Would I be thrown out of the Army as "justice" for being sexually assaulted?

I grew up in a big yellow Queen Anne on Mullin St in Watertown, NY.  I was raised a typical little girl, dreaming of Prince Charming riding in to sweep me off my feet, imagining white picket fences, cake plates, his & her towels, furniture, kitchen appliances, 450-count sheets, and everything that comes with a big "white wedding".  My mother was the college-educated daughter of a welder at the Cadillac Tank Factory, and my father was a war orphan cum mechanical engineer.  They taught me the streets were paved with gold if you only worked hard enough.

My father, having literally outrun both the Nazis and the Soviets as a young boy, felt as though every day he woke up in America was a Saturday. Although he was as strict as any parent born in 1938 would likely be, he also had a sense of humor for days.  When he pulled splinters out of little fingers, he would tell hilarious tall tales, "Did I ever tell you?  Back when I was in the Army, I was the Chief Splinter Puller to the High Commander of Allied Forces in all of Germany…" and on the tale would go.  He had been the Army's Chief Pancake Flipper, Staple Puller, and a thousand other things too. 

My father was already out of the Army before my parents met, but we lived just down the road from Camp Drum.  As far as I knew back then, Army bases were good places to go picking blueberries and huckleberries, and sometimes watch the choppers thwup-thwup overhead.  We sometimes went up to Sackets Harbor to visit one of my dad's friends who had served in WWI.  He taught me how to shoot pool when I was so little I needed a stool to reach the table, and once in a very blue moon - told little bits about The War.  We moved to Pennsylvania when I was eight, but the Army remained a constant presence in my life.

I grew up watching slide shows of countless castles and cathedrals all through Germany, Italy, and anywhere else my father could drive his little TR3 on Pass or Leave.  We never went to theme parks, but our family vacations were chock full of museums, cathedrals, science centers, historic military forts, etc.  Getting to know the world "beyond the County Line" was very important to my family.

My mother taught us home economics and my father taught us framing and auto-mechanics, among other things.  My mother always said, "Girls should go to college to get their B.S., not their MRS." I was raised in the arts: starting piano at eight, painting lessons at ten and violin at thirteen. Still, when my senior year in high school arrived, I wasn’t certain about a college major. An Army recruiter came visiting, and I figured what the heck! I could go pay my service to the country that welcomed my father, and see the world in the process! I wasn’t a fool to the reality of the Army: my father had been a NIKE missile mechanic, no fairytale there.  My parents were surprised, but serving had always been a thought somewhere in the back of my mind.

Before going into the Army, my life had been so full of activities, Saturday language school, Cross-Country running, Orchestra, Junior Philharmonic and more, that I had never even been on a date before I shipped for Basic Combat Training in August of 1990.  Once I was at the Defensive Language Institute, I started dating guys.  It was the thing to do, and they were nice enough. Over the course of 1991, I was dating one particular fellow, and we eventually decided to get married.  We planned to meet and tell our parents over the winter holidays.  But, he got out of the Army in August of 1991, due to knee injuries, and moved back to Oklahoma. The long distance was too much strain on our young relationship and we drifted apart quickly.

I had been so close to my Prince Charming and my white picket fence, but then it was all gone. Things were not really clicking with other fellows in quite the same way they seemed to click for my gal friends, so I began to question myself: Was I really straight?

A fall from a training tower during BCT eventually led to bursitis (now arthritis) in both hips and problems with my spine. I spent nearly a year on medical hold at DLI after graduation, and had plenty of time to ponder, but I still dated men because my mother insisted that I simply hadn't found Mr. Right.  During my time on hold, I worked as just about every kind of clerk imaginable: Orderly Room, Chaplain's Office, Gymnasium, Mail Room, Garrison Command, Orderly Room again, and then Mail Room again.  Although I was still suffering with my BCT injuries, plus migraines that had started at DLI, the Medical Review Board judged me fit for duty.  My unit at DLI had believed the MRB would medically retire me, so they had never allowed me any language lab time; hence, I was force-reclassed to a different MOS with a lower language proficiency requirement.

