Women at War

Women at War
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos


The American Conservative

Apr 17, 2008

April 7, 2008 - A high point of Kayla Williams’s service as a noncommissioned Army officer in Iraq was receiving a commendation for her support on missions in Baghdad. Low points included getting molested by one of her own men and being asked to mock a naked Iraqi prisoner in an interrogation cage in Mosul.

Riding a line between woman and warrior, “bitch” and “slut,” Williams, 31, was not alone. The Bush administration’s “long war” has forced the military to shock integrate more than 180,000 women into Iraq and Afghanistan over the last six years. The consequences have been both impressive and ugly and do little to put to rest decades of debate over women in combat.

Critics say the rush to put women into combat-related roles for which they weren’t trained has made them more vulnerable, exacerbated male-female tensions in theater, and advanced a controversial policy while most of the country wasn’t looking.

“We have large numbers of women who have been willing to come into the Armed Forces, who are willing to do jobs for which we have a shortage of young men,” says one retired Army colonel, now in the private sector, who declined to be identified because of his ties to the defense community. “I think the women under these circumstances do the best they can.”

Veterans who have spoken to TAC say most female soldiers have exceeded expectations. But the experience of the largest contingent of female soldiers in modern history is not unclouded. The rate of single motherhood among women on active duty is 14 percent, and nursing mothers are being deployed four months after giving birth. Reports of sexual assault are climbing, as are suicides and the number of women—now over 36,000—who have visited VA hospitals since leaving the service. As of February, 102 female soldiers had died in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Army, which represents most women in theater, won’t release figures on how many are evacuated from the field due to noncombat injuries, illness, or pregnancy.
go here for more
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9853

Senator Bill Nelson takes on sexual attacks in war

I have to say that I am finally happy to get an email update that really means something from Senator Nelson. Sorry but I have a few bones to pick with his Orlando office. I visited there a couple of years ago and offered my help with veterans. Never heard from them. Two weeks ago, I sent them a letter letting them know I was a Chaplain and again, offering my help with veterans in this area. Again, have not heard from them. You'd think they would be interested in doing something to help the veterans in Florida with PTSD enough they would have been at least interested enough in asking me a few question to see if I knew what I was talking about, but no, they must not have the time. Anyway, this was a pleasant surprise. It's a pretty powerful email about what is happening to too many women.

April 9, 2008
Dear Kathie,
Today I chaired a hearing on the failure of our government to prosecute cases of sexual assault committed against American women working for defense contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two brave women, both formerly KBR employees, gave disturbing testimony about the assaults they suffered, and then we questioned representatives from the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the Department of Justice why these—and other similar assaults—are not being prosecuted.

I hope you will take a moment to read the news release below and the two related articles from ABC News. You can also link to my website and watch or listen to the hearing. A fundamental breakdown of justice has occurred and it must be corrected.A fundamental breakdown of justice has occurred and it must be corrected.

Women Tell Of Brutal Assaults In Iraq That Go Unpunished


Washington, D.C. - The federal government hasn't tried any cases involving sexual assaults against women who work for contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan, despite a 2000 law giving that authority to the Department of Justice.

That information emerged this morning in often-emotionally charged testimony before a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations panel headed by Florida Democrat Bill Nelson. Since last fall, Nelson has been pressuring federal agencies about unpunished sexual assaults in the war zones, following a Florida woman's report that she was attacked while working in Iraq for a defense contractor.

Another disturbing piece of information that emerged in testimony this morning was that the victims of sexual assault in the war zone felt pressured to sweep the incidents under the rug.

"I am unaware of any measures to date being taken against the KBR employee or the member of the U.S. military who attacked me," Dawn Leamon said in remarks presented to the subcommittee. "I hope that by telling my story here today, I can keep what happened to me from happening to anyone else."

Leamon, who has two sons who served as soldiers in the war zones, worked for Halliburton's former subsidiary KBR. She says she was sexually assaulted just two months ago by a KBR coworker and a U.S. soldier at a remote military base near Basra, in Iraq. Her testimony marked the first time she has identified herself in public. Leamon was one of two victims to testify today.

Another KBR employee, Mary Beth Kineston, said in her testimony, "I also expected that when I made a complaint about such activity, it would be thoroughly investigated in good faith, that is, with an intent to resolve the problem immediately, and that I would be protected from the perpetrator in the meantime. I can assure this committee that none of my expectations about KBR were fulfilled."

"I'm in a war zone - and, I have to worry about being attacked by my coworkers," Kineston testified, recounting how she was raped in the cab of her truck by the driver of a vehicle that was parked behind her tanker as they waited one night to fill up with water from the Tigris River.

According to figures supplied by the Pentagon, more than two dozen U.S. civilians have reported sexual assaults. The Defense Department's inspector general said it has investigated 742 sexual assault cases during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most involved members of the military and at least 26 involved American civilians.

But the Justice Department has only sparingly used the 2000 law intended to protect Americans working as contractors in the war zone. In fact, there have been no convictions in a sexual assault of a U.S. civilian in Iraq or Afghanistan. In prepared testimony, Sigal P. Mandelker, deputy attorney general of the Justice Department's criminal division, said officials have brought charges in five sex cases, with four successful convictions.

