COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: Women
From Victim To Accused Army Deserter
Donna St. George, Washington Post
September 19, 2006
EUGENE, Ore. -- Suzanne Swift remembers standing in her mother's livingroom, hours away from her second deployment to Iraq. Her military gear
had already been shipped -- along with her Game Boy, her DVDs and
books, her favorite pink pillow, her stash of sunflower seeds. She had the
car keys in her hand, ready to drive to the base. Suddenly, she turned
to her mother.
"I can't do this," she remembers saying. "I can't go."
The Army specialist, now 22, recalls her churning stomach. Her mother's
surprise. All at once, she said, she could not bear the idea of another
year like her first. She was sexually harassed by one superior, she
said, and coerced into a sexual affair with another.
"I didn't want it to happen to me again," she said in an interview.
Now Swift is bracing for a possible court-martial. Arrested in June for
going AWOL, she detailed three alleged sexual offenses to Army
officials, who began an investigation. One incident had already been verified
and the perpetrator disciplined. But last Friday, the Army ruled that
the two other incidents could not be substantiated. It will soon decide
whether to take disciplinary action against Swift for her five-month
absence, spokesman Joe Hitt said.
If she is convicted of desertion, Swift faces prison time and a
dishonorable discharge.
Swift's case has galvanized antiwar activists and women's
organizations, who have started a petition drive and demonstrated near her base at
Fort Lewis, outside Tacoma, Wash. With more than 130,000 women deployed
since 2001, her case raises uncomfortable questions about how matters
between the sexes play out in the military.
It is complicated by the wartime setting and the fact that Swift did
not file formal complaints about the first two incidents while she said
they took place. (The Army investigation established that she had
complained about them privately.) Many female veterans say her case may be an
example of a raw fact of military life: that sexual offenses often go
unreported, that young, lower-ranking women are especially vulnerable
and that those harmed fear hostile treatment if they speak up.
"It's more common than, unfortunately, people realize," said Colleen
Mussolino, a founder of Women Veterans of America. "There are literally
thousands of women who have gone through similar circumstances."
The Pentagon says that more than 500 sexual assaults involving U.S.
forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been reported. But officials
acknowledge that the problem is larger than that and is made more complex by a
war deployment.
"Sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime in America, and
that's going to be true in the military as well," Pentagon spokesman
Roger Kaplan said.
Lory Manning, director of the Women in the Military Project, of the
Women's Research and Education Institute, pointed out that in the
military, sexual liaisons within a chain of command are not viewed as
consensual even if a subordinate goes along.
"The presumption is the subordinate might take it as an order and might
fear retribution if they say no," said Manning, a retired Navy captain.
"The more junior they are, the more unlikely it is that they can say no
without fearing the consequences."
19 and Just Out of Boot Camp
Suzanne Swift was 19 years old, one of the least-experienced members of
her unit, when she was deployed to Kuwait in February 2004. She had
completed boot camp and military-police training six weeks earlier and now
was part of the 66th Military Police Company. She gave her version of
her military experience during interviews over two days at her mother's
home in Eugene.
She said she had signed up with the military police because she thought
it would keep her out of Iraq. But when her unit received orders for a
year-long deployment, she went.
In Kuwait, she said, a platoon sergeant who had been friendly toward
her -- and who had assured her mother, "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll take
care of your daughter" -- stopped her as she was headed to the shower and
asked her bluntly: "Swift, why do you look like you want to" have sex
with me?
Stunned, she said she replied: "You have lost your mind."
A day later, on a convoy, he persisted, she said.
"Dude, no," she told him several times, she said.
Swift said she was unprepared for the come-ons, which had never
happened during training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. "I was like, this actually
happens? This goes on and it's okay?"
She said she reported the incidents to a soldier designated to handle
equal-opportunity complaints. He seemed receptive, saying he would tell
a captain, she said. But nothing happened.
Her unit soon moved on to Iraq, where her 30-member platoon, with three
other women, was based at Camp Lima in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad.
Their mission was to support Iraqi police.
Earlier, she said, she had noticed unusual behavior by her squad
leader, who warned her away from fellow soldiers with such advice as: "Watch
out for that guy. He's going to hit on you." At times, she said, he
pulled aside other soldiers and asked them: "What's going on with you and
Swift?"
