By that same token, I also believe that when veterans or the families of veterans choose to speak of their experiences, the nation should stop and listen with grave intent.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs recently held a meeting on sexual assault in the military. My hat is off to U.S. Reps. Louise Slaughter of New York and Jane Harman of California for providing testimony at the hearing. My heart broke while listening to the testimony of Mary Lauterbach, the mother of murdered Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, and Ingrid Torres, a Red Cross worker who was raped while serving in Korea.

Merle Wilberding, an attorney for the Lauterbach family and Iowa native, wrote an editorial for Iowa Independent that was published Monday.

The horrific facts surrounding the murder have overshadowed underlying allegations of sexual assault and the Marines’ responses to those allegations. I believe that Maria Lauterbach would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect victims of sexual assault, a more effective support program, and a more expeditious investigation and prosecution system.

Six months before her murder, Maria Lauterbach filed a rape claim against [Marine Cpl. Cesar] Laurean, a superior in her unit at Camp Lejeune. The period while the claim was pending was a nightmare for Maria. She was subjected to intimidation and harassment. She was sucker-punched in the face one evening. Another evening, her brand new car was keyed – or rather screw-drivered – from bumper to bumper.

Her real concerns were that her superiors and the NCIS investigators did not believe her. Worse yet, she was compelled to be in meetings and formations with her assailant, and she was unsuccessful in getting a base transfer. Finally, she told her mother, Mary Lauterbach, that she just wanted it to go away…

In the last six months I have been contacted by more than a dozen families and support groups, all seeking specific help for women in the military who have been sexually assaulted. The stories have been virtually identical – the complaining victim becomes isolated, taunted, and tormented. She is not guided or directed to appropriate support programs, she does not feel protected from her assailant, and she finds herself treated as the guilty party, not the victim.

The fourth annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military (PDF file), completed by the Department of Defense, cites 2,688 cases of sexual assault by military personnel in the 2007 fiscal year. Because of the reasons Wilberding outlines in his editorial, these statistics are suspected to be low. And, in contrast to civil proceedings where 40 percent of arrested rape suspects are prosecuted, the Department of Defense reports that only 8 percent of those investigated for sexual assault were referred to courts martial.

During the course of testimony, Harman said physicians at a California Veterans Affairs hospital told her that 41 percent of female veterans treated there were victims of sexual assault. In addition, the doctors said that 29 percent of all treated female veterans had been raped. Harman has introduced a bill that would compel the DOD to create a strategy to both investigate and prosecute sexual assault charges in the military. It also calls for improved protections for victims who report such crimes.

For her part, Slaughter announced that she would re-introduce the Military Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Act, which creates an Office of Victim Advocates within the DOD, improves counseling programs and enhances confidentiality for those who report sexual abuse.

While we must applaud both congresswomen for bringing their findings to the hearing, we also must admonish them for continuing to try to play by the rules of a failed system. The Department of Defense already has an Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response:

“The Department of Defense does not tolerate sexual assault and has implemented a comprehensive policy that reinforces a culture of prevention, response and accountability that ensures the safety, dignity and well-being of all members of the Armed Forces. Our men and women serving throughout the world deserve nothing less, and their leaders — military and civilian — are committed to maintaining a workplace environment that rejects sexual assault and attitudes that promote such behaviors.”

Dr. Kaye Whitley, director of the office, was ordered by her superior, Michael Dominguez, to ignore a congressional subpoena and did not testify at the hearing — a hearing on the very topic she is paid to address each and every day. When questioned by Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts, the chairman of the subcommittee, Dominguez, while not asserting executive privilege, said that he gave Whitley a direct order to not appear before or answer to Congress.

“I’m extremely disappointed,” Harman said when asked about Whitley’s absence. “The leadership starts at the top, and there’s clearly a major problem at the Department of Defense. There’s an epidemic of assaults and rapes against military women by U.S. soldiers. They’re more likely to be raped and assaulted than they are to be killed in Iraq. And the Defense Department has to send its top people up here to help Congress oversee and decide what to do about this problem.”

While sexual assault and rape are not games, we all understand that politics, for the most part, is a process of manipulating the rules to one’s maximum benefit. When the rules change, good politicians understand that they must adapt if they intend to be effective. But what we see here — indeed what we’ve witnessed time and time again for the past decade — are politicians who believe the gentlemen tactics of the British Army are sufficient against the guerrilla warfare of the colonists.

