"Now serving" is a phrase I have become used to hearing since returning from military service in Iraq. Like many veterans, I often stand in line, waiting for medications, at the New England Naval Clinic. Some vets in line served on multiple deployments. Like me, they are trying to get back in the swing of being home again. I glance down at the printed white paper with my number on it... 132.
This slip of paper and my military ID are necessary to obtain the medications that have become necessary to me since coming home. It wasn't always like this. My day once started at 5 a.m. When I was in Iraq, it started at 2:30 a.m. -- and even earlier if the air raid sirens went off. Often the first one into the office, I would go through emails and review the commander's schedule. I proudly had many responsibilities and others looked to me for guidance and leadership.
"Leadership" is a word you never stop hearing in the Air Force. We are instructed to trust our leaders, support them, and, when given the opportunity, be one. I never imagined that at the very moment -- and in one of the most dangerous places in the world -- when I most needed leadership, our military would it fail me. I think about that in line at the Naval Clinic. I also think about my father and uncles who served our nation.
From the first day I entered the service, the goal was to make chief, the highest rank for enlisted in the Air Force. My Dad served in Korea and two uncles landed at Normandy, but the person I most admired was Uncle Teddy, the black sheep in the family. He ran away from home at 16 and joined the Navy. He volunteered with the famed "Flying Tigers" before retiring a Lieutenant Colonel. I kept his picture and service hat on my desk. It reminded me that I joined the military in honor of and to continue my family's service to our country.
In today's military, promotions almost always require a tour of either in Iraq or Afghanistan. I volunteered for my tour of duty in Iraq. At Sather Air Base on the west side of the Baghdad Airport, I started work as an element leader for 17 airmen whom I had never met and whose lives were in my hands. I immediately felt a great responsibility to get them all home safely. Our mission was to escort the many foreign nationals on and off base and supervise them as they worked on the base. We were known as Force Protection. Our transition to life in Iraq generally began well enough.
I was the only female non-commissioned officer (NCO) except for our supervisor, a senior master sergeant who had never deployed and had no experience with Force Protection. The oldest technical sergeant in our group seemed to resent us from the start of our tour. He clearly had issues with authority and women. I strived to overlook the female jokes and comments he regularly made and get along with him. One night he offered to drive me back to my living quarters. Tired and appreciative of not having to walk, I accepted a ride. In hindsight, I should have walked. He drove me to a secluded area of the base. I rejected his sexual advances and demanded that he take me back to the base. The next day, I told my boss what happened. Her response was: "It happens all the time. Forget about it." I was stunned, but knew I had nowhere else to go but back to work.
The technical sergeant began to stalk me. He even tried to break into my room one night. My boss continued to do nothing. One day in November 2009, my life and career were forever changed. Alone at my desk, finishing up paperwork for the day, I was alone. I walked to use the restroom. In the restroom, I was attacked and thrown up against the wall and raped. It seemed like slow motion. I could barely could move and breathe. The technical sergeant told me how much he enjoyed the attack. I wondered whether he was going to kill me and report me absent without leave (AWOL). He left and I just sat there in shock. The next day, I feared how my boss would react. She blithely sent me to a base chaplain who astonishingly said, "Most sexual assaults occur when drinking is involved." He told me to "take the day off and get some sleep." My disinterested boss said, "This is a 'he said-she said' kind of situation. Nobody would be able to sort out the truth." The truth was, few military commanders have the courage or training to address sexual violence in the military. I now have heard this type of story about hundreds of veteran rape and assault survivors.
After the attack, I was devastated. I felt alone and scared for my safety. At one point, I considered killing myself. After a few days, I called my supervisor back in the U.S. and they immediately requested that I be sent back home, which I was. My unit sent me for counseling
and tried to investigate. They concluded little could be done since the attack happened in Iraq.
Early in 2010, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I continue treatment to this day. After a year of counseling I am doing better, but my Air Force career is over and I am on military disability. It never needed to come to this. If my boss and the military had done their jobs -- which is not only to fight the enemy, but also protect its members from those who are unfit to serve the nation.
Today, as I continue the painful process of moving on, my attacker still wears the Air Force uniform. I cannot decide which is worse. Standing in line at the Naval Clinic, I feel like a stranger even though I am veteran like them. My service was tainted and I do not always feel like I should be in the company of such men and women. I certainly do not feel like a "hero" when citizens offer thanks for my military service.
My attacker took away my military career, but he also stole my love for the military and my sense of belonging to something bigger than myself. For this I blame the military commanders who fail to adequately investigate, prosecute or even track sexual predators in the armed services. As is, our military justice system too often punishes victims of sexual violence and anyone who corroborates their claims.
I hope and pray that reforms to the military justice system will finally occur -- either by litigation, Congressional intervention or by courageous leadership from within the Department of Defense. Too many military lives and careers have already been destroyed by this plague of violence -- and military leaders continue to look the other way. Snapped back into the moment, I hear a robotic female voice over the intercom: "Now serving 132 at window number three." I walk to the window and give the petty officer my ticket and ID. I look around and realize that this is my new normal and I still ask myself why it had to be this way.
