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Genevieve, I am so sorry for all you have nbeen through.      I think it's great that you had the courage to speak out.  You are a very strong lady and your story will help so many others.  

My story

In 1991, my financial aid for college fell through.  I joined the Air Force even though the Desert Storm was in full force.  I needed college money and I'd always believed in fighting for freedom.  I considered myself a strong, independent, feminist and I looked forward to being a female soldier.  I had thoroughly enjoyed my JROTC and ROTC training and I expected I'd rise to the top fairly well since I always had before.  I was comfortable in military structure.  It made sense to me.  I liked the efficiency.  Do a good job and get rewarded.  I tested high in one specific skill set and was placed in that field.  An area I excelled at.   

I finished Basic without much trouble and was sent to a training institute for my skill.  I arrived Nov. 12, 1991.  Just one month later, the first night we were allowed to wear our civilian clothes and leave base if we wanted to, I donned a new black mini skirt, and a new pair of high heels and made my way to the NCO club with some girlfriends.  We'd been there before but not in our civies and we were pumped up for a great night.  One of the things about being in the military as a female is that there are many more males than females.  Due to the nature of the training at our post, the odds were 7:1 which we were told was the highest ratio of females to males in the military at the time.  Also the post although it is an army post is inhabited by all branches of service as it serves as a training school for my skill set and every branch has a need for my specialty.  Although the majority of the post's population was between the ages of 18-21, drinking at the NCO club seemed to be expected.  The unspoken attitude on the subject seemed to be, "If you are old enough to die for your country, then you're old enough to have a drink.  Just don't get caught."  Even though I never once was carded and never once saw anyone get carded at the NCO club, there were random alcohol and drug tests conducted on Mondays.  To my knowledge, no one I knew was ever busted for underage drinking this way.

I cannot express just how hard it was to get a non-alcoholic drink at the NCO club either.  It was my mode of operation at the time to change to straight coke on the third drink.  Repeatedly, I'd taste the third drink and find out it was rum and coke or bourbon and coke, and attempt to send it back.  It didn't seem like it was intentional but rather that they couldn't imagine why anyone would order a non-alcoholic drink.

That night at the NCO club, I wanted to leave early.  My feet were hurting because my new shoes were too tight.  I wasn't looking forward to climbing that 45 degree hill back up to the barracks wearing 4 inch high heels that were pinching my toes.  I tried to get one of the girls to leave with me.  We all felt a little outnumbered and we'd commented to each other that it didn't feel safe walking through the path in the woods late at night alone.  No one was ready to go and I couldn't stand those shoes another hour so I headed out by myself against my better judgment.  About half way up the hill, I realized I should have gone to the bathroom before I left.  I couldn't hold it until I got home, but there was no where to go.  Everything was locked up and closed down between the NCO club and the barracks.  I went into the woods a little ways.  Far enough that I couldn't be seen from the path, but close enough I could still see if someone came down the path.  I put one hand on a tree to balance myself and went.  This is how I ended up in the woods in the middle of the night with my underwear down and my skirt up.

The next thing I recall was my head hitting the tree hard repeatedly.  When I think back I try to remember if I heard anyone coming.  I can vaguely hear the leaves rustling, but it didn't sound like someone approaching.  I wasn't alarmed by the sound.  I was dazed, and everything after that had this shiny surreal quality that seemed fake to me.  Much of it seems to be viewed as if I was floating above myself watching it happen to someone else and it doesn't have any physical pain attached to it even though I can clearly see that it is painful. 

Part of that seems to come from the strange misunderstanding that I had never considered before.  The pain wasn't where my mind told me it should be.  Perhaps I was very sheltered and naïve previous to this incident, but I'd never given much thought to sodomy because it had never been something I'd had to think about before.  The reality of it was a truly mind bending experience and it took me a long time to understand what happened to me that night.  I simply couldn't comprehend it.  Instead my mind shattered leaving me with an inability to grasp at first if the whole thing actually happened or if I'd imagined it.  I'm told this happens to a lot of survivors although not all of them so I include it in my story in hopes that someone who had felt lone in this due to their perception of what happened can realize they aren't alone.  I do this even though it is hard to speak of. 