In an ideal world, the formation of a new and more effective task force or office within the Department of Defense would be of benefit to the soldiers who have been victims of sexual violence. The proposals by the two legislators, when taken in context with the refusal of government agencies to acknowledge the authority of Congress, would do little more than add more pork to a government agency that has already soaked its lips in fat and loosened its belt at the expense of taxpayers. Without real congressional oversight, sexual violence will continue to escalate.

While the game of politics rambles on behind closed doors and before the nation, another soldier is being attacked. While we watch and nod and offer up bills that provide mouth service, another soldier is harassed for being a victim. While the tennis ball volleys from one side of the net to the other, another soldier is, for all practical purposes, bound and placed before a firing squad.

Don’t ask. Don’t tell. It isn’t just a shameful cliche for gays anymore.

More than six months have passed since the charred bodies of Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child were found buried in a shallow fire pit in the backyard of fellow Marine Corporal Cesar Laurean. Maria had been missing for four weeks from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where she was stationed.

Maria Lauterbach

Throughout that period Marine officials had insisted to Maria’s increasingly frantic family that the pregnant Marine had probably run away and there was no basis for a formal investigation. Shortly before the bodies were recovered by civilian authorities, Laurean fled to Mexico. He has since been captured and awaits extradition to North Carolina to face first degree murder charges.

The horrific facts surrounding the murder have overshadowed underlying allegations of sexual assault and the Marines’ responses to those allegations. I believe that Maria Lauterbach would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect victims of sexual assault, a more effective support program, and a more expeditious investigation and prosecution system.

Six months before her murder, Maria Lauterbach filed a rape claim against Laurean, a superior in her unit at Camp Lejeune. The period while the claim was pending was a nightmare for Maria. She was subjected to intimidation and harassment. She was sucker-punched in the face one evening. Another evening, her brand new car was keyed – or rather screw-drivered – from bumper to bumper.

Her real concerns were that her superiors and the NCIS investigators did not believe her. Worse yet, she was compelled to be in meetings and formations with her assailant, and she was unsuccessful in getting a base transfer. Finally, she told her mother, Mary Lauterbach, that she just wanted it to go away. She was sorry she had ever reported the rape. Maria’s final telephone call to her mother was about an official Christmas party where she feared she might see Laurean.

As a young Army JAG captain, Merle Wilberding was assigned the responsibility to represent the Government in Lt. Calley’s appeal of his conviction in the infamous My Lai massacre. Merle Wilberding briefed and argued the case before the military appellate courts. Those arguments were memorialized in a series of courtroom sketches that appeared in a report by Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News on Dec. 4, 1972. After his own discharge, Merle Wilberding acquired one of those original courtroom sketches and is seen standing beside it in the accompanying photograph.

As a family, the Marines have been extraordinary in their outpouring of sympathy and support to Maria’s family following the murders. I watched present and former Marines pour out their hearts in person and in their cards and letters. In late February I accompanied the Lauterbach family to a Memorial Service at Camp Lejeune that was simply extraordinary in its compassion and inspirational patriotism.

As an institution, the Marines have failed – failed in their obligations to the Lauterbach family, and, more importantly, and failed in their obligations to women in the military who report sexual assaults. As legal counsel to the Lauterbach family I have had the opportunity to listen to the Marines’ public explanations of the rape claim, their efforts to protect her, and their efforts to investigate and prosecute the claim. Their public statements have all been self-serving efforts to insulate themselves from criticism. Not once did they suggest that they have considered whether they could have done things differently in the past or would do things differently in the future. Instead of mea culpa, it has been Maria culpa.

In the last six months I have been contacted by more than a dozen families and support groups, all seeking specific help for women in the military who have been sexually assaulted. The stories have been virtually identical – the complaining victim becomes isolated, taunted, and tormented. She is not guided or directed to appropriate support programs, she does not feel protected from her assailant, and she finds herself treated as the guilty party, not the victim.

The security and safety of all of these victims, including Maria Lauterbach, was punctured by the hard realities of being a victim of sexual assault in the military. They all report that the military does not believe them, that they live in fear of harm from the perpetrator, and that they are in fear of harassment and intimidation from the rest of the unit.

Wilberding appeared on the “Today Show” with Matt Lauer (center) and Maria Lauterbach's mother, Mary.

