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The National Guard has consistently claimed it is working “aggressively” to combat rape and sexual assault within its ranks. But in a groundbreaking series of reports, WRC-TV's seven-part series “Serving in Silence: Rape in the National Guard” exposes how this major component of the military hasn't been tracking critical data, allowing most of the men who committed the crime to walk free, while destroying the careers of those who were assaulted through retaliation. In the last few years, there have been many stories about sexual assault in the military. But no one, not even Congress, has been able to get real nationwide data on how those crimes are investigated and how they punish offenders. Which is why, after interviewing the highest-ranking women in the National Guard to speak publicly about their assaults, NBC4 broke rank and sent a survey to every Guard unit in the nation asking them how they tackle the problem, what resources they wish they had and what punishments they use. We ultimately created what is now the only public, nationwide source of hard data on military sexual assault investigations and their outcomes, prompting New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand to tell us, “We didn't even have the basic information. Your survey is the first slice of information we actually have,” for the entire military. “It really shines a light on a huge issue that we don't have the level of transparency and accountability that we need on these serious criminal cases in the National Guard."