Another thing that caused me great amounts of stress as long as I misunderstood it was floating around watching the whole thing.  It made it seem like perhaps it was a dream, a really sick one.  Now I know that many survivors report this affect during or directly after their assault.  It's caused by dissociation which is the minds natural reaction to being in an unnatural situation.  Finally, nothing I saw seemed possible.  Not everyone will experience this kind of thing and those of us who do are often afraid to admit what we saw because we know how crazy it sounds, but I'm including this in my description for those who experienced something similar.  It was as if I could see two things at once.  What was happening, and an impossible riddle of what was happening.  Of the two of them the riddle actually appeared more real than the real events did.  I saw a centaur (yes, that horseman creature from mythology) bucking into my back repeatedly until we were one person.  Then I saw tree spirits or fairies come out of the tree trunks and stand there and cry.  All this while, I was still floating above myself watching the attack as well.  The man who attacked me was wearing fatigues and an arm cuff that signified he was an MP (military police).  In the dark, I never saw his name tag or his face.  I didn't see them because even though I felt like I was floating around looking down, in reality I was jammed up against a tree trunk and my head had been bashed pretty good.

It all ended as fast as it started.  I don't know exactly how long it was until I got myself together and finished the walk up the hill through the woods to the barracks.  It probably wasn't as long as it felt like.  No one said anything to me and I didn't say anything to them.  I immediately took a shower and washed my hair.  I sat on the floor in the public shower for a long, long time.  People came and went showering around me.  I don't remember who they were or if they noticed me.  Finally, I left.  On the way back to my dorm room, a girl stopped me and talked about something.  I don't know what she said.  Finally, she noticed something was wrong with me and commented that I had shaved one leg and not the other.  I don't know why she noticed, but she was right.  I went to bed.

I didn't tell anyone.  I knew I couldn't.  Just two weeks before, my roommate had been sexually assaulted.  Some friends had brought her to the room and carried her in.  She was so drunk she could not move and proceeded to throw up for hours in the trash can that I kept putting under her face.  She was also underage and only half in her uniform but it was clear she'd been wearing her uniform when she began drinking which is against the rules, especially since we weren't allowed yet to get into civilian clothing.  I'm sure now she had alcohol poisoning and she probably could have died.  But as they say, "what happens in the unit stays in the unit."  I took care of her all night.   There were several knocks at the door from people I didn't know and didn't allow access.  Even if I had known at that point what exactly had happened to her, leaving our dorm room after midnight curfew or allowing guests was prohibited.  Once I'd started covering for her, I was in eyeball deep.  Finally, about 3am, the first sergeant knocked and told me to open the door or accept the consequences.  That was how I found out that my roomie had gotten into a cab with her pants around her ankles and so obviously incoherent that the taxi driver had reported that she'd been likely raped.  He reported it because he feared for her.  She never would admit to the rape.  She wouldn't admit to anything.  My guess is she couldn't remember accurately what happened and decided not to say anything.  She only told me that she didn't know that she was drinking alcohol.  I believe her.  I believe she drank the alcohol after she drank whatever they slipped her.  Didn't matter.  She was demoted to airman for being intoxicated underage in uniform.  I remember thinking... she was only half in uniform maybe they should have only half demoted her.  I couldn't risk the same thing happening to me.  I couldn't risk reporting to the police not knowing if the person I'd be reporting to was in fact the man who raped me.  I had also been told that if my name appeared on a police report even as a victim of crime, I wouldn't get the security clearance needed to do my job.  I couldn't imagine why I would have ever joined the military in the first place if I wasn't going to be allowed to do what I love.  I had too much to lose. 

