Winter Soldier (21 page)

In August 2006 I was admitted to the VA hospital in Brockton for inpatient psychological treatment. I was sent there because a lieutenant found me crying and thought I was suicidal. I was put on suicide watch while at the hospital and after a few days there the doctors said that I was dealing with PTSD and that my crying was the result of being raped and not a sign of being suicidal. They gave me Zoloft for depression but after a while I started feeling worse and felt the medication was to blame. The doctor at the VA agreed and we mutually decided that I’d get off the medication. I was sent back to Boston on August 8, 2006.

The next day I was transferred to the Force Optimization and Training branch in Boston. I was given a desk job and told that rape victims could not do any “real Coast Guard work.” I was told to sit there and not talk to anyone, so I did that for the next eight months. I was told that they were actually doing me a favor for putting me in FOT and not on the MAA force. The MAA force is where those who are waiting to get court-martialed are assigned. During this time there were two Coast Guardsmen assigned on MAA duty and were awaiting court-martial for child pornography charges. Why was a rape survivor being put in the same category as two pedophiles? 

On August 23, 2006, I was sent back to the Coast Guard Academy for a follow-up due to my being an inpatient at the VA. The psychologist’s first reaction when seeing me there was anger. He was angry that I was an inpatient at the hospital especially since I was not suicidal. His main concern were the high costs of inpatient care. I went to the hospital against my will. I was sent there in tears, because of tears. How could this have been my fault? He was also angry that I had stopped taking Zoloft, and said that I was “refusing treatment” and forced me to start taking Zoloft again. I brought up the rape and he said that the rape wasn’t why he’s seeing me. He also said that I should “get over the rape” since I was no longer at Station Burlington. He then told me that I’ll be recommended for a medical board for adjustment disorder and was escorted out.

During another visit with the psychologist he noted I was sexually active prior to the assault and knew my perpetrator. He argued that because this was true—and because they give out condoms and birth control in boot camp—that I was “fully prepared.” I met with Coast Guard Investigative Service who investigated the alleged sexual assault. I met with them twice and had countless failed attempts to contact them to know the outcome of the investigation. 

A lieutenant commander from District 1 legal team was assigned to be my legal advocate. According to him, it is dishonorable to “report a rape.” According to the Coast Guard’s core values of honor, respect, and devotion to duty, how am I honoring and respecting my shipmate for bringing a rape allegation against him? He also said he didn’t believe that I was assaulted, given that “One undergoes a security, background check to be able to serve in the Coast Guard. Only those that passed the criminal background check are able to serve and if he did not have a history of raping women in the past why would he be doing it now?” He also mentioned that I would go to prison unless I dropped the charges. Initially I refused to drop charges because I knew what happened to me, there was a confession by the rapist, and the evidence was there. I was naive in thinking that someone would actually do their job, put a criminal behind bars, but the system failed me. Eventually the threats from my lawyer were so severe and traumatizing that I had no other choice but to drop the charges.

The sexual assault allegation was not kept confidential. Almost everyone on base knew why I was transferred to Boston. On base I often heard my shipmates call me a “whore,” “slut,” and “a liar.” Another E-3 told me that “You’re hot, I’d love to rape you too.” Unfortunately I do not know his name. I was also receiving death threats. One day, while living in the barracks at ISC Boston, at around two or three in the morning there was a knock on the door. When I answered it, there were two intoxicated men in civilian clothes that threatened me and tried to get into my barrack room. It got so bad that I had to move off base.

On May 24, 2007, I received an honorable discharge under narrative reasons of “unacceptable conduct.” As a result of serving less than twenty-four months in the Coast Guard I am denied the GI Bill and a bonus that was promised to me by my recruiter. I am currently receiving ongoing medical treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Military Sexual Trauma at the Boston VA. The Boston VA confirmed that the psychologist of the United States Coast Guard misdiagnosed me with having adjustment disorder and personality disorder.

I served in the United States Navy from 1998 to 2004. I was a nuclear electronics technician aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. This placed me in an unusual situation because it was a pre-commissioning unit, which meant that I was there from the earliest stages of construction. So this also meant that most of the ship worked regular, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and we were able to go home at night; it was really great for us.

As a member of the Reactor Department, we were divided into four groups that worked rotating shift work, and this provided twenty-four hours of security and testing, and we worked jointly with the shipyard in these matters.

