down, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Right. Your time is essentially up. But can you 

quickly respond to his question? 

Captain KATKA. That astonishes me, too. I don’t know how much 

quicker I need to be. 

Sergeant HORWATH. The same, astonished that someone would 

make that remark. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. It is an unfortunate remark; and 

a victim of sexual assault is that, a victim of sexual assault, regardless of what anyone thinks. As an advocate, and that is what 

I advocate for for that victim. 

Mr. TURNER. Madam Chair, thank you for the extra time for 

them to finish. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Ms. Harman. 

Ms. HARMAN. I thank you, Madam Chair and the members of the 

committee, for welcoming me back. 

As you know, I served on this committee for six years. One of the 

members at the time was Pete Geren from Texas, who is now the 

Secretary of Army and who is taking an extraordinary leadership 

role on this issue. I want to commend him in absentia but also 

want to commend the Army’s representative for what you are trying to do. 

I want to repeat something from Ms. Watterson’s testimony. I 

don’t think it was in her written testimony. 

She said, ‘‘Where is the safety? I felt as though I was entering 

a band of brothers. I was then an outcast, virtually alone.’’ 

I can’t imagine a better summary. And I just want to say to you, 

Ms. Watterson, and I certainly want to say to the Lauterbach family, America failed you, the military failed you, and Congress failed 

you. And it is past time to get this right. This is an epidemic. 

A woman in the military is more likely to be raped by a fellow 

soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq. I have said this before. 

It is still true. And I am glad that we are working on victim care, 

but what we need to work on more is prevention. And that is why 

Mr. Turner and I reintroduced our joint resolution. And that is why 

I hope, Madam Chair, that this committee will move on to adopt 

this resolution, which calls on the military to develop an effective 

strategy for investigation and prosecution of these crimes. 

These are not just crimes against individuals. These are crimes 

that impair our national security. And so I hope in the 30 seconds 

I have left that I can just make the point that I don’t want any 

more women or men who are victims of these crimes to be virtually 

alone, to feel that they are outcasts and to feel afraid to come out 

of their bedrooms and have, you know, horrific personal consequences from this. 

So I just would conclude by saying America has failed; and I 

hope that this committee, a great committee with a great tradition 

of defending soldiers who stand up and sign up to serve their coun-
31 

try, will take this issue very seriously, pass this joint resolution 

and do as much as we can to stop this epidemic. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back. 

Ms. WATTERSON. Can I say one more itty-bitty thing? 

With all the victims that I have worked with, at least 90 percent 

say that the way they were treated after the assault was far worse 

than the actual assault and far more devastating. And this is still 

with all the new rules and the new regulations. This is still. And 

so I just want to make that point. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Watterson. I appreciate that. Because I wanted to come back to you. I mean, that is a stunning 

statement. And what we are trying to do is to figure out where the 

gaps are. Are there different tools? We have some wonderful examples of some SARCs here, people that have a great commitment 

and a passion for serving the people that you are working with. 

You mentioned at one point in your testimony that you have concerns that there should be more sexual abuse help and support to 

victims from outside the system, not from inside the system. You 

mentioned spouses, if they have a special problem, in terms of nevertheless being independent in their assessments and independent 

I think in their advocacy, which means going all the way up the 

chain as well. 

Is that part of the problem as you see it? That we need people 

from outside the system? 

Because we also could suggest that that could be a problem certainly in theater. In a combat theater, that would be an issue. 

Where is that piece that you are looking for as you’ve see it now 

and worked with other advocates? Is that still critical in your estimation, or is it more the training, the people who choose to select, 

because it is a self-selection process in many ways, people who volunteer? Again, we have some wonderful examples of people who 

are choosing to do that. How can we fix this part of it? 

Ms. WATTERSON. I am not saying it is every SARC or every base, 

but the reasoning that I am saying that it needs to be civilians and 

people that are not, say, dependents of someone in the military, 

just because, first of all, it will make the victim feel more secure 

with actually telling the whole truth, talking about their symptoms, thinking that someone is actually on their side. They are far 

less likely to come forward to another military member, since they 

were just assaulted by another military member. 

So the other reason is because there is too much room for intimidation and with several SARCs that I have to basically do their job 

for them, because they were not doing their job for the victim. They 

don’t have enough power to say, you know, what are you doing to 

the command? You are not following the rules and the regulations 

and all the mandates and all these rules that have come, you 

know, come up. But there is just far too much intimidation factor. 

They do not want to lose their job, or they don’t want to endanger 

the job of their spouse, et cetera. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Could I ask the rest of you to speak to that? 

Because one of the things you said, Captain Katka, is that you 

or a SARC has no real link to the accused—in the words of my colleague—and that you are not able to necessarily track that, what 

happens in those cases and to find that there is some way, some 
32 

accountability there for people acting appropriately, not just within 

the rules but acting to be certain it that doesn’t happen again, certainly not with that accused but within the unit as well. 

Where do you see that? Is there a tool that would be helpful? Ms. 

Sanchez and I talked earlier about career advancement. Is that an 

issue? What is it? 

Captain KATKA. Perhaps I also misspoke earlier to say that there 

is no tracking of the perpetrator for the accuser, because we do. We 

do bring updates to the survivor, continually working with the 

legal system. So there is that, and maybe I didn’t communicate 

that good enough. 

Although we don’t have authority—not authority, but we don’t 

have decision-making power to do thus and so with the perpetrator, 

please understand that the vice wing commander—reporting to the 

vice wing commander is essential. And we feel as though, because 

we have the vice wing commander’s—the person that we are subject to, it helps tremendously; and I have seen case after case 

where we are able to use that authority to help us get things done 

on behalf of the survivor and understand what is going on with the 

perpetrator and such. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Any other follow-up comments, quickly? 

Sergeant HORWATH. We run the same program, basically. And 

the legal system tracks the alleged perpetrator, and we get updates 

to give to the victim. We have no say in what happens to them, 

but we are not a part of the investigatory process either. We are 

there to be victim focused almost solely. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. One of the great things about the 

Navy, especially in the southwest region which I am affiliated, 

being an advocate for the victim, they do receive updates periodically from Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) or from the 

detectives that are handling their cases. It is their right, and they 

are aware of that when I first come on scene. 

One of the tools that we do in the southwest region to prevent 

intimidation or at least alleviate it as much as possible, as a advocate I am never in uniform, so they do not know any rank; and I 

always address myself by my civilian name. So they have no idea 

who I am, except that I am their advocate. And that tool works extremely well for us in the Navy. Having civilian SARCs who are 

not normally intimidated by military personnel is another balance 

that we use as part of our Navy program in the southwest region. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones, we are going to go back to you. Thank you. 

Mr. JONES. Madam Chairman, thank you; and I want to apologize if any of my questions might be repetitive. I had to be out for 

almost an hour, and I didn’t hear the questions from my colleagues. 

I am very taken aback by the testimony. I want to say to you, 

Ms. Watterson, that I regret what happened to you and I am sure 

other members have said that as well for a multitude of reasons. 

