I enlisted in the Illinois National Guard when I was seventeen. It’s hard to be a veteran of the war and a woman because I feel a lot of the time my experience gets boiled down to what I experience as a woman, and I don’t get to talk about some of the things that I experienced as a soldier. But I’m gonna keep it to the issues of sexism, homophobia, and racism today, which I think are tools that we use to justify our degrading behavior toward the other, the enemy.
In this process of dehumanization, every veteran knows the first person to become dehumanized is the soldier themselves. They’re all used from day one to break people down. I mean, if my mother only knew that I would be hearing drill sergeants say to males right next to me in basic training, “Does your ‘P-word’ hurt? Do you need a tampon?” If my mother only knew.
I’m gonna talk more about how encompassing and pervasive the sexist climate was during my tour in Iraq. In my unit, rank structure was used to coerce women into sexual relationships. The incident that set the tone for the whole deployment took place while we were still stateside, waiting to go to the Middle East in Fort Riley, Kansas. We were told in class that according to the Rules of Engagement we should shoot anyone that we felt threatened by. We were told that we should be threatened by men and women because they could be hiding explosives under their long black robes and burkas. We should be threatened by pregnant women because it probably wasn’t a baby they had in their belly but explosives. We should be threatened by children because they were used as bait to lure us into situations. I felt that all the things they told us were used as tools to either emasculate the male enemies or condemn femininity as evil and dangerous.
While we were having this class outside, one of our platoon sergeants was watching us from his room window, and he took pictures of all the young females and later taped them to our door, really creepy pictures. When I tried to complain about this, I was told he didn’t hurt us, nothing was wrong. Over time, we heard this again and again, “He’s not hurting you. You can’t complain about this. He’s married.” There’s always this idea that you’re gonna ruin someone’s career if you talk about stuff.
Another incident I’d like to talk about was on Christmas Day 2003. I was at Baghdad International Airport and a CID officer was drunk, stumbling around our company area. He had a cup of vodka—I found him in this storage room on the side of our building alone, and he flashed me his badge. I just was like, “Why are you showing me your badge?” And he asked me, “Who can I fuck who will suck my dick?”
And at this point, I just was really just like, “Get outta here,” you know—“Just leave.” We tried to get rid of him, but he was the guest of a woman who was put into our company. We asked this woman to make him leave and thought he left, but apparently he didn’t. The next time we saw him, he was bleeding from his hand, and the story that we heard was that he cocked his gun and somehow caught his hand in it. I don’t know how he cut his hand, but that night there was a big investigation.
I want to read this memo to commanders in MEDCOM, Regional Medical Commands, and the subject is Military Treatment Management of Reported Alleged Sexual Assault Cases, Payment for Exams and Kits: “SAD kits”—SAD kits, which are rape kits—“are not included in TRICARE coverage. The Assistant Secretary of Defense is soliciting legislative changes to TRICARE benefit which will include these kits within covered TRICARE supplies. Until that occurs, beneficiaries may be liable for bills for these supplies. Some states may have victim assistance compensation programs which will pay for certain accommodations for victims of sexual assaults, including S-A-D kits.”
That’s how the military takes care of rape victims.
This is important not just because of what happens to people in the military. Think about Abu Ghraib, I mean, think about the way sexual objectification manifests itself and that’s what happening in Iraq to Iraqis, and it’s disgusting.