To begin, I want to make a remark about the seriousness of this problem. I was at a NATO Parliamentary Association reception just this week, where one of the participants, one of our allies, opened his remarks with a “rape joke”. I think it indicates the severity of the sexualized culture and the mountains that you have to climb here.
I am going to ask some fairly serious questions, but I do think it's important to say that I think many things are going very well and are quite worthy of praise. I appreciate the seriousness with which the leadership is taking this question. We've moved a long way from when people said that the policy was zero tolerance, because zero tolerance is always an aspiration and never a policy. Certainly, as Rear-Admiral Bennett just mentioned, there's the shift in emphasis to include more extensive measures. What you didn't mention is the emphasis on support to victims, which I think was lacking in the past. I really welcome that.
Changing culture is not an easy task. I do recognize why your emphasis is right now focused very much on serving members, but I want to ask about some other related areas of concern. I want to ask about cadets, families living on base, civilian employees, and, if there's time, reserves.
Let me start with cadets. We have more than 50,000 cadets in programs across the country. That's a very positive thing and is something that I hope we can expand, but we have some concerns. Because of some high-profile incidents, I have had concerns from parents about placing their kids in cadets.
Have questions of harassment and sexual assault been integrated into the orientation and training for cadets themselves? Are there special outreach provisions for cadets who may be the target of harassment and assault? We know this goes on everywhere in society. There's nothing special about cadets that would mean it wouldn't go on there.