Stacey Thompson, as a 19-year-old Marine, was stationed in Japan when she said her sergeant laced her drinks with drugs, raped her in his barracks and then dumped her on the street outside a night club at 4 a.m.

Thompson – then serving as a lance corporal – duly reported the crime, but the investigator put her on the witness stand. There she was called a liar and even had her hands checked for needle marks after being accused of using drugs.

Lance Corporal Thompson was removed from her job, reassigned to another unit and she was subsequently kicked out of the military with an other-than-honorable discharge. That is one step below honorable discharge, meaning Thompson lost her benefits and the chance for any Defense Department job. As for her perpetrator, he was allowed to leave the Marine Corps without even the charge of rape noted on his record.

That was 14 years ago. Today, Thompson is a 32-year-old mother of three, suffering lasting damage from her experience as a rape victim in the military. This is evidenced by keeping her dog nearby when she showers and sleeping with the lights on in her house. After 14 years of stoic silence, however, Thompson is stepping forward, determined to fight for an overhaul to the military’s justice system for victims of sexual assault and even demanding that her own case be re-examined.

“I felt the Marine Corps re-victimized me again after getting raped,” said Thompson. Stating that she shut down afterward, she refused to talk about her rape and was afraid of men – especially Marines. “That fear is still with me, 14 years later.”

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that about 19,000 men and women suffer sexual assault each year in the military. He went on to note, based on anonymous reporting collected by the military, that in 2010 about 10,700 of those cases – 56% – involved male victims. Only 3,374 of these crimes were reported, resulting in 238 convictions. Last year, NBC News reported that the Pentagon concluded the numbers to be about 13,000 of the 1.2 million men and about 12,100 of the 203,000 women serving in uniform were sexually assaulted on active duty last year. Thousands of victims – both male and female – remain unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance programs, according to the Pentagon.

"As a culture, we've somewhat moved past the idea that a female wanted this trauma to occur, but we haven't moved past that for male survivors," said Brian Lewis, who was raped by a male superior officer aboard a Navy ship in 2000. "In a lot of areas of the military, men are still viewed as having wanted it or of being homosexual. That's not correct at all. It's a crime of power and control."

The Defense Department has said men "report at much lower rates than female survivors." According to victims' advocates, the main reason is that retaliation as part of a military-wide cultural pattern prevents countless cases from being reported and investigated, worsening the epidemic.

"… You're instantly viewed as a liar and a troublemaker [when a man reports a sex crime] and there's the notion that you have abandoned your shipmates – that you took a crap all over your shipmates – that you misconstrued their horseplay," Lewis said. "Too many survivors of military sexual assault are afraid to report these crimes because they fear retaliation and they don't believe they will get justice."

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California was joined by former Marine and survivor of military sexual assault, Stacey Thompson, at a news conference that took place at the California Women's Law Center in Los Angeles on May 31, 2013. Senator Boxer came to discuss her bipartisan legislation to address the epidemic of military sexual assault by ensuring that decisions to prosecute these crimes are made by trained military prosecutors.

"They deserve a system that encourages victims to come forward knowing that the perpetrators will be brought to justice," said Boxer. Marine Corps and Navy officials, however, declined to comment, saying they do not discuss specific cases. Amid growing outrage over the Pentagon's failure to stem the problem, all branches have been scrambling to implement sexual assault prevention programs and improve their responses to complaints, even as the string of arrests and incidents of sexual misconduct continue to surface.

"It's an ongoing problem that is not getting better, it's getting worse, as the latest statistics out of the Pentagon show," said Brian Purchia, spokesman for Protect Our Defenders, a non-profit group which has been helping Thompson. "Unfortunately, commanders are conflicted. When a sexual assault occurs on their watch, it reflects poorly on them and that's why it's shoved under the rug. The perpetrators frequently outrank the victims, which is also why there is this bias. They're going to trust people they've known, not an 18- or 19-year-old just new to the service."

BriGette McCoy, a former Army specialist and another survivor of military sexual assault, testifying at the news conference, spoke about the “anguish” and “entrapment” she suffered viscerally. McCoy emphasized the horror of the ordeal that followed after she was raped on her first military assignment, and then, how she was raped later by another soldier in her unit.

"I no longer have any faith or hope that the military chain of command will consistently prosecute, convict, sentence and carry out the sentencing of sexual predators in uniform without absconding justice somehow," McCoy said.  As she also told the Senate Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on personnel, "It even starts at recruitment.…We have quite a few of our men and women who are being raped and sexually harassed during the recruitment process."

High-ranking officials from each military branch also gave statements at the same news conference, applauding the courageousness of the victims for openly telling their stories. Some of these officials also emphasized that special victims' units have been set up in the military, along with ongoing training geared toward recognizing and successfully prosecuting cases involving rape.
Major General Gary Patton, Director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said that in his five decades of service, he's seen massive cultural changes in the military, including greater racial tolerance and an increasing acceptance of gay and lesbian troops. Will attitudes toward sexual assault change or be different? Major General Patton said that only when rape within the military is treated with the same revulsion as friendly fire, will he believe that a shift has actually occurred.