In only a few days being silent became too much for me so I took another option.  I requested counseling.  I thought as long as only one person knew it would be easier on me.  They sent me to a place called, "The Mental Hygiene Clinic".  Sarcasm was fast becoming my only friend and I remember thinking, "yeah that's it.  My problem is that I have a dirty mind and if they can clean it up for me, everything will be alright."  That wasn't entirely wrong I was becoming a seething cauldron of hate.  However, mental hygiene wasn't much help.  They gave me a male counselor and told me I couldn't have a female one.  I was extremely uncomfortable talking to him and he seemed extremely uncomfortable listening to me.  The only thing seeking counseling at that time and place did for me was get me transferred to another career field for "seeking too much counseling".  That was exactly what I'd been trying to avoid by not telling anyone what had happened, and yet I was relieved when they told me because I would be leaving Monterrey.  I wouldn't have to worry anymore that the rapist was still lurking in the shadows or worse, that I had been rubbing shoulders with him in my daily duties and didn't even know it.

Things were starting to be real bad for me.  Even though I wasn't in the same location that seemed to only reinforce that my fears were somewhat paranoid.  I had deep seated insecurities about the way I'd seen those impossible things when the attack happened and I was afraid I wasn't mentally sound.  I managed to never attend a single morning formation at the next base I was stationed at.  Being in a large crowd had become extremely uncomfortable for me, especially triggered by large groups of males and people wearing uniforms.  This was problematic because I was in the military.  Seems like a given but I was terrified by everyone and everything that surrounded me and I had no way of escaping.  It wasn't like I could just quit and go home.  I was having a lot of nightmares.  I was having trouble sleeping.  I became an expert at blending in, not being noticed, not drawing attention to myself.  When I left that base because I had graduated training, my first sergeant commented that she'd only known who I was the last three days I had been there and then only because she was preparing my transfer.  I was just relieved that since I couldn't leave without talking to her, at least she was a woman.

At my next base, things should have been easier for me and in many ways they were.  I excelled at my job.  I worked with mostly female staff.  When I went home, I had a dorm room to myself and I didn't have to associate with anyone if I didn't want to.  A few months later, everything went very sour very fast.  A fellow service member who lived down the hall from me began making unwelcome advances and when I refused him he began leaving flowers, love letters and the like in front of my door and appearing everywhere I went off base.  It was unnerving.  People were only just beginning to talk about stalking.  I was encouraged by a co-worker to make an unofficial complaint to the first sergeant in hopes that he could put a stop to the behavior without causing irreparable career damage to what was clearly "a misguided boy".  I did what I was advised to do.

The first sergeant listened and sounded positive about the fact that I had chosen to take a non-official approach in favor of doing permanent damage to another service member's career.  As if reporting someone for wrong-doing is what causes the damage not that they were doing wrong.  He promised to take care of the situation.  The next day I was told to report to his office.  By this time, he had spoken to the stalker and had come up with an entirely different tune.  I will probably never know what that guy told him, but he told me I would be seriously punished and brought to the commander's attention for an article 15 if I was ever to make such unfounded accusations again when I was clearly a promiscuous girl who sent misleading signals and then cried about the attention I received.  I was stunned into silence although with all the shouting I don't know how I would have gotten a word of defense in edgewise.

That night I opened my dorm door to a knock.  There were no spy holes to see who was knocking.  He forced me onto the bed and raped me.  The whole time he kept telling me that I was just confused about our relationship and I needed to understand that he cared about me.  It didn't matter what I said, he wouldn't stop.  I yelled for help but no one came.  I could hear their television set so I know they were home, but they just turned it up.  The next morning as I was leaving for work, a guy I had been on a couple of dates with came up to me.  The stalker was his roommate.  He was furious and hurt.  He said he knew about my relationship with his roommate and that I shouldn't expect him to appreciate being two-timed with his own friend.  It blew my mind.  Apparently, the stalker had already told him a completely false version of what had happened.  I was beginning to get a clearer picture of what he might have told the first sergeant.  And both of them believed him and not me.  They hadn't even asked me for verification.  They had assumed the worst of what he'd said was true without giving me the benefit of the doubt at all.

