Thousands of Sexual Assault Victims in the Military Have Been Denied Veteran Health Care

By Alex Zielinski, ThinkProgress

30 May 16

iz Luras carried three American flags over her shoulder in a Memorial Day march this weekend. Each represented a veteran who committed suicide after leaving the military. To Luras, this honor is especially meaningful, since she knows it could easily be her flag waving beside theirs.

Luras is one of the many soldiers featured in a new Human Rights Watch report who were “honorably discharged” from the military after being the victim of rape or other sexual assault.

Despite passing a meticulous mental health screening when enlisting in a top-secret military intelligence position, Luras was discharged after multiple rapes for having a “personality disorder,” or PD. Now, more than 15 years after her discharge, she continues to be denied jobs, health benefits, and general respect for having papers marked with “PD” — a condition that many mental health professionals, including ones within the VA, have told her she doesn’t have.

“I was on the path to West Point. I wanted this to the be my career,” she said. “But when you enlist for the military, you don’t realize that the system of justice warriors are fighting for doesn’t apply to them.”

After Luras was raped by another member of the military, she faced constant abuse — including two more rapes — from fellow soldiers and supervisors who wanted her to keep quiet. She refused, and told her father about the abuse who then alerted his state Representative. When the Representative called the barracks to talk with her, Luras was forced by her superior to tell him that everything was fine. Then, the abuse only intensified. When she asked to be reassigned to another location, her drill sergeant gave Luras her discharge papers.

That’s when she noticed that her health records had been edited without her consent to include “PD” as a pre-existing condition.

“They couldn’t prove that I was a bad soldier. But they didn’t like that I challenged them, they wanted me out,” she said. “It was a power and control thing. So they took resource in illegally giving me a PD.”

The report released this month by the Human Rights Watch highlights the thousands of military members like Luras who lost their careers after reporting a sexual assault. The report demands that Congress intervenes to improve the Department of Defense’s dead-end “Boards of Correction of Military Records” — panels that reject around 90 percent of those who apply to have their record changed, without giving them any meaningful review.

“Military lawyers and veterans see the Boards as a virtual graveyard for their cases,” said Sara Darehshori, senior counsel at HRW and author of the report. “Many veterans we spoke with were reluctant to put themselves through the trauma of reliving their assault to try to fix their record when they saw no hope for success.”

Luras is one of those veterans. Even though the DOD is the only entity that could remove a PD marking from Luras’ paperwork, she’s not sure it will be worth it to buy a ticket across the country and find, then pay, a lawyer to defend her case.

“I know there’s only a one percent chance of success,” she said. “I hope to fight it, but I’m getting very tired, to be honest. To fight that and lose — that’s when veterans commit suicide.”

Which is an option Luras has seen many brave soldiers turn to. Luras’ bunkmate was the one to originally report her first rape. After other soldiers found this out, she faced intense sexual abuse and harassment that drove her to a suicide attempt.

Luras was discharged the same time as Carri Goodwin, a marine who was also raped by a fellow solider. Like Luras, she was harassed and abused for reporting her rape, events that pushed her to drink. Unlike Luras, she was given a “Other Than Honorable” discharge, on the grounds she had a drinking problem, a PD, and non-combat related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Five days after her discharge, Goodwin died from acute alcohol intoxication. Carri’s father often joins Luras when she attends speaking events and conferences about sexual assault in the military.

Luras also has PTSD from her rapes and the subsequent retaliation. But every year, she must fight for the VA to look beyond her inaccurate “pre-existing condition” and provide her with needed counseling and general health care.

“It gets worse every time. To have my story constantly being challenged and reopened in public — the emotional toll adds up,” she said. “I just want closure.”

Luras said she’s been denied jobs both within and outside the government for her discharge papers and for the stigma that goes with publicly fighting it. Despite the economical and emotional toll, she said the effort she puts into fighting for justice is vindicated by the response from fellow veterans. Following the May 19 release of the HRW report, Luras received an avalanche of support from veterans who’ve been through similar abuse.

“The overwhelming number of veterans who reached out made all of this worth it,” she said. “They’ve said it’s healing to learn that other people have gone through this. That they’re not alone. That it gives them hope for the first time.”

In the report, Darehshori said Congress should require the DOD to expedite the review of cases of sexual assault victims who believe they were wrongfully discharged.

“Immediate reform is desperately needed to ensure that military sexual assault survivors can get a meaningful remedy for the wrongful discharges that darken their lives,” Darehshori said. “They deserve support, not censure.”