By Christine S.

Christine S. has spent 16 years on Active Duty and is a veteran of OIF and a Bronze Star recipient. She is currently serving in the Washington, DC area.

I read with exasperation Secretary Panetta’s announcement a few weeks ago regarding changes in the prosecution and handling of sexual assault cases. Though efforts to end sexual assault in the ranks are laudable, the route they take reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the perspective of a sexual assault victim in uniform.

Not every victim in uniform wants to go through a criminal prosecution, start to finish. It is invasive, it is traumatic, and there is no guarantee of the outcome. Oftentimes prosecutions in courts martial turn to displays of “he-said, she said,” where the victim is portrayed as having been assaulted while she was vulnerable, isolated, and often intoxicated. It is to the defense’s advantage to assassinate a victim’s character, and – unlike a civilian court martial – the defense is  allowed to submit “good soldier” evidence. This means that the defense attorney can assert that because the accused is a “good soldier,” good worker, good troop, he would be fundamentally unable to commit the heinous crime of which he is accused. Where but the military would this even be considered as persuasive evidence? If the accused was a good garbage man, for example, would that make him incapable of rape?

It is no wonder that many victims in uniform will pass on reporting. In an effort to accommodate these feelings, the DoD promulgated “restricted reporting” requirements, which allows a victim to get treatment from medical personnel without involving law enforcement. Though well-meaning, this is only a half-effort.

After your fingernails are scraped, your mouth is swabbed, your pubic hair combed, and you receive any prophylactic vaccinations and plan B against disease and pregnancy, you are still left with the consequences of what just happened to you.

Your first instinct is to withdraw. You simply want to be left alone. You don’t want your squad leader, platoon sergeant, CO, and so forth all the way up to your brigade commander, to know. Imagine if you worked at McDonald’s. Would you want your shift manager to know about how you were deeply and personally violated? All you want is for your world to be the same as it was before. You want to be able to put on your uniform, and go out, and do your job, and forget it ever happened.

But there is a catch. Because you start to have nightmares. And you start to be afraid to leave the barracks. And you walk around at night checking locks and carrying a kitchen knife the length of your arm.

You know you need help. You consider counseling. But you know if you do, you have to put it on your security clearance and expose yourself to a process over which you have no control. Question 21 on the security clearance questionnaire asks whether in the past 7 years you have sought mental health counseling. Combat trauma, grief, and family counseling are exempt from disclosure. Sexual assault counseling is not. What that means is if you seek counseling for the assault, you must disclose it under penalty of law. On a form that goes up through your chain of command. And once again you will be violated by well-meaning but invasive and intrusive questions. And you will be asked to describe your assault to an OPM investigator as part of a background check.

Here is where my exasperation comes in. I have PTSD from a sexual assault. My colleague has PTSD from combat trauma. Though we have the same diagnosis, I have to disclose my counseling, while my colleague does not.

I *don’t want* my chain of command to fix me. I *don’t want* to have my sexual history cross-examined in open court. I just want to get help, and to do my job.

Institutional changes will take years to implement. Changing Question 21 to have “sexual assault counseling” fall under the rubric of “grief counseling” (and therefore be exempt from disclosure) is a concrete, immediate, and fundamental change that can be made today to help those of us who have already been assaulted, who may or may not chose UCMJ for our own reasons. Because we do grieve.

I just want time and space and privacy to heal from my wounds. And I want to continue to serve, without the intrusion, without the violations (well-meaning though they may be) of the system. After losing control over my body and sanity, I want to have the option of who I disclose this to. Special Victims Units and enhanced enforcement are all well and good for future victims, but for the estimated 1 in 5 female veterans who have already been assaulted, this is too little, too late.

By Sandra S. Park, ACLU Women’s Rights Project

While it is estimated that over 19,000 sexual assaults occurred in the military in 2010, a rate far higher than among civilians, the government has failed systematically to investigate complaints, appropriately punish perpetrators, and treat trauma and other health conditions suffered by survivors. The profound personal and social consequences that arise from the government’s systemic failures are powerfully profiled in the new film, The Invisible War. Turning a blind eye to these crimes has allowed them to continue, imperiling the lives of victims and degrading their service.

On Friday, a federal district court judge cited yet another example of the military’s unwillingness to acknowledge sexual violence within its ranks. In response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the ACLU seeking records from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs regarding their response to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence in the military, the Army Crime Records Center claimed it couldn’t provide records about “sexual assault” because its records are organized by specific criminal offenses such as “rape,” not under the general heading of “sexual assault.”

“‘Sexual assault’ is easily read as encompassing rape and other non-consensual sexual crimes defined in the Army’s offense codes,” the judge found. “The fact that the agency was unwilling to read the Plaintiffs’ request liberally to include such terms seems to be almost willful blindness.”

The judge further ruled that several other sections of the Departments failed to adequately respond to our requests and ordered the government to fulfill its obligations under FOIA. We will continue to press the government for the information we need to truly understand, address, and end the epidemic of sexual violence in the military.

SWAN’s policy team headed to the Hill once again on a mission to engage with House and Senate offices on the many issues facing military sexual assault survivors, and the issue of exempting disclosure of mental health counseling due to sexual assaults on the SF86 Form remained a top priority.  We have been pleased at the level of interest and engagement that legislators have had on the Question 21 issue, and are encouraged that the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has announced he intends to implement a solution to this problem. We are concerned, however, that the course of action proposed by Director Clapper may not do the trick.

