Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

Christina, Illinois    

     I was a recruiter for the National Guard for almost 3 years. I always carried myself with a level of dignity and self-respect, mostly to deter the Army’s perverts from approaching me. I was never a “sweetheart” and frequently counseled young female soldiers on the dangers of trying too hard to be liked, especially in the Army.

     Around my second year as a recruiter, I was approached by a colleague who told me of several lewd and indecent rumors being started about me by another recruiter who was retaliating against me for denying his sexual advances. He was saying I slept around, was a lesbian (I’m not), and so on.

     After several months of this, I reported the incident to the Inspector General (IG). When the IG was conducting its investigation, everyone who had knowledge of what this man was saying completely lied in his defense (all of them were men).

     It was horrible. My character was completely sabotaged.

     The next thing I knew, my supervisor was drafting my evaluation reports to make me look like a marginal soldier.  (It turns out that he and the harasser were friends.)  

     As if things couldn’t get worse, I caught my office partner making-out with a sixteen year old girl on our office couch. (He’s married with two daughters.)

      The IG was contacted to investigate this matter as well and, because of my initial IG complaint and the character assassination that went with it, my eye-witness statement was worthless. 

     Everyone knew this man was sleeping with high school girls and as usual, the boys club got together and covered it all up.

      In retaliation, my office partner told EVERYONE, including the people I was trying to enlist, that I have herpes and I’m a whore.

      Everyone in my command started playing the “nuts and sluts” card to prevent anyone from taking me seriously. I was vilified and ridiculed.

     My own commander advised me to learn how to keep quiet about these things.

     I was eventually told that I have no future as a soldier and to consider finding a new job.   Nine years of soldiering are now completely meaningless. I used to be the commands token “girl-soldier” and now I’m the inside joke.

     Eventually, I left the Guard and no one gave a damn. Even the most marginal recruiters leave the command with a Army Commendation Medal… I got absolutely nothing.

     Completely humiliated and defeated, I eventually started to see a shrink who said my symptoms are similar to those suffering from PTSD.  To this day, I can’t talk about this without getting depressed or angry.     

     I caution parents about letting their daughter drive off with a recruiter. This is a culture of people who could care less about the very values they sell. They objectify women, cheat on their wives, and abuse the trust the public gives the uniform. And why wouldn’t they? They know they’ll get away with it. They always do.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Retaliation, Backlash, and Victim-blaming, Formal Investigations and Litigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.