Stephanie Schroeder was twenty-one years old when she enlisted in the United States Marine Corps shortly after the attack on the World Trader Center. In 2002, Schroeder's life changed when a fellow Marine beat and raped her in a bathroom. Instead of punishing his attacker, a noncommissioned officer told Schroeder, “Don't come complaining to me because you had sex and changed your mind” (Martin). Shortly thereafter, Schroder was discharged for a personality disorder that she said was due to trying to report the incident. Unfortunately, Schroeder's story is not unusual. Each year, approximately 26,000 service members are sexually assaulted by other service members in the United States military (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights). The 1991 Tailhook scandal, in which 90 servicemen were sexually assaulted by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel, shed light on the damaging epidemic of sexual violence in the U.S. military, but it continues today, over two decades After. Congress has created several pieces of legislation to crack down on the staggering amount of sexual assault that has been going on for decades. Some of the solutions proposed to stop this problem are extreme, such as removing women from some combat roles, while others are helpful but inadequate, such as Senator McCaskill's recently passed bill, which makes minor changes to the current military management system of sexual assaults. But none of these solutions will eradicate the epidemic of sexual violence in the U.S. military. Although 14,000 victims of sexual assault in the military are men and 12,000 are women (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), women are seen as the primary victims. For this reason, removing women from equal combat roles has been… at the heart of the paper… further legislation. While McCaskill is noble in his actions, his bill doesn't go far enough to stop sexual violence in the military. Thanks to courageous women like Stephanie Schroeder and the Tailhook scandal of 1991, sexual assault in the U.S. military doesn't carry the same stigma as it once did. Congress is also “genuinely embarrassed by the scale of sexual assault in the military. It is unbecoming of a soldier and also makes it more difficult to recruit women” (Rosen). Unfortunately, sexual violence is unlikely to be completely stopped. It can, however, decrease through laws. Some proposed laws, such as reinstating the ban on women in combat roles and Senator McCaskill's bill, will not effectively reduce the epidemic. But until a proper solution is in place, sexual violence will continue to permeate the U.S. military.