Question 21 on the SF86 form requires anyone seeking a security clearance to disclose any mental health counseling they have received in the past seven years, and to allow security clearance investigators access to health records and permission to conduct personal interviews regarding the specific details of the sexual assault.  Such an investigation is intrusive, subjects the sexual assault survivor to re-traumatization, creates a barrier that prevents the survivor from seeking much needed care from medical professionals, and discourages them from reporting their assault to authorities. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has recognized the invasive nature of these investigations and created exceptions for certain types of counseling, such as marital or grief counseling, and at the urging of the Pentagon the ODNI added an exception for counseling due to combat related mental health issues in 2008.

The Pentagon asked ODNI to create the combat counseling exception for a couple of reasons:  To reduce the stigma in the armed forces commonly associated with mental health counseling, to encourage troops who suffer from combat-related mental health issues to seek care, and in recognition of the fact that someone who needs mental help but is not getting it poses a far greater risk in the handling of classified material than someone who has gotten the help they need. All of these reasons equally apply to service members who have received counseling as a result of sexual assault.

Up until the combat exception was created in 2008, service members who were experiencing mental health issues due to combat were not seeking out the help they needed out of concern that disclosure of counseling and the ensuing investigation would cause the service member to lose his or her security clearance and thus put their career in jeopardy.

The Pentagon has recommended no such exception for mental health counseling from sexual assaults and as a result the same situation that existed for combat troops prior to 2008 exists for military sexual assault survivors today. The bottom line is this:  Question 21 on the SF86 creates a barrier that prevents troops from seeking out the mental healthcare they need.

Additionally, Question 21 also discourages survivors from reporting their assaults. According to the DOD, 85% of sexual assaults go unreported every year.  This lack of reporting not only prevents the survivor from accessing much needed medical care, but it also prevents military authorities from investigating and prosecuting sex offenders in their units, thus leaving perpetrators free to rape their fellow service members with impunity.

The DOD has repeatedly said there is a “zero tolerance policy” towards sexual assault in the military. If that is true, then the DOD would make removing every institutional barrier that prevents these crimes from being reported a priority, and that would include removing the requirement to disclose sexual assault counseling on Question 21 of the SF86 form immediately.

Due to the courage of individuals affected by this policy stepping up and speaking out, and through advocacy efforts by groups like SWAN, the pressure being put on ODNI to change Question 21 has increased tremendously, and just last month the Director of National Intelligence announced he intends to take action.

According to a recent letter sent to Congress, Director Clapper announced he intends on rewriting Question 21. This is a different course of action than the ODNI took in 2008 to create the combat counseling exclusion, so the focus is now shifting to ensure the rewritten Q21 will accomplish the same things as the 2008 policy change.

On its face, rewriting the question would appear to be a quicker solution than changing the underlying policy, but in truth, the process of rewriting the question comes very close to the process that a policy change would undergo.

According to the process outlined in his letter, Director Clapper is now waiting for the DOD to submit its “official coordinated position” on the issue. This will require DOD to consult with the services. Once that position statement is received by ODNI, Clapper will begin the “interagency coordination process” by which Clapper will seek input from other affected agencies and interested parties. Since the SF86 form is in use by all federal agencies that require security clearances, he will be reaching out to quite a few offices. According to Clapper, this collaborative step in the process is critical, and designed to maintain confidence in and ensure the integrity of the federal personnel security program. After ODNI gathers this input from the services, the DOD, federal agencies and other interested parties, it will all be taken into consideration as Clapper moves forward.

Once the question is rewritten by ODNI, SWAN in partnership with our allies in Congress will take a hard look at the new language to see if the new Question 21 accomplishes the same thing as the 2008 combat exception.  If it does, that’s good news. If it does not, then we are committed to continue to work towards proper reform.

As this process moves forward, SWAN is keeping the issue on the front burner by continuing to engage legislators to keep pressure on DOD and ODNI.  Most recently, SWAN has engaged members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Question 21 issue and they have communicated the urgent need for change to both Secretary Panetta and Director Clapper. This is in addition to the letters already sent by members of the House Armed Services as well as other concerned members of Congress.

Change is coming, but it needs your help.  Join in the reform effort by contacting your legislators as well as the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence directly. Urge them to provide an exception for sexual assault counseling to Question 21 on the SF86 form. Tell them why this is important to you and demand that all our brave service members get the care they need while at the same time the defense establishment can take a meaningful step towards the elimination of sexual violence in the military.

Together we will make this happen!

———————————————————————————————

The Honorable James R. Clapper, Jr

Director

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Washington, DC 20511

The Honorable Leon Panetta

Secretary

Department of Defense

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, DC 20301

Find your members of Congress here

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

Guest Writer Theresa Hornick

“Why would you want to join the U.S. Marine Corps?”

It is a question I have been asked many times.  My reply has always been, “Why not?!”  I desired a challenge; I wanted to make a difference, to be among the elite, and to set a higher standard for women in the military. I felt I had the right stuff to be one of the few and the proud, so I pursued my dream to become a Marine Corps Officer with spirit and drive.

