If you are one of the 1.3 million active duty military personnel in the US or one of the over 750,000 National Guard and Reserves called into active duty and you are sexually assaulted - or worse - you fall under a military justice system, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Your active commanding officers may well be determining your case. in 2024, there were 8195 reports of sexual assault in the miliary - affecting roughly equal numbers of men and women. In October 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rolled back whistle-blower protections for assault charges in the military. Why are we stepping back from reforms of the last 25 years? Can US military culture be made safer for service men and women? Join Nancy Parrish, Founder and Director of Protect Our Defenders (PoD), a national organization dedicated to ending sexual assault in the military, for a timely discussion of the military and it's policies surrounding sexual assault. (PoD provides pro bono legal assistance to affected individuals as well as advocacy on policy changes).

Resources:

• Veterans See Costs and Risks in Hegseth’s Military Rewind to 1990 - The New York Times
• Protect Our Defenders
• Hegseth’s Rollback of Whistleblower Protections Is Reckless and Dangerous to Mission Readiness
• SAPR.mil
• Lawmakers press for continued funds, staff to combat military sexual assault