This is part of the Scars of Service series

It occurred to me recently that I’ve been on something of an unintentional, unannounced hiatus from this blog. Over the past month or so, I finally had my right shoulder replaced, and recovery has been complicated by several rather important laboratory values being significantly lower than they should be. Apparently, my body has decided that simply replacing another major joint wasn’t quite enough excitement for one year.

As a result, I’ve had a considerable amount of time to sit around and think. Those of you who have followed this blog for any length of time know that leaving me alone with my thoughts for extended periods can be a rather dangerous proposition.

Unfortunately, despite having written a couple of good pieces about healthcare and medical issues, I’ve found myself drifting away from that direction and returning to the more personal subjects that have occupied so much of this blog over the past several years. Being sidelined from my usual activities hasn’t helped my motivation, either. For that, I apologize, although I suspect most of you understand that recovery doesn’t always follow the schedule we’d prefer.

But there’s something else that’s been occupying my thoughts lately, and it isn’t something that can be fixed with physical therapy, better laboratory values, or another shiny piece of orthopedic hardware.

This past month marked a particularly significant anniversary in my nearly six decades of wandering around this planet. In October 1991, while serving in the United States Army in Kuwait, I was sexually assaulted.

Thirty-five years.

It’s a rather astonishing number when I stop and think about it. Thirty-five years since something happened that fundamentally changed the trajectory of my life. Thirty-five years of carrying something I never asked for, never deserved, and certainly never wanted.

And thirty-five years later, I find myself increasingly angry about how our society continues to approach sexual assault.

I’ve watched what I perceive as a disturbing trend in this country, one that seems to place greater emphasis on protecting the reputations and futures of those accused of sexual misconduct than on addressing the damage suffered by victims.

Consider cases like the so-called Cornell Seven, where public discussion included concerns about destroying the promising futures of young men accused of sexual misconduct. Or consider the continuing controversy surrounding the Epstein files, where legitimate questions about accountability, transparency, and the protection of vulnerable children have become entangled in political theater, speculation, and competing agendas.

To be clear, accusations are not convictions, and appearing in a document associated with Jeffrey Epstein is not proof of criminal wrongdoing. Due process matters. It should matter to everyone.

But so does accountability.

And so do the people whose lives have been permanently altered by sexual violence.

What particularly pisses me off is the familiar argument about not wanting to ruin someone’s bright future.

What about my fucking future?

I was doing pretty well in the Army. I had started building what I believed would be a successful military career. I had ambitions, goals, and a reasonably clear idea of where I wanted my life to go.

Why was someone else’s future more important than mine?

Why should another soldier’s actions have been allowed to change the course of my life? Why should I have been the one left carrying the consequences long after the person responsible had moved on?

Where was all that concern about promising futures when it came to mine?

That’s the part of these conversations that seems to get lost. Sexual assault doesn’t end when the assault ends. The consequences don’t disappear when an investigation closes, when someone leaves the military, or when the rest of the world decides it’s time to move on.

The person who was assaulted doesn’t get that luxury.

And when I repeatedly hear about the sexual exploitation and trafficking of minors, or the possibility that influential people may have participated in or enabled such behavior, I find myself wondering why protecting vulnerable people isn’t a much greater priority.

We should want the truth. We should want credible allegations investigated thoroughly. We should want those responsible held accountable through a fair legal process, regardless of their wealth, political affiliation, celebrity, or position of authority.

That shouldn’t be a controversial position.

Yet somehow, it increasingly feels like one.

Someone recently asked me why I’ve been so pessimistic lately. Unfortunately for that poor individual, they happened to ask at precisely the wrong moment, and I unloaded a considerable amount of frustration on them.

I don’t think people fully appreciate how profoundly sexual violence, and our collective response to it, undermines society.

It destroys trust. It damages relationships. It changes how people perceive authority, institutions, and sometimes even themselves. When the institutions supposedly responsible for protecting people appear more concerned with protecting their own reputations, that damage becomes even more profound.