At my next station, the Army Military Intelligence School at Ft. Huachuca, I had to wait two months for classes to start.  My physical profile meant I couldn’t mow lawns, but I "knew" MSWindows 3.11 and I could type 65wpm – slow for a 71L but worlds faster than most other casuals in 1992.  Again, I was a clerk: MILPO first and then the Troop Medical Clinic.  I had arrived with a medical profile, plus a higher security clearance than needed for my new MOS. My new cadre decided that the Army must have had special plans for me, I had all these qualifications, but was too injured to ship overseas.  Because my war orphan father had served in a rapid deployment NIKE missile unit and had very little family to investigate, my own clearance was finalized very rapidly, adding fuel to their fires, and they weren’t one bit interested in the "why."  In their minds, I was a huge disappointment, plain and simple.  They were not as nice as they could have been, and I felt eyes on me at every moment.

I continued to date men, yet still questioned my orientation. I still hadn't been able to click with any fellows the way my gal friends did.  During my time at Ft. Huachuca, I visited a friend in a different brigade one day, but he was still on daytime duty.  He signed me into his billet so that I could hang out there to wait.  I was napping on my friend’s bed and his roommate (who I had never met) came in from the gym. I awoke to this roommate climbing on top of me and pinning me down.  The roommate exposed himself, and told me he "knew" what I wanted to do to him, where, why, and how. All the while, I was physically fighting to get him off of me and protesting.  At one point during the struggle, he actually asked me, "So are you a lesbian, or are you really that much of a prude?!?"  I can only guess he believed he was so divine that only lesbians and prudes could resist his manliness.

I finally got him off of me, at which point he grabbed his towel and ran off for a shower.  I never went back to that room; it was months before I ran into my friend again whilst shopping at the PX one day.  After the assault, I was terrified.  What would happen if I pressed charges and this guy accused me of being a lesbian to take the heat off of himself?  Would I be thrown out of the Army as "justice" for being sexually assaulted?  Even if I had former boyfriends testify on my behalf, my clearance would be suspended if there was any investigation, and I could be thrown out for suspicion of being bisexual.  My mind was flooded with worst-case scenarios.  I said nothing.  I reported nothing.  I repressed the whole thing ... including any questions about my sexuality.  I was straight and nobody could tell me any different. (Back then, I had two gal pals with whom I was practically inseparable, but in my mind, each was just a storybook best friend, the kind you read about in novels, but never think you’ll actually find.)  I had myself so convinced I was straight, that in 1993 and 1994, I even cracked the jokes about "Clinton's New Army" right along with everyone else.

After graduating Intel school in May 1993, I transferred from E Co. into C Co. of the 309th MI Battalion, the "prior-service" company, and went back onto medical hold for another Medical Review Board because my medical problems had gotten worse.  I spent a few months as an Orderly Room Clerk.  At one point, I filled in for a few weeks in the office of MG Paul E. Menoher Jr. (then Commander of the 111th MI Bde) during the time his civilian secretary was on leave.  Talk about feeling out of place, there’s nothing quite like an E-4 Specialist answering phones for a two-star General!  All of the NCO’s on casual status in my Company were on Security Hold. Being the highest-ranking "casual" with the proper finalized clearance, I got the tap.  After that, I returned to the Orderly Room. I spent my last few months working at the MI school’s Exploitation Committee: part clerk, part graphic designer/layout hanger, part interrogation role player.  In my two years at Ft. Huachuca, I also had the chance to participate in the first and second ever 111th MI Bde CFTX – a Combined Brigade level static Field Training Exercise.  These were opportunities for each of the units to "set up shop" out in our field compounds and bivouac areas.  It enabled each of the units to practice our own field set-ups, as well as acquaint ourselves with each of the various other intelligence specialties, and learn how their jobs integrated with our own, sterilized according to clearance of course.

During this time, the Mental Hygiene Clinic started me in Stress Management group due to the stresses of "life in limbo," then bumped me over into Survivors Group.  Looking back, I can only guess the counselors suspected exactly what I didn’t (at that time) know I had repressed: the assault.

The Medical Review Board didn't retire me; instead I received a Medical bar to re-enlistment.  Four years in service without one day of Permanent Party, it must have been a record for the Army. Although my cadre didn’t much like me because I was "walking wounded" on long term casual in a TRADOC unit, every office I ever worked in said I did terrific work, and at least my clearance and my MOS both got a few months of use.

I got out of the Army in 1994, and felt very alien back in Pennsylvania.  The people were the same, the places were the same, but I was different. Nobody knew who I was. They were still trying to interact with that doe-eyed girl who simply didn't exist any more. One week of ACAP during Army Out-processing had taught me how to apply and interview for a job, plus helped me file my VA disability paperwork, but it didn’t come close to preparing me for friends and family not having a clue who I had become.  The VA processed my disability claim quickly, and awarded me 30% right off the bat: high enough that if the MRB had said Unfit for Duty, I would have been medically retired.  I wasn’t certain about college yet, so I took a job at a marketing firm and made new friends. But, even after a year out of the Army, my old friends still seemed alien to me; I felt like a stranger whenever I visited with them or my family.