The convictions were for sexual abuse of a minor by a Defense Department civilian employee in Japan; child pornography crimes by defense contractors in Iraq and Qatar; and, abusive sexual contact by a Pentagon contractor against a soldier in Iraq. An indictment has been delivered in the fifth case, but Mandelker in her testimony did not provide details on that case, citing privacy, confidentiality and court-ordered restrictions.

"The bottom line is that American women working in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be assaulted while their assailants continue to go free," Nelson said. "Either the U.S. government has the authority to prosecute contractors for sexual assault and is failing to do so, or it doesn't have the authority or resources it needs and hasn't come to Congress. Either way, it is a travesty.

"We've got a problem that justice is breaking down here," said Nelson, who chaired Wednesday's hearing of the International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights Subcommittee.

Following are two abc NEWS accounts this morning:



Military Mom Says She Was Brutally Raped in Iraq
Dawn Leamon, Who Alleges She Was Raped by Two Men, Will Tell Her Story on Capitol Hill

By MADDY SAUER
April 9, 2008—

Yet another woman has come forward saying she was brutally raped in Iraq while working for the U.S. contractor Kellogg Brown Root (KBR).

Dawn Leamon, who has two sons on active duty, says she was raped earlier this year by a U.S. soldier and a KBR colleague.

She will tell her horrific story to members of Congress today at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Leamon says that following her rape, she spoke with a woman at the KBR Employee Assistance Program. "She discouraged me from reporting, saying, 'You know what will happen if you do,'" Leamon said.

Leamon says KBR then assigned full-time security guards to her which gave her no privacy to talk about the incident, and her movements around camp were restricted, yet her attackers' movements were unrestricted.

"KBR did little or nothing to restore my sense of safety after I reported being raped," said Leamon.

KBR released the following statement to ABC News this morning. "First and foremost, KBR in no way condones or tolerates sexual harassment. Each employee is expected to adhere to the Company's Code of Business Conduct, and when violations occur, appropriate action is taken. Any reported allegation of sexual harassment or sexual assault is taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. KBR's top priority is the safety and security of all employees, and our commitment in that regard is unwavering."

Also at today's hearing, for the first time the Department of Justice is slated to answer questions on the investigation and prosecution of alleged sex crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one has yet been charged in Leamon's case.

Last December, the department declined to send an official to testify before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on law enforcement efforts to protect U.S. contractors in Iraq. The hearing featured testimony by Jamie Leigh Jones, a young Texan woman who also says she was gang-raped while working for KBR in Iraq.

Like Jamie Jones, Leamon believes she was drugged before her attack.

In January, several lawmakers pounded the Justice Department for flatly refusing to answer their questions about how sexual assault cases in Iraq involving U.S. citizens are handled. "We still have heard nothing from your office," complained several Democratic senators, including presidential hopeful Barack Obama, D-Ill.

Now, sources says the Justice Department has agreed to send a representative to the Senate hearing entitled, "Closing Legal Loopholes: Justice for Americans Sexually Assaulted in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, Jamie Jones will receive the Susan McDaniel Public Awareness Award at the Congressional Victim's Rights Caucus Awards ceremony. There was a grand jury hearing in Florida concerning her case in January of this year, but no indictment has yet been filed.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

By the Numbers: Military Sex Assault Cases in Iraq, Afghanistan

Pentagon Stats Show 40 Percent of Cases End Without Prosecution or Punishment for Alleged Culprits

By JUSTIN ROOD
April 9, 2008—

Four in 10 military sexual assault investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended without prosecution or punishment for the alleged culprits, according to new Pentagon statistics -- slightly more than those which have resulted in prosecution, punishment or both.

Out of 684 investigations opened, 122 were closed because investigators determined the victims' claims were unfounded; 101 were closed for insufficient evidence; and 44 were closed as unsolved, according to Pentagon figures provided to Congress in advance of a Wednesday hearing.

In 23 cases, the Pentagon said it has no record of action being taken. In nine others, its records show authorities "decided to take no action."

By contrast, 183 cases ended in some form of administrative discipline. Culprits were discharged, fired, deported, barred from their posts or received an unspecified "nonjudicial punishment," the document stated.

Of those which resulted in courts martial proceedings, 81 ended with convictions, and two alleged assaulters were acquitted, the figures showed. None appear to have been prosecuted in U.S. civilian courts.

Today a Defense official is slated to testify, along with representatives from the Departments of State and Justice, on sexual assault among service members and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'I want women to be better protected' by the military

Mother of slain Marine: 'I want women to be better protected'
Story Highlights
Maria Lauterbach wanted to spend career in Marines, she says in video

Lauterbach accused fellow Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean of rape

Laurean faces murder charges in Lauterbach's death

Marines should have transferred Lauterbach to another base, her mother says


From Susan Candiotti
CNN National Correspondent

DAYTON, Ohio (CNN) -- Early on, Maria Lauterbach knew exactly what she wanted to do in life.