My career began as a Second Lieutenant platoon commander of a combat engineer platoon comprised of 54 Marines.  In 2004 as a ‘gung ho’ 23- year-old Lieutenant, my future was bright. Having played four years of Division One collegiate softball, I was used to teamwork.  Thus, that is exactly how I trained my platoon: like a team.  As a platoon, we supported one another for the duration of our grueling work on a Joint Task Force with the Border Patrol in Laredo Texas, during Mountain Warfare Training School in Bridgeport, California, and throughout our deployment to the Sunni Triangle in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III.

Unfortunately, soon after I picked up my new platoon, I developed an illness millions of people underestimate and misunderstand: Bulimia Nervosa. Even though I was living a new lieutenant’s dream – working with demolition and construction, leading convoys and academic classes, conducting weapons and martial arts training, and, of course, engaging in daily physical training –  I was simultaneously waging a silent war with bulimia. I asked myself, “Is this really my dream?”

In training alongside my Marines, learning from them, teaching them and mentoring them, I earned their respect through literal blood, sweat and tears. However, my energies were exhausted as I helped everyone but myself.  Who was there to mentor me?  Yes, I did have a company commander and executive officer, but I would not let them see any sign of what they would consider weakness.  I was responsible for lives, hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, and worked hard to maintain my strong female Marine demeanor and reputation I would not tarnish.  As I constantly struggled to keep it together I ended up vomiting my frustrations and stress down the toilet.  Initially, it was once every other day, then four to five times every day.   The Bulimia took a toll on my body, mind, spirit; my confidence waned along with my ability to handle criticism.  On the inside I was aching for help, while on the outside I appeared calm so nobody would notice I was desperately struggling.   In order to keep my career safe, I internalized all the challenges and took ‘mission accomplishment’ and ‘troop welfare’ much more seriously than I did my own health and sanity.

Ironically, I did not take Bulimia seriously.  I viewed it as a disease which silly adolescent girls developed as they aspired to look like models. I was dead wrong! Why I suffered was not because I wanted to be a model. Rather, it stemmed from my lack of balance and self-love.  I helped everyone but myself by constantly judging my performance, taking pride only in my ability to mentally push myself to my limits and to never give up.  I became a pro at “sucking it up.”  The more I covered up my illness, the worse it became. Unless you knew me well and could pick up on the frequently swollen glands in my neck, you could not tell I was sick.

Finally, while deployed in Iraq, I reached out in desperation to my father and a couple of close friends to confess my internal battle as an external one took place around me.  My father wrote me beautiful letters during this time, all which offered tremendous support.  Additionally, my boyfriend at the time supported me from another base in Iraq, only thirty miles away; he was so close yet dangerously distant in our war-torn province.   Although saddled with major responsibility and much to lose, I knew I had to immediately make a change – even in the middle of war.  This disease was like a bullet with my name on it!! The Marine Corps had to go on without me.

I had my epiphany after leading a convoy returning to a base camp in the middle of the night over one of the most dangerous roads in our region.  My living quarters were an old office building and I was the ONLY female among 100+ Reconnaissance Marines in addition to my own platoon of 50+ men. I worked all day and vomited all night.  I was dehydrated, malnourished, with an unclear mind and a weakened spirit.  I knew in my heart I had to leave that environment and seek immediate help.  If not, I would put my Marines’ lives in jeopardy.  Unfortunately, I still would not admit to needing to save my own life.  After extensive convincing, I chose to be Medically Evacuated (medevac’d) out of Iraq in the middle of my deployment.  My medevac experience was one of the worst experiences of my life. I came home feeling unwelcomed by my command as well as people close to me who expressed disappointment in my perceived lack of effort to “hang in there.”

I never felt more embarrassed.  I thought I had made the worst decision of my life. Like a broken record of a very bad dream, I’d think: “I am a leader of Marines, this should not be happening to me.  Why could I not suck this up? I have never quit anything in my life.  What should I do now?” A Naval psychiatrist told me that if I were to get pregnant and have a child, I would probably rid myself of bulimia. (This was only one of a myriad of ridiculous things I was told upon my return.) A Naval psychologist also asked me what kind of symptoms I was having with Bulimia? Clearly, no one seemed to understand this disease; the helpful feedback and support I sought upon my return from Iraq was almost nowhere to be found. However with a lot of patience and perseverance I eventually received twelve weeks of outpatient therapy to treat my Bulimia.

While the outpatient therapy was very difficult, it was necessary and provided me the tools to view myself differently.   The therapeutic theme centered on being gentle with myself, thereby cultivating new thought processes to help me learn to love myself and better deal with life stresses.  The therapy was successful but the tools I learned took time to become a habit in my life.  However, I learned to acknowledge (through my good friends, older brother who was a Marine pilot, and father) that I had made the right decision and they reinforced that it took leadership to admit to not being able to give 110 % to my Marines and mission.

It was nice to believe that I made a good leadership decision, but deep down I still felt incomplete, like I failed.  I did not want to end my time in service early, as I had worked too hard for what I had, but I was told by our battalion JAG officer that because I was medevac’d for Bulimia, I had to go through an administrative discharge process – thankfully honorable – but nonetheless early and incomplete in my mind.  I had to swallow my pride and have the courage to continue holding my head up and heal.

