Army leadership says 'no' to sexual assault in new PSA

By Guv Callahan, Pentagram Staff WriterMay 8, 2015

Army leadership says 'no' to sexual assault in new PSA
1 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Army leadership says 'no' to sexual assault in new PSA
2 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – U.S. Army leaders (from left to right) Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Army chief of staff; John McHugh, secretary of the Army; and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Dan Dailey are filmed as part of a video for the Army's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Preventi... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Army leadership says 'no' to sexual assault in new PSA
3 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, right, chief of staff of the Army, shakes hands with a Soldier from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) during filming for a public service announcement video for the Army's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and P... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

United States Army senior leaders gathered on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall May 4 to shoot a public service announcement promoting a new initiative that will attack sexual assault and harassment in the force from the ground up.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Dan Dailey stopped by Whipple Field on the Fort Myer portion of the joint base to film a segment for the PSA, highlighting the Army's "Not in My Squad" campaign, which proposes to help end sexual assault through an emphasis on first-line squad leaders.

The initiative, announced at the Pentagon in late March to kick off National Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Month in April, will gather 32 of the Army's best squad leaders to develop recommendations for how other junior NCOs can combat the problem and build a force that exemplifies the Army values, Dailey said during an interview with the Pentagram.

The idea for the campaign originated from a cadet program at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Dailey said cadets on campus took it upon themselves to stop sexual assault through their Cadets Against Sexual Harassment and Assault program, which inspired him and his staff to bring that same grassroots approach to the force as a whole.

According to Dailey, if squad leaders are tasked with the responsibility of taking Soldiers into combat, they should be able to flush out sexual assault and harassment as well.

"When I was a young squad leader I used to say, 'If this isn't the best squad in the Army, then I need to do something about it,'" Dailey said.

The NCO workshop is scheduled for June 15 to 19. Junior squad leaders will work with experts from the Army's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) program and the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic to generate these recommendations for a training package that can then be implemented throughout the force, Dailey said.

And it's important that junior leaders take responsibility for the program, he said.

"They have to feel like it is their program," Dailey said. "Big Army has done a fabulous job with getting SHARP up off the ground ... but now we need Soldiers at the ground level who are focused on this every day. They're in a position to take care of this, they have the authority, and we just have to remind them."

Odierno said the initiative is about maintaining the values of the profession of arms.

"We should never put up with an act like sexual assault, and we don't want anything like that in our Army," he said. "It's something that we think is against everything that we believe in, everything that's critical to the discipline and actions of everyone that joins our Army."

According to Odierno, the Army is so big that such a campaign can't be successful without the help of junior Soldiers.

"Once they understand that we're not going to tolerate this at the squad level, then we're going to be successful," he said. "As a leader, you can say all you want about it, but it's not going to work until those at the lowest level understand it and mean it and aren't going to allow it to happen."

The segment of the PSA filmed on JBM-HH will also feature footage of the U.S. Army Drill Team. Additional filming will be done at West Point. The video is scheduled to be finished and ready for release in time for the Army's birthday on June 14.

"We've made a lot of progress," Dailey said. "But we can't afford to have one more incident. Our job is to prevent it."