I got a call three or four years ago. Camp Lejeune is in my district, and I never will forget a lady from Alabama who thought that 

her daughter had been raped. I actually ended up meeting with the 

mom when she came to North Carolina from Alabama, and I also 

met with the daughter. 
33 

I guess, to get to the point of what I am trying to ask, based on 

your testimony, Ms. Watterson, do you in the Navy, Army, Air 

Force—is the compassion there? From you, yes. I understand that. 

But when I heard this testimony—and I go back thinking of the 

lady who came up from Alabama. When I hear this testimony, 

somewhere in the process, the pain and hurt of the victim, it 

doesn’t seem that up the chain, so to speak. 

And I am not trying to point my finger at anybody. You are the 

experts. I am not. I am just here trying to learn and trying to do 

what is right. 

But somewhere along the way what happened to Ms. Watterson 

should never have happened. And why would—has that changed? 

Where the person who committed the crime, if he in this situation—and I don’t know the case. I do appreciate and understand 

testimony. I believe everything you said. But has it improved, that 

the victim is treated as a human being? Or is it because the military has the structure that it has? 

I will never forget what Secretary England, who I thought the 

world of, of being down at Camp Lejeune in 2004, 2005 and 2006. 

And one of the companies returned from Iraq, and Secretary England was talking about we want to help you with PTSD and these 

kind of illnesses. And I promise you, when this one Marine stepped 

out, I thought the Colonel was going to faint. Because the Marine 

is not to show that he has got a problem. 

So has it changed? 

What year did you say this attack happened to you? 

Ms. WATTERSON. I am sorry? 

Mr. JONES. What year did this attack happen? 

Ms. WATTERSON. 2001. 

Mr. JONES. 2001. 

Can women be assured now—and maybe, in a few cases, men. I 

don’t know. Can women be assured now that if it happens today, 

in 2009, that the system has changed such, that the percentage of 

those who would be hurt like this woman has been hurt is being 

reduced? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Congressman Jones, I can’t guarantee and tell you that all women in the Navy will be assured or 

all men will be assured that are victims. Because as long as there 

are evil people out in the world who want to perpetrate this crime, 

it is going to continue. But as an advocate what I guarantee from 

me as an advocate is that any victim that I deal with will receive 

as much guidance and support as I can physically muster for the 

entire time that I am their advocate. 

Because people are different in our society and they are from different backgrounds and there are some that are more compassionate than others. I understand that I will run into someone that 

is not compassionate to the victim that I am advocating for and 

that will increase my motivation to advocate for them even more, 

and I will do all that I can to ensure that as long as I am their 

advocate that they will get the support and guidance that they 

need or whatever requirements we need to do or whatever steps we 

need to make to make sure that they get that. We are going to do 

that, and that is not going to stop as long as I am their advocate. 
34 

Mr. JONES. Chief, let me ask you or the Sergeant or the Captain—again, I apologize. I should have been here, but I could not 

help that. I was watching Ms. Watterson shake her head on a couple of comments I was making. Do you feel that in 2009, compared 

to 2007 or 2005 or 2001, that the number of instances of rape that 

are being reported are up, down or there are still things happening 

that have not been reported? Do you feel better about the fact that 

those who are victims are coming forward and that they are being 

supported by the chain of command in comparison to what maybe 

it used to be? I don’t know. 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Sir, I have been an advocate since 

2005; and, in that time, my cases have increased. So I am confident 

that because of the training that we are providing in the Navy, because of the awareness that we are providing in the Navy, the tools 

that we are giving people to come forth, that that has helped increase the reporting. And I am glad to see that those numbers are 

rising, because that is more people who are no longer hiding that 

pain and shame and that they can get the help and guidance that 

they need. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Jones. 

We have two votes. We should be back in about 20 minutes, I 

think. If I could beg your indulgence, we will finish this round with 

all of you; and then we will go on to our next panel. So are you 

all able to stay? 

Captain KATKA. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much, and I hope everyone will return as quickly as they can. 

[Recess.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, everybody, for waiting. We are going to 

return to the panel. We have a few members who are coming back. 

We want to finish up this round, and then we will move to the second panel. 

Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Madam Chair; and, once again, thank 

you to all the panel for being here. 

I have just one question. Because in the 12 years that I have 

been on this committee and in the Congress we have had this problem. I believe it is a major problem when we are a voluntary force 

in particular and when we are looking at 50 percent of Americans 

being women and the fact that we need to draw the talents from 

that pool just as we do from the men. And I believe women should 

be in the military and that this problem is continuing to happen 

and has for so many years drives me crazy. 

We were able to pass, as you know, a new UCMJ section that 

dealt with this. I hear back from the prosecutors that they love 

using this new law and that they are more effectively using it to 

get the prosecutions they need. 

But, you know, I have always said that there are three things 

we need to do: One, change the culture; two, change the law so that 

we do prosecute and we can prosecute; and, three, work well with 

the victims who have had this happen and make sure that they 

don’t lose their lives. 
35 

So let’s go back to the first one, change the culture, because this 

shouldn’t be happening at all. I have zero tolerance for this. And 

it seems to me that no matter what we try, no matter how many 

rules we put on and how many administrative issues and everything, it all comes down to how the top is handling this, how the 

commander handles this and whatever, wherever it is, whether it 

is Iraq or whether it is an Air Force academy or whether it is a 

base, in Camp Pendleton in California, wherever it might be, that 

it is about how the chain of command deals with this; and they 

don’t seem to deal with this very well. 

And so my question is to Ms. Watterson, who so bravely came 

forward today—and I thank you for that. Because, believe it or not, 

I personally know how difficult it is. It has been my contention that 

the only way we are going to make the command understand how 

important this issue is is that it is actually a section on every promotion that they receive. That in order for them to be promoted, 

they have to deal with what did you do about this, how much of 

this has happened under you, how come you were ineffective about 

this? And they don’t get promoted if they don’t take this seriously. 

Now that runs counter to so many people who say, oh, we just care 

about making fighting machines. 

Ms. Watterson, do you think that if these people in command 

that you go to thought that if they didn’t handle this correctly or 

didn’t make an attempt to handle it, if they thought that they 

would lose their ability to be promoted, that they might have taken 

this more seriously for you? 

Ms. WATTERSON. Yeah, yeah, this sounds like an excellent idea. 

That way, they are held accountable. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Because they are not held accountable. This is not 

an accountability issue for the people in uniform. Some do it well; 

some don’t do it very well. Some say, oh, the handshake was just 

a little too long, or take care of it yourself, or you are a big girl. 

And these are all things that I have heard from so many women 

who have been put in this spot. So do you think that that would 

make a difference if they thought that they wouldn’t get promoted 

if they just told you to handle it yourself? 

Ms. WATTERSON. I think that would be a great incentive. I think 

that part of it should also be interview or contact with whoever the 

victim was and ask them how they were treated and if they think 

that everything was done fairly. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Well, that would be part of it. I mean, the way we 

would judge whether this person, whoever was in command, actually really took care of it is that there would be input from those 

who had suffered the acts and had been treated one way or the 

other by this person. 

What about the rest of you? What do you think? Because you 

have probably come across some commanders who really care about 

this and really do something right away about it, and you have 

probably come across people who sort of move the pieces on the 

checkerboard around. What do you all think? 

Captain. 