With my healing mind and spirit I acknowledge that my battle with Bulimia surfaced while in the Marines, but I do not blame the Marine Corps for my suffering from the disease.  Rather, there is no blame to assign.  The Marine Corps and much of the world do not understand eating disorders or the prognosis of such diseases.  Serving in the Marine Corps was my choice, one I am proud of and because of it had the privilege to work with some amazing and talented individuals who have remained colleagues and friends to this day.   I did choose to push myself; however, I did not choose to suffer from Bulimia. I reflect on my experience and am thankful for going through it. I took myself on a crash course of self-criticism, lack of self-love, and a desire to be the best no matter what it took, even if it meant sacrificing my health.  The Marine Corps brought out both my strengths and my weaknesses. No matter what happened, I know that I did the right thing in removing myself from that environment.  For those few who did judge me, I would like to challenge you to educate yourself about the disease.

My battle with Bulimia finally ended in May of 2007, eight months after my Marine Corps service ended when playing international professional softball in Italy.  I decided enough was enough and with unbridled anger for my lingering Bulimia, I wrote a Dear John letter.  Writing is a way of expressing myself, and the letter served as a metaphor to see my bulimia as something outside of myself.  This activity had a powerful effect on me and helped cleanse my mind, body, and spirit from this life-threatening disease through actively saying “goodbye” and visualizing Bulimia as something separate from myself that was trying to hurt me. The lethal weapon that was more useful than I could have imagined was this simple letter.

To this day, my Dear John letter serves as a mental exercise to remind me to stay strong in regards to my “breakup” with bulimia.   Today, I am fully recovered and embarking on a career as a doctor of physical therapy.  I enjoy working with a rehabilitation population that includes fellow service members, veterans, and wounded warriors.  Treating, teaching, and speaking endeavors with this population through my combination of knowledge and experience about the body are my modes of giving back in a functional and life-giving way.  It re-energizes my spirit, increases my love for the Marine Corps, and gives me perspective on myself that I may have never gained otherwise.

Theresa E.  Hornick, SPT                                                                                                                 Prior First Lieutenant combat engineer officer, USMC (2003-2006)                                         

To read the Dear John letter please visit Theresa’s blog: http://msbootcampfitness.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/dear-john/

SWAN joins plaintiffs and attorney in Klay v. Panetta in DC at National Press Club. Watch the press conference in full here.

Posted by Sandra S. Park, Women’s Rights Project & Rachel Natelson, Service Woman’s Action Network 

On Monday, a federal court judge heard oral arguments in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case brought by the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the ACLU seeking records from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs regarding their response to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence in the military. While the hearing has yet to yield a final ruling, one point was clear: the government continues to refuse to disclose documents that could reveal the human toll of military sexual and domestic violence.

Despite high rates of reported and unreported violence within the ranks, the government argued that producing the records we requested would not contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations of government and thus we were not entitled to a fee waiver. Nonprofit groups routinely seek, and obtain, fee waivers to contain the cost of accessing data because FOIA is intended to enable wide access to information about how our government functions.

However, in the government’s view, the public needn’t concern itself with the ugly details of the epidemic of sexual violence in the military. After all, it duly releases annual statistics on the prevalence of sexual assault within each branch, encapsulating in a tidy number how many thousands of episodes have been reported and what percentage of those cases result in courts-martial, nonjudicial punishment, and other corrective measures.

But isn’t it vital for the public to understand how and why our government has failed to reduce violence experienced by our service members? Don’t we need access to information about how service members have been able, or unable, to access remedies, services and benefits in order to better advocate for reforms?

Broad-brush statistics can only do so much. Without allowing the public to take account of the role that variables like race, gender, rank, and unit play in the disposition of the individual cases behind the statistics, the military can only enlighten the public as to what the problem is, not why it continues to flourish. The government’s bird-eye approach to recording military sexual violence belies the severity of its toll among the most vulnerable members of the military community: young people, low-ranking individuals, women of color, and others. If the backbone of our Armed Forces is its enlisted personnel, disproportionately drawn from communities of color, it behooves us to assess the degree to which this foundation is undermined by sexual violence.

The information the government does make available to the public simply does not zero in on what we need to know. For example, despite a federal law that requires the government to track what action is taken by command on each domestic violence incident and the number of incidents that command determined should not lead to disciplinary action, the DoD still does not systematically collect and share this information.

Moreover, the government’s reports on sexual assault completely fail to take account of sexual harassment, which is even more prevalent than assault among military personnel. In fact, in one recent VA study, 90 percent of respondents reported sexual harassment while in the military. VA research also reveals sexual harassment while in military service to be as strong a predictor of PTSD among women veterans as in-service sexual assault; this correlation mirrors the strong link between combat exposure and PTSD among male veterans. Moreover, Defense Manpower Data Center surveys have found an alarmingly high correlation between incidents of assault and prior incidents of harassment.

Our FOIA requests seek the underlying records of incidents of sexual assault and harassment and domestic violence, and veterans’ claims relating to these incidents, so that we can uncover what the government has not yet analyzed or disclosed.

The judge indicated at the end of the hearing that he would likely rule in favor of SWAN and the ACLU on the fee waiver issue. Hopefully, his decision will bring us one step closer to the information we need to effectively end sexual and domestic violence against the women and men who defend our country.

