In his first directive since taking office, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is ordering senior Pentagon leadership to send him reports detailing their efforts to prevent sexual assault and harassment, as well as what accountability measures have been implemented and an assessment of whether those efforts worked.

“President Biden has ordered a 90-day commission to pursue solutions to sexual assault in the military. We will aggressively support that effort. But I do not want to wait 90 days to take action,” Austin wrote in a memo issued Saturday.

Austin, who is the first Black man to serve as Secretary of Defense, committed to “stamp out” sexual assault in the military during his confirmation hearing telling lawmakers, “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.

"Sexual assault and harassment have been a scourge on the military for years with one of the latest examples being the death of Army Pfc. Asia Graham, who was found dead in her barracks at Fort Bliss on December 31 after reporting an alleged sexual assault by a fellow soldier last June.

we are so close. it's almost over.

I made this countdown four years ago, because I needed to have something to work toward, and to look forward to. I don’t expect anyone to look back into my blog from four years ago, so I’ll just repaste the code here: There is so much work to be done, but at least America won’t have a Fascist in the White House.