Captain KATKA. In the 10 seconds we have, a culture change, I 

would love to see it to be genuine. Disingenuous, using people as 

ranks and things like that perhaps would promote disingenuous 
36 

culture change, rather than real culture change. Completely my 

opinion, but I understand where you are going. 

And then the criteria issue. I mean, what would you put in that 

promotion? What would be the criteria for that promotion? The statistics? If statistics are up, is it good on the commander or bad on 

the commander? 

So there are a lot of questions that I just immediately have that 

we probably don’t have time maybe to get into. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

Chief. 

Sergeant HORWATH. I agree, ma’am, that if it were done right it 

would be an effective way of pushing the program forward. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. That it would not or it would? 

Sergeant HORWATH. That it would. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. That it would. 

Sergeant HORWATH. But, again, then it would be a threat; and 

that is just my opinion. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I am just asking your opinion. 

Sergeant HORWATH. It would be threats against someone 

who—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. It is not threats. It is sort of like, hey, this is important enough for you to be graded on. 

When you go to a class in college, if you are a smart student, you 

understand what the professor wants and what they are going to 

grade you on. And you tend to work on those issues that are going 

to get you the A if you care about the grade. 

Sergeant HORWATH. I can see it being effective. We have blocks 

on the Army non-commissioned officer evaluation reports 

(NCOERs) for equal opportunity and things of that nature. So I can 

see that a soldier may look at that as being more important if they 

see it officially in their paperwork, sure. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez. 

Can you respond really quickly? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. I can. I believe that it would be 

effective, but it would also take training as well in combination 

with that so that it would be genuine and effective. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez. 

I think that we had a chance to sort of brainstorm that a little 

bit and some of the downsides to it and upsides. 

One of the questions that I would just ask in trying to close this 

out, there, obviously, is some uniformity within the service that you 

are in. Although there are certainly differences in the way people 

respond. But there is not a lot of uniformity across the services. Do 

you think that there should be? Is this an issue that all the services ought to have very, very similar policies or is there enough 

uniqueness in the way people respond within that service that you 

think there ought to be true differences? 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. Chairwoman Davis, I believe that 

each service, each of the services that have been represented today, 

in my opinion, because of the unique missions that we have in all 

of our services, that the programs that we have in place have 

shown effective in the experiences of each of the advocates. 
37 

I do believe that we can learn from each other, and there are 

high points to each program that could be adopted into other service programs. But I do believe that part of the reason, in my opinion and as an advocate, that there are some differences in our programs is because of the missions that we serve. 

I deploy—as a sailor, I deploy six months at a time on a ship; 

and some of the parameters that are inherent in their programs 

might not be effective for us in what we do. Most of their brothers 

and sisters in arms are in Iraq. Most of our sailors are not. We do 

have some, but the majority of us are on ships or shore facilities. 

So I do think that we are unique in itself and that our programs 

in the missions that we serve have been effective enough so far and 

more improvements to come to be of great service to our brothers 

and sisters in arms. 

Sergeant HORWATH. I agree with her, ma’am. I believe the 

uniqueness of each of our services requires a different program. 

But I, also—my personal belief is that there is enough of a sense 

of one that if I had a soldier who was based on an Air Force Base 

that there would never be an issue with them taking care of the 

situation for me. There is a closeness enough with the program 

that the basis is the same. It’s about taking care of the victim and 

making sure that the process is moved forward. 

Captain KATKA. On a large level yes, ma’am. In our joint environment I think it is imperative like many of our programs kind 

of marry so we can give survivor support no matter what the 

branch of service, of which we have done. 

On a smaller level, base to base, for instance, my base, Lackland 

Air Force Base, is the only basic military training. A large portion 

of the individuals that we help in my office are those that were assaulted prior to even coming into the military. That is different. 

That is unique to our base alone. So there may be supplements or 

those kind of things that need to be addressed just at my base; 

and, as my colleagues pointed out, there is differences there as 

well. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Ms. Watterson, I wanted to just give you the last word, because 

we are so supportive of your coming forward; and I want you to 

have a sense of how important your testimony has been. 

I can tell from several things that you have said that it doesn’t 

all resonate with you in terms of where we go from here and trying 

to deepen our commitment in this regard and having the kind of 

objectives and follow-through that is important. Do you have a last 

thought or concern that you would like us to be thinking about in 

the next few months that might change the environment that you 

see for men and women today? 

Ms. WATTERSON. To wrap it all up, this conversation that we are 

having right now I think is a very, very good start. I think that 

the SAPRO, those are all the main rules. And then little intricacies, depending on what is going on. 

But I think that representatives, like several from each service, 

there should be more meetings like this with survivors, with other 

SARCs, with, you know, whoever. But it needs to be like this, 

where we are all talking and can figure out what is best for every-
38 

body and then kind of trickle down into the little points that like, 

say, he was mentioning that are important at his base. 

So I think this is an excellent start, and thank you very much. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. We certainly appreciate if you can stay for the next panel. 

We are going to have not so much long statements initially, but 

we are going to ask them if they can respond a little bit to some 

of the things they have heard here today. So if you would like to 

stay, we certainly welcome that. 

Could the next panel please come forward? 

Thank you, again, very much for being here. Thank you all. 

For our second panel we are pleased to have two witnesses from 

the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office and one from the California Coalition Against Sexual 

Assault. 

Dr. Kaye Whitley is the Director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, what we all have been saying, SAPRO. 

She holds a doctorate in counseling and human development. I also 

believe that this is her first appearance before our subcommittee. 

Welcome. 

Also from the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office is 

Teresa Scalzo. Ms. Scalzo is the Senior Policy Advisor for the office 

and is a former Director of the National Center for the Prosecution 

of Violence Against Women. Her purpose here today is to provide 

her subject matter expertise on the Department of Defense’s policy 

of restricted reporting. 

And, finally, we were supposed to have Suzanne Brown-McBride, 

Executive Director of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. However, Mother Nature was working against her; and she 

wasn’t able to fly into D.C. last night. 

But we are very fortunate to have Robert Coombs, who did manage to arrive before the bad weather. Mr. Coombs is the Director 

of Public Affairs for the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Mr. Coombs will offer Ms. Brown-McBride’s testimony and 

will be available for questioning. 

We thank you very much for stepping in, Mr. Coombs. 

STATEMENTS OF DR. KAYE WHITLEY, DIRECTOR, SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION AND RESPONSE OFFICE, DEPARTMENT 

OF DEFENSE; TERESA SCALZO, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR, 

SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION AND RESPONSE OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND ROBERT COOMBS, DIRECTOR 

OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, CALIFORNIA COALITION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT 

Mrs. DAVIS. In the interest of disclosure, it is also important to 

note that while the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault is 

here to provide an outside perspective on the Department of Defense’s victim support and advocacy programs, they have and I believe continue to work with the Department on a number of areas 

related to sexual assault. We are very happy to have you and look 

forward to your testimony. 

Now, I mentioned earlier that we were going to ask you if you 

could share with us perhaps initially comments from your testimony, but if you wouldn’t mind doing that with the group, your re-
39 

sponse to what you heard today. I know that certainly we had some 

wonderful advocates for victims, and they spoke very passionately 

I think about the work that they are doing. On the other hand, we 

had a survivor who continues to work with victims and would like 

to see more done. 