On one of these off-ships when there was a minimal crew on board, there was a young woman who was working in her divisional office. She had a direct superior come in and after speaking he dropped his pants and exposed himself to her. Fortunately, she recognized that this was not an off-color joke or the usual barrage of playful flirting but more of a flagrant violation. She took the proper method and reported this up her chain of command, and when this reached the senior enlisted commander in my department he took it and tried to initiate a cover-up. There were many reasons for this: because he hadn’t actually hurt her, perhaps they could agree on a compromise, and because maybe from his perspective he didn’t consider it a hostile environment. He was also two years away from retirement and her speaking out could have ruined his career at such a key moment for him.

She did not agree to this and went above her chain of command. When this account finally reached the upper chains of command and the two men had to explain themselves, the man who exposed himself was finally put into procedure for court-martial, and he was dishonorably discharged.

The darker side of this story was that the man who initiated the cover-up was given only a reprimand. He was trying to do what was “best for the department” and that was to keep us quiet and so only receiving a reprimand was the only action that was taken against him. This scene shows how members of the navy who try to play games of male dominance receive all but a free pass.

I was thirty-four years old when I walked in that recruiting station. I did so for the same reasons that I’m sitting here today; I love America. I know these are dark times, but I have great hope for the future.

I’m an out queer man. I knew under Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that things would not be easy, but I wanted to serve bad enough that I went along with that policy. I was naive. Once you’re in a fighting hole with someone who’s sharing the deep contents of their soul and willing to take a bullet for you, and you for them, to manufacture some bogus life is ridiculous. I would not spit in their face by doing so.

I have to say that my experience of serving as a queer man in the military was very different than some. People are still assaulted and sometimes murdered for being gay in our military, and those who institutionalize government-mandated discrimination of any sort such as a ban on gays in the military is wrong. It’s un-American. But those who think that lifting the ban on gays in the military will end homophobia are as naive as those who thought that in 1948 when we desegregated our troops that it ended racism. It did not.

I want to express gratitude for those marines who stood by me. They stood by me in war, they knew who I was, they knew everything about me, they stood by me in my wedding. They have gone very public and put themselves at risk to speak out on behalf of queers serving.

When I came back, I knew that I could not be a party to this occupation. I could not be true to my oath as a marine and continue to serve, so I went on CNN and came out of the closet to five million people and made them throw me out.

I heard too many stories about people who were coming out and getting deployed anyway. And I knew that because of my oath, my belief in God, and what I believe is right to do, I cannot participate in this very dangerous occupation.

At the core of this war machine is an ideology that is based on the gender paradigm and homophobia. That’s why even in the twenty-first century just about the worst thing you can say to a straight teenage boy is that he’s queer. I can tell you from personal experience that young straight men, otherwise good men, will go to great lengths and do horrible things to prove that they’re not gay.

This is the only way I can explain the cruel way some of my fellow marines treated the kids who came up next to our vehicles during our deployment. It’s the only way I can explain that some of my fellow marines thought it was fun to feed a stray dog antifreeze, which the dog found delicious, but causes a slow and painful death. I remember one night in Iraq some marines were trying to chase a mouse from underneath my tent. They were trying to kill it. They seemed thirsty for blood, any blood would do. It made me nervous. One lance corporal swung an ax handle at the mouse like a bat, before bringing down the blade and snuffing the life out of the innocent beast.

Somehow this idea of men are beings devoid of feelings and compassion and that women are weak and just a ball of emotions is at the center of all this. I can tell you now that my highest idea of someone who serves in our military has everything to do with dispelling these old ways of thinking around gender and sexuality, and everything to do with standing up for what our country supposedly stands for.

Gender and sexuality issues go to the core of the war itself, and I think that that’s the point of the title of this panel.

I was at a club in Virginia last year, it was an 18-and-older club, so that meant that most of the girls were eighteen and the guys were like thirty. I see this guy and he’s attractive and he has on a military shirt, he’s a recruiter. You’ve got these big strong guys in this club trying to recruit these young, eighteen-year-old girls into the military. It’s very clear that the process of sexual trauma begins at the point of recruitment, not at the point of basic training. For many of these young women, their first sexual encounter with a man is the recruiter, if they don’t have a father figure, if they don’t have brothers in their lives. That wasn’t my experience. I didn’t join in that sort of desperate state, but that’s a reality for many people and I want you to keep that in mind.