It has been one year since I spoke to "Dan" but I still can hear his voice as he told me his story. Obviously, the name here has been changed to protect his identity. My first impression of Dan was that he was a person who was distrustful and a little paranoid.
After hearing his story, I came to understand exactly why he would have zero trust in anyone. As I listened, he told his story with a very matter of fact tone, despite his voice cracking from time to time. I knew that he was fighting back years of emotions that were pushing to come rushing over the top of the dam that he'd built many years prior.
Dan has kept his silence for thirty years but began by saying, "The military took my voice away and has given me my voice back." Dan has been diagnosed with Military Sexual Trauma (MST). He joined the military in 1979, at the age of seventeen. At that point, Dan was female and identified as gay. "I was gay but I didn't know what transgender was. Mom signed so I could join. I signed to be a physicians aid but I was told I was going to be a telecommunications specialist instead. That was the first time they screwed me."
Dan was shipped off to Fort Jackson, SC for basic training at the age of only seventeen. They were the first group to allow women into combat infantry. Dan explained, "Many women were going into 101st Air Born training and had signed-up for that - I had not."
According to Dan, this was one of the worst places for basic training because the drill instructors had a notorious reputation at that time for being hard, among other things. "Everyone took two-hour shifts for guard duty. You were assigned an M16A1 with no ammo. [You] patrolled either armory or around your own barracks for two hours."
It was on one of these guard duty shifts that this young female would get her harshest "military lesson" at the hands of her drill instructor. "The night I was on patrol was also my eighteenth birthday. My drill instructor and another instructor pulled me off my patrol. They got in my face and screamed at me, brim to brim and spitting in my face. [They] informed me that they were giving me POW top secret training." Dan explains that at that time he was warned, "I wasn't to tell anybody or I'd be drummed out of the military. I was told not to report it or to report to sick hall because of it either."
"Next thing I know, the second instructor has my elbows pinned behind me. My instructor is now on top of me. I remember the smell of the ground, the High Karate after shave he's wearing, his sweat dripping on my face, the rocks on my back. One of them took a knife and cut away my pants because they couldn't get them off over my boots." Dan pauses and he is in obvious distress. I wait for him to compose himself and he continues, "I was dry and I remember the painful burning sensation. My drill sergeant is looking me in the eyes and laughing."
After the first instructor finished his barbaric act, the ordeal wasn't yet to be over - the second instructor now had his turn. "The second instructor won't look me in the eyes and pulled his hat down. He couldn't finish so he finally just got off of me."
It becomes clear that it had all been planned act, right down the last details:
Dan's voice trembles now as he bravely goes on, "They stood me up then and I was forced to stand at attention. They continued now to reinforce that I was to tell no one. They guaranteed me that this training was going to happen to every woman in this outfit."
At this point, Dan was handed a brand new set of fatigue pants. His voice broke at this point. "I realize it was all pre-planned and I have to take off my boots to put the new pants on. He took my old pants, underwear and allowed me to lace my boots. Then he walked me back to my post. He had a washcloth and water. He told me to wash my face and then he even took the washcloth and leaves me to patrol the rest of my shift."
That night in the barracks, Dan explains that he couldn't sleep, "I kept wondering who was next. Was this rape? Was it REALLY part of my training? I couldn't leave or lose the career that I'd always wanted." A travesty that anyone would have to lay in bed and ponder these questions, much less someone entrusted to the United States military. This was the way Dan spent the night of his eighteenth birthday.
"The rest of my basic training this man stared me down. He told me to do anything - polish his boots, take out his trash - I did it." Dan had been broken and did, in fact, remain silent about the entire incident until now. Sadly, the ordeal took the dreams of a young girl who wanted to make the military her life and dashed them. "When it came time to re-enlist, I wouldn't do it."
The years after the military have been fraught with pain and anxiety of all sorts. Dan explains, "My life since [leaving the military] has consisted of not being able to keep a job or to hold onto relationships or close friendships. The only person I've ever told about any of it was my sister because she knew me well enough to know something was wrong. I had kept a diary this entire time, right up until three years after I'd left the military."