And I think everybody seeks improvement. No question about 

that. Could you share with us a little bit about your thoughts on 

what you heard today and help us by starting in that way? 

Dr. Whitley. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KAYE WHITLEY 

Dr. WHITLEY. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis and Ranking Member Wilson. We appreciate the opportunity to be here today. 

And I do want to thank Ms. Watterson, because we all know— 

all of us who work with victims know that this is a really difficult 

thing for them to do. We also think she’s a perfect example of why 

we needed our policy and why we needed our program. 

I do have some concerns, because I felt when we were talking 

about the new programs she thinks that there is still some things 

out there that are still going wrong through her work with victim 

advocates. So I have offered to meet with her to see if I can get 

more concrete examples to what is happening to some of the victims and where it is happening so that we can follow up on it. 

I would also like to say I think you saw today the caliber of the 

people we have that are working this program. I can’t speak highly 

enough of the SARCs and victim advocates and their passion. That 

is what we find when go out to installations and when we work in 

the field and work with the services. 

I am also happy to share the panel with one of our civilian partners. They are in the business of victims advocacy, where we are 

a policy office and we consult with the California Coalition Against 

Sexual Assault and other State coalitions as we develop our program. Because we do believe that in the civilian world there are 

some best practices, and in planning our program and policy we 

have worked very hard to use those best practices. 

Is there anything specifically you would like? 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Whitley can be found in the Appendix on page 64.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. No, I think that is fine. 

We will continue. 

Ms. Scalzo. 

Ms. SCALZO. I have nothing additional to add to what Dr. Whitley said. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Coombs. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT COOMBS 

Mr. COOMBS. Yes. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that 

I come here as a victim advocate. From my core, that is where I 

operate. I happen to have a professional background in working in 

media and policy, and so when I am working with folks like the 

Department of Defense I have very little interest in defending problems that they have had but rather seeking solutions. 

We have had a fantastic collaboration with the SAPRO office in 

particular. I have been working with them since about 2006, have 
40 

met with hundreds of SARCs and have done trainings for SARCs. 

I have worked with the Department of Defense Office on prevention policy. 

I think that the testimony that you heard earlier today is absolutely essential to understand the magnitude of the problem. But 

it is also important to remember that every single victim and survivor of sexual assault has a unique experience and that, for as 

much work as is being done within the Department of Defense 

within each of the branches, we always will have room to grow in 

this area. We do as civilians. We do when we look to the military. 

And so I am heartened to see the great work that has been done 

and really tremendous progress, more than I ever expected to see. 

But I also know we have a lot of work ahead. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

I will go on the clock at this time. 

One of the areas that has made a big difference is the restricted 

reporting, and yet we know that there are some loopholes essentially in the law that creates some problems around that. One 

issue, Ms. Sanchez mentioned how it might be used for career advancement. And yet if there is restricted reporting, there are a 

number of cases that we might not be able to track, and so that 

is essential that there is a comfort level around that. 

There is also an example if a victim reported to a friend that 

they had been raped and in fact that friend told the commander 

who then had to go and that changes—that changes and the victim 

essentially loses control over that issue and over the decision about 

whether or not one is going to have it be unrestricted at that point. 

Could you talk to us a little bit more about that issue of restricted and unrestricted reporting and what you see is the next 

generation of that law, what ought to be included in any changes 

that are made around it? 

Dr. WHITLEY. I’ll let Teresa address that. 

But, first, I would like to say that when the policy began in 2005, 

well, since it has begun, we have had 1,896 victims come forward 

with a restricted report. That tells me that it is a good thing and 

that tells me that that is 1,896 people who came forward and got 

help and the care that they needed, which is one of the things we 

are trying to do in the Department, to get victims access to care. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And perhaps, Ms. Scalzo, if you could just for the 

sake of our audience explain that probably better than I could. 

Ms. SCALZO. The Department has two reporting options, restricted reporting and unrestricted reporting. Restricted reporting 

is, quite simply, confidential reporting where the command and law 

enforcement are not involved. It was quite controversial and very 

novel when it was created, and it wasn’t introduced until six 

months after the policy was initially passed. 

In the military, it is a culture where the commanders need to 

know and they do know everything that is going on underneath 

them. It was difficult to construct a system where we could protect 

the victim’s privacy but yet give them just a little bit of information, Jane Doe information, non-identifying information, if you will, 

that would enable them to keep the community safe. 

We know that there are some challenges; and you mentioned if 

a victim reports to a friend and that friend then reports to the com-
41 

mander, the victim loses control of their restricted report and it is 

no longer confidential. That is actually one of our priority issues for 

addressing with respect to policy in the coming year. That is something that we believe is a policy issue, although there are pieces 

of it that are controlled by the UCMJ. In particular, commanders 

have a duty to report to law enforcement; and that is something 

we are working with the lawyers to figure out what the exact parameters are. 

However, I can tell you that some of our biggest challenges from 

restricted reporting come from the civilian community and from civilian laws. For example, there are State mandatory reporting laws 

in the State of California that make it completely impossible to 

make a restricted report should the victim choose to seek medical 

care; and those are some of the more challenging issues we face because they are not within our control. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Coombs, did you want to comment on that from 

California’s perspective? 

Mr. COOMBS. Absolutely. And California has the dubious distinction perhaps of being one of the only places on the planet where 

restricted reporting does not work for service members. That is specifically because of our adult mandated reporting laws coming from 

medical service providers. It is something that we are trying to address, and there is a handful of significant obstacles in trying to 

change that. 

We see restricted reporting as a very progressive move coming 

from the military. It is something that I think absolutely you are 

going to see an increase in the number of folks that come forward 

with unrestricted reports. 

You heard earlier folks were talking about an increase in a number of reports, whether restricted or unrestricted is a good thing. 

And from the perspective of victim advocates—I work with 85 rape 

crisis centers throughout the State of California, and we have 

served over 26,000 victims just last year alone. We think that is 

a good thing. 

When those numbers are going up, those are fundamentally a 

positive move. Because it means that, number one, those folks are 

getting services. Number two, it means that there is an atmosphere 

and environment in which people believe that they can come forward, that they are safe in doing so. And so if restricted reporting 

enhances that, we are absolutely all for it. 

If there is other things that we can do, I think some of that could 

include some of the things that you were hearing earlier from the 

SARCs: better training and better communications coming from 

leadership saying this is something that we prioritize, and we 

would want to make sure that you feel safe in coming forward with 

these things. I think that those are some of the areas of growth to 

look towards. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Maybe just a follow up really quickly, if I might. The process of 

someone becoming a SARC, should that be more rigorous, less rigorous in terms of people actually volunteering essentially to be a 

part of that? 
42 

Mr. COOMBS. From my perspective, I believe that this morning 

you heard from some excellent examples of folks that are working 

out in the field. 

I think that a couple of things that are very difficult for recruiting and training SARCs include when you have that as collateral 

duty on top of other types of duties. This is something that, for 

many of us, this is our primary duty. This is our primary function. 

And when you add that on top of other jobs, it is really hard for 

them to have the services and the support really to go all into that. 

I have seen tremendous growth from folks supporting those position. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman; and thank all 

three of you for being here today. I appreciate your efforts to prevent sexual assaults. 