In late summer of 1995, a fellow from Boston swept me off of my profoundly lonely feet. He told me that my migraines and my hip and spinal injuries (and injury-stunted bedroom life) were no barrier to love, and I believed him.  I had been Little Girl Lost, wishing for another Prince Charming.  He was a stage magician and I became his occasional assistant; what better fairytale?  He was often under-employed, but the occasional cheering crowd can make you overlook "the lows."  I started teaching myself web design during this time, a skill that has been very useful in the years since.  After three years of highs and lows, I discovered his way of dealing with my disabilities was philandering, so I left in December 1998, and started with a full frontal assault on the bills. I was single again, but I was starting to get back on my feet.

In February 1999, my VA Rheumatologist ordered the first-ever CT scan, which revealed I wasn’t a malingerer, as so many of my Army cadre had accused me; I had Spinal Foraminal Stenosis.  One of the nerve bundles to my right leg was completely encased in bone scar.  I was promptly referred to neurosurgery.  After scheduling medical leave from work, I underwent several hours of surgery in May of 1999.  The relief wasn’t complete, but it was certainly marked.  There I was, more back on my feet – quite literally – than I had been in years.

Recovering from surgery, I talked to my mother about going to school and being single.  She said, "Don’t worry, just stay focused on your studies.  I’m sure you’ll meet Mr. Right when you’re supposed to, or heck, these are the 90’s, maybe it’ll be Mrs. Right!"  Holy Shakespearean-foreshadowing, Batman!

In August 1999, Operation: Back On My Feet moved forward. The G.I. Bill was ticking away like a biological clock, so I started school at Kent State U (Ohio).  I was in college and doing the college thing: I started exploring who I was.  I started questioning my sexuality again.  In January 2000, I kissed a girl for the first time, but I was still looking for Mr. Right. I tried to give dating men long-term one more shot, but things didn’t turn out. I was starting to come to terms with the idea that I might not be compatible with men.

It wasn't until a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder breakdown in November of 2003, when all of the memories I had repressed from various events in the Army, particularly the assault by the stranger, came flooding back.  I was reliving everything all over again. Within just a few weeks, I needed to spend a few days in the Cleveland VAMC, the infamous Ward 31.  Shortly after that, I finally fully absorbed the notion that I’m a bisexual lesbian.  Of course emotional relationships with men never worked quite like in the fairytales; I had been barking up the entirely wrong tree.  I simply didn't have the right emotional toolbox to connect with men in that sort of way, and having a relationship based more on sex than emotion can’t work well when you have spine and hip injuries.

Although the reverberations of the breakdown continue to this day and I still have problems with PTSD, I couldn’t have found a better time to come out to my family than one week after a stay in a VA psych-ward.  My "filter" had been destroyed; if anyone asked how I was doing, they got the truth – all of it.  I have most of my filter back now, but I still prefer to speak frankly.  The breakdown let me come out to my parents about a lot of things that happened in the Army. I was able to introduce myself, the person I actually was, and they finally started to meet the woman who, for many years, hadn’t been their innocent, eighteen-year-old daughter.

Shortly after the breakdown, I started tracking down and getting back into contact with several friends from the Army – and coming out to them.  Lo to my surprise, about a half dozen came out to me as various shades of L/G/B in reply!  I guess we were all pretty good at acting "straight" because I no more suspected them than they suspected me.  We had all found each other back in the Army … without ever realizing it.

Whilst internet-searching for those long lost buddies, I wondered, "If there were so many just in my own units, are there enough of us to have an organization?"  Once I started searching for "gay veterans," I almost instantly found and got involved with American Veterans for Equal Rights.  One of the first members I met was a retired Navy Chief in the process of his divorce: after more than a decade of marriage and a couple of children, he could no longer deny the fact that he was gay.  I had finally found people just like me.  I lobbied with AVER and SLDN on Capitol Hill in May 2004, then started forming the NE Ohio chapter of AVER immediately thereafter.  I am still in counseling for PTSD, and my migraines and nerve damage leave me completely unable to maintain anything resembling a normal work or school schedule (I am currently on medical leave from my M.A. studies.), but I continue to be involved with AVER as a volunteer, as much as my disabilities permit.

