Navy officials in Virginia Beach, Va., appear to be living in the dark ages.

After a petty officer was beaten up by a former boyfriend, Navy officials told her she might be discharged if such incidents kept happening. The Navy sent the officer a disciplinary note, which they said was an attempt to shake her out of a pattern of being abused.

The officer suffered a concussion and missed two days of work. The Navy, in a warped logic, is blaming the victim for an incident which is beyond her control. If they had any sense in the situation, they would try to help her deal with the incident because, after all, she asked the Navy for help.

In addition to ignoring the officer’s pleas for help, the warning, known as a “Page 13” in Navy lingo, may have hurt her chances of getting into a special Navy nursing program. She was with the Navy for almost 10 years.

The frightening aspect of this is that one wonders how the Navy would react had the officer been raped. Would they have granted her more dignity? Because they certainly didn’t treat her with any in this situation.

Advocates for battered women are outraged by the Navy’s behavior toward the woman in this incident and rightly so. They should re-evaluate their policies in dealing with an abusive situation.

It’s scary to think a branch of the military which is supposed to be protecting citizens is persecuting them for things beyond their control.