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BRINGING LIGHT TO MILITARY MISCONDUCT Although sexual harassment and assault has historically been an issue for the U.S. Military, the recent murder of Specialist Vanessa Guillen is causing many to reevalute how these issues are being handled at an institutional level.
WORDS BY BRANDON WHEELOCK | ILLUSTRATION BY AMANDA O’BRIEN
Content Warning: Story contains content involving sexual violence and assault
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n June 30, 2020, entombed in concrete and scattered under the banks of a small river near Fort Hood, Texas, Spc. Vanessa Guillen was finally found after a two-month search. Months before her death and disappearance, Guillen told her family she had been sexually harassed by a superior at her post. Her mother had urged her to report, but for fear of reprisal, Guillen declined to do so. She was later murdered—bludgeoned to death in her own place of work with a hammer by a supervisor. Guillen’s murder was said to be shocking, horrifying, and beyond comprehension by Fort Hood command leadership and much of Congress. For those congresspeople, these “shocking” reports should not be news. It’s long been reported that nearly one-third of all female servicemembers have reported facing sexual harassment, 25% of women have been diagnosed with Military Sexual Trauma in relation to sexual harassment and assault while serving, and that for at least three decades, the
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number one reason women across the entirety of the Department of Defense give for not reporting a case of sexual harassment or assault is command reprisal or retaliation. The Army and the rest of the DOD have made exceptional strides within the ranks over the years to prevent members from facing sexual harassment or assault. The DOD has implemented required annual prevention and response training and set up focus groups, and service members have been encouraged to participate in the conversation on prevention and response