The Gifts of Love
Excerpts from:
The Rape of a Female Soldier
Prologue
In my mind, there should have been no other place on this earth, that I should have felt any safer, than right where I already was. As a soldier in the United States Army, here on my own army base in Ft. Hood, TX, I was literally surrounded by the men and women who had dedicated their lives to the protection of our nation’s security and peace of mind, as well as our way of life. I am counted amongst them, as one of their number…how is it then, that I find myself in the position of a victim? And not just by the man who had betrayed my trust and violated my being by forcing himself on me, despite me telling him ‘NO,’ fighting him off and pushing him away, this man, who had once been my closest friend, but by the entire United States Military! The very organization that I had pledged my life and loyalty to in order to serve my country and all of the ideals and liberties that I had once believed that this country was supposed to stand for.
“Is this really happening to me?”
My mind keeps fluctuating back and forth between events. I’m doing all that I can to focus on the here and now, but the flashes are so vivid that they are beginning to blur the line between the past and the present, and now sometimes, I genuinely cannot tell the difference between the two. This is nothing like a memory being replayed. I am mentally, emotionally, and physically there. I am literally reliving the horror all over again. Oddly enough, it’s not ‘rage’ that is crippling me, it’s 'fear'.
Now, after giving my statement to military investigators, I find myself sitting here in front of one of J.A.G’s Colonel’s. And it’s taking everything that I have inside of me to simply NOT explode as I listen to the idiocy spilling from his lips.
“Specialist Sunshine Martin, from everything that I’ve read in your file you seem like a real go-getter. Listen, this is a bad situation for everyone involved, but at some point, you have to be smart enough to know when you cut your loses and do what’s best for you.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, sir.”
“I’m saying that you are still young and intelligent and you have a bright future ahead of you in the military. Do you really want to mess things up for yourself by continuing to pursue this?”
“This whole situation was most…unfortunate. Are you really sure that this wasn’t just a misunderstanding between the two of you? A miscommunication between friends that went too far?”
“Listen to me, I want to give you the best advice that I possibly can concerning this whole situation; Let it go.”
“I’m sorry, Sir, What?”
“Let it go.”
“Did you say; ‘let it go?’”
“That’s exactly what I said. If I had a daughter, that’s exactly what I would tell her as well. This whole fiasco is affecting the morale of the entire Post. Don’t let this one event define your career or your identity as a soldier or as a person. Let it go and move on with your life. You can still be all you can be.”
“I’m not just going to let this go, Sir.”
“Sigh, I was afraid you were going to say that. Ok. We have formal charges pending. We’ll just have to wait and see where all of this takes us.”
“What are the charges, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Forcible Rape and Consensual Sodomy.”
“Consensual? Sir, respectfully, there was NOTHING consensual about any of it!”
“I understand. And you will have your day in court, that’s when you’ll get to tell your side of the story.”
I Never Had My Day In Court.
So I Am Telling My Story Here.
This Is:
"The Rape Of A Female Soldier"
By: Dr. Patricia Demps
Specialist Hayward, Patricia D.