Dan is a soft spoken man. It honestly wasn't hard to imagine the young girl that had been so traumatized by MSA. The damage, though he has been through counseling now, is still apparent. He manages to laugh a few times during the interview and I found myself wondering how he could.
The years since the assault:
"In 2004 I was sitting in church one day. My pastor comes up and asked what's wrong. I said I was sick. She told me that the rules had changed and I should be able to go to the VA." It was at that point that it was discovered that Dan had breast cancer and was also required to take part in a survey. Based on responses and behavior patterns, the doctors immediately suspected Military Sexual Trauma. That doctor was now obligated to follow-up but Dan admits that he got very defensive. At that time, he was forced to see a psychiatrist.
As luck might have it, Dan was able to get in to see a psychiatrist who was ex-military and a lesbian. She was able to get Dan to open up about the ordeal. There was a long process of desensitization therapy so that Dan could begin to let go of the horror of that night. "She saw that it was 100% effective disorder and referred me to another doctor. He told me that what happened to me, and how I had ALLOWED it happen to me, was not about the military - it was my childhood."
This led Dan to openly discuss childhood, family and other things. He went on to explain more, "My parents are divorced. My mom was raised by grandparents on a tobacco farm in Raleigh, NC and had no contact with other kids other than at school. By age sixteen, she was running the whole farm - financially and everything. [She] really had no contact with the outside world. I believe that my grandfather molested her and didn't have good parenting skills either. I think my mom raised us the same way."
"I was raised to be seen and not heard. I was taught not to question adults or any authority figure." Dan's father wasn't in the picture much. He lived in AZ and was a highway patrolman. They weren't close. "He never said 'I love you' and neither parent ever put their arms around me and just said 'I love you' - it just never happened." Apparently Dan's dad did make a habit of complaining about the $75 per month that he was ordered to pay in child support. Dan laments, "this is just what I was brought-up in."
Back in therapy and after thinking all these things through, Dan declares that he was "able to stop being the victim - this is how the military gave me my life back. They've acknowledged what happened to me and that MST is a serious issue in the military."
Dan now worries about other victims and repercussion of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) being repealed. He worries that MST is "going to run rampant" now. He is quick to point out that it just doesn't happen to women, "it happens to men too."
Then paranoia begins to rear it's ugly head again. "Had I reported it back then, I would have been told 'you flirted with him' or 'you brought this on yourself' I'm sure. I can talk to people now. I used to pack up and run - it was fight or flight and, for me, it was always flight."
Dan has given-up on trying to have any sort of healthy relationship with his family. He started hormone therapy at age fifty and is male now. He continues to fight his inner demons and wrestle with the past as well as he can. He now lives with other fears regarding his transition. "I'm questioning if I am transitioning because I need the world to see me as male or because I never want to be raped again. But...God forbid, if someone finds out, I increase my odds of being murdered by seventy percent."
Dan's story is not really so unique, which is unfortunate. Not only are military sexual assaults at an all-time high, over eight-one percent of assaults against men are never reported, according to IVN. Estimates vary from one news source to another, but the average estimate of military sexual assaults being committed per day is between seventy-five and one-hundred.
According to the Pentagon's latest report, an estimated 26,000 incidents of Military Sexual Assault occurred last year. ThinkProgress.org has recently reported that a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Hood military base is under investigation for sexual assault and possibly involved in a prostitution ring that may have involved recruits that were pressured into taking part.
It remains to be seen if the military is really doing all it can to handle this atrocious problem. Pentagon spokesman, George Little, issued this statement:
"I cannot convey strongly enough [Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's]frustration, anger, and disappointment over these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply.
Secretary Hagel met with Army Secretary McHugh this morning and directed him to fully investigate this matter rapidly, to discover the extent of these allegations, and to ensure that all of those who might be involved are dealt with appropriately.
To address the broader concerns that have arisen out of these allegations and other recent events, Secretary Hagel is directing all the services to re-train, re-credential, and re-screen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters."
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