She said other soldiers seemed leery of her friendship.
Privately, she said, the sergeant had asked hours of questions about
her life and previous relationships. Swift had grown up in a
single-parent family, attended an alternative high school and been married briefly.
One night, as they stood near a Humvee at Camp Lima, he grabbed her and
kissed her. "I didn't want to have sex with him," she said. "I didn't
like him." But she said she feared retaliation if she refused. "I had a
choice," she acknowledges, "but it wasn't much of a choice." She said
that some nights, he would pound on her door, drunk and pressing her for
sex.
When she ended the relationship after several months, she said, the
sergeant was vindictive. She contends that he ordered her to do 4 a.m.
workouts and to wear a wall clock around her neck and report every hour in
full gear. In all, she said, she was written up at least a dozen times
by the sergeant and by others whom she felt he encouraged.
One of her closest confidants was former Sgt. Zach Thompson, her team
leader, who had heard about the clock punishment from other soldiers. He
described Swift in an interview yesterday as positive and reliable.
"I couldn't have asked for a better soldier," he said. Unlike some new
privates, Swift did not founder, he said. She was "really intelligent
and would catch on really easily."
"She never told me she was being harassed or abused in any way while we
were in Iraq," he said. Had he known, Thompson said, "I would have told
her to make a formal complaint." He added: "She's never lied to me, so
if she said something, I would have to believe it was true."
Another woman who was in Swift's unit, who did not want to be
identified for fear of retribution, said that the same sergeant also
propositioned her during her tour in Iraq. She said she had no doubt it had
happened to Swift.
Although Swift did not file a complaint, she confided in her mother
during phone calls. Her mother, Sara Rich, said she grew so concerned that
she finally phoned her congressman, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D).
A spokesman for DeFazio said the office's records reflect that Rich
phoned in November 2004 to report sexual harassment of her daughter in
Iraq and to request help. The office told Rich that it could not help
unless Swift signed a privacy waiver.
Swift declined to sign, reminding her mother that she was still under
the sergeant's command in Iraq.
Handling Situations Privately
Although Army officials said Swift's allegations "could not be
substantiated" after a probe that included interviews with 23 soldiers, they
said the investigation found that she had reported incidents about two
individuals to a noncommissioned officer who said he would support her if
she went forward.
When she declined to make formal charges, he "advised her on how to
deal with the situation personally," which, the Army said, "ended what she
believed to be inappropriate behavior by two individuals."
The accused sergeant she had sex with is now out of the Army.
Swift's allegations also concern an incident after she returned home
from Iraq.
While at Fort Lewis, Swift said, another sergeant in her chain of
command made a number of lewd comments to her. One day, when she asked him
where to report for duty, he told her: "In my bed, naked."
She said that later, in front of her fellow soldiers, he asked her for
sex and she told him to shut up, using an expletive. He ordered her to
do push-ups. She reported him to the equal opportunity officer.
The sergeant was given a letter of admonishment and reassigned to
another unit. In the Army's news release about her case, officials noted how
well the complaint process worked in the incident at Fort Lewis.
The way Swift described it, sexual remarks are part of military
life--and she heard many of them. But she said there is a distinct difference
when it comes from a superior. "The other soldiers don't have power
over you," she said.
Since 2005, the Pentagon has stepped up efforts to aid in reporting
such incidents -- posting victims' advocates in many units, for example --
but even so, said Kaplan, the Pentagon spokesman, "when you're in Iraq,
you're quite spread out," and soldiers in small units may have
difficulties.
Swift had been home from Iraq for eight months when word came about a
second deployment in January. After she made her decision to not go, her
mother took her to a therapist, who diagnosed post-traumatic stress
disorder related to the alleged sexual offenses. (Swift said that the Army
later told her that based on its evaluation, she showed stress disorder
symptoms but did not have the full-blown disorder.)
Her mother also hired a lawyer, who contacted Fort Lewis to try to
arrange a discharge. But the Army said it would not negotiate with
deserters, according to Swift's mother. In June, Eugene's police department
came knocking at her mother's door.
Swift was arrested in the living room of her mother's home.
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