"After high school, I am going into the Marines," a smiling Lauterbach, dressed in her high school soccer uniform, says in a video made available exclusively to CNN. "I'll probably be doing that for 20 or 25 years, and then hopefully after that, becoming a cop."

Lauterbach became a Marine, but her dreams were cut short.

Her body was found buried in the backyard of a fellow Marine, Cpl. Cesar Laurean, near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in January. Watch Lauterbach talk about her future plans »

Mary Lauterbach, Maria's mother, wants to know why the Marines didn't do more to protect her daughter from Laurean, whom Maria Lauterbach had accused of rape in May 2007.

"My concern is I want women to be better protected," Lauterbach, of Dayton, Ohio, told CNN. Watch how mother wants answers from Marines »

Laurean now faces murder charges. He fled the Camp Lejeune area on January 11. The FBI says he went to his native Mexico, and a cousin of Laurean's reported seeing him in Zapopan, Mexico, in mid-January.


Mary Lauterbach has sent a list of more than 30 questions to the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, through her congressman.

She says she's unconvinced her daughter's rape allegation against Laurean was treated seriously.

Maria Lauterbach was 20 years old and eight months pregnant when she was reported missing after she failed to report for duty at Camp Lejeune in mid-December.

Her body was found nearly a month later beneath a fire pit in Laurean's backyard. It is unclear whether he was the father of her unborn child.

After Maria Lauterbach accused Laurean of rape, she was moved to another office, and military protective orders were issued to keep the accused from the accuser. But Mary Lauterbach and her congressman, Rep. Mike Turner, say the Marines didn't do enough to protect her.
go here for more
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/07/murdered.marine/index.html

Another KBR Rape Case

article posted April 3, 2008 (web only)
Another KBR Rape Case
Karen Houppert


Editor's Note: Lisa Smith is a pseudonym used on request. Additional reporting by Te-Ping Chen. Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute.


Houston

It was an early January morning in 2008 when 42-year-old Lisa Smith*, a paramedic for a defense contractor in southern Iraq, woke up to find her entire room shaking. The shipping container that served as her living quarters was reverberating from nearby rocket attacks, and she was jolted awake to discover an awful reality. "Right then my whole life was turned upside down," she says.

What follows is the story she told me in a lengthy, painful on-the-record interview, conducted in a lawyer's office in Houston, Texas, while she was back from Iraq on a brief leave.


That dawn, naked, covered in blood and feces, bleeding from her anus, she found a US soldier she did not know lying naked in the bed next to her: his gun lay on the floor beside the bed, she could not rouse him and all she could remember of the night before was screaming and screaming as the soldier anally penetrated her while a colleague who worked for defense contractor KBR held her hand--but instead of helping her, as she had hoped, he jammed his penis in her mouth.

Over the next few weeks Smith would be told to keep quiet about the incident by a KBR supervisor. The camp's military liaison officer also told her not to speak about what had happened, she says. And she would follow these instructions. "Because then, all of a sudden, if you've done exactly what you've been instructed not to do--tell somebody--then you're in danger," Smith says.

As a brand-new arrival at Camp Harper, she had not yet forged many connections and was working in a red zone under regular rocket fire alongside the very men who had participated in the attack. (At one point, as the sole medical provider, she was even forced to treat one of her alleged assailants for a minor injury.) She waited two and a half weeks, until she returned to a much larger facility, to report the incident. "It's very easy for bad things to happen down there and not have it be even slightly suspicious."
go here for the rest
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/houppert

KBR, as you know, has no US connection because they said they paid their employees from an offshore account. The US government may be able to allow a suit because of the tax shelter they set up for themselves in order to not play by the rules, they now want the protection of. The case came out last week that may have paved the way for others to be given some justice for what they have gone through with these rapes. Rape is a crime and not a dispute for an arbitrator to deal with. Much like the Catholic Arch Diocese decided that child abuse and rape was a bad thing to do instead of a crime, covering this up only comes back to bite them in the end. Let's pray in this case, they get the full Monty in terms of justice!

Rapists in the Ranks

Rapists in the Ranks

By Jane Harman , Los Angeles Times. Posted April 2, 2008.

Women in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. When will Congress and the DOD take notice?

The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.

These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004. The DOD's newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.
go here for the rest
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/80995/

The men who do this are twisted but the ones who do nothing about it are worse. How could any man not put their sister in arms in an equal place as their own mother or their own sister or their own wife?

Boston University report on PTSD

PTSD Associated With More, Longer Hospitalizations, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2008) — Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with more hospitalizations, longer hospitalizations and greater mental healthcare utilization in urban primary care patients. These findings appear in the current issue of Medical Care.

Prior studies suggest that trauma exposure and PTSD have considerable impact on health care use and costs. Most of this research, however, has focused on male veterans and female sexual assault victims but the impact on healthcare use in other populations is uncertain.

The researchers interviewed a sample of primary care patients to examine overall prevalence of traumatic exposure and select behavioral health outcomes in addition to PTSD, including major depression, substance dependence and chronic pain. The interview included demographic questions, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (version 2.1 PTSD module), the Chronic Pain Definitional Questionnaire, the Patient Health Questionnaire (to measure depression) and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Short Form (for drug and alcohol dependence).