And then we have the latest parade of self-proclaimed alpha males.

Good Lord.

We’ve apparently returned to an era in which a collection of wannabe alpha bros believes that masculinity is measured by how loudly they can talk, how aggressively they can posture, and how effectively they can dominate everyone around them.

Some of these fellows spend so much time flexing their masculinity that I suspect they’d have difficulty completing a single pull-up. (Isn’t that correct Mr. Secretary of War?)

And while we’re apparently worried about testosterone levels in the military, perhaps some of the people making the most noise about masculinity should spend a little less time projecting their insecurities onto everyone else. (Isn’t that correct Mr. Secretary of War?)

Because somewhere along the way, we’ve confused dominance with leadership.

Being a leader isn’t about being the biggest, loudest, or most intimidating person in the room.

Leadership is about responsibility.

A genuine leader looks out for the people entrusted to their care. They recognize vulnerability without exploiting it. They understand that strength isn’t demonstrated by how effectively you can intimidate someone weaker than yourself, but by how willing you are to stand between that person and someone who intends to hurt them.

Good leaders inspire loyalty because people trust them, not because people fear them.

I learned that lesson in the Army, and it was reinforced throughout my years as a paramedic, registered nurse, and nurse practitioner.

The people I respected most weren’t necessarily the loudest people in the room. More often, they were the ones who remained calm when everything around them was going to hell. They were the people who stepped forward when someone needed help, accepted responsibility when things went wrong, and understood that their authority came with an obligation to protect others.

If these self-proclaimed alpha males were genuinely interested in demonstrating strength, perhaps they could start by being more aggressive about protecting people from sexual violence and holding perpetrators accountable.

That would impress me considerably more than another ridiculous display of manufactured masculinity.

And I hate to be the first person to break this news to them, but the louder you have to yell about how strong you are, the weaker you tend to sound.

We desperately need to reverse course in how we approach sexual assault in this country.

Sexual violence doesn’t strengthen an organization, a military unit, a family, or a society. It creates fear, distrust, resentment, and trauma. It undermines the very relationships and institutions that allow people to function together.

Whether you have a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a mother or father, or simply someone in your life whom you love, I cannot imagine that you would willingly want them to experience the trauma of sexual assault.

Having survived sexual assault on more than one occasion, I can assure you that neither experience was without consequences.

Some of those consequences have followed me for decades.

There are days when I can discuss what happened with a degree of clinical detachment. After all, I spent more than three decades working in healthcare, and compartmentalizing unpleasant realities was practically an occupational requirement.

But there are other days when thirty-five years might as well be thirty-five minutes.

That’s the nature of trauma. It doesn’t particularly give a damn about calendars, anniversaries, or how much time has passed. It doesn’t care how successful you’ve been, how much education you’ve acquired, or how many years you’ve spent helping other people through their own difficult experiences.

Sometimes it simply shows up, uninvited, and reminds you that it’s still there.

My mother understood that about me. So does my dog.

Neither needed me to explain every detail of what happened. Neither demanded that I justify my reactions or prove that my experiences were sufficiently traumatic to deserve compassion.

They simply loved me.

And perhaps that’s where the real lesson about strength and leadership lies.

Not in dominance. Not in intimidation. Not in some ridiculous competition to determine who can claim the title of alpha male.

But in compassion, loyalty, protection, and the willingness to stand beside someone when they’re struggling.

I can’t change what happened to me in Kuwait in 1991. I can’t recover the future I might have had if things had been different. And I certainly can’t single-handedly change a society that sometimes seems determined to protect the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable.

But I can continue speaking about it.

I can refuse to accept the idea that someone’s promising future automatically deserves more consideration than the future of the person they harmed.

And I can continue trying to be the kind of man who understands that real strength is measured by how we treat people who need our protection.

After all, I’ve always believed that we should strive to be the kind of person our mom and dog hope we are.

Thirty-five years later, I still think that’s a considerably better measure of a man than anything the self-proclaimed alpha crowd has managed to come up with.

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