After NBC Dateline aired a program on the Maria Lauterbach case, I received a telephone call from a mother who had watched the program. Her 20-year-old daughter was a member of the military and had just made a sexual assault claim. Now she feared for her life. When she asked for a Military Protective Order, her first sergeant told her that it would be of no value, because, in her view, if her assailant wanted to kill her, the MPO would not stop him. She was threatened with her own court-martial if her story did not hold up. She was obligated to stay in the same unit with the alleged attacker and was haunted by his presence. She did have a Military Victim Advocate assigned to her, but the victim advocate told her that there was not really anything she could do.

When I talked to the victim, I was immediately struck by how frightened she was. She did not want to ask for any protection, for fear that the intimidation and harassment would be worse. Like Maria Lauterbach, this victim just wanted it to go away. It was clear that she too wished she had not reported the rape.

All of these families have spoken out of desperation and fear, desperation because no one could help them and fear that their daughters would be physically harmed or emotionally traumatized. Like Maria Lauterbach, these victims had been threatened with court-martial, administrative reprimands, or in some cases being drummed out of the service. One mother said that the only difference between her daughter and Maria Lauterbach was that her daughter was still alive.

The Marines are not alone in their failures. All of the military services need to address this problem. I don’t mean that they should write a manual on Military Protective Orders or prepare a Power Point presentation on the Victim Advocate Program. They already have these materials. They need to transform the Power Point presentations into life-style changes in the everyday treatment of our women in the military who report sexual assaults.

All too often the “Military Victim Advocate” is only a “Military Victim Listener.” These military victim advocates need to have the authority and the freedom to guide and direct these victims to enter appropriate support programs, to insist on proper Military Protective Orders, and to stand up for their rights. Often these victims have been traumatized by the sexual assault, and they desperately need guidance and direction to struggle through the inherent emotional trauma that is besetting them.

Victim advocates in the civilian world are far more proactive, far more protective, and far more effective than victim advocates in the military. This can be explained – but not justified – by understanding that military victim advocates are in the military themselves and have to survive within the same chain of command. If they challenge the system too much, they run the risk that their own positions may be in jeopardy.

Some steps have already been taken. In May Congressman Mike Turner (3rd Ohio) successfully added two sections to HR 5658, the DOD Authorization Bill for FY 2009. Both of these sections strengthen military protective orders by adding automatic renewal provisions and by requiring the military to put the civilian authorities on notice of these military protective orders.

More needs to be done. The Marines, indeed all military services, need an outside assessment of this problem for they have shown neither the ability nor the inclination to evaluate their own failings. Congress needs to hold hearings on sexual assault in the military, especially the victim advocate program. It needs to study how the military victim advocate system compares to the civilian victim advocate system and what changes can be made to provide more effective support. This is critical because the victims live in such a controlled environment. They need help from victim advocates who have the authority to direct and guide them to the appropriate resources and relief.

The goal of these programs should be to help the victims recover from their emotionally wrenching trauma and restore them as productive members of the military workforce. This would literally save the lives of the victims and at the same time would improve and enhance the performance of the military.

Our country is committed to an all-volunteer military. To continue to attract women to the military, the military must demonstrate that it can protect them when they have been victims of sexual assault, that it can rehabilitate victims and return them as productive members of the military work force, and that the investigations provide the respect for victims that they already provide for the alleged perpetrators.

Merle Wilberding, the attorney for the family of slain Marine Maria Lauterbach, is with a Dayton, Ohio, law firm. He is a native of Breda in western Iowa and has long been involved with high-profile military legal cases, most notably the My Lai massacre prosecution during the Vietnam War. As part of his work with the Lauterbach case, a sensational murder investigation, Wilberding has advocated a change in culture in the military to prevent sexual assault on women.  The Iowa Independent previously profiled Wilberding here.

Merle Wilberding, a 1962 St. Bernard (Breda) Catholic School graduate and a son of a Carroll County farmer who worked for the Breda Grain Company, is the attorney for Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, the slain female Marine found buried in North Carolina last month.

Wilberding, 64, has appeared on the “Today Show” with Matt Lauer, taped a segment for “Dateline” and represented the family in other high-profile media venues.

With its chilling elements, Lance Cpl. Lauterbach’s case has generated a swirl of media attention around the world.

“This case caught the nation’s attention when it broke in a way few cases have,” Wilberding told Iowa Independent in a phone interview from his home in Dayton, Ohio.