Among the participants, the researchers found that 80 percent had one or more trauma exposures. Compared to participants with no trauma exposure, subjects exposed to trauma were significantly more likely to be males, unmarried, have substance dependence and depression. They also had more mental health visits than those with no trauma exposure.

Among the participants, 22 percent had current PTSD. Compared to participants without PTSD, those with PTSD were significantly more likely to be female, to have an annual income of less than or equal to $20,000, have substance dependence and depression. PTSD participants also had more hospitalizations and mental health visits.

According to the researchers, among urban primary care patients PTSD is associated with greater health care use: both mental health visits and hospitalizations. "Unexpectedly, trauma exposure by itself was not associated with increased healthcare utilization apart from mental health visits, a finding which was attenuated after adjusting for PTSD," said lead author Anand Kartha, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at BUSM. "This may be due to the fact that the non-traumatized to whom we are comparing the traumatized patients, have complex social milieu leading to high utilization," added Kartha.

"PTSD has a cost beyond the specific mental health symptoms," said senior author Jane Liebschutz, MD, an associate professor of medicine and social and behavioral sciences at BUSM and a primary care physician at BMC. "PTSD may be on the causal pathway between trauma experiences and negative health consequences. These findings are relevant in light of the PTSD prevalence not only in our returning veterans, but in areas of urban poor," she added.

This study was supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Adapted from materials provided by Boston University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080327172124.htm

Minnesota Female Veterans Face Unique Challenges

Thursday, March 27, 2008
Coming home

Minnesota female veterans face unique challenges

Although the numbers of female veterans are increasing, the lack of studies and information about female veterans makes it difficult to gauge the needs of returning female soldiers. Mainstream media coverage of returning veterans often makes little or no mention of the women who served. Andrea Lindgren, a state researcher with the Minnesota Office on the Economic Status of Women (OESW) commented on the difficulty of identifying the specific needs of female veterans. "There's not a lot of information out there," said Lindgren. "I think it's cultural-there may be a hesitancy to acknowledge that there exist issues related to being female."

by Kendall Anderson

Chante Wolf was in the U.S. Air Force for 12 years, returning to civilian life in 1992 after the first Gulf war. But the soldier-turned-activist has traveled a long road to resolving the trauma of what she calls regular sexual harassment and near-rape while serving her country.

"It's only recently that I started dealing with-started talking about in therapy-the sexual stuff, knowing that the longer this goes on the deeper this wound will go," said Wolf, now 50. "You just bury it."

The stress first surfaced in verbal attacks against her parents. Added to the normal anxiety veterans often face-Wolf slept with a loaded .357 magnum under her pillow during her first few years back-the sexual trauma nearly put the veteran over the top. She drank herself to sleep for many years.

That extra anguish from sexual assault and sexual harassment is not something every female vet experiences. But it's one of several challenges female vets face when returning to civilian life. So is returning to societal norms of female behavior and resuming parenting and other family roles that may differ dramatically from being a soldier. That's something Gina Sanders can testify to.

Becoming mom again
Sanders (not her real name), 25, came home to her son and found he was not quite the same. A sergeant who had served in Iraq, she had to accept that her toddler had experienced milestones without her. Her son's father took over parenting-and continued even after she first returned from duty.

"Coming home to your family, you're very happy to be home. You're thinking that the family you come home to are the same as when you left, which is not true-they had their own struggles while you're away," said Sanders, 25.

Eager as she is to become her son's most important parent-Sanders is a single mom-she also misses aspects of the life she left behind, especially the female soldiers who shared her experiences. The pleasure of being with her son has been the best part of coming home.

"It is a difficult transition coming home from the deployment. We tend to come back as stronger, more independent women," said Brandi N. Wilson, women veterans coordinator, Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs. Wilson sees among women vets challenged by parenting and interpersonal relating. She added that female vets often have a harder time finding the support they need.

Female vets and rape:
Nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking V.A. health care said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Among them:
• 37 percent said they were raped multiple times
• 14 percent reported they were gang-raped.


Family matters
43% of female vets have at least one child, compared to 22% of male vets.
56% of female vets are married, compared to 72% of male vets.

click above for the rest

Female Veterans Find Help With Emotional Wounds

Female Veterans Find Help With Emotional Wounds at Batavia Facility

Lou Michel


The Buffalo News

Mar 25, 2008

March 24, 2008 - After the improvised explosive and rifle attacks from the enemy, and after the sexual assaults and harassment from their own comrades, some female veterans find their way to the red brick house in Batavia to heal.

As if the horrors of war were not enough, women in uniform have been under assault for years in a culture that has failed to vanquish sexual attacks and harassment against them. Just last week, the Pentagon released figures indicating that one-third of military women are sexually harassed and many others sexually assaulted.

So the need for the red brick house at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Batavia is well documented.

It is home to a post-traumatic stress program exclusively for female veterans and is one of only four such facilities in the country.

Up to six women can be accommodated at the home, and when discharged, they are expected to continue with rigorous outpatient services. Healing does not come overnight.