In February 2005, I asked the AVER national board if anyone had ever tried to organize a Coming Out Day for veterans, and in true "Army volunteer" fashion – was put in charge of the project.  There are now dozens of very candid biographies from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex veterans on the AVER national website, many from veterans with long careers and many decorations.  This year, I am honored to be the Committee Chair for AVER’s 2007 National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio – a task that has really taught me the finesse of "delegating authority" whilst living in a disabled body.

I often wonder how much heartache I could have avoided if it had been legal for me to explore who I really was when I was in the Army.  How many 18 year olds go into college and change their majors several times before graduating six or seven years later?  Not everybody knows what they "want to be" when they are 18, and not everybody knows their sexual or emotional orientation when they are 18.  If, at 34, I run into an ex-boyfriend in the supermarket, is it possible to come out to him without getting pummeled for causing such a royal trainwreck in his previously-happy life – a trainwreck that never would have happened if I had just realized I wasn’t straight a decade earlier?  "Sorry for causing you so much grief; it seems I’m not straight.  A teut a l'heure!" really doesn’t seem to cover it.

I also often wonder how many other women that stranger, my friend's roommate, might have attacked similarly, because I was too terrified of losing my career as to press charges and put him in Leavenworth where he belonged.  It keeps me awake; disturbs my sleep.  The flashbacks still haunt me when dealing with people who seem very forward or act too familiar around me.

In 2005, I read about Private Kyle Lawson, a soldier in my old unit at Ft. Huachuca who had been attacked at an off-post party.  The civilian police had charged the attacker with a felony; but the Army took over the case and did not pursue Court Martial, because Lawson was gay and being discharged.  It was PTSD hell for me. Another soldier sitting next to me on the bench of my own personal hell.  Here was a gay soldier from my old unit losing his career because the attack was reported.  I was furious and shattered at the same time.  I cried for days every time I read new articles about him.  Last April, I read about a lesbian Reservist being thrown out of the military as "justice" for finally reporting the unwelcome advances of her Sergeant.  It was another month of PTSD hell for me.  Somebody else had become victim of my worst fears, and it was all over the news, again.  With each case, I sat paralyzed, sobbing at the horrors on my computer screen.  I wonder just how many have worn these same horrible shoes, but never made the news.

If it had been legal for me to explore who I was when I was in the Army, I not only could have confidently pressed charges and seen justice served, I also could have gotten the counseling that I desperately needed immediately after my assault and moved forward with my life, instead of repressing those horrible memories, only to have them vomit all over my life a decade later ... at the VA's ongoing expense.

Don't Ask Don't Tell doesn't simply ask gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to live in the closet.  It undermines integrity and honor, and puts unnecessary fear into the hearts of LGB troops.  We should fear the enemy, not each other.  At its worst, DADT allows the criminals, who harass us and even attack us, to walk freely, unpenalized.  DADT doesn't always end the day one gets their DD-214; for some of us, it takes years to break free of its bonds.  It is needlessly harmful, and needs to be overturned in favor of open and honest service.  Opponents say that gay and lesbian harassment will increase if that happens.  I say that reports of what already goes on will increase.  I say that when would-be perpetrators see justice in action, harassment and attacks against gays and lesbians in the military will rapidly decrease.

I view my work with AVER, changing a terrible law and serving the veterans affected by that law, as my own personal way of sewing a silver lining into a terribly black cloud that has none of its own.  One day soon, no one will ever fear losing their military career simply for who they are.  One day soon, no one will ever fear losing their military career as "justice" for reporting an attack or harassment.  One day soon, I will finally get a decent night’s sleep.

PTSD can make maintaining relationships extremely difficult at times, but now I am armed with a four-year-old Manx cat to make sure I never get so lonely that I lose my good judgment about who is "relationship material" ever again.  I don’t expect Princess Charming to sweep me off my feet back to some gingerbread Victorian and make my life all better.  Thanks, I’ve tried the fairytales, and they were just that – fairytales.

Aside from the terrible ugliness DADT brought into my life, I am happy to say: I have my B.A. in Cultural Anthropology, and although my M.A. has been interrupted by my service-connected disabilities, I inherited my grandmother’s furniture, I’ve got my fancy sheets, my cake plate, and my convection toaster oven (no, really!)  No wedding shower or Prince Charming needed.

Marie Ann Bohusch is the Region I Vice President of American Veterans for Equal Rights, Inc.