Mary Gallagher served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserves from 2001 to 2011. She is a plaintiff in "Cioca v. Rumsfeld," which is pending in federal court in Virginia.
Sexual Assault Permeates U.S. Armed Forces - CBS News
Sexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says - CNN
Legislation seeks to aid military sexual assualt victims - Dayton ...
Here's the TRUTH.
If the Department of Defense would forbid females to join any military branch and would force its current female service members out by attrition, sexual harassment throughout the military would almost completely stop, service-member pregnancies would cease, and military budgets would be slashed during actual troop strength reductions. Until about 70 years ago, NO MILITARY FORCE COMMANDERS WHATSOEVER WOULD HAVE EVER ALLOWED WOMEN SOLDIERS. No man in his right mind would have put women in that kind of danger to her health and life, much less allowed himself and his fellow brothers-in-arms to do the DOUBLE WORK required to cover for himself and the women in his unit, just to put bodies in MTOE slots.
Now, Ms. Gallagher, whatever sexual harassment happened to you and your fellow female service members should never have happened. The truth is that as long as females are in the military, and as long as they will be billeted and bunked and showered and toileted and encamped and messed (oops, DINED or FED) together with men, these men and women will have sex. The Pentagon must avoid this by forbidding women to serve in our Armed Forces. That is according to the strong recommendations put forth by former Army Ranger CPT Brian Mitchell in his book, "Weak Link: The Feminization of the American Military."
An Army veteran who has seen this,
Richard C. August
Of course, forbidding _men_ in the military would also prevent assaults by men on women, and would also prevent assaults on men. Maybe that's the solution? OK, it wouldn't work unless one were willing to abolish the military.
So maybe we're stuck with the direct approach: Teach men that rape and assault are never acceptable: not of strangers, not of opponents, not of fellow members of the military; teach women and men that they do not have to suffer sexual violence in the name of unit cohesion or proper roles or whatever, and that they have the right to defend themselves and/or report assaults when they do happen. And then enforce those teachings with laws and, where necessary, punishment.
This wouldn't eliminate the problem entirely, but it would address the real issue and the real offenders.
It took us nearly three decades to convince them of the connection between the affects some of us are suffering from with our exposure to Agent Orange. Today, they are still fighting any connection between the affects of Gulf War Syndrome from the first gulf war. I imagine it will be a long uphill battle for the unknowns (like depleted uranium) of Iraq and Afghanistan.
My father and mother served in WWII. I was a combat infantryman in Vietnam. My son served in the Air Force at Balad, Iraq. But, as I have grown older, and hopefully a bit wiser, I have come to hare the idea of war as way of resolving conflict between peoples.
I grieve for lives I have cost by my actions in Vietnam. I grieve for the lives of our soldiers now giving their last full measure in Iraq and AfghanistaÂn. I grieve for the fallen innocent Iraqis and Afghans caught in the utter chaos and insanity of war. I grieve for mankind, who in thousands of years of war, has learned nothing – save how to make war more brutal and savage.
And, I grieve for you. While I was spat upon, cursed and assaulted when I returned from Vietnam, it was at the hands of a public at odds with the war. What you suffered was at the hands of a fellow combatant, one who is supposed to have your back - not take advantage you.
I am sorry for what you are going through - but, I do thank you for your demonstrated service and leadership in trying to rectify a dismal situation.
As a woman who served during Vietnam, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
There is something called "due process" that allows her to prove her point - in a court of law. That apparently has NOT been done yet, since the case is still pending.
The system is supposed to be "guilty until proven innocent", not "I told the media my side of the story, now try to PROVE you are innocent" - and IF you prove yourself innocent, the media will still take my side and procalim the military isn't doing it's job by convicting the person I accused.
Isn't THAT how "justice" really works in America nowdays?
Shame on any country that creates an image of itself as a "guardian against terrorism" when it fails protect its citizens from the terrorists in its own midst. Shame on those hypocrites who portray themselves as "champions of democracy" who failed to ACT on Mary Gallagher's behalf - who instead attempted to silence her.
How can you call the Afghans "barbarians" for practices like bacha bazi, yet convince yourselves that you are the "bastions of liberty" while raping your own women?
When I get back home I complained to my recruiter that I felt this was experience was se x ual abuse of the women being forced to be exposed to the men in this way. a report was filed and I was told the procedure was changed so the men and women were not on the same floor of the building during these exam periods.. I do not know for sure if this was changed.. But you would think that this would not have been allowed in the first place.
R/ PRONESE
I don't know if that would help the "he said, she said" attitude of the military but there has to be some method of getting to the facts and stopping the behavior. Of course, separating females from the males may help but women reject that as inequality.
And of course they don't do this to women where you can see it. Not unless *they know you are into that sort of thing. Good Gods. Are you saying that women just make this up? Women have known for years what happens when you report harassment, stalking and rape. What happens to her reputation, her career, her advancement opportunities. So where is the pay off? No justice, and she gets punished and ignored. She looses her career, and he goes on tra la la like nothing happened.
Outstuckingfanding! That's the guy I want doing parole sweeps in personal homes and residential areas while we try to win hearts and minds! I know he would never rape a civilian member of the occupied country!
Even if I have to get it myself.
{shrugs}