I knew if I reported the rape that the report would be on the first sergeant's desk before close of business.  I'd already been threatened with an article 15 and any charges applicable for making an unofficial report.  Making an official false report would be punishable by jail time in a federal prison.  It would be my word against his except everyone who knew about it already believed his version and I couldn't back up mine.  Again, I decided the odds were too great against me.  Little did I know that this time I was pregnant.

 I found out a few weeks later.  By this time, the first sergeant had been transferred.  Now he was my direct supervisor.  If you get pregnant while serving in the military, they give you only 24 hours to inform your direct supervisor of the pregnancy.  They do this supposedly for the protection of the fetus as many career fields require exposure to situations, chemicals, physical stressors, or other hazards to a pregnant woman.  You agreed to be put in harm's way when you signed up for the military but the baby didn't.  The truth is a lot of it is legality.  Your fetus can sue them.  You can't.  So there I am, and I have to tell guess who that I'm pregnant and I'm obviously unwed.  The first thing he asked me wasn't if I was okay.  He didn't congratulate me and I'm not sure congratulations would have been in order, but he didn't know that.  Or at least he shouldn't have known that.  He asked me who the father was.  I couldn't tell him.  I hadn't told him about the rape and I wasn't about to now that I had to see him every day all day long.  It burned every bone in my body to have to tell anyone before I knew how I felt about it.  I didn't know if I wanted to keep the baby, adopt the baby out, or abort the baby.   I didn't know what I was feeling. I hadn't had time to process it.  But I knew the choice was mine and mine alone to make and it was driving me crazy that of all the things he'd ask me it would be this ridiculous question that was absolutely none of his flipping business in the first place.  I told him that it wasn't his place to ask me that, and I paid a heavy price for saying it to.  I wouldn't say to him that I didn't know which would have probably been prudent, but I couldn't bring myself to say that lie even in self-defense because he'd already told me he thought I was promiscuous. And I just flatly refused to bolster his opinion that I was by not being sure who had fathered my child.  It was stupid pride and in hindsight I could have played that situation much differently.  He took my defiance of his authority quite personally and made my life a living hell for the rest of the time I was in the military.  Little did I know that wouldn't be long.  If I had, I might have taken comfort, but I'd signed up for 6 years and I'd only completed 1 so far.  I had every reason to believe I was going to be under his direct supervision for a very long time.  People in my career field usually did their entire career at that one command never being transferred because it was the only place you needed that stupid security clearance I'd gotten to do that job.  Once they invested the funds to get you the clearance we didn't ever leave that base because it was a useless investment as you didn't need it to do that job anywhere else in the military. 

What impressed me was the swiftness of their injustice.  The month before I had been nominated for Airman of the month and people had been teasing me about being the commander's sweetheart because he often called me himself when he needed something.  I did good work and I worked hard.  None of that mattered anymore, I had fallen from grace, and it was about to get very ugly.  I started getting a pile of negative paperwork in my file.  I was officially reprimanded for my hair being out of place after throwing up during work hours due to morning sickness.  My duties increased and became bizarre.  The windows had never been cleaned in the 6 months I'd worked in that office but when they found out that the smell of window cleaner or any ammonia made me throw up violently, it became part of my duties to clean the windows three times a day.  My supervisor informed me "Full Metal Jacket" style that morning sickness was a myth because his wife never had it and that I was to "stop puking on the double" or face "corrective custody" for "dereliction of duty".  I was told I expected special treatment for being pregnant which was not a condition for such treatment and that if I could not preform my duties with the same professionalism using pregnancy for a crutch then I would be relieved of them and punished accordingly.  I was officially reprimanded for "not being early" to report to duty.  This one particularly impressed me with unfairness as I was 5 minutes early in spite of barfing in the toilet for 20 minutes before I had to report and that while I was still getting reamed verbally 20 minutes later, the rest of the staff walked in now 15 minutes late but no one said anything to them at all.  I started to look really bad physically as a result of all this stress and I was no longer allowed to be alone.  (I was told it was for my own protection but no one ever considered sending me to get medical treatment or mental counseling if they really feared for my mental health at that point.)  I wasn't allowed to make private phone calls.  Someone had to listen to everything I said on my side of the conversation. 

