Lory Manning sat down with Megan Pratz to discuss how the U.S. Military has confronted sexual assault. To watch the full interview use this link. Full transcript of interview is below.

Transcript:

Megan Pratz: Welcome back to Cheddar Politics. Today is Veterans Day, a day each year that gives us a chance to honor and- our service members and reflect on the issues they face in our armed forces. One issue that's gotten a lot of scrutiny- scrutiny recently is the handling of sexual assault cases in the military. The US military has long been criticized for how it handles cases of sexual assault, with particular attention paid to how cases are investigated and then prosecuted, usually within the chain of- chain of command. The Defense Department has said sexual assault cases will be removed,

Megan Pratz: but it's not the same as Congress changing the law itself. So joining us now is Lory Manning, retired US Navy Captain and the Director of Government Operations at the Service Women's Action Network. Lory, thank you so much for joining us. I have to start by saying, happy Veterans Day. Thank you for your service. And one of the things that's hard on days like this is that we talk about honoring the military. How does it feel, then, to watch, year after year, tributes to service members without the action to back it up to better protect those same service members from sexual assault,

Megan Pratz: which we know is still incredibly common in the military?

Lory Manning: Well, unfortunately, there's been a lot of action over the past 30 years, uh, Congress and the Department of Defense, the services have gone a whole lot to make it, um, easier for victims to come forward to take care of victims afterwards. Unfortunately, what they've ignored is preventing it, to begin with, instead of cleaning up, uh, the mess afterwards. And we are hoping that, uh,

Lory Manning: once they get some more changes made this year, uh, that are- that are before Congress right now, uh, it will allow us to get deeper into the prevention aspect so the cases don't arise to begin with.

Megan Pratz: Let's talk about the provisions in front of Congress right now, because this is a bipartisan conversation, it has been for actually a very long time. Most of the pieces of legislation that have passed and there haven't been a- a ton, but most of them have been very bipartisan in nature. And this time you have such divergent political views as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has made this a cornerstone of her time in office from New York, and Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative firebrand from Texas. If there's so much bipartisan support, if there's so much attention on this issue, if the president and the secretary of

Megan Pratz: defense say they want to do more on this, why does it seem like there's always all these barriers in place to getting it done?

Lory Manning: That's, uh, a good question, and the main reason is they've changed a lot of the peripheral stuff, but they haven't changed the military's culture, the deep down culture, which since most of the people in the military are men, uh, it's, uh, about 15 percent women these days, and that's high, things are looked at from a male perspective. And when you're talking about sexual assault,

Lory Manning: um, you- particularly when it's criminal sexual assault, there's also the law, which says that somebody who is accused of a crime is innocent until he- and I- it's always been a he in my- with- with sexual assault, is- is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And then you get into this, he said, she said stuff, and it's very difficult,

Lory Manning: uh, to prove when there are no other witnesses. Uh, the other thing is that the military, um, and I've been there, I've been a commanding officer. We're very-

Lory Manning: Insistent on our prerogatives to control the climate within our own command, and that means being able to deal with not just discipline problems, but criminal problems. And most of us don't have the training. You know, I was a military commander, but I certainly didn't go to law school. I ha- but the law- the legal issues that arose, I had to deal with. Uh, I had um, a week's course before I went off to

Lory Manning: be a commanding officer out in the middle of the Indian Ocean at one week on- on how to handle this stuff. And it was one of a 100 things I had to be prepared to deal with. And so it's not something that the people who have to deal with it are trained to deal in. And that has to change.

Megan Pratz: So, Captain Manning, this is not just something you do as a job, right? You served in the military for a long time and it's also personal for you. Why is this worth continuing to fight when it does seem like you face roadblocks in trying to make these chain of command changes? And I- I remember covering this, you know, a decade ago and having the same conversation about the chain of command, and there just hasn't been the political will in Congress to change it yet. So why- why is it so important to you?

Lory Manning: Because I think we need men and women, good men and women in the services who can serve without having to wonder every time they go to the bathroom, the head, as we called it, in the Navy at night. Any time uh, they're sent to a remote area where they're living and working with the same people morning, noon and night. Would they have what we need to build respect for each other uh, instead of being maybe

Lory Manning: a little too- a little afraid of each other. Um, now this is not just a military problem. If you go to any college campus or unfortunately these days, some high school campuses in the country and you'll run into the same clash, the same problems. So it is important to be- OVERLAPPING Yeah. And I was gonna say that, but these things are changing. It just takes time. And too many people get caught up in a terrible situations during the time it takes.

Megan Pratz: Yeah, the time is- is really hard. I have about 30 seconds, I have so I'm gonna ask you one question which is, despite all of this, despite your personal experience, despite facing these survivors every day and hearing their stories and advocating for them and the government, would you still tell women who are considering a career in the military to join?

Lory Manning: Oh, sure, absolutely. I mean, I have nieces who maybe I hope will think about it someday. Um, the educational benefits, the uh, chance to work with people from every part of this country, every race, every religion, every ethnicity. Uh, it's invaluable and it's also a lot of fun with a lot of opportunities to travel, to do things you never thought you'd do in your life. I never thought I'd land on

Lory Manning: an aircraft carrier and I wasn't flying the plane. Uh, but you get to do a lot of really cool stuff uh, and get a good education and meet a lot of really good people. So it- it's worth it. Um, but be- but you have to know that this is a problem. Here in the military, but not just in the military faces on a college campus in some places.

Megan Pratz: When you tell them to join and you're working to make it safer. Lory Manning is a retired U.S. Navy captain and director of government operations at the Service Women's Action Network. Thank you so much, Captain Manning.