‘I was broken, they were pure evil’ – two male Defence Forces recruits allege they were sexually abused by two superiors
‘I was broken, they were pure evil’ – two male Defence Forces recruits allege they were sexually abused by two superiors
16 comments
Not at all surprised. Those poor men. I hope it will encourage more victims to come forward and a solid case is put together to convict the accused.
Alcohol seems to be the common thread in these stories
No wonder they’re talking about banning it on bases
Intoxication of drugs is surprisingly common in sexual assaults particulalrly if you look at the victim and perpetrator and their levels of intoxication due to whatever drugs.
Intoxicated victims are obviously easier targets and perpetrators gain “dutch” courage or do things they wouldnt normally do due to intoxication.
Also i’d say this is just the tip of the ice berg. Knew a good few lads in the army that were sound but some were dangerous bullies i wouodnt want watching over me. Particularly worrying when some young lads enter the army at a very young age. No way it was just being women sexually abused in such an instution especially with other armed forces around the world having issues with male on male sexual assault as well.
its actually disturbing how big the issue of rape is in the military across the world, against both men and women
Predators will find new institutes to ply their power.
Anyonr whos paid attention over the past several years will know the gameplan by now. The leadership will blame a “culture of abuse” i.e. everyone is to blame except the leadership. They will move to resolve the problem by making life harder for their subordinates with a view towards creating a veritable crisis. Eventually a government backed proposal will arise towards scrapping the entire entity and let some foreigner / EU /NATO / insert multilateral organisation here rebrand and take over, and pet news media will play fanfare about progress and modern Ireland. Everyone in charge gets a fat bonus and a cushy job, everyone remaining gets sacked, gets a pay cut, a tougher job, less support, or less resources to manage with. Move on to the next bit of hard work that no one wants to deal with, run the same gameplan
I know an ex army cadet. Left because of the horrific bullying. Treated like shit. Very upsetting. He’s not fully recovered from it years later
This is dreadful.
It’s worth ruffling feathers to point out, however, that the tone of multiple recent threads about *women* being mistreated in the DF was very different.
Here are some quotes from a recent one, and note that the report in question explicitly mentioned physical sexual abuse.
>Like being shit to woman is bad but the observation that the defence forces is “not a safe environment” is kind of like…. yes its the defence forces the have things that go pew pew and boom….
>Men are treated equally bad. So there’s your equality
>When I was in the army years ago the one female soldier in my unit at the time used to I shit you not close the wrong eye when shooting her rifle at the range. I haven’t kept in touch, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they made her a sergeant major.
>Pointing that out is harassment
>Ok, well lets not recruit women so. Alarmist report.
>I’d imagine the military to be like a grown up version of segregated boarding schools. Non stop slagging, joking, competitions, etc. Isn’t that kind of core type behaviour in all military worldwide?
>You need to have a mental toughness in the military to put up with that shit and if you can’t, you wouldn’t last 5 mins in combat.
This does not diminish the horror show described here, it’s of a piece. Indeed that’s a key point – the institution facilitates this kind of abuse, and punishes whistleblowers for rocking the boat. But it is extremely striking to me that for this to be done to men is a terrible and shocking outrage, while it’s something that women are probably just overblowing, or else supposed to factor in like a downside of the day job.
The same failsafes and tools that should have been in place for women in this context, and weren’t, should have been available to these men. But they weren’t, and in no small part because of the pervasive attitude that when it happens to women they probably just imagined it or asked for it, and it won’t happen men because they can handle themselves, right?
The DF is compromised, not strengthened, by its historic tolerance for abuse like this. You’re supposed to be able to trust these people with your life in a battle, how would you?
…I decided to apply this year, I’m doing testing on Friday.. maybe I should just stick to law
The whole Defence Forces has lost many of its credibility over the years.
A concoction of:
1. Underpaying their staff and underfunding. Any one with half a brain cell or any ounce of ambition stays well clear of the place.
2. No proper character vetting as such, just do a bare bones fitness test, approx 2.5km in approx 12 minutes and you’re on your way.
I acknowledge that it may seem daft to some to call 2.5km in 12 minutes bare bones. Walking 2.5km takes approximately 30 minutes. Slightly double your walking pace and you are within touching distance. Now imagine what you could be achieved with a few weeks of training.
I came from a rather large army family and was destined for it like my uncles and grandfathers. They were people from a time where you could make a livelihood out of the army, get a mortgage raise a family. You cannot do that anymore. The wages have not moved with the times.
With lack of proper vetting, it now just seems to be full of young lads who dossed their way through school and are only really there as it was the last avenue to keep off the dole. The ones that never had any interest in anything. Doing a trade? nope. Working in the civil service? nope. Heard all the stories of hiding and keeping out of sight so they wouldn’t have to do any ounce of work and running home for the day at 2pm. Not exactly ambitious or the kind you want to be hanging out with during work hours or overseas on duty.
Now all these sexual harassment stories is the cherry on the cake.
Lack of livelihood with poor wages keeps honest and ambitious people away. No real vetting process attracts dossers and undesirables. A bad mix.
The whole things needs a reform, top to bottom.
I did some work with the defence forces many years ago. Some guys wanted to sexually abuse me. We were on guard duty and I had a loaded rifle. I told them quite plainly what would happen. Needless to say, they backed off.
This could be true, or it could be a way to get back at an nco or officer that was too hard on them. Not enough evidence provided, and seeing as we live in the secret state, we won’t get any either.
Unfortunately this seems to happen quite a lot in society and in situations where people can rise to a level of relative impunity.
The Army
The Catholic/Protestant churches
Schools (particularly before my generation but not completely gone during my time). Born 1985’
The BBC
RTE
Harvey Weinstein
Jeffrey Epstein
Multiple cases against underage football coaches
Rugby coaches of ‘high end’ schools
Olympic swimming coaches with 14 year olds
Etc.
We can only presume that there’s more abuse going on as we speak and that it may or may not ever be stopped or even highlighted.
WTF is wrong with people?
Ill be honest here to any young person reading this. This kind of stuff is common place in low skilled, entry level places like the Army, Factories, Construction Sites and so on. You will meet complete meatheads that only talk about football and drinking and if you’re not one of them you will be bullied big time. Get yourself educated and get a good job, its as simple as that.
Sorry I find this whole thing suspicious first what are they doing joining up to be a soldier??????