CYBELE GREENBERG: The military's broken culture around sexual violence and suicide
Saturday, Nov. 27, 2021 -- There are numerous misconceptions about military suicide. Despite the stereotypes, there is no significant association between combat deployments and the rate of suicide. Some experts say that it would be more accurate to blame the problem on the military's culture of intensity and violence that extends well beyond the battlefield. That includes toxic relationships between service members and continued stigma surrounding those seeking help.
Posted — UpdatedAnne Vassas loved being a Marine.
She was always smiling. Younger members of her unit saw Vassas, 20, as something like a mother. Stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, she was reenlisting for a second tour.
So it came as a shock when Vassas took her own life in August 2019, a month before her 21st birthday.
Six months after her death, her father was surprised to discover among her belongings pages from a sexual assault report she filed in October 2018. A military investigation into Vassas’ death later found that she may have been sexually assaulted on three occasions while serving in uniform.
The death of Vassas, and other deaths like hers, raises questions regarding the military’s ability to care for its service members who experience sexual trauma. In many cases, untreated trauma can have deadly consequences.
Many victims of sexual violence actually experience trauma twice: once, at the hands of the offender, and a second time, at the hands of the institution they serve.
According to the investigation into her death, Vassas tried reporting her sexual assaults several times. But the reporting process was perilous. During her initial training, she said that she had been forcibly kissed by another Marine. But when investigators reminded her that having a relationship with another trainee was prohibited, she withdrew her complaint.
While stationed in California, Vassas told two of her childhood friends that an officer had interrupted another Marine pushing her up against the wall of his room and taking her pants off without her consent, after both had been drinking. She was disciplined over this incident because she was not supposed to be in the barracks for men.
The inquiry into her death suggests that the officer who reprimanded Vassas ignored the assault and that a military investigator believed she may have been lying about the incident “to get out of trouble for being in the wrong barracks.”
But her medical record tells a different story. Her heightened depression and anxiety can be traced back to late 2018 and were likely “due to the stress induced by the sexual assault” in the barracks, according to a behavioral health assessment. It was also around this time that Vassas started voicing suicidal ideations to her friends, including one text message that read, “I can’t live with this pain.”
But in February 2019, she was given a clean bill of health and cleared to deploy to Japan. There, Vassas may have been sexually assaulted yet again, according to Marines in her unit.
Six months after her arrival in Iwakuni, Vassas was dead.
More research is also needed on the possible correlations between military suicide, the protracted length of recent wars and the rise in traumatic brain injuries from increased exposure to improvised explosive devices.
But in at least some important ways, no one listened to Vassas, Harris, Burnham or countless other service members who experienced unbearable trauma while serving their country.
Ultimately, it is only genuine, supportive human connections with other service members, leaders and veterans — those who believe and understand them — that will save young American troops from feeling there is no way out.
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