Guess what? The United States Army is in the news again.

And to no surprise, the news is about sexual harassment in the military division.

Last Thursday, the Army released a report admitting that “sexual harassment exists throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines.”

It’s about time the Army realizes something the American public has known for quite some time.

The military and academies around the country have played by the male rules for years.

It wasn’t until 1990, when America launched its attack on Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf War, when women were allowed to fight in the military.

Even then, they weren’t on the front lines.

Controversy included the argument whether women were mentally capable of fighting on the front lines.

Women were not welcome to exclusively male academies like Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute. Female fights to enter these schools went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Opponents argued that the schools shouldn’t have to change their methods to accommodate women. But the Court found that women, indeed, had the right to attend these schools.

But the Army’s newly released report was ordered after the November scandal at the U.S. Army Ordinace Center in Aberdeen, Maryland.

There, young female recruits became the prey of drill sergeants, said an Associate Press report.

The Army’s largest study on sexual harassment found that “gender bias, sexism and sex discrimination occur often throughout the Army.”

A panel of retired, active-duty and senior Army officials also reported that “soldiers seem to accept such behaviors as a normal part of Army life.”

This should not be a commonplace belief.

Whether each member of the division of the armed forces believes this is not the issue. Instead, the fact that this attitude has existed so long is what matters.

Many in the service have been quick to deny these attitudes for so long; that is, until it is revealed, and they admit, that they are in the wrong.

But it’s not just the Army. Although no major cases like that of Aberdeen, or another sex-related case in Darmstadt, Germany, have been in the news recently, it exists.

Take the Tailhook convention that happened several years ago. There, high-ranking Navy officials sexually harassed women in the convention hotel.

As last week’s Army report stated, these behaviors are accepted.

The report also said sexual discrimination is more common than sexual harassment; they admitted their education efforts on the issues failed.

Training sessions to address these issues are not attended by many Army commanders.

The study also showed that such sessions were usually run by women and minorities. Is it not obvious that failure to train will not cure a long-standing attitude?

As the study’s primary author said, there is a pattern of “inappropriate conduct” in the Army.

However, he believes that inappropriate conduct is more common than major sexual abuse.

This seems like another attempt to shadow the big cases, such as Aberdeen, which reveal that, indeed sexual abuse is a major problem in the Army.

It also seems as if it is the result of years of condoned inappropriate conduct.

Although the Army’s admittance of sexual discrimination and harassment is overdue, it is good that they are public with this. They’ve even submitted an “action plan” to deal with sexual misconduct.

Action to be taken includes adding a week of teaching about stress values and ethics to basic training, revamping equal opportunity training, assigning 100 new lieutenants to advanced training units to spend more time with troops, increasing the number of chaplains to advise young soldiers and improving the screening of potential drill sergeants.

All these are good steps to take, but the Army, as well as other divisions of the armed forces, needs to work to make sure that the attitudes are changed.

They can’t expect sudden change for something that has been part of the service for so long.

It took a while for minorities to be recognized as equal American citizens with the right to vote.

Even today, stereotypes and prejudices have hindered people from changing their beliefs.

The Army isn’t at war with another country.

Instead, it has a war within its body.

It needs to work toward peace.

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Erin Payne is a senior in journalism and mass communication and political science from Rock Rapids.