I am a civilian and I am pissed. I don’t have to worry about chain of command or UCMJ. That’s a luxury service women don’t have. I’m grateful for every woman who’s ever worn a military uniform. I want to use that gratitude and anger to raise hell on #VanessaGullien’s behalf. https://twitter.com/MCruzMissile/status/1278804337838473216

There are things civilian women can do to help:
1. Listen to the women who served. Listen to their stories. Don’t badger them or demand they speak to you about their experiences. But when they speak, shut up and listen.

2. Educate yourself on the basic issues. You don’t have to be a lawyer or an expert. Just research and learn. Check out https://www.bwjp.org/our-work/topics/military-sexual-assult.html.

3. Learn about what Congress is doing on the issues. There were sexual assault amendments considered in the HASC markup last night for FY21. Check out CRS (pgs 36-44) for NDAA FY20 primer on what was done last year: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R46107.pdf

5.5. If you know of other great resources, please share!

6. Check in with orgs who are doing work on this. @ProtectRDfnders has been leading the charge but there are other orgs advocating for change.

6.5. See 5.5

7. Call your Members of Congress. If you don’t know who they are, call (202) 224-3121 and they will direct you to your House & Senate reps.

7.5 Tell your Members that you’re concerned abt issues regarding military sexual assault and want to know what they are doing to to address it. Then tell them to do more.

8. Use Social Media to educate and advocate about why this is important. Consider going old school and writing a Letter to the Editor of your local paper.

9. There a literally a thousand little ways we can help out our sisters in the military. We don’t have to do them all, but we have to do something if we want to make sure we don’t see another tragedy like #VanessaGullien. /fin