The Invisible War Page #2

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and he

Tried to get me

to touch him.

And I took my right hand

and I pushed him in the chest.

And started to yell

for the other guys

To kinda hear me-

"hey, hey, hey."

Um, he hit me across

the left side of my face.

I remember holding

the closet thinking,

"what just happened?"

And my face hurt so bad.

[crying]

And when we went

to the command about it,

Me and this petty officer

who saw my face,

They just-

they let it wait,

'cause they didn't want

any kind of problems going on.

A couple weeks later,

I needed the key

To do my clean-up.

So I knocked on his door

and he said,

"okay, yeah, come on in here.

It's in here."

And I said, "no, no, no,

I'm gonna wait out here."

And he screamed at me

and he made me come in.

And he grabbed my arm.

[crying]

And he raped me

in his berthing area.

- Everything came

to a complete change

The day that I was raped.

- I got there in February.

Um, by April, I was drugged

and raped for the first time.

- I had, like, a cold

or pneumonia-like symptoms,

And so they sent me

to get checked out.

And while I was waiting

to be examined,

He came in

and he helped himself.

- He said he was

going to the bathroom,

And he came into my room

and-

And that's when he raped me.

- The entire time,

I was screaming

And yelling for help

and for him to stop.

Nobody came to the door.

Nobody came to help me,

came to my rescue, or anything.

- They made it very,

very clear

That if I said anything,

They were going

to kill me.

Um, you know,

and then of course,

I didn't have anyone

to go talk to,

Because the people

that were perpetrating me

Were the police.

- It was my first time ever.

And it-

I've had a tough time

Convincing myself

that I'm still a virgin.

- If this happening to me,

you know,

I can only-

surely I'm not the only one.

In which I found out later,

Going through

the claims process,

That I wasn't.

- It's just after 3:00 a.M.

I see shadow of a human head

over my body.

- Next think you know, like,

I wake up.

And, like,

he's on top of me.

- He pushed my legs apart

and put himself on top of me

And started pulling

at my shirt.

- And I wake up and that-

he's on top of me.

He's already penetrated me.

- I was drugged.

I remember the sounds,

the smell.

- He put his locked

and loaded.45

At the base of my skull,

Engaged the bolt

so that I knew

There was a round chambered.

- All I could do was continue

to concentrate on breathing.

- He slammed my head

against the concrete wall,

And, um, very forcefully

had sex with me.

- I just went to my tent,

pulled a sleeping bag

Over my head,

and cried myself to sleep.

- So, within the two week

period,

He raped me five times.

- When we got tested,

I had trich and,

uh, gonorrhea.

And I was pregnant.

- He did.

He raped me.

- In 1991,

in congressional testimony,

It was estimated that

Had been sexually assaulted

so far

In the u.S. Military.

If you take into account

that women don't report,

Because of the extreme

retaliation.

And that was, you know,

more than a decade ago.

Um, I would say you could

easily double that number

And it's probably somewhere

near about 500,000 women

Have now been sexually

assaulted in the u.S. Military.

- Well, according to

the department of defense,

reported assault

In the last fiscal year,

fiscal year of 2009.

But they also admit,

d.O.D. Itself,

That 80% of sexual assault

survivors do not report.

So if you do the math,

were assaulted,

Which is an extraordinary

number.

[pills rattling]

- We have more

in the cars, rob.

There's some in here too.

This all was prescribed in

the last three to four months.

This is paroxetine.

This is seroquel.

Citalopram.

This is xanax.

I'm tired of taking

all these meds.

I just want the v.A.

To fix my jaw.

I was having the most

horrible pain in my face.

But I went to the dentist,

'cause I thought

It was my teeth,

or something was wrong.

The doctor came in

after the x-rays

And asked me if I'd been

in a car accident.

When he hit me my face,

He dislocated my jaw,

And sent both of my discs

forward in my face.

So I don't have any discs

where they should be in my face.

They told me

I'd probably need

A partial bone replacement

From where my bone had been

laying on my nerves for so long,

It's starting

to actually disintegrate.

I've been on a soft diet

for five years now.

I can't eat the foods

that I used to eat.

Everything

is mashed potatoes, jell-o.

- Whoo!

- Ready.

- Well, I can go out

during the summertime,

Springtime if it's warm.

If it's too cold outside,

It's usually just rob and shea

go outside.

When it's really cold,

it's, like,

My jaw will just lock up.

I just stand,

watch from the window,

And hear about the stories

when they come in.

- We are sorry, but due

to a large volume of calls,

And unusually long

wait times,

Counselors are unable to answer

your call at this time.

- Please stay on the line,

as calls will be answered

In the order received.

[on hold music]

- 15 minutes could save you

hundreds on car insurance.

- It's a st. Louis

holiday tradition.

[mouthing along]

- # been away for awhile now

# you got me feeling

like a child now #

- Hey, this is stan.

- Hi, stan, I just wanted

to check

That status of my v.A. Claim.

- There's still

no final decision on it yet.

- Okay, it's-

- looks like it's about

A year old now.

- Yes, it is.

Um, okay,

it's still pending?

- Yes, ma'am.

- Did it say what status

it was in?

- Well, it looks like

they've gathered

All the information

that they, um, need.

But it still hasn't moved

to the arraigning board yet.

- Okay.

- Thank you for calling, ma'am.

You have a good day.

- You too, thank you.

This is the stuff they

prescribed me for migraines,

Even though

I don't have migraines.

So I was looking online

and there's actually

Other vets at the age

of, like, 25, and they just-

They would actually

just die

Because their body

wasn't processing.

'cause the mixture

of the seroquel,

The gabapentin,

the, um-

Some kind of anxiety,

which was the xanax,

And there was

something else-

And an antidepressant.

The mixtures of that stuff,

which is everything

I have here,

that other vets were taking

And they have died.

- Hey, baby girl.

Hey, hey.

- Ah, sit.

- Sit, sit.

Can you sit, baby?

Both my dad an my brother

are prior navy

And now army national guard.

And it's kinda like

it follows in the family

And follows the footsteps.

I was excited and completely

just hyped up about going.

And all my family

was proud of me.

My dad is my biggest hero.

- I told her, I said,

"you're gonna be taken care of."

And I guess that's

one of the hard things

That I have to accept,

because I told her

That she would be-

It was in February.

We got a call.

- Once he was done,

He rubbed his hand all over

my entire body.

And told me-he said,

"I own all of this."

And I was just

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