What is unique about Military Sexual Trauma?
There are unique aspects to Military Sexual Trauma which you do not have in the civilian world. I have watched the “Lauren”
episodes on youtube.com/wigs. There are three of them and I would suggest you
also see them. Besides the obvious errors, many veterans and active duty will
pick up on, it is done very well.
Chain of command and rank play an especially central
part when it comes to reporting a sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Although the two are handled by different agencies outside of the above listed,
your chain of command and the ranks involved are such a huge factor toward
justice being started or to be pushed under the rug.
Many may see Lauren as a tale of fiction, but I am
here to tell you, not only does what occurred in the episodes happen, it can be
worse. At times it is not the choice of doing what is right and doing what you love
that silences a person, sometimes it’s the threat of death on the victim, or
the understanding if she says a word, the next time the squad goes out on
manovers, she might not come back. That is a serious threat, spoken aloud and
insinuated to many women who have been victimized.
I would have liked the episodes to end on a better
note, not that it is not what happens, and I for one completely understand what
does when you do what is right, but that’s what needs to be done. I understand
many of the repercussions, I lived through many of them, but even though
justice was not even looked upon in my cases, I did what was right, on a few
occasions. I would like to say that I did what was right on all of them, but I succumbed
to fear and threats. I most likely would not be writing this right now, had I
did what was right every time, but my conscious also would not be harping on me
for giving in.
I know many people are afraid of death, afraid of
being discharged, being written up for things you did not do, being labeled
with a disorder and discharged, not be able to continue in what you love, be
considered a screw-up, have lies spread about you, and have to fight to have
some of these things changed (just a little); but, in the instances that I did
what was right, no matter the consequences, those are the incidents that I can
look back on and feel firm in my decision. Those decisions cost me what I loved
to do, cost me so much, but it is better to be able to state you did what was
right than you did what was safe.
I know for a fact that justice will eventually
prevail, maybe not in this life, but in the end justice will prevail and they
will be held accountable for what they did. And I will also be held accountable
for my decisions and I will be able to say that I did what was right. I did not
have to ask for forgiveness, I did not have to go through the steps of
repentance. It was never said that when you do what is right that all will be
ok. Sometimes doing what is right is the beginning of your trails.
One aspect why Military Sexual Trauma has a higher
rate of PTSD diagnoses is just what happened in the Lauren clips, the cover-up
from people who are supposed to be looking out for your welfare. When a
restricted report is made, the victim may NOT talk to anyone but the three
listed personnel: health care/mental health counselors, Chaplin, victim
advocate (VA). They cannot talk to any other persons, or those persons (if they
are in the military) must come forward and report the incident.
Although it
seems as though restricted reporting is helping the person stay anonymous, the
negatives are tremendous, and are an added risk for developing more severe
mental health issues. It is not the fact that you can supposedly stay anonymous
and still receive some help, it is that you are restricted to who you can talk
to.
These are some of the uniquenesses which can occur
with Military Sexual Trauma that in the civilian world it is not an issue. How
would you feel if you had been assaulted and your immediate supervisor, and his
boss are told what happened? That everyone you work with knows, not only you
were assaulted but many of the details? That you come in with your statement, a
video of the assault, all the evidence to prosecute and convict the perpetrators
and you are told that you need to just suck it up, deal with it, you are now
restricted to who you can talk to about this incident, you will never get
justice, oh and by the way, one of the perpetrators is the person you have to
work with every day, to show respect to, call him sir, salute if required, to
be at his whims for your evaluations, to be subjected to his commands for what
post (position, area) you will work at? How would that make you feel? He knows
he raped you, he knows you know, so at ever chance when nobody else can hear he
tells you how much you must have enjoyed it because nothing happened to him. He
gives you sly smiles, brushes up against you, then calls you a slut and whore
to his buddies. Everyone knows what happened and believes their stories of how
you wanted it, you liked you, you slut.
Now try and be professional at all times, thinking
only about the job, being told that you are not doing a good enough job,
written up for things you did not do, but no keep those thoughts and all the
rest out of your mind as you are walking point with everyone behind you,
knowing at any moment you could be ambushed or run into the enemy and the
bullets will be flying. Don’t think about which of the bullets will be flying
toward you, the “friendly fire.” As you walk, you know full well that there
will not be yellow tape put down and an investigation conducted if bullets
happen to not go past you to the enemy, but to your back. And don’t think that
at any moment, if the bullets start to fly, or a bomb goes off, that the people
behind you, you know the guy that assaulted you and got away with it, his
friends who believe that you wanted it and are just making problems because now
everyone knows you’re a slut, will wait for you to get back to safety, make
sure they put down suppression fire so you can get out. Don’t think that they
are having you go first, knowing full well if anything happens you are the most
likely to die. No, you cannot think about that, you have to think about all the
other things you are there for, or you will mess up and you will come back in a
bag instead of with your “comrades.”
When thinking about veterans, or active duty that
have been in for years, know that congress mandated the military into making
the SARP (Sexual Assault Response Program), in 2005. The Lauren clips are what happens
now, so think about what happened before. So before 2005, there was no agency
that gave regulations on how to respond to an assault, it pretty much was up to
the command, if that was the person who you went to. But even if you went to
Law Enforcement (military) it usually when back to your commander. Your
commander had the ability to say if he wanted this to go forward, or if you
need to just be silent. It would amaze most civilians to know that your boss
gets to decide if you were assaulted, or if it was just a “misunderstanding.”
How many of you would put that into your boss’s hands?
As you have read, there are uniquenesses to Military
Sexual Trauma, and it is imperative that these uniquenesses are known by the
majority, not concealed by the military.