“It’s very new for the VA and for the world,” said Dr. Terri F. Julian, manager of the VA’s post-traumatic stress program in Batavia.

Many of the female veterans who enter this cozy two-story house with its “Welcome Home” sign had been attacked by men — and sometimes women — who wore the same uniform and swore the same oath to defend the United States as they did.
go here for the rest
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9668

Female Veterans Decry Institutional Sexism in Military

Veterans Decry Institutional Sexism in Military

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted March 17, 2008.

Gender panel at Winter Soldier conference suggests pattern of condescending to outright sexist behavior in the armed forces.

"I joined the military to defend my country, not my integrity and self-worth." So said an eight-year veteran of the National Guard named Abby Hiser on day three of the Winter Soldier hearings outside Washington D.C. Speaking at a packed morning session titled "Divide to Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military," her fellow panelists were mostly female vets slated to address everything from the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy to sexual assault within the ranks. But rather than personal recollections of sexual humiliation or violence -- and in sharp contrast to horror stories told by previous speakers describing their slaughter of Iraqi civilians -- the testimonials that morning revealed more about the kind of institutional sexism that, as an intractable power dynamic, defines the lives of women in uniform.

As soldiers, then as veterans, and, even now, as members of the anti-war movement, women in the military are still fighting to be taken seriously. "It's hard to be a veteran of the war and a woman," said Iraq vet Patty McCann. "... A lot of times my experience gets boiled down to what I experienced as a woman -- and I don't get to talk about some of the things that I experienced as a soldier."

Wendy Barranco couldn't agree more. Trained as a combat medic and deployed in Tikrit between October 2005 and July 2006, she worked in a medical unit where the gender ratio was "about 50/50," mostly male doctors and female nurses. ("A traditional hospital setting," she joked.) On the panel, she had described being sexually harassed nearly every single day of her deployment by a high-ranking surgeon who had fulfilled her request to be moved to the operating room. Feeling she owed him something in return, "this person would catch me alone or push up against me," she said -- but he stopped short of getting too physical. As she put it, "he knew exactly what he was doing."

Wendy never reported him -- "I knew command wasn't going to do anything about it, so there was no point" -- in no small part because it would end up being her word against his. Besides, she said, "are they gonna get rid of the guy whose making decisions and saving lives, or me, the disposable specialist?"

On the panel, describing the dread she felt going to work every day knowing that she had to be constantly watching her back, Wendy had briefly broken down, frustrated, muttering, "I hate to be the girl." Later, when asked about the sense that she was viewed first as a woman rather than a soldier, she said, "it's definitely true."

"You're seen as, like, the 'weight,'" she said. "The weakly being." Even in its less egregious forms, sexist attitudes were often the norm. "There's a sense of, oh, now we've got a woman, now I've gotta pick up her baggage and mine." Yet it was rarely discussed. Wendy called the sexist power dynamic in the military "the big pink elephant in the room."

Fellow veteran and Iraq Veterans Against the War member Jen Hogg agreed that the attitude of male soldiers could range from condescending to outright sexist. As a mechanic on reserve duty, she often had to work with cumbersome equipment that invited perceptions that she was weaker and less capable. If male soldiers tried to help, "they weren't trying to be rude" -- but it did play into a power dynamic that leaves female soldiers treated like second-class citizens.
go here for the rest
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/79877/

A Third of Military Women Surveyed Say They Suffer Sexual Harassment

Military women report harassment

A Third of Military Women Surveyed Say They Suffer Sexual Harassment

PAULINE JELINEK
AP News

Mar 14, 2008 14:33 EST

One-third of women in the military and 6 percent of men said they were sexually harassed, according to the latest Pentagon survey on the issue.


The figure for women was worse than the previous finding several years ago but better than a similar survey taken in 1995, the Defense Department said in a report Friday. The Defense Manpower Data Center said it compiled the data from a survey of 24,000 people in 2006.

A separate report on sexual assaults showed that fewer cases were reported among military personnel in 2007 after years of significant increases.

There were 2,688 sexual assaults reported last year by people in uniform, the figures showed. That was down about 9 percent from the 2,947 reported the year before.

Officials said some changes in the method of reporting data made it difficult to compare numbers year to year. In 2005, there were about 2,400 sexual assaults reported.
click post title for the rest

Jamie Leigh Jones case against KBR should go to court

Attys: Iraq Rape Case Belongs in Court
By JUAN A. LOZANO – 22 hours ago

HOUSTON (AP) — A woman who says co-workers raped her while she was a contractor in Iraq should have her case tried in court, not settled in private arbitration, her lawyer told a federal judge Wednesday.

In a federal lawsuit, Jamie Leigh Jones says she was drugged, raped and held against her will in a storage locker while working for KBR Inc., then a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., in 2005.

As part of her employment, Jones agreed to settle claims against the company in arbitration. But she never imagined such claims would include being imprisoned in a storage locker, said one of her attorneys, L. Todd Kelly.

Attorneys for Halliburton and KBR argued that the contract Jones signed binds her to settle all claims — including claims of sexual assault — against her former employer through arbitration.