That's when I realized I was going to have to do something drastic.  I remembered my mother telling me when I was a small child that if I were ever kidnapped, I should call her if at all possible and say "yes" to everything and she'd know I was in trouble.  I called mom while they listened to me.  I said yes no matter what she said and to her credit it only took her a few minutes to figure out something was wrong and that I wasn't playing a joke on her.  I'm sure she could hear it in my voice.  She did two things immediately.  She called the base commander.  She flew to where I was and insisted on seeing me.

I didn't know what she'd done so when I reported for duty the next day. I was surprised to see the unit commander sitting in the center of my office with a circle of empty chairs.  He had everyone in the office come in for the briefing.  Somehow what had once been a very private matter and always should have remained that way had become a briefing for everyone I worked with and for.  My entire chain of command was present.  He told me if I had felt intimidated or controlled he was sorry I had gotten the wrong impression that everyone was simply concerned for my welfare.  He told me my mother would be arriving at the airport in less than an hour and he had the paperwork for me to take immediate leave and go with her to decide what I wanted to do.  Everything was filled out.  All I had to do for it to take effect was sign.  This is not the normal procedure for taking leave.  It has to be arranged weeks in advance and goes through an approval process.  I signed.  I also asked him for permission to speak freely, and I told him there was no point in lying.  They did so mean to intimidate me and they did so mean to control me and no one there was concerned about my welfare no matter what they said.

Three days later, I was completely out processed from the military.  It didn't matter that I still owed them a 5 year obligation.  Honorable discharge Oct 8, 1992.  I'm grateful that's the way it ended, but until then I never wanted to get out.  I didn't know what I'd do for a job or to support the baby.  Little did I know that wasn't going to matter.

I lost the baby immediately.  I sank into a terrible depression and railed insanely at anyone who asked me when my last period was at any medical appointment I went to.  I was sent to counseling.  I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  I got disability first from social security and then later I got a non-service connected pension from the military.  They would never admit that any of my problems had anything to do with anything that happened while I was in the military.  Finally, about 4 years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD secondary to MST.  That means I have severe problems due to the trauma I experience from the rapes which happened while I was in the military.  However, in spite of that, I still get denied my service connection compensation because I'm not a combatant and there is no official record of the rapes that occurred in the military without a police report.

Over the last two decades, I have been homeless countless times, I lost custody of my only child as I was unable to care for her due to my disability, I've lived in my car, floated from place to place to place with an inability to make ties to a community or the people in it.  For a long time, I couldn't have meaningful relationships with anyone in my family, with a spouse, with friends.  I was completely shut off.  I realize in hindsight that all those years I was roaming the country homeless that I only kept moving out of fear of being in one place long enough to get hurt again.  It became an exhaustive cycle that lead to more and more debilitation for me.  I've acted out in anger, fear, self-destructive tendencies and sexually.  For a long time I beat myself up and didn't understand why I did the things I did.  I've tried to reclaim my power in every way possible and I've tried to drown my sorrows by every means available.  None of that solved anything and most of it made things worse.  Two years ago, I was sent to the VA PTSD 2ndary to MST intensive treatment inpatient program.  On the third day of the program I was told I had to leave because I was unable to participate effectively in treatment.  During the whole process you are only allowed to miss two hours of treatment.  I missed three hours in three days due to pain and depression.  Still many people get a lot out of that type of therapy and if you haven't tried it you should.  I've been medicated a thousand different ways since all this began.  For me, medications don't work, but for many people they have so don't give up on them unless you are positive it's the right move for you and leave yourself open to the possibility you could be wrong.  I did.  However, in my case, I found I actually improved once I was off all the medication.  I think it has to do with timing because in the past, if I got off the medication, I got worse.  But this time, it was different.  I don't suggest it will work for anyone else.  However, I've finally found something that does work for me. 

