NPR’s All Things Considered, not known in youth circles for its edge, has been killing it lately with a series on the treatment of women in the US military, doing personal interviews of post-traumatized veterans.

Roadside bombs? Senseless blood and death and killing? No. the worst thing about serving in the military is being sexually harassed and raped and gang raped by their fellow soldiers and then having to report the abuse to the same people who perpetrated it.

The 2000 VA study reports that 55 percent of women experienced sexual harassment in the military. And a 2005 study estimates that more than half of women in the reserves and National Guard suffered sexual assault or harassment during their service, according to news reports.

sexual trauma, combined with combat trauma, makes women far more vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sandra, a vet going through rehabilitation in California, put it pretty baldly: “I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.”

Has US military culture degenerated to its lowest levels ever under the torture presidency or has it always been this bad?