About A Few Bad Men

The overwhelming majority of U.S. military members serve our country with honor and integrity. Many risk their lives on a daily basis to protect and defend not only our great nation and people, but also the nations and peoples of the world. This book is not about them.

This book is instead about the practices of the commercial sex industry near a few overseas U.S. military bases, and how a small number of servicemen have been lured into participating in this evil business.

A Few Bad Men will present a brutally accurate account of sex trade operators near some of our overseas locations, and of U.S. servicemember’s participation in their exploitation of sex-trafficked victims and forced prostitutes. While most people are no doubt familiar with the tales of foreign prostitutes and our servicemen stationed overseas, few are likely aware of the extent to which sex traffickers are operating just outside our base gates, or of the physical and psychological damage inflicted upon the victims of their appalling business.

Weaving together a wide variety of sources – case reports and field research from international organizations, U.S. State Department reports, recent military cases involving human trafficking and prostitution, interviews of servicemembers and victims, and personal anecdotes - A Few Bad Men will expose this outrageous business and its destructive consequences to not only the victims and their families, but also to the reputation of our military forces abroad and to the strategic interests of the United States.

Why Tell This Story?

Unfortunately, there exists a subculture near some of our overseas military that not only condones sexual depravity but revels in it. Near bases and liberty ports in The Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Japan, and many others, sailors and soldiers are lured into engaging in reprehensible behavior with prostitutes and victims of sex trafficking. While senior military leadership and the majority of servicemembers are repulsed by this ugly business and are committed to ending its operations, it still continues to infect the morality and behavior of a few servicemembers.

The primary purpose of writing A Few Bad Men is to expose this abhorrent business and document the destructive consequences to both the victims and to the reputation of the United States abroad. My hope is that this will lead to a discussion about how to bring this repugnant behavior and the subculture that enables it to an end.

However, there is a second and equally worthy purpose for writing this book. There is a disturbing epidemic of sexual misconduct currently sweeping through our military. In the fiscal year ending in September 2013, more than 5,000 sexual assault complaints were filed, a 50% increase over 2012, when 3,374 were filed!

Why is this happening? Some DoD representatives deny the numbers represent an actual increase, instead suggesting the rise is due primarily to increased reporting while the number of incidents has remained relatively steady.

Perhaps this excuse accounts for some of the increased reporting, but it leaves unanswered the far more important question. Why are there so many incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment occurring in the first place?! An anonymous survey conducted in early 2013 indicated that as many as 26,000 service members encountered some type of unwanted sexual contact or sexual assault!

The second purpose of writing A Few Bad Men is to illustrate the link between this subculture of depravity and the behavior of some servicemembers when they are at work. Any person who believes it is ok to victimize young women who are forced into prostitution by poverty and hopelessness (or even trafficked into it), quite obviously has a lack of respect for all women. Of course he is going to carry that lack of respect and his objectification of women into the workplace, and then treat his female coworkers with the same lack of respect.

By exposing and hopefully eliminating this destructive subculture, I hope to help bring an end to the epidemic of sexual misconduct in our military.