2 years ago, I got a PTSD service dog.  Her name is Molly.  We go everywhere together which is good because I can't go much of anywhere without her.  I apparently have a two block limit on how far I can go without Molly.  I hit the ground curled in a ball and have the worst panic attack imaginable.  It's like a combination of a heart attack and a flashback at the same time.  People have mistaken them for seizures.  Molly is the best at handling them, however.  Once I stopped trying to go anywhere without her I haven't had another one of the bad ones.  Now it's a much milder form.  Service dogs are not for everyone either.  You have to be willing to commit to having a dog go everywhere with you.  Consider for a moment that you will never go to the bathroom alone or shower alone or be alone again.  If you are ready for that kind of togetherness, think on this.  Even your spouse will likely spend part of his day at work or going somewhere else, but a service dog will not.  Also, it's not a really great idea if you adore animals.  Molly is not my friend.  She is my constant companion and we are friendly.  But she has a job to do and if I interfere with her she can't do it.  If it's not easy for you to apply discipline to someone under you, you will not get as much out of having a service dog and there is a lot of work involved to not get the full benefits and still have to have constant interaction.  Here's another thing to think on, you can leave your kid with a babysitter to have some time for yourself, but you can't do that with a service dog.  "Yourself" has just become us.  "Your time" however is still your time, you just won't be alone. This is truly an "until death do us part" scenario.  And if you are like me, that just means you'll have to get used to another service dog.  I hope Molly and I have a good ten or fifteen years together before she passes, but if I'd gotten married, I could get divorced in six months.  You can't divorce a service dog either.  It is truly a serious commitment, but one that I'm not sorry in the least that I made.  I'm only telling you guys this because this is not a thing you can change your mind about once you've done it.

Recent events have made a lot of things better for me.  I don't want anyone to think it hasn't.  I know I've already taken so much time to tell this story properly, but I don't want to short change the positive things just because this is turning into a novel.  I found out quite recently, that it's never too late to make a police report about a rape that happened in the military provided certain conditions apply.  If the rape took place on a federal land, a military installation and the person outranked you or you were prevented by someone who outranked you to make the report then you can file a report indefinitely.  It should be said I sincerely doubted this information when I first heard it because I'd never heard it before and I couldn't verify it.  In fact, when I tried to verify it I was told repeatedly that the answer was no.  What they should have told me instead of "no" was that they "didn't know" because that was true.  They probably don't know.  But you can.  There is no statute of limitations concerning criminal activities that take place on federal land or military installations or by people who outrank you because that plays an important role in why people can't come forward.  They know you can't while you are in service, but once you are no longer serving nobody can stop you.  I'm currently in the process of filing a police report for the assault that happened in CA.  I am unsure whether I will repeat the process to file one on the second assault.  I'm not sure how the law applies exactly because I actually out ranked the second rapist so I'm not sure how to apply the facts since I was still intimidated into not reporting it.  That one gets sticky and I get discouraged thinking perhaps one report is as good as two.  And even if it's not it's still better than none at all.

Furthermore, one of the qualifications to receive benefits until this year when it came to service connection and PTSD was that you couldn't connect PTSD to military service if you had never served in combat.  That pretty much eliminated female veterans.  We weren't allowed in combat areas even though many have discovered sometimes the combatant area finds you when you are working support.  But obviously you don't have to have been in combat to be sexually assaulted while serving in the military.  It was a loophole that got most PTSD secondary to MST cases thrown out instantly.  It's one reason I've never even reached the evaluation stage of my case.  This year congress changed that law to include non-combat stressors.

Nowadays (unlike when I was serving), the proper procedure for filing a police report after the fact is to contact the SARC or Sexual Assault Response Coordinator for the location you were at when you were assaulted.  Even if you don't want to file a police report and simply want someone to talk with truly confidentially, the SARC is the person.  You simply let the SARC know you want to make a "Restricted Report" which keeps everything confidential.  An "Unrestricted Report" means you want the information to move forward.