Maria Lauterbach’s  body – and that of her unborn baby – were found near the home of Cpl. Cesar Laurean, the main suspect in the case.

Laurean, who was accused of a May 2007 rape of Lauterbach, is believed to be on the run in his native Mexico with an international manhunt on his scent.

“He’s clearly still at large and the general belief is he’s still in Mexico,” Wilberding  said.

Does he think Laurean did it?

“She was buried in his backyard,” Wilberding said.

He also thinks the alleged rape resulted in the pregnancy.

“Yeah, that’s how she got the baby,” Wilberding said.

Living in Ohio near the Lauterbachs, Wilberding was familiar with the family before the murder. When the case generated so much ink and airtime, Mary Lauterbach looked to him as an attorney.

“The real reason was that when all this broke she was overwhelmed and friends urged her to have a lawyer,” Wilberding.

A major reason for his role in the case is Wilberding’s experience with the military in sensitive, closely watched cases with major social implications. A generation ago, Wilberding served as a military attorney in the infamous trials surrounding the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

That case is very much on his mind now.

Wilberding, who earned his law degree from Notre Dame University, wrote the cover story this month for Vietnam magazine on the 40th anniversary of My Lai on March 16, 1968.

  “One of the rifle platoons of Charlie Company was led by Lt. William L. Calley who swept through the My Lai 4 subhamlet and, according to the testimony at his court-martial, gathered together hundreds of old men, women and children – perhaps as many as 500 – and then systematically massacred them,” Wilberding said.

Calley was charged and subsequently convicted by a general court-martial board. 

As a young Army Judge Advocate General captain, Wilberding was assigned the responsibility to represent the government in  Calley’s appeal of his conviction. Wilberding briefed and argued the case before the military appellate courts with the eyes of the nation on it.

Calley’s life sentence was later reduced. He lived under house arrest in Fort Benning, Ga., and then served four months at Fort Leavenworth before being paroled by the Army. Today he manages a jewelry store in Georgia that he inherited from his father.

Wilberding said he has not spoken to Calley since the trial.

Wilberding said the lessons of My Lai are relevant today.

“There is an enduring risk that one or more incidents like My Lai will recur in other `nonconventional’ wars,” Wilberding writes in the Vietnam magazine article.

He referenced the Abu Ghraib prison abuse cases in Iraq as one episode that has been compared to My  Lai.

“The need for discipline in the military must be tempered with more effective training on the absolute obligation to protect both non-combatants and combatants who are no longer a danger and completely under control,” Wilberding said.

Like My Lai, the Lauterbach case also involves a breakdown in military order, he said.
Wilberding, who told Iowa Independent that suing the Marines is a “difficult proposition,” said the military could have done more to protect Lauterbach after she made the rape charge – chiefly separating the duties of the two Marines as the investigation proceeded.

“Yeah, clearly I think they could have done things to protect her,” Wilberding said.

Since he has been a visible advocate for Lauterbach, and by extension, women serving in the U.S. military, Wilberding said he’s been contacted by many parents of females in the services – and women in uniform themselves.

One parent told him, “The only difference is my daughter hasn’t been murdered yet.”

They see parallels with the Lauterbach case and their own experiences in the military, a culture Wilberding said that has not fully accepted women.

“I don’t think they (the military) have been fully able to absorb the cultural aspects,” Wilberding said.

After graduating from St. Bernard’s High School in Breda, Wilberding earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s University (Minnesota), and then his law degree from Notre Dame.

He has practiced law for the past 35 years in Dayton, Ohio, at Coolidge Wall, LPA, a law firm of more than 40 lawyers.  He has authored four books and a large number of law review and general interest articles.

(Photos: (Top) As a young Army JAG captain, Merle Wilberding was assigned the responsibility to represent the Government in Lt. Calley’s appeal of his conviction in the infamous My Lai massacre.  Merle Wilberding briefed and argued the case before the military appellate courts.  Those arguments were memorialized in a series of courtroom sketches that appeared in a report by Bob Schieffer  on the CBS Evening News on Dec. 4, 1972.  After his own discharge, Merle Wilberding acquired one of those original courtroom sketches and is seen standing beside it in the accompanying photograph. Today, Wilberding is the attorney for the family of a slain female Marine whose suspected killer is reportedly on the run in Mexico. (Middle) Maria Lauterbach. (Bottom) Cover of Vietnam magazine.)