Command Rape - The Ordeal of Suzanne Swift

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/swanson07082006.html

Suzanne Swift's story begins in an all-too-familiar way. A dead-end job, a friendly military recruiter, a promise that signing-up as military police would mean no deployment to Iraq, a broken promise, and a trip to war. Then it takes a less commonly heard of turn, one involving a practice known as "command rape." Suzanne is back in the U.S. and is refusing to return to Iraq. Until a couple of days ago she was confined by the military and threatened with prosecution. The three superiors whom she has accused of various forms of harassment or assault have not yet been charged. Suzanne's mother, Sara Rich, spoke with me about her daughter's ordeal and recorded this 20-minute conversation.

-snip-

DAVID: And she is now refusing to return; why is that?

SARA: Well, there's a lot of reasons why. When it came down to her redeployment, about 2 weeks before she was duewell first of all, she only got 11 months of stabilization time. You're mandated to have 18 months of stabilization time between deployments in a combat zone, so she was only being given 11 months of stabilization time, and was forced to sign a waiver waiving her rights to that 18 months. This was really hard for her. Then about 2 weeks before they were to be redeployed, she was out on a training mission, and a male sergeant raped a male specialist out on a training expedition, a training that they were doing in Yakima, which kind of triggered all of the sexual abuse and assault and harassment that Suzanne experienced when she was in Iraq the first time.

-snip-

DAVID: And were there repercussions and accountability for this?

SARA: Oh yeah, oh yeah, because the specialist said something and then so what they did immediately was they had everybody go and do sexual assault training classes, and Suzanne said she was sitting in these classes or these work groups where they were telling them what to do in case of sexual assault, and that other soldiers were crying, and she said she was so, it just really scared her, and it also triggered what she went through when she was in Iraq the first time. When it came down to it, three days before she was going to leave, she had her keys in her hand and she turned to me and she said "Mom, I can't go back. I just can't go back."

-snip-

SARA: Well, there were two sergeants that harassed her and one that sexually assaulted her in something called command rape while she was in Iraq; then a third harassed her when they returned from Iraq, so three sergeants that we are pressing criminal charges against.

DAVID: Can you define "command rape" for people who are not in the service or familiar with the term?

SARA: Sure, this is something I have learned, and the Army family therapistI've heard of a lot of stupid things. I have never heard of command rape. It's when your superior has life-or-death decisions over you, so they can tell you to run across a minefield, and you have to comply. Basically they have all the life-or-death decisions over you. They coerce you or do something with you that's sexual it's called command rape.
-snip-
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and this:

SARA: Well, I think that there's always room for more support. We're going up against the US military; I mean, it's pretty intimidating. You know, I'm a member of Military Families Speak Out, and they have been wonderful; Vets for Peace have been wonderful; Courage to Resist have been amazing. We've gotten a lot of support from a lot of people. When you get into the web site, you will see there's a link to a petition and so far we have about 2000 names of people that are signing on to support Suzanne and get her an honorable discharge as fast as possible.

[e-mail].

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remember when our female military was asking us to send them menstrual pads as the military wasn't supplying enough?

what's the count of military women in Iraq and Afghanistan getting pregnant? rape?, choice? or stupidity?

[Arkansas Granny]

1. It's appalling to think that these things are happening to our

female military members. I, for one, had assumed that this type of behavior was rare in today's Army.

Also, your remark about the military not supplying the female soldiers with menstrual pads is right on the mark. I have started sending care packages to our soldiers serving overseas and one of the items routinely requested by females soldiers is feminine hygiene items.

Details here: http://www.anysoldier.com/

If anyone wants to feel like they are truly supporting our troops, this would be a good place to start.