 I found that number by doing an online search for the phone numbers of the installation I had been stationed at and then calling the police department for that post.  Then I called the police department and asked specifically for the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator.  You definitely have to ask specifically because there is a Victims of Crime Advocate as well but that person cannot help you with a sexual assault and will likely not even call you back and tell you so.  Your messages just disappear into voice mail purgatory and you never know what happened.  The SARC is a civilian paid by the federal government with specific training in how to handle your case.  That's all they do and I found that once I got to the right person everything changed and I was treated with sensitivity, respect and dignity.  But it took a considerable amount of persistence to get to the SARC.  I must have made 20+ phone calls to finally be given 4 separate numbers of which only one worked and lead me to 2 more numbers which finally lead me to the SARC.  She however called me back in like 30 minutes and I haven't had any trouble since I contacted her.  My point is don't give up.  If you get a no, you haven't found the correct person yet.  Keep looking.  Hopefully, by getting this information from my experience you will be able to avoid some of the extra legwork I had to do to get results.  I'm currently waiting the Air Force investigators from my area coming in person to take the report.  They don't always do this so don't be offended if you have to go to them and if you can appear at the actual police station for the installation where it happened the SARC will meet you there and things will go much more smoothly and quickly.  However as I've stated before, I don't have the ability to leave the house much and I cannot drive due to epilepsy brought on by the head injury I sustained during the attack.  It's nice to know they can and will work with you in extenuating circumstances.  If for any reason you cannot find the SARC for your area or something else goes wrong, you always have the option of contacting the IG at US Army Criminal Investigations Command or CID.  That website is: http://www.army.cid.mil/ I talked to them, but decided to try the SARC route first.  Be advised that the person I talked to told me that filing a police report after the fact was impossible.  Again, they should say "I don't know" instead of "no" when they don't know, but they won't.  So don't take no for an answer, speak to someone else.  And remember that they must respond to an IG complaint even if it is only to put you in contact with the proper representative which will definitely get you to the SARC if all other methods have failed.

I cannot appropriately express how empowering this act of filing the police report has been for me.  I feel a little like I should buy the whole town a drink but I can't afford to.  Besides it seems to me that the better use of my enthusiasm is spreading the word, because this isn't just good news for me.  I know there are others of you out there and I want you to feel this good too.  I don't have any delusions that they will actually catch and prosecute the man who assaulted me all these years later, but as my mother pointed out, I couldn't have been the only one.  With enough information from multiple sources, they very well might be able to figure out who it was.  It's even possible they already know.

Thanks to Molly, I'm able to attend classes this coming February to be a state certified peer counselor.  There's been some talk at the local VA of hiring me to work with PTSD patients.  SO far there's no money involved in the program, but I'm willing to try that out for a while on a volunteer basis to get some experience until they can provide a salary or I get another offer.  I'd like to start an organization for female veterans only.  I've encountered so many women who served and either don't use their benefits or don't know they have access to them.  It's a man eat man world out there in VA land and I'd like to give female veterans an option to seek female veterans out for advice.  You can't do that now.  All the service organizations like the DAV and AMVETS and VFW and Purple Hearts society are either entirely run by men service officers or almost entirely.  If a man breaks his leg playing basketball while he's off duty but still serving in the military he gets benefits relating to that injury for life.  If a female has a ectopic pregnancy and has to have a radical hysterectomy while she is in the military she also qualifies for benefits relating to her medical condition for life.  But no one will tell her and even if she finds out, no one will know how she should apply for her benefits and chances are they will tell her she doesn't qualify.  Is it any wonder that I've been trying to get my benefits and being denied repeatedly for years. 

I'm hopeful that all of that will change now that I've begun filing the police report and with this new law congress passed.  It's time to be able to move on with my life, and make a difference in other people's lives.  My daughter and I have begun interacting again.  She is 10 years old and lives half way across the country but I've got to visit her this summer.  She's just getting to the age where she really needs her mom.  As soon as I finish up this appeal for compensation, I can relocate to where she is.  Today, I know that I may not be the best person for her to live with considering all the difficulties, but I can be supportive and be a part of her life in spite of everything.  Thank you for reading my story.  I'm sorry it took so long.  But I hope you can see from it that light can come out of any darkness no matter how black and cold that darkness is.