Halliburton attorney W. Carl Jordan said that because the purported attack is said to have happened in Halliburton-provided barracks, it ties any claims Jones makes to her employment.

Attorneys for Halliburton, KBR and other subsidiaries that have been sued have disputed Jones' allegations. KBR split from Halliburton last year.

U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison is expected to rule at a later date.

Jones sued in May, saying she was raped by co-workers at Camp Hope, Baghdad, in 2005
click post title for the rest

Since when has a crime like rape, gang rape on top of that, been considered an arbitration case instead of a crime?

Bill to highlight female veterans

Bill to spotlight issues for female veterans

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 1, 2008 8:11:43 EST

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is expected to announce legislation next week aimed at increasing the focus on female veterans at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, Murray has spent many hearings questioning VA officials about female veterans with histories of sexual trauma, whether research has been done to determine their health needs and whether VA hospitals are so focused on men’s health issues that women get left behind.

Though VA officials say they are conducting a survey on women’s experiences at their facilities, as well as offering programs specifically for women, proponents of the proposed bill say it would target areas VA has not addressed. It follows a similar House bill proposed by Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., and Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla.

Murray’s bill will ask for:

• Assessment and treatment of women who have suffered sexual trauma in the military.

• More use of evidence-based treatment for women — particularly in areas such as post-traumatic stress disorder, where responses may be different or involve different issues than it does for men.

• A long-term study on gender-specific health issues of female veterans.

“One of the things we started to see early on is that there’s a lot we don’t know,” said Joy Ilem, assistant national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_femalevets_health_022908w/

Senator Patty Murray Stands Up For Female Warriors

Received by email. Thanks to all the members of this Army of Love out there making sure I get everything on PTSD. You never know what I'm going to miss.

Senator Murray is a great advocate for Veterans & is always involved in trying to make things better...

Senator Seeks Help For Survivors Of Military Sexual Trauma
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=d38a90ee-2012-495c-9368-453825fac195

Washington — Scurrying back to her Army barracks in the dark after her shift at the hospital, Sally, a 21-year-old medic, was grabbed by a man who dragged her to the woods and raped her at knifepoint.
When she reported the attack, Sally, of Kirkland, Wash., who asks that her full name not be used, was brushed off by her superior officer at Fort Belvoir, Va., who dismissed the rape as a spat with a boyfriend.
Her story is alarmingly like that of hundreds of other veterans who have suffered sexual harassment, assault and rape in the military, according to Susan Avila-Smith, a Seattle-based advocate who has helped hundreds of women veterans get VA benefits and treatment for military sexual trauma (MST). (http://vetwow.com/)
Avila-Smith says she also was a victim when she served in the Army, having been sexually assaulted in a hospital recovery room after sinus surgery at Fort Hood, Texas.
The pressures on women service members, who now comprise about 7 percent of all veterans, are escalating:
• According to the Veterans Administration, 19 percent of women who have sought health care in the VA were diagnosed as victims of military sexual trauma.
• Cases of military sexual trauma increased from 1,700 in 2004 to 2,374 in 2005, according to the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention Response Program.
Joy Ilem, assistant national legislative director at Disabled American Veterans, says many military women worry that there is no systematic way for commanders to handle sexual assault cases.
“It can definitely ruin your life if not treated,” she says.
Thirty-four years after she was attacked, Sally still takes medication for panic attacks, won't leave her house at night and is terrified of loud voices or large crowds.
She has endured years of nightmares, flashbacks, a nervous breakdown, depression and homelessness.
Sally has found solace in a Seattle support group of mostly female veterans with similar stories.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., says women in the military return home traumatized because, in addition to the pressures of living in a war zone, they have been living in close quarters with men and, in many cases, report that they had been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped.
Murray is preparing legislation that would require the federal government to conduct research on military sexual trauma, provide an annual report to Congress on how the VA is handling these cases, and come up with treatments and policies to help women veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
For example, she says women should have separate waiting rooms and more privacy in veterans' hospitals because female victims of MST are further emotionally strained when they “face a room-full of men.”
The issue came to the forefront recently with the murder of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a personnel clerk at Camp Lejeune, NC., who was eight months pregnant when her burned body was found in a fire pit in the backyard of Cpl. Cesar A. Laurean, whom she had accused of rape.
Avila-Smith says more than 99 percent of men who rape women in the military are fellow soldiers.
“They are not strangers and they're not foreigners on the other side of the war,” she says. “They're people with access to you and your paper work, people in your unit.”
Many of the victims are reluctant to report the abuse because they could be charged with filing a false report or adultery, or they fear going to jail where they could be raped again, she says.
Sally Fictim Griffiths, 33, a Houston fourth-grade teacher, mother of two young daughters and former Marine lance corporal who worked as an administrative assistant, says she was raped at age 19 in Okinawa, Japan, by a Marine she knew.
She says women planning to join the military “need to have an opportunity to sit down with other veterans who have lived the nightmare.”
Griffiths says she wouldn't have joined the Marines if she had known about the environment.
She recalls being sexually harassed by much older married men when she enlisted at 18.
But she suffered a terrible attack after she asked a fellow Marine to go jogging with her. The male Marine declined the invitation, opting instead to sneak up and rape her on the beach. Griffiths was interrogated and accused of lying at a military hearing before she found the rapist's confession in a file cabinet.
She was quickly transferred, then given an honorable discharge with the help of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and was later featured on the CBS-TV program “60 Minutes.” Her attacker was promoted and served six more years.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, also a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs panel, says any federal program to deal with post-traumatic stress syndrome must consider that women in the military can face “mental anguish” if they are sexually harassed.
She says mental health problems for women veterans “are very real and much more a focus in the Veterans' Administration then ever before.”

