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Don’t stand by, stand up

Service members pride themselves on being stand-up people, with more integrity than the average civilian. The self-image runs deep: “The few, the proud.” “Aim high.” “Duty, honor, country.” “Be all you can be.”

The Pentagon is counting on that sense of honor to power its latest initiative to combat sexual assault in the ranks, which rose by 8 percent last year compared with the year before.

“Bystander intervention,” as the concept is known, envisions service members stepping in and speaking out when they feel a social situation may get out of hand and possibly escalate to sexual violence.

For example, an honorable person doesn’t stand idly by as a buddy turns his conversation with a woman from fun to crude verbal harassment. he does not look the other way when a buddy persists with unwelcome advances or any display of unwanted aggression. An honorable person has a duty to try to prevent such conduct.

Sometimes, the shift from acceptable to threatening behavior can be hard to read, and to intervene is to risk violating buddy code, which holds that one does not put the damper on another’s fun. But it is better to err on the side of caution than to later wish you had. Sexual assaults damage lives — those of the victims, the offenders, and those who failed to act when they could have.

Intervening is far better than letting a buddy do something that not only hurts another person but also could land him in jail, out of uniform or both.

Standing by on such occasions is not friendship; it’s failure.