Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will see brief afternoon showers with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 5:34 AM and sunset 8:07 PM, for 14h 33m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 55.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the nine hundred fifteenth day.
On this day in 1949, in the Soviet’s Berlin Blockade ends:
By the spring of 1949, the [Allied responsive] airlift was clearly succeeding, and by April it was delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin, although for a time the U.S., U.K and France continued to supply the city by air anyway because they were worried that the Soviets were simply going to resume the blockade and were only trying to disrupt western supply lines. The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe and was the first major multinational skirmish of the cold war.
Recommended for reading in full:
Katelyn Ferral reports ‘It was rape:’ Wisconsin Army National Guard officer Megan Plunkett says she was retaliated against, disciplined for reporting sexual assaults:
From May 7 through May 10, the Cap Times will publish [has published] “Failure to Protect,” a four-part investigation by reporter Katelyn Ferral into the Wisconsin Army National Guard and its treatment of soldiers who are sexually abused in its service. The series centers on 1st Lt. Megan Plunkett, a soldier who says she was sexually assaulted by three different Guard colleagues over the course of three years.
After she brought those allegations forward, the Guard not only decided that they were unsubstantiated, but took multiple steps to punish her. Plunkett eventually brought her story to the Cap Times, and after a four-month investigation including access to voluminous records of a type rarely available to the public, we are sharing her story with you. It is alarming, nuanced and sometimes graphic, but it is important to hear, coming amidst growing concern among government officials in Wisconsin and nationally about the number of military sexual abuse victims and their treatment.
Part one (below) focuses on Plunkett’s allegations, the Guard’s responses and also explains its procedures for responding to sexual assault allegations.
Part two takes a close look at a yearlong, internal Guard investigation into Plunkett’s first unit, which concluded that it had a longstanding culture of sexual misconduct perpetuated by staff members who were cited as offenders while simultaneously being in charge of programs intended to aid victims.
Part three examines the phenomenon of “military sexual trauma” as well as Plunkett’s often frustrating efforts to maintain consistent medical care and legal representation.
Part four describes the Guard’s final — and at this point, unsuccessful — effort to strip Plunkett of military benefits even after she was in the process of getting a discharge for medical reasons.