Guest Blogger Sarah Plummer

Women veterans are represented by the media in a variety of ways, ranging from wanna-be rape victims (as per Liz Trotta’s recent delusional discourse on Fox News) to princess warriors upon pedestals.  As the case goes when talking in extremes, neither far-flung depiction is accurate, and the truth fluctuates somewhere in the proverbial “middle;” where rapes do and don’t happen and where female military members are a mix of princesses, well-adjusted women, militant hardliners, or a dynamic combination of several character traits.

There are plenty of other nicknames and generalizations – both good and bad – I could articulate, but I think you guys get the picture.  As much as the media likes to put us in a box, as much as they think the “typical military woman” is a definable entity, as much as they prefer to reduce us down to victim or non-victim, butch or beauty, hardliner or daddy’s girl, they can’t, and they should stop trying.  Why not describe military women as the dynamic force that they are?  Why not liken them to female entrepreneurs who are blazing business trails or following closely the footsteps of those who’ve recently paved new paths?  Why not portray them in a balanced light?  Why not pay them the respect they’re due, not just because they are service members, but because serving is part of who they are in addition to the other qualities that make them unique as women.

In light of recent developments in policy on the role of women in combat (news flash – we’re already there), and then subsequent responses like Liz Trotta’s, I felt like I needed to re-share a piece I wrote late last year which addresses what my hopes are for the media and non-media citizens of our country insofar as their illustration of our nation’s female Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines.  The letter below is one I wrote to in response to an article published by Anu Bhagwati, a female Captain USMC Veteran, admirable role model, and Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) Executive Director. Anu wrote her piece in response to the play “Lonely Soldier Monologues,” which rendered female service members as a cohesive group of extremes.

Recently, I have found several of your wonderful articles while I’ve been researching other topics.  This is yet another one that succinctly and adeptly addresses multiple issues about women in the military.  I, too, am a USMC Captain Veteran who experienced years of harassment while I was in the Corps.  Also, I was raped by a fellow Marine.  I don’t see myself as a victim, although by all definitions I was one.  It happened in 2003, so with eight years of separation it’s easy for me to say now that I identify what happened to me as wrong, but that I’ve healed, moved on, made my peace with it.  I know that wasn’t how I felt for a good couple of years afterwards, but either way, then or now, I never wanted nor want pity. If anything, I wanted, and want, understanding.  The crazy thing is that reporting the rape was almost worse than the actual experience itself, and the administrative aspect of this whole issue is where I think the system still needs the most work.  When you said – “the focus on portraying poor or ignorant girls from the hood rescued by recruiters, or naïve daughters of military-loving, flag-waving families, plays into misplaced audience pity—and triggers deep-seated cultural insecurities about women’s presence in the military—instead of serving military women themselves. Few real-life female soldiers actually see themselves as victims, so why should we?” – you hit the nail on the head.  Not everyone who joins is an extremist, a victim, or looking for a way out; certainly, some are, but the play you reference seems to be propagating that as the norm.  Moreover, just because someone was a victim of abuse before entering the military doesn’t mean that’s WHY they join.  I think it is great when women are able to mentor one another when they discover other abuse/assault victims among their female comrades, but sometimes there does seem to be an overemphasis on this connection.  Conceptually, I think the victimhood discussion is similar to your comment – “Among the white servicewomen chosen for portrayal are brainwashed daughters of right-wing, America-loving zealots. For example, one character, a Bible-thumping small-town teenager as gung-ho and out of place as Mother Theresa in camouflage, can’t wait to do “God’s work” in the Army. But the reality is that many troops cross faith with service to one’s country without becoming ignorant crusaders or overzealous missionaries.” I felt called to the Marine Corps myself, but not in the sense of needing to embark on a Crusade.  I simply felt that God wanted me in the Marine Corps because that was where I was supposed to be at that point in my life both personally and professionally. 

I haven’t seen the play about which you wrote the article, but I have read many articles and seen many interviews that portray the same basic idea you express here:  “Despite these steps in the right direction, I can’t help but writhe at the script’s tendency to fall into familiar patterns of stereotyping servicewomen. Benedict focuses on troops who have been particularly traumatized by life. But there are just as many real life recruits who sign up for military service because they are bored, or are naturally drawn to the rigors of military discipline. In addition, Benedict’s left-leaning sympathies seem to keep her from an accurately nuanced representation of military culture.”  Even having personally experienced both trauma and triumph in the Marine Corps, it is difficult to talk about the bad without people (whether left-leaning or not) honing in on the distress.  It’s hard to express having been a victim because it’s almost always a double edged sword – you can talk about it and offer an example of survival to other victims or feel the cathartic benefits of verbalizing what happened to you – but you will almost always end up judged, pitied, or sometimes both.