Once accused of sexual assault, soldier now alleged victim

Once accused of sexual assault, soldier now alleged victim, he tells hearing
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, February 13, 2008


HEIDELBERG, Germany — Not long ago, Pfc. Kyle Emer was accused of sexual assault when another soldier told authorities she’d awakened from a drunken slumber to find Emer violating her.

Emer said the sex was consensual and the case was dismissed at a preliminary hearing.

On Tuesday, Emer was on the witness stand in another sexual assault case. This time, he was the alleged victim.

Spc. Shawn Sheppard, a military police officer with the 529th Military Police Company, is accused of preying on Emer. Sheppard is charged with indecent assault and making a false statement.

The two were roommates and had gone out drinking Aug. 31 with a group of friends, according to testimony at an Article 32 hearing Tuesday in the Patton Barracks courtroom.

When Emer awoke early the next morning after passing out on his bed, he said, someone was touching him in a sexual manner. He wasn’t sure who it was, he said, because it was dark and he was still drunk. But he thought it was Sheppard.

“I was in a state of shock,” Emer said. “I was paralyzed. I felt like I was helpless.”
go here for the rest
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52430

Women complain of lack of response from KBR to sexual assault

Women complain of lack of response from KBR to sexual assault reports
Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, February 14, 2008


Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio resident who went to Iraq to drive trucks, thought she had endured the worst when her supply convoy was ambushed in April 2004, The New York Times reported Wednesday. After car bombs exploded and insurgents began firing on the road between Baghdad and Balad, she and other military contractors were saved only when Army Black Hawk helicopters arrived.

But not long after the ambush, Kineston told the Times, she was sexually assaulted by another driver, who remained on the job, at least temporarily, even after she reported the episode to KBR, the military contractor that employed the drivers.

Later, she said, she was groped by a second KBR worker. After complaining to the company about the threats and harassments endured by female employees in Iraq, she was fired, the Times wrote.

Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but who now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or significant compensation, the paper reported.
go here for the rest
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52465

Sen. Patty Murray Seeks Help For Survivors Of Military Sexual Trauma

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., says women in the military return home traumatized because, in addition to the pressures of living in a war zone, they have been living in close quarters with men and, in many cases, report that they had been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped.

Senator Seeks Help For Survivors Of Military Sexual Trauma


Published on 2/10/2008



Washington — Scurrying back to her Army barracks in the dark after her shift at the hospital, Sally, a 21-year-old medic, was grabbed by a man who dragged her to the woods and raped her at knifepoint.

When she reported the attack, Sally, of Kirkland, Wash., who asks that her full name not be used, was brushed off by her superior officer at Fort Belvoir, Va., who dismissed the rape as a spat with a boyfriend.

Her story is alarmingly like that of hundreds of other veterans who have suffered sexual harassment, assault and rape in the military, according to Susan Avila-Smith, a Seattle-based advocate who has helped hundreds of women veterans get VA benefits and treatment for military sexual trauma (MST).

Avila-Smith says she also was a victim when she served in the Army, having been sexually assaulted in a hospital recovery room after sinus surgery at Fort Hood, Texas.

The pressures on women service members, who now comprise about 7 percent of all veterans, are escalating:

• According to the Veterans Administration, 19 percent of women who have sought health care in the VA were diagnosed as victims of military sexual trauma.

• Cases of military sexual trauma increased from 1,700 in 2004 to 2,374 in 2005, according to the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention Response Program.
go here for the rest
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=d38a90ee-2012-495c-9368-453825fac195

What kind of a nation are we now? Are we a nation of laws or have we become a fraud? Women in the military raped, yet it is passed off and ignored, or worse, the women who report it face harassment instead of justice. Hallibuton/KBR employees are raped and yet when they report it they face retribution. Instead of turning it over to law enforcement, they only allow the victim to be heard in arbitration. What are we now?

Rape is a crime. When did it become something to ignore? Who wrote the rule that the victim is supposed to be ashamed someone with more power, usually possessing a weapon, decided to get their rocks off by forcing themselves on a woman? Does the nation really think that this only happens in the military and "boys will be boys" only when they are in the military? How deluded are they? Don't they understand that this type of crime will continue when they become civilians again?

Whenever we read reports like this we need to ask ourselves what kind of justice would be appropriate if it happened to someone in our own family. What if it was your daughter deployed into a foreign nation, risking her life for the sake of the nation and then finding that life taken with such disregard no one cared she was raped? What if it was your wife who was just doing her job as a nurse only to be raped by someone who apparently thinks they are worth so much more than she is?

