Connie Sue Foss went to sleep after a Christmas party at her National Guard unit. When she awoke, she was tied down and a fellow guardsman had his hands around her throat as he raped her. "Don’t bother screaming, there's only me in the building," he said. She retreats into her own thoughts while her daughter hovers near the bathroom door of their apartment in Spring Hill, Florida. © Mary Calvert
Brittany Fintel served in the US Navy. She was grabbed and pinned down on a bed by her Lead Petty Officer while she was stationed in Bahrain on the USS Gridley. Another sailor witnessed the attack but turned and left as she screamed and fought off her attacker. She reported the attack and was told she had an "adjustment disorder", taken off the ship and eventually was separated from the navy due to PTSD. She joined the military to see the world and get her college paid for, but her experience in the Navy shattered all her sense of trust. "They kick the victim out. The victim is more fucked up in the head than apparently the rapist," she said, weeping on her couch at home in San Diego. Her PTSD service dog "Indiana" is never far from her side. © Mary Calvert
Dr. Nancy Lutwak, Veteran's Administration emergency room physician in New York City, opened up a room just for female vets so they could have a safe place to share their experience of being raped in the military and the health problems they face because of the assaults. © Mary Calvert
Connie Sue Foss was raped while in the US Army and hasn't been able to hold down a job to care for herself and her daughter. She bears scars from punching a window during a PTSD episode and holds a molar she lost from grinding her teeth at night. © Mary Calvert
Military rape survivors Jennifer Norris and Jessica Hinves smoke and discuss their assaults late into the night at Jessica's home in Biloxi, Mississippi. Jennifer Norris was drugged and raped by her recruiter after joining the US Air Force when she was 21 years old. In tech school, she fought off the sexual assault of her instructor and later evaded the advances of her commanders. "It’s like being in a domestic violence marriage that you can't get divorced from," she said. Norris reported the assaults, rape and harassment and saw her attackers punished but then suffered a sustained campaign of retaliation by her peers at work. Jessica Hinves was an Air Force fighter jet mechanic when she was raped by a member of her squadron at Nellis Air Force Base. The case against her rapist was thrown out the day before the trial was to begin by a commander who said, "Though he didn't act like a gentleman, there was no reason to prosecute." © Mary Calvert
Melissa Bania raises her banner to hang on a foot bridge across from the entrance to Naval Station San Diego. US Navy Military Sexual Trauma survivors got together at Brittany Fintel's San Diego, California home to make banners inscribed with their sexual assault experiences in the US Navy. That evening, under cover of darkness, they hung them on a foot bridge in front of the entrance to the Naval Station in San Diego. © Mary Calvert
Gary Noling stands in his daughter Carrie's bedroom on the anniversary of her suicide in Alliance, Ohio. Carrie Goodwin suffered severe retaliation after reporting her rape to her US Marine commanders. Five days after she was went home with a bad conduct discharge, she drank herself to death. "It destroyed my family. When Carrie died, I lost all three of my kids and my grandkids. I lost two thirds of me. Two thirds of me is in that box of ashes." © Mary Calvert
Gary Noling holds his daughter Carrie's journal on the anniversary of her suicide in Alliance, Ohio. He did not know she had been raped until after her death. © Mary Calvert
US Army Spc. Natasha Schuette, 21, was sexually assaulted by her drill sergeant during basic training and subsequently suffered harassment by other drill sergeants after reporting the assault at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. While Staff Sgt. Louis Corral is serving just four years in prison for assaulting her and four other female trainees, Natasha suffers daily from PTSD because of the attack. She is now stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. A loner since her assault, she sets up a survival green house in her back yard. © Mary Calvert
Nevertheless, in Natasha's case, The US Army rewarded Natasha for her courage to report her assault—the Sexual Harassment/ Assault Response & Prevention office distributed a training video featuring her story. © Mary Calvert
This important and powerfully told photo-documentary report tells the story of an epidemic of sexual assault in the US Armed Forces which is just beginning to come to light. The series was named a Series Winner in the LensCulture Visual Storytelling Awards 2015.