It is disappointing to see women vets bow to PC demands when asked about how women are treated in the military.  I just watched yet another TV interview of a female vet who was asked about the treatment of women in the military; she answered in vanilla verses.  “Well, if you work hard, you are treated fairly.” I scoffed.  It’s not that hard work isn’t respected, but there is not a linear relationship between work ethic and professional reward.  You don’t always see the best women getting the most respect.  In fact, I frequently observed the strongest women getting treated the worst because those were the women the men were the most threatened by! A lot of men join the Corps to prove, in some respects, how manly they are; therefore, when they witness a woman completing the exact same physical tasks they are, it’s as if they can’t process it.  I’m not saying every single woman in every single service has been harassed, abused, and/or raped, but many have and should not feel ashamed to say so. I know why they don’t though.  They don’t want to look like complainers – by men or women.  They don’t want to look weak.  They don’t want to badmouth the service of which they were proud to be a part.  They don’t want to look unappreciative of the opportunities afforded them while serving.  I didn’t want to do any of those things either.    If a woman feels as though she will lose the respect of her peers for speaking up – whether it be about something “minor” like harassment or something major like rape – then the intentional and unintentional suppression of reporting these incidents will continue. 

Furthermore, I believe one reason cases of harassment/assault of women in the military is currently prominent in the news is because the military purposely claims to hold itself to higher standards of conduct than the general public and many people join for that very reason – to be a part of something perceived as better. We are told over and over again, particularly in the Marine Corps, the few the proud….so why shouldn’t we be disenchanted and outraged then when that standard is grossly violated?  We use the terms “brothers in arms” and “sisters in arms.” Is it not worse when such heinous acts are committed by family?  Because that is effectively what happens when one soldier rapes, harassed, or otherwise abuses another.  We certainly should not take it lightly.

Above all, my hope is that we – women, men, active duty, vets, and civilians – continue to evolve in a positive direction to where we can strike a balance in our reactions to the abuses women do suffer in the military.  Offenses do not happen all the time to everyone, but when they do happen, we should support in solidarity, not divide in dissent. 

Let’s all start painting a fuller picture – together.

Capt. Sarah Plummer, USMCR is the prior Deputy Director of Geospatial Intelligence for MCIA and is a military Olympic athlete as a Reservist on the Women’s Soccer team.  Her blog is at MarineChick.com.

Staff Sgt. Colleen Bushnell, USAF retired

By Staff Sgt. Colleen Bushnell, USAF retired

Just when her detractors were hoping for an apology, journalist Liz Trotta dished out more of the same rhetoric against women serving in the military.

In Trotta’s initial statements, aired on February 12^th on Fox’s “America’s News Headquarters,” the reporter said women servicemembers should expect male servicemembers to rape them. Not surprisingly, this provoked outrage from veterans, and many of their supporters, such as the Vietnam Veterans of America.

On February 19th, Trotta’s belief that women should expect military men to rape them did not change, though she backpedaled slightly in her wording. She stated that combat zones are the “testosterone” driven frenzy of “basic instinct” that war brings. Additionally, she referenced what she considers the bigger picture – aspects of military family life that I experienced at some point as a U.S. Air Force public affairs specialist, wife, mother and military sexual assault survivor.

Ms. Trotta’s detractors have continued to call on her to apologize, and on Fox News to fire her. What is clear to many female military sexual trauma survivors is that Ms. Trotta’s attacks, at core, stem from her belief that women should not serve in the military at all.

In her closing remarks February 19th, she asked her audience to consider the words of former Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Barrow, who told Congress in 1991, “Women give life, sustain life, nurture life. They don’t take it.”

Did you really have to go there, Ms. Trotta? It is time for you, and others of your mindset, to join the rest of us in the year 2012 to recognize what women have been doing in the military for decades.

I stand proud of the honorable and dignified service I rendered to this nation. The hypocrisy of your statements confounds me.  As a pioneer woman journalist, the first to report from a war zone, you must fully understand the weight and breadth of endeavoring in a profession that was once denied you based solely on your gender. In my own career, I realized not too long after I immersed myself in the military profession that even after decades of integrated service, military women are still pioneering.

Before I was raped, and later sexually assaulted, I intended to continue in my specialty for 20 years to retirement. But I wasn’t able to get the help I needed. I truly believe that with the right resources, I could have overcome the problems after my assaults. The truth is, the military is behind in dealing with the criminal acts of sexual predators. Department of Defense policy actually promotes harboring these criminals in my opinion.

I was medically retired in 2006, when errant personality disorder was diagnosed. When my commanding officer sexually assaulted me in a hotel room, after a social hour, at a conference in San Antonio, Texas, I reported the assault to my chain of command the next day. Unfortunately, the day after my report my assailant died at home due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

My boss’s death ended a two-year ordeal during which I was also harassed and later raped by a male, senior-civilian staff member. When my commanding officer assaulted me, it was a tipping point.

At the time of my rape, and then assault, I was a newly divorced mom to two boys, ages three and five. Serving in the military as a single parent was not ideal. I decided that the best way to handle the challenges I faced as a single parent and provider was to continue on in what was a very successful enlisted career, and a stable lifestyle for my sons. We were fortunate that their grandma lived an hour away from our duty station.

The domino effect of these tragedies is still happening for me. As a result of concerns over Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I lost custody of my children to their paternal grandparents this year. July will be the two-year anniversary of the last time I spoke to the boys.

With these circumstances as my truths, Ms. Trotta, I hear you. However, it is ludicrous to revisit an argument decided on more than thirty-years ago, beginning with the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, which granted women permanent status in the regular, and reserve forces of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

Women are here to stay. It is time for you to get with the program. Women constitute about fifteen percent of the military’s end strength. Some say our work is responsible for avoiding the need for the draft.