People who rape are criminals. People who are raped are victims of a crime. This nation has laws against crimes. There are penalties when you commit a crime. Or at least that is the way it's supposed to work. Lately this nation has proven laws don't matter when the people committing the crime are employed under the banner of the nation.

When did rape stop being a crime? When it's Halliburton

Sex Assault Suit Vs. Halliburton Killed
Alleged Sexual Assault Victim's Case Forced Into Secretive Arbitration

By MADDY SAUER and JUSTIN ROOD
Feb. 6, 2008

A mother of five who says she was sexually harassed and assaulted while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq is headed for a secretive arbitration process rather than being able to present her case in open court.

A judge in Texas has ruled that Tracy Barker's case will be heard in arbitration, according to the terms of her initial employment contract.

Barker says that while in Iraq she was constantly propositioned by her superior, threatened and isolated after she reported an incident of sexual assault.

Barker's attorneys had argued that Halliburton/KBR had created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere at their camps and that sort of condition is not the type of dispute that she could have expected to be within the scope of an arbitration provision.

District Judge Gray Miller, however, wrote in his order that "whether it is wise to send this type of claim to arbitration is not a question for this court to decide."

"Sadly," wrote Judge Miller, "sexual harassment, up to and including sexual assault, is a reality in today's workplace."

Barker says it was a reality at Halliburton/KBR. From the moment she arrived at the Halliburton/KBR camp in Basra, Iraq, she says she was treated like a sex object.
go here for the rest
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4249898&page=1

When did this stop being a crime? How can any judge in their right mind say it's a matter of arbitration?

Protest planned for Spc. Suzanne Swift

Protests Planned for Army Specialist Who Went AWOL After Charging Sexual Harassment
Thursday, July 13th, 2006
‘Meet Me in Fort Lewis’ - Protests Planned for Army Specialist Who Went AWOL After Charging Sexual Harassment


Army Specialist Suzanne Swift remains confined to base. She went AWOL when the military did not address her charges of sexual harassment and abuse. We take a look at sexual harassment in the military. [includes rush transcript]

We take a look at the case of Suzanne Swift. She is the Army Specialist who has been arrested and confined to base for going AWOL after her charges of sexual harassment and assault went un-addressed by the military.
Swift served in Iraq for a year but decided she could not return and went AWOL. She said her superiors repeatedly sexually harassed her while serving in Iraq. On June 11th, the Eugene police knocked on her mother’s front door and Suzanne was arrested and taken to the county jail. She has since been transferred to Fort Lewis Washington where she is confined to her base. So far, no charges have been filed against her and Fort Lewis officials have said they will assign an independent investigator to look into her charges of sexual harassment.
Suzanne Swift turns twenty-two on Saturday. Her family and supporters are urging a national day of action on her behalf. A “Meet Me in Fort Lewis” rally and vigil are planned for noon outside Fort Lewis. Another in her hometown of Eugene, is planned for noon at the Federal Building.
A few days ago, we brought you Suzanne Swift’s mother, Sara Rich. Today we bring you Suzanne Swift’s grandfather, Jim Rich. I spoke with him at the Oregon Country Fair near Eugene.
Jim Rich, Suzanne Swift’s grandfather.
For more on the issue of sexual harassment in the military we are joined by:
Susan Avila-Smith, a Military Sexual Trauma Specialist and founder and director of Women Organizing Women, an advocacy group for survivors of rape in the military.
More information at SuzanneSwift.org. Email Suzanne Swift’s mother, Sara Rich, at formydaughtersuzanne@yahoo.com
We invited a representative from Fort Lewis military base to be on our program but they declined our request.
go here for the rest
http://vetwow.com/wordpress/?p=227

Woman found guilty of sex attack on soldier

Woman found guilty of sex attack on soldier
Posted Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:14pm AEDT

Map: Perth 6000
A 21-year-old Perth woman has been found guilty of three charges relating to a sex attack on an Australian soldier two years ago.

A Perth District Court jury deliberated for six hours before finding Nicola Jane Clunies-Ross guilty of depravation of liberty, attempted sexual penetration and assault.

Her trial was told the soldier was assaulted with an object at her East Perth home with the help of another soldier who later killed himself.

Clunies-Ross maintained that she was forced to take part in the assault because the second soldier threatened to kill her.

She is yet to be sentenced.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/25/2147061.htm

Women At War, Reservist on trial in alleged barracks rape

Reservist on trial in alleged barracks rape

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jan 8, 2008 14:57:50 EST

LEBANON, Pa. — An Army Reserve sergeant is on trial this week, accused of raping a female reservist in a barracks during training last year at Fort Indiantown Gap.

Robert Lee Shackelford is a member of the 233rd Quartermasters Company based in Philadelphia. Authorities say the 45-year-old from Dover, Del., assaulted the woman last March.

Lawyers for both sides gave opening statements Monday. Lebanon County prosecutor Megan Ryland-Tanner says the jury will hear from several dozen witnesses, including soldiers who saw or heard the attack.

Defense attorney Erin Zimmerer says there’s no physical evidence that Shackelford raped the woman.
click post title for link