Dr. Whitley, I am very interested in your program. How is the 

Department of Defense evaluating the effectiveness of the program? And what criteria are you using to determine success or failure in order to make improvements to the program? 

Dr. WHITLEY. Well, we do an annual report to Congress in which 

we convey to you the aggregate numbers from all the services. That 

does give us some information. 

We also, in terms of measures of compliance, is basically what 

we do now is we go out to check to ensure the policy is being followed. We can measure victim care and victim services. Are they 

getting the services they need? 

But one of hardest things to measure is if we are preventing it. 

And as Mr. Coombs was talking about numbers, when we have 

numbers, we don’t really know is that a good number or a bad 

number, because we don’t know how many sexual assaults are out 

there. But one of the things that we are doing now in the Department of Defense, we are developing more measures and repeating 

those measures. 

We have two surveys, two gender relation surveys, that we do 

every two years, one for the active duty force and one for the reserve component. That survey asks the respondents, have you ever 

experienced unwanted sexual contact? What we are finding is a 

number of our reports are way lower than the number of people 

who are saying on the survey they have experienced that. So now 

we do have a measure, and we can look at the gap between the 

number of people that are saying they experienced to the number 

of people that are reporting. Our goal now is to reduce that gap 

and to get those victims to come forward and to get them the care 

and the help that they need. 

We also are evaluated consistently through different outside organizations. As you know, we always have oversight, of course, but 

the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently did a study 

on our program, the DOD IG has investigated our program. We 

have had more than one task force, and there is one that is currently ongoing right now that will be bringing back recommendations for us. 

In terms of measuring success of a sexual assault program, that 

is very difficult to do, especially the prevention aspect. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 
43 

And I agree with Mr. Coombs, that the persons we saw in uniform were professional, they were competent, capable. It makes you 

so proud of the American military. 

Ms. Scalzo, with American forces deployed in very remote areas 

of the world, how is the program being adapted to, say, smaller 

units in remote areas? 

Ms. SCALZO. The services work individually to whatever particular challenges they are facing in that area. They work—the 

SARCs job is to figure out how to adapt. 

I can tell you that at a policy level one of the issues that we are 

looking at is what happens in joint environments such as those deployed environments. We are in the process of drafting policy modifications to make it a little bit clearer as to who is responsible for 

what and to improve that situation. 

Mr. WILSON. And with isolated units, whether they be in military 

facilities in Djibouti, on ships in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, 

how in the world do you make this work? 

Ms. SCALZO. Well, certainly it is very complicated. That is a very 

good question. It is complicated, it is challenging, and we do our 

best to make sure that somehow victims have access to those services in remote locations. It may take them a few days to get them 

to where they need to go to get those services, but we work to make 

them available. I can’t tell you that it is not complicated, because 

it is. 

Mr. WILSON. Again, thank you for your efforts. 

Dr. Whitley, as we have the DOD program before us, again, is 

there any recommendation on any legislative change that you feel 

we should perform? 

Dr. WHITLEY. There is nothing at this time. We are still trying 

to make sure that we got the policy right. We are still examining 

gaps. So at this time I don’t have any recommendations for legislation. 

Mr. WILSON. And, again, thank all of you for being here today. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Dr. Whitley, at the end of your written statement we didn’t give 

you time to talk about today, you do talk about what you call four 

challenges. It seemed to me that some of them may have some legislative possible solutions. I don’t want to ask you about those now, 

but maybe before we’re done we can have you amplify on those four 

challenges. 

I wanted to ask about one of them, being this issue of the civilian 

adult mandated reporting statutes. Maybe I will ask you, Mr. 

Coombs. How does that work in California? Are military doctors required to report under California law, or is it civilian doctors who 

see military personnel that are required to report? 

Mr. COOMBS. As far as military doctors on base, I would have to 

defer to my colleagues on that. 

Dr. SNYDER. Does it require a report? 

Ms. SCALZO. Yes, sir, they are. Doctors are licensed in a State, 

and they have to abide by the State laws in addition to—— 
44 

Dr. SNYDER. Are you telling me any time a doctor is transferred 

to another base they have to go through State licensing requirements in that State? 

Ms. SCALZO. No, sir. But the opinion we have gotten from our office general counsel is that, because the State of California has that 

law that on base, our doctors, many of whom are licensed in California, are not comfortable with compliance issues of reporting because it violates California State law. 

In addition, there are a number of bases that have concurrent jurisdiction in which State law would apply as well. So the only time 

military doctors would be exempted possibly would be if it is an exclusively Federal jurisdiction on that base. 

Dr. SNYDER. It seems like here we have a California advocate 

who is saying this is not helping sexual assault victims. I don’t 

know what is going on in California. 

I was a family doctor in the olden days; and I was expecting just 

a lot of lying that goes on, kind of nudge, nudge, wink, wink. A 

woman comes in who has been sexually assaulted or hurt in some 

way who knows that if she says what happened it will be reported. 

And so they kind of say, oh, you fell down the stairs, again? And 

then if you actually get to a criminal case you then have a note in 

the chart that says the woman says she fell down the stairs. I don’t 

see what good comes from this, but we are not hearing the other 

side of that today. 

But we do have the option legislatively, I would think, if we 

choose to, of preempting that California statute. But that may not 

be the solution. It really does seem to work against the goals that 

you have with the restricted reporting requirement. 

Dr. Whitley or Ms. Scalzo, would you describe for me the needto-know concept, how that works with a commanding officer, a commander? 

Dr. WHITLEY. As we said earlier, it was a hard sell to the commanders. They need to know everything that is going on. One of 

the things that we said to the commanders when we were putting 

this policy out is there are sexual assaults that are going on in 

your command right now that you don’t know about. Wouldn’t you 

at least like to know if one occurred and where it occurred so you 

could take actions to protect your troops? And that helped us somewhat with them. 

And so when there is a sexual assault our policy says the command is supposed to be notified that a sexual assault took place 

and whatever details that they can give that would not give away 

the identity of the victim. So that way, if it is happening in a barracks, maybe they would put more senior leadership in the barracks. It gives them other options to address the protection of their 

troops. 

Dr. SNYDER. I want to ask you, Dr. Whitley, on page 11 of your 

written statement you talk quite a bit about prevention. And it 

seems—I don’t want to say it is idealistic, but I appreciate it is a 

very laudatory goal. 

It reminded me of the time some years ago I was touring housing 

on a military base, and the yards were smaller and the houses had 

smaller square footage. But the personnel said, but we don’t need 

as big because we trust the people who live next door to us. Our 
45 

kids can run in the yard next door. It is like they have a big yard 

because we are an Air Force family. It seems to me what you are 

trying to do is augment that whole concept that we are a family 

and take care of each other. 

You have this one statement here, you say there is some research 

that suggests that by educating military members when and how 

to act we may be able to turn bystanders into actors who can prevent sexual assault. Would you amplify what that means, please? 

Dr. WHITLEY. Absolutely. And I have to say that most of the 

services do have programs or bystander intervention programs in 

place. 

Most of our assaults, the numbers reported to Congress, they are 

not stranger assaults. They are not this guy jumping out of the 

bushes with a ski mask and a weapon. The majority of the assaults 

are between 18- and 24-year-olds. Usually alcohol is involved. Our 

numbers tell us about a third. We believe it is more than that. 