But moreover, throughout history, most military sexual assault victims have been men. Of the military sexual assault victims the Veterans Administration is currently treating, the VA reports almost half are male.

If only women’s military service was simply a discussion about hand-to-hand combat, on clearly delineated front lines, we’d have a simpler solution.

Ms. Trotta, let’s establish a new starting point, containing real solutions for the problems affecting military readiness today. It is clear you do not regret minimizing women’s contributions to the military, in either peacetime or war time. It is time we work diligently for solutions to eliminate any risks to the safety, health and welfare of our troops that you profess your loyalty to, Liz.  All of them, today – in a way that reflects modern reality.

Guest Blogger Sarah Plummer

People think it’s easier for single soldiers to go to war. In some ways, I believe it’s harder.

I was married once…nearly a decade ago. Like anything in the Marine Corps, even the holy sacrament of marriage can be made into a competition – who gets married the youngest, who gets married the quickest, who remains married the longest, who has the hottest wife or husband, or who has the most children. “Marriage” and “success” were (apparently?) synonymous. The ironic thing is, most military marriages don’t last.

Several years ago when I began dating a civilian guy, he bluntly asked me, “Have you been divorced?” His father, a former Air Force pilot, told him to ask me this because, in his opinion, all Marines had been married and divorced. I hesitated, but replied, “Yes.” The stereotype that a majority of Marines get divorced does exist for a reason. Divorce statistics among the military population are well above the national average.

Usually, I do not volunteer information about my marital history until further along in a relationship. When I am directly asked about it, though, I keep my answer simple. I allow people think I am part of the military statistic. I allow people to think my ex-husband and I just could not “hack it” as a young married couple. I allow people’s minds to wander and to assume one of us cheated on the other, one of us abused the other, or one of us lied to or stole from the other. I allow the questioners to fill their heads with whatever assumptions they already have about young, divorced Marines. I do not explain to them that when I committed to my marriage, I had taken it more seriously than most of the other Marines I knew at the time and that before my fiancé and I got married, I evaluated the forthcoming union from all vantage points.

One of the ways I assessed the future marriage was logically.  I studied sociology in college and often applied the lessons I learned in the classroom to my personal life. Therefore, I recognized the common education, socio-economic class, and general background my ex-husband and I shared. Intellectually, we grilled each other on what we thought would breed success and why others had failed. Personality-wise, we were both active, outdoorsy, and loved our families. I also gauged the potential success of our relationship on a spiritual and emotional level. We prepared by attending pre-marital counseling with our pastor and appeared to be compatible.  We were young, but by anyone’s standards, we were a good match. This was a recipe for success, right?

I choose not to reveal the full details of my divorce to everyone when first asked about it because those details are painful to share. One week after we were engaged, I was raped…by a fellow Marine. My relationship with my then-fiancé took a tumultuous turn.  The high we felt a week before nose-dived into confusion that lasted for several months. Eventually, we emerged from the emotional fog, believing we had made it through the roughest patch of our lives and come out mostly whole on the other side. If anyone could do it – marriage – we could. We followed through with our plans to get married four months later.

Two months after our wedding, I finally had an opportunity to report the assault. At this point in time, my ex and I functioned as happy newlyweds, romantically in love with one another, disappointed to be stationed apart from one another, but confident in the strength of our relationship. When I presented the facts of the rape to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) and moved forward with the legal proceedings, the scab was ripped open. The Marine Corps’ institutional failure to handle the situation appropriately just poured salt into the wound; it was too much to bear. I was forced to relive the rape every day for two months straight because I was required to tell the JAG, or my ex, the story again and again and again. Even though my ex knew every detail of the story, he incessantly demanded that I retell it. It felt like he didn’t believe me. It felt like he insisted I repaint the picture in lurid detail time and time again in the hopes that he’d hear some new detail that would make him really believe me that I was raped and I hadn’t just made a drunken mistake.

Parts of me began to shut down. I wasn’t myself. I was depressed. I was exhausted. I was in physical pain. I had nightmares. I didn’t want to be touched.  I went from laughing every day to crying every day. I was not Sarah, and my ex had had enough. I asked him to stick with me through those tough months because I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I explained to him that I was having a delayed, but textbook, response to rape. That the poor handling of the case by the TBS JAG was exacerbating this grief cycle, but darnit, I was trying my best to suck it up and move on. “Just give me time,” I pleaded.  A couple months later, he shrugged his shoulders, raised his hands, palms toward me, and muttered the fateful words that begun the final unraveling, “I can’t do it anymore.”

We were divorced less than a year later.

The rape, the marriage, the reporting of the rape, and my subsequent divorce all happened during my first year as a Commissioned Officer in the Marine Corps. As I progressed through my career and witnessed more and more of my peers and colleagues tie the knot, it bothered me that those with newly minted marriage bands held themselves above those who hadn’t taken the plunge (and certainly thought better of themselves than those who had already and “failed”). Shortly after my divorce, I remember a fellow female Marine at TBS looking at me with disdain, then speaking of her marriage as if it were a model to emulate based on its existence alone. She had no idea what had caused the death of my dear relationship, yet she openly judged it…and me. Ironically, she, too, was divorced only a few years later and, as far as I know, under no more dire circumstances than the stress and separation the Marine Corps graciously bestows upon all of its members. But I could be wrong; one never really knows another’s story and I do not intend to judge as I was judged.

