An Excellent Reason Not to Join the Military

The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military to be published on May 18, 2006 by The New Press.

Aimee Allison served as a medic in the Army Reserves and received an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector during the Persian Gulf War.

I desperately wanted out of my small-minded hometown of Antioch, California, and the military recruiter on my high school campus promised me an escape hatch. The family that my white mother and African American father created was based on the belief that the hard work and democratic values of 1960s activists made equality my birthright.

But my day-to-day experience was full of evidence that racism was alive and well. High school classmates would chant the n-word when our team played its biggest rival the next town over. Slurs against gay people were so accepted that teachers used them without thought. And after winning a local Junior Miss competition, a first for a black contestant, I was excluded from the local news and town parade. When I brought my Ivy League college acceptance letter into the career center, a counselor suggested that I got in because of my race.

So I rushed to sign up for the Army Reserves, in part because it was the only place I knew of that promised I wouldn't be judged or limited by my race or gender. We women, people of color, and immigrants are especially attracted by the idea that we could live our lives on equal footing with other Americans. But the military isn't the egalitarian nirvana that its multi-billion dollar advertising blitz -- with a budget of almost $4 billion in 2003 -- claims.

Like most female soldiers, I learned the hard way that men dominate military culture. We are stuck in a system that makes it difficult to report abuse because of fear of reprisal. Even the military itself admitted in a June 2005 report by the Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies, "harassment is the more prevalent and corrosive problem, creating an environment in which sexual assault is more likely to occur."

Just ask any woman in uniform -- sexual harassment is a common experience on base. I remember on the day of boot camp graduation, the same drill sergeant who had threatened to "rip off my head and shit in my neck" for a minor infraction during training grabbed my arm in the on-base store and pressured me for a date. This was a man that had exercised incredible power over me and my unit for twelve weeks, and through my fear I mumbled, "Drill sergeant, no" three times before he let me go. I didn't know at the time that about 60 percent of women who have served in the National Guard and reserves said they were sexually harassed or assaulted, but less than one-quarter reported it. Many who did complain were encouraged to drop their complaints.

When I first joined the military at age seventeen, a military doctor administered a demeaning and uncomfortable pelvic exam during my induction physical. He didn't wear gloves. It turns out that my experience wasn't unusual.

At last year's National Summit of Women Veterans Issues in Washington, D.C., former Air Force officer Dorothy Mackey told of several instances of abuse during OB-GYN exams. "He sodomized me," she said. "I started looking into what happens in a normal OB-GYN examination, and that is definitely not supposed to be part of it."

Nine out of ten women under fifty who had served in the U.S. military and had responded to a survey reported being sexually harassed while in the service. In an episode of "60 Minutes," New Jersey National Guard Lieutenant Jennifer Dyer revealed that she was treated like a criminal after accusing a fellow officer of rape in early 2004. She reported the rape immediately to the military criminal investigation division (CID), who took her to a civilian hospital for a rape kit -- then held her in seclusion for the next three days with no counseling and no medical treatment. The CID agent advised her of her Miranda rights and threatened to prosecute her for filing a false report. Her command announced her rape and accusation to the entire unit. By the time she returned to her unit after a two-week leave, she was "fearful for [her] health, safety, and sanity." Her assailant was roaming free on base and was later acquitted of any crime.