So what we are trying to do is to teach young people if they see 

predator-type behavior to intervene. Because we do know there are 

predators that will use alcohol as a weapon to reduce a woman’s 

defenses in order in order to complete a sexual assault. 

So one of the things we were trying to do is to make young people aware if somebody is mixing really strong drinks for a young 

girl, stop it, intervene. Or if they walk out together and it just 

doesn’t look like a good idea, they should take care of each other 

and maybe say we need to go in this direction. Let’s not go home 

with him tonight or walk out with him tonight. 

So we are trying to give them some warning signs so they can 

see if there is anything they can do to step in. And certainly to help 

them that if something does occur that they know exactly what 

process—if someone crosses the line, they need to go see a SARC. 

Does that answer your question? 

Dr. SNYDER. Yes. 

Dr. WHITLEY. It is a very interesting concept, to get people to intervene. And we think that it is going to be possible in the military 

because of that same concept that you watch out for your battle 

buddy or your wing man. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Snyder. 

Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you very much for your testimony, and I 

would have to say those comments you just made were as encouraging as I have heard in the course of this day. 

I would like to go back to the issue of restricted versus unrestricted. And you said that, in 2005, 1,896 reports were made 

under this process. 

Dr. WHITLEY. Have since come forward and reported. Some of 

those may have converted to unrestricted, but that was the initial 

report. 

Ms. TSONGAS. So my question is, other than this is a wonderful 

process for the victim, it allows them to get access to the kind of 

help that they need. But short of those who don’t convert to an unrestricted, it means a significant number of people who have committed these assaults are not accountable. 

Dr. WHITLEY. You want me to comment? And I will ask our victim advocate to quote, too. 
46 

It is a tough call. We have to balance taking care of a victim and 

holding offenders accountable. I think in the situation that we are 

in, if we can do anything to get a victim to get care—I mean, I 

don’t have to repeat things. You all have heard over and over and 

over about what sexual assault does to a military unit. It renders 

them not ready, and it can just tear a unit apart and just tears at 

the very fabric of what the military is made of. So if a sexual assault occurs, we want to get that victim in there. 

We also know there is research that shows early intervention 

after any trauma can prevent PTSD. So we are doing everything 

we can to get that victim to come forth so they can access care. We 

do hope that they convert. We hope we are making them so comfortable and have so much confidence in our system that they will 

convert to an unrestricted report so we can go after the offender. 

Ms. TSONGAS. The question I have—and I think that is a worthy 

goal for the victim. On the other hand, you have new women coming into the military who have no real understanding of the threat 

that might exist. And I am just wondering if there is a way in 

which we can collect data or have some understanding of the numbers. I don’t know what the answer is, but we are focusing on the 

victim. At the same time, we have many young people coming into 

the services who we want to protect. And how we find the balance 

and how we collect data and do something to help either move the 

victim into an unrestricted category or have some other mechanism 

to deal with those that are committing the assaults, I welcome your 

input on that. 

Dr. WHITLEY. Hopefully, if they are entering the service, they are 

getting sexual assault awareness training very early on. That is 

one step through training. 

Another thing that we do, even if they do have an unrestricted 

report, it is difficult to get victims to stay with the military criminal justice process. You heard early testimony that when they tell 

their story if they go unrestricted, they may tell their stories 25, 

30 times. It is very painful, and they drop out. So we have taken 

some measures, too, in terms of training SARCs to support victims 

throughout the military criminal justice process to get them to stay 

with it so we can hold the offender accountable. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Madam Chair; and, Dr. Whitley, thank 

you so much for your testimony and for the others. But, Dr. Whitley, it is just so great to hear you with your commitment and your 

heartfelt work on this. 

I serve on the Government Reform Committee, as you know; and 

so I was there for your testimony there. And also the time when 

you were directed by your supervisor not to appear as a result of 

a subpoena that was given. I know you regret that. 

And I just want you to know that so many times when something 

like that happens, when the actual individual comes forward and 

testifies, their testimony is colored by that past. And it is somewhat indicating that perhaps they don’t have something to say but 

you do. And I appreciate your telling the story because I know 

you’re here to help us also to find out what is right and you are 
47 

also dedicated to your program. So thank you for continuing to do 

it and to tell your story. 

One of the things that we heard from Ms. Watterson when she 

told her story was the sense of what happened after being such a 

violation in addition to the sexual assault. And the last time you 

were in my office we talked about the Lauterbach case, and you informed me that the Inspector General had been requested to take 

a look at that case about what happened after the fact. 

Your principal under secretary, who was your supervisor, had requested that IG investigation; and we understand that it is ongoing. We have not heard anything from them, and neither has the 

family. That is of a concern to us, because part of their independence, of course, should be that they hear from all sides and not that 

we just have a report handed to us. 

We have concerns that are continuing, not just what has happened up to the time where Maria was murdered. For example, I 

have two news articles that, with the chairwoman’s consent, I 

would like to enter into the record where we know that, just recently, the Marines approved the alleged murderer and sexual assault—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Without objection. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 86.] 

Mr. TURNER [continuing]. Thank you. Went to Mexico to visit the 

individual who was the murderer, and we would like the Inspector 

General to look at the issue of why did the Marines approve this. 

Because, basically, we have the Marine wife, who was a material 

witness, leaving the country to visit her husband, who is absent 

without leave (AWOL), who is a Marine, who is the alleged rapistmurderer who is fighting extradition, in an unsupervised visit 

where the prosecutors in these articles indicate that perhaps it was 

for a conjugal visit, because under Mexico law, on their birthday, 

apparently, accused can have visits from their spouses; and there 

is concern by the prosecutor of what that would do to her willingness and interest in testifying. So we would like to ask them to include things like that. 

Is it your experience where the IG has been asked to look at a 

case if you are aware of any other cases where they would conduct 

their whole investigation and never speak to the family members? 

Dr. WHITLEY. I don’t really—I don’t know. I don’t have a response to that. That sounds unusual to me. 

Mr. TURNER. That is what I would think. We have a letter that 

I sent today to the IG requesting that they engage, and any 

thoughts that you have even after this hearing I would appreciate 

it. 

Dr. WHITLEY. I have to tell you, sir, the DOD IG has been directed to stand down, and they are not investigating this case. 

They believe it could have undue command influence, so that investigation has been stopped. 

Mr. TURNER. Well, once again, I am only hearing information 

from you. Because I have correspondence to my office that, in fact, 

the IG had accepted the case and was going forward. And I have 

no communication indicating that—— 
48 

Dr. WHITLEY. They did accept it. And I think they started forward with that case, and then they were advised by the lawyers 

to stand down. 

Mr. TURNER. See, Dr. Whitley, this goes right to the issue that 

I talk about, the culture in the military. How is it that, a Member 

of Congress—I have requested that they begin an investigation. 

Your supervisor requested it. I get a letter confirming that they 

have undertaken the investigation, and then you relate it us that 

it is not going forward. It is very concerning. 