It just seemed preposterous to me that some relationships were given more validity than others. I knew of more than a handful of cases where Lieutenants met at TBS and were married by the time their MOS school was over in order to offer each other some sort of emotional guarantee before they went off to war. These less-than-a-year-old relationships were looked upon as more of a relationship than those of people who had been together for years simply because they had an official label. It disgusted me to know the cycle would just keep repeating itself as I talked to Marine friends – male and female alike – who rushed to figure out if they should marry their current dating partner. They knew being married made you appear more grown up, responsible, and as a new officer (where you were often younger than your enlisted Marines), this was yet another plus on the pro/con list for getting hitched.

Though few and far between, I know of some couples in the Marine Corps who have been together for years without getting married yet.  I admire them because they’ve resisted the institutional force and good old-fashioned peer pressure telling them to do so; and those who resist often do so for all the right reasons. I wish I’d known a couple like that to talk to before my ex and I got married. I remember thinking, “Being married will help keep us together when we are apart.” (Gimme a  break, I was 22 at the time!)  When instead (and what I now advise to others) I should’ve taken a step back and thought, “If it’s going to work out, it’s going to work out regardless of if we’re married. If we stay together through the PCS’s, deployments, and various other crap, then we’ll stay together whether or not there’s a license saying so.” If you take marriage seriously, of course it’s more than just a piece of paper, but what I’m driving at is the point that if you take your relationship seriously – married or single – that will result in success; the attitude, not the label, determines “altitude.”

As far as deploying as a single person or a married one, on my deployments, I noticed a lot of married people couldn’t wait to get away – whether it was because they craved the Corps so much or couldn’t stand their family was irrelevant. What mattered when I first started contemplating this topic years ago was that they were relieved to be anywhere other than “home” and/or were particularly happy living in a war zone. I was single, yet I still yearned for home as deeply as anyone else; I intensely missed my family and every dear friend I had while I was deployed. One of the worst parts of “going to war” was the simple fact that I was away; it wouldn’t have mattered if I was in a combat zone or vacationing in Europe. Being in Iraq meant being removed from everyone else’s lives and hovering in suspended animation while their worlds kept turning and mine was Groundhog Day.

I empathized with the Marines who’d left spouses at home, though. I felt for them then, and I feel for them now when I think of being separated from someone you chose you marry. Moreover, I really felt badly for Marines with children.  I knew I couldn’t imagine the pain they felt from that separation. But for many of the young Marines, “spouses” were little more than that than by title alone and more of serious girlfriends in reality (sometimes not even that). Yes, technically, they were married; but Marines I knew, male and female, entered into early marriages in order to provide a sense of the relationship being secure. Also, and I think sometimes most importantly for some couples, marriage made the relationship valid in the eyes of the Marine Corps. And when you have the DEPLOYMENT black cloud constantly looming above you, you will grasp onto anything that seems solid. So I knew many of the nuptials were sure to leave one or both of the partners wanting before the deployment was over, and simple immaturity coupled with prolonged distance was usually the culprit.

Many of the unmarried and married Marines in the Squadron solicited me for relationship advice during deployments. I particularly related to one handsome Corporal. He was more like a college buddy than most of the other Marines. I knew his union was doomed before we returned to the States. What he told me about his young bride sounded familiar and his aspirations reminded me a lot of my ex.  He genuinely loved her and wanted things to work, but felt compelled to marry quickly based on the circumstances. His relationship was one of the few that I perceived to be genuine, and so I felt deeply disappointed for him knowing it would probably end in separation soon after his return. Sadly, we think we’re doing our partner a service by legally joining them to us, but when things sour, it makes the split that much harder.

I wish the Marine Corps honored the inherent value of committed partnerships. I wonder now with the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell how same-sex couples will feel. I wonder if they will flock to states that legalized same-sex marriage to get that stamp of approval. I wonder if either group – the committed unmarried couples or steadfast same-sex partners – realize how much they have in common. I wonder if now that the gay and lesbian couples can come out, it will inadvertently help the dual sex couples.

Those of you for whom the shotgun-style wedding works, grows, and lasts – bless you. I know your year by year ticking off of marriage achievement is something you wear like a badge of honor, and I am truly am happy for your “success.” (I’m afraid this sounds sarcastic, but it’s not). For those of you who really tried to make something doomed for failure work, I commend you. For those of you abusing the system to get benefits and favor, shame on you. For those of you too confused to know the difference, I wish there was more sound guidance available or an institution that didn’t prematurely push the bonds of yet another on you. I wish the military institution didn’t force people into one institution whilst already fully enveloped by another…

According to the military machine, being married equates with being successful.

Capt. Sarah Plummer, USMCR is the prior Deputy Director of Geospatial Intelligence for MCIA and is a military Olympic athlete as a Reservist on the Women’s Soccer team. Her blog is at MarineChick.com.

SWAN’s Executive Director Anu Bhagwati weighs in on DOD’s Women in Service Review on the BBC broadcast. Watch the video here.