July 7, 2006 at 06:52:16

Command Rape

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By David Swanson (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)

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SARA: That's exactly right. The first thing they said to her when she got off the bus at boot camp, was the sergeant yells, he said "You blankety-blank-blank all think that you're not going to Iraq? Well, your recruiter lied. You're all going to Iraq and you're all going to die!" Scared the hell out of Suzanne.

DAVID: And she's been to Iraq for one tour, right?

SARA: One tour, exactly.

DAVID: When did she go and when did she come back?

SARA: She went February of '04 to February of '05.

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 due...well 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.

DAVID: A sergeant raped a specialist?

SARA: Yeah, a male sergeant raped a male specialist on a training expedition a couple weeks before they were to be redeployed to Iraq.

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."

DAVID: But what was done specifically to her that led her to refuse to go back?

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 therapist...I'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.

DAVID: So, at this time, what is Suzanne's status, legally and otherwise? Is she free to move about the country? What's happening?

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David Swanson is the author of the upcoming book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press and of the introduction to "The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. (more...)

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