Dr. WHITLEY. I know it doesn’t sound palatable. But what we are 

told by the lawyers, even though this is a civilian case, if, God forbid, anything went wrong and there was a mistrial declared or anything ever got kicked back to us as a military case, anything that 

we had done could have undue command influence. And so I 

thought that was one of the reasons, I believe. I am sorry if you 

were not—I assumed you had been notified of that. 

Mr. TURNER. That is astonishing. Thank you, Dr. Whitley. 

If I could have just a few more minutes, one of the things that 

the Lauterbach family has been concerned about in this whole 

process is that the victim advocates perhaps were just perhaps victim listeners and don’t have real authority and ability to affect the 

process. Do you have concerns about the lack of authority in the 

process? 

Dr. WHITLEY. Well, the program is still very new; and we are 

still implementing training for all the victim advocates and the 

SARCs. The victim advocate should work directly for a SARC; and 

the SARC has a lot of power, if you will, to have access to a commander to intervene. That was the way the program was set up. 

I can’t speak to each and every SARC. We have 2 million people, 

including Guard and Reserves, that are taken care of by our 

SARCs and victim advocates. I can’t speak to each and every case. 

I hope and believe in my heart of hearts that most are like the ones 

that you saw today. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Dr. Snyder, did you want to ask a question? 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Whitley, would you take some time and amplify 

your four challenges at the end? You haven’t really talked about 

those. 

Dr. WHITLEY. Whenever I talk about things that are lawyerly, I 

bring a lawyer. So I am going to ask Ms. Scalzo, because as my 

senior policy adviser she heads up a subcommittee that works 

under the Sexual Assault Advisory Council, which is headed by the 

Under Secretary for Defense. He established committees to look at 

some of these issues. The committees have members from all of the 

services as well as some of our Federal partners and civilian partners. Teresa heads that committee and these are some of the issues 

that they have identified that they are currently working on, and 

she can speak in great detail about each of them. 

Ms. SCALZO. Thank you, Representative Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. All of the great detail you can do in four minutes. 

Ms. SCALZO. The first challenge was the State mandatory reporting laws that we have already discussed. The second would be jurisdictional challenges. Our SARCs and victim advocates have to 
49 

collaborate with civilians. As you know, the military does not always control the prosecution. For example, it could be a civilian 

perpetrator, or if the case happened off base, the civilians would 

have the first option to prosecute that case. In those sort of circumstances, we are constrained by what is going on in the civilian 

world and, frankly, it is not always perfect. 

I come from a background of being a civilian prosecutor and 

training prosecutors across the country. The example that we use 

to illustrate that is a case that happened in the D.C. metro area 

where D.C. had primary jurisdiction. Our victim was at Bethesda 

waiting to have a sexual assault forensic exam, but because D.C. 

had a rule that their Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner (SAFE) 

exams had to be performed within D.C., our victim had to be transported to D.C., had to then wait approximately eight hours to be 

served, and then in the end D.C. refused to prosecute the case. So 

we ended up picking it up. 

SARC and victim advocates have to work to coordinate that, and 

they do, but we raise that so that you understand some of the jurisdictional complications that we face that are enhanced when you 

are dealing with Federal/military/state collaboration. 

The second issue is the line of duty issue. If a Guard or Reserve 

member is assaulted while they are in active status or in active 

duty training and then seeks care when they are no longer in activated status, they need to get what is called a line of duty in order 

to get care and treatment. That is not consistent with the restricted reporting policy simply because of the process. It is a public process where the command is involved, and there needs to be 

an investigation. 

What we have done is we modified our policy to require the services to rewrite their policy to ensure that line of duty can be 

accessed to sexual assault victims in a private manner, just a limited line of duty for just care for victims of sexual assault. 

The final piece is the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault—which I understand there will be an entirely separate hearing on—but the challenge there that we have been looking at is are 

our investigators and prosecutors trained well enough. We are 

working with our legal community to take a look at that, and we 

do what we can at SAPRO, although the UCMJ provides the JAG, 

the Judge Advocate Generals, with complete authority over the 

legal piece of the process. We at SAPRO do try to interface with 

them, try to make sure that they are being as sensitive to victim 

practices as possible, make sure that we support them and that 

they are supporting victims as much as we are able to do. 

Dr. SNYDER. I am confused on the line of duty issue. If a person 

is activated or they are on their two-week training in the summertime, an incident occurred on the last night’s going-away party, 

they very clearly know, everyone knows when the incident occurred, 1:00 a.m., May 3rd. Why is there any big whoop-dee-do? 

Shouldn’t it just be based on when the incident occurred? 

Ms. SCALZO. It is based on when the incident occurred. The challenge is if they report when they are not in an active status, they 

are not eligible for medical benefits at that time; they are not eligible for treatment. Our policy makes them eligible for care and 

treatment. But because of the way the Guard and Reserve works, 
50 

if they are not in an active status, they need that line of duty finding to get care. 

So it is a method of getting them care when they are not under 

the insurance of the Guard and Reserves. 

Dr. SNYDER. That would seem like something that could be pretty easily corrected. 

Ms. SCALZO. You would think. 

The challenge is that our policy controls sexual assault, and 

within the Department of Defense there are many different directives that control different pieces of things. Line of duty is a separate policy. So in order to have it rewritten, we need to follow the 

bureaucratic steps of getting our policy rewritten to have them rewrite their policies. So we are in the process of getting that done. 

It took a while, actually, just to identify and solve how to figure 

it out because it is such an unusual idea, the concept that you can 

report something privately. Restricted reporting is just so out of the 

box that sometimes these complexities arise, and that is a perfect 

example. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I think we are going to wind up on this. I am going 

to ask one or two more questions, and I understand that there 

aren’t any more questions that my colleagues have. 

I am looking at the Government Accountability Office report of 

2008, and in that it talks about the fact that the military services 

haven’t really provided the data that would facilitate oversight and 

enable the DOD to conduct trend analyses; and I know in the last 

authorizing bill we included language to move that collection of 

data forward. 

Where is that? And we are waiting to get more information about 

it. What can you tell us? 

Dr. WHITLEY. We recently sent the plan for that database to Congress. We had a working group, and it was composed of the services and a member of my staff to design a database that would do 

what we need it to do. We have the money for it. It is going to take 

us about a year to get it up and running. 

I think one of the issues I would like to talk about as far as data, 

when our program first stood up, we were required to report aggregate numbers, and that we have been doing. But as the program 

has grown, we are realizing we need the ability to look at this data 

in a lot of different ways because it gives us information that has 

policy implications. 

For example, by installation. And I often would get questions 

from the Hill, How many military-on-military sexual assaults took 

place at training brigades in CONUS. And I could not slice and 

dice the data that way. I would have to go back to the services. I 

could get it, but it was almost like a stubby pencil technique to get 

that type of data. 

Hopefully when this database is up and running, we will be able 

to look at the data in a lot of different ways. But we were reporting 

just aggregate numbers of reports. And that paper has been sent 

with explaining the plan of setting that up. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Once we have the database, do you believe that we 

will be able to, in as transparent a way as possible, understand the 

effectiveness of programs that we have undertaken? 
51 

Dr. WHITLEY. I think it will be very helpful. I go back to what 

I said earlier about the surveys that we have that are telling us 

how many people are reporting anonymously on surveys about experiences, be able to look at that and compare that to the number 

of reports. And that is going to tell us if we are reaching the population. It is really hard to measure, I guess you would call it, prevalence versus incidents. So this will give us a better idea of that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Coombs, from your perspective in California, how is the military doing in terms of other victims support advocacy programs? 

How does it compare? 

Mr. COOMBS. Well, as I was listening to all of these questions, 

I started thinking about what it would like look if you had me up 

here talking on behalf of rape crisis centers, and all of these questions that you are asking are questions that we would also ask of 

civilians. And frankly, there are some of the same problems in the 

civilian world. We have some of the same battles over jurisdiction. 

We have some of the same trouble with lack of training with certain victim advocates and the folks that they work with. 

I think that when you compare our movement, the sexual assault 

prevention and intervention movement, our field, and you look at 

the 30 years, the 30-plus years that they have been working on 

this, to see the progress that has been made in the military in 5 

years is outstanding. I mean, they have really done an outstanding 

job. 

That being said, I think that there has to be ongoing collaboration between military and civilian communities that every single 

day civilian victim advocates are learning more about how we do 

this work, how we provide the very best services for victims and 

survivors and also, frankly, how it is that we do better work with 

sex offender management. 

So that learning experience is something that is going on in the 

civilian world right now. We want to make sure that we continue 

that collaboration so that we can share that information. We can 

create new policies, we can enhance the new types of services in 

the military. 

Mrs. DAVIS. One of the things that I know is happening in all 

of the services, although I reference the Army for a second, is trying to provide better expertise, really using the resources that are 

at hand. And there is a sense that we haven’t done that, that perhaps we haven’t sought out those folks who are really at the top 

of their game in this and that we are doing that now and that is 

starting to move forward. 

I think the other piece, which we will hear about at another 

hearing, is just the education one. I mean, the idea here it seems 

to me is to prevent all of this. We obviously mirror society, so we 

are not going to wipe this out entirely. But having the kinds of 

educational programs as people enter the services, the kinds of 

screening that is appropriate, and to really lay down the law in 

many ways, that this is not acceptable, absolutely not acceptable. 

And everybody has to be a partner in making certain that people 

are kept safe in all places when they are devoting their lives to 

keeping the country safe. We have people who are not feeling safe 

in the services. 
52 

And so I think more needs to be done in that area. And the 

greatest thing would be to throw you all out of business, essentially. We are not going to do that, but that would be something 

that would be very positive. 

Dr. Snyder has a question quickly. 

Dr. SNYDER. Regarding getting the restricted reporting requirement, I assume that there is an age of minority below which the 

restricted reporting requirement would not apply? 

Ms. SCALZO. Under the sexual assault policy at this point in time 

only service members are eligible for restricted reporting. 

Dr. SNYDER. Family members are not? 

Ms. SCALZO. There is a domestic violence policy which the family 

advocacy program has oversight over which does give restricted reporting to family members. I am not an expert on that. My understanding is that it is only for adults and it comes in conflict 

with—— 

Dr. SNYDER. The mandatory reporting requirements of children. 

Ms. SCALZO. For the purposes of sexual assault under SAPRO’s 

policy, it is just service member victims. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I want to give you a moment. Is there anything in 

your introductory remarks that you might have said that you want 

to be sure that we heard before we close down? 

Okay. Great. Thank you so much. We appreciate your being here 

and especially responding to our first panel. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 2:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JANUARY 28, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JANUARY 28, 2009 

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JANUARY 28, 2009 

(83) 
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

JANUARY 28, 2009 

(91) 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TSONGAS 

Sergeant HORWATH. For FY07, there were 768 Soldiers with founded sexual assault offenses. Of the 768 Soldier subjects, 182 were senior in rank to the victim. 

Of those 182 subjects, 136 were in the same unit (battalion-sized unit or smaller). 

For FY08, there were 619 Soldiers with founded sexual assault offenses. Of the 

619 Soldier subjects, 127 were senior in rank to the victim. Of those 127 subjects, 

92 were in the same unit (battalion-sized unit or smaller). 

Caveats: 

1. The ranks E1 through E4 were treated as one pay band, and were not counted 

in the superior-junior ratings above. 

2. There are a number of FY08 cases still open and active; therefore, no final 

Founded/Unfounded decision has been made on those cases. Thus, the numbers 

of subjects for FY08 is subject to change. [See page 26.] 

Chief Petty Officer MCKENNIE. The requested data is presented in table format 

for ease of reference. Have also included the statistics for E-5 and below for consistency with earlier response. [See page 26.] 

US Navy 

FY07 FY08 

Total # of Investigations Involving Service Member on Service Member 

reports 1 176 196 

# of Victim Reports (Victim Subordinate in Rank to Subject): 87 83 

# of Victim Reports (Subject Subordinate in Rank to Victim): 15 16 

# of Victim Reports (Victim and Subject were Same Rank): 26 49 

# of Victim Reports (NFI) 2: 56 65 

Total # of Service Member Subjects 195 212 

Statutory Basis - # Of Investigations for Disposition of Subjects 176 196 

# UCMJ 162 185 

# Civilian 14 11 

Total # of Service Member Subjects 3 195 212 

Total # of Service Member Subjects—E-4 and Below 69 89 

Total # of Service Member Subjects—E-5 and Below 92 121 

Total # of Service Member Victims 4 184 213 

Total # of Service Member Victims—E-4 and Below 148 172 

Total # of Service Member Victims—E-5 and Below 169 191 

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1 Taken from the total number of unrestricted reports in the Annual SAPRO submissions for FY07 & FY08. 

This total does not include the following types of reports: Non-Service on Service, Service on Non-Service, or 

Unidentified on Service. Investigations may include more then one subject and/or victim. 2 NFI—No Further Information provided—Either the rank of the subject and/or victim is not available to 

make a determination for the report to be placed in one of the previous three categories. 3 Includes Subjects from other services and those whose ranks are higher than E5 or for which NFI was 

available. 4 Total number of Victim reports include those made by other service members and those with ranks higher than E5. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JANUARY 28, 2009 

(95) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SHEA-PORTER 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Are moral waivers being granted to individuals who have been 

convicted of sexual misconduct? If so, how many people have received moral waivers 

and what are the criteria for waivers to be granted? 

Dr. WHITLEY. Conduct waivers are considered for individuals involved in offenses 

involving sexual misconduct regardless of the case’s final disposition. Whether a 

finding of guilt was rendered or there was some other court-ordered action, the Department requires the Services to carefully review each case before granting a waiver. The number of people that were allowed to join with a conduct waiver for sexual 

misconduct is still being researched/reviewed by the Services. That information will 

be provided as soon as it is available. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Is there, or will there be a way to track individuals that have 

been convicted of sexual misconduct and granted waivers in the Sexual Assault Incident Reporting Database? 

Dr. WHITLEY. No, there will not be tracking of individuals that have been convicted of sexual misconduct and granted waivers (for accession into the Armed 

Forces) in the Sexual Assault Incident Reporting Database—which is now known as 

the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database, or DSAID. 

The Department and each of the personnel components of the Military Services 

already have a method for recording, coding and identifying the locations of military 

members who have been granted misconduct waivers at accession. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness has tasked the office of Military Personnel Policy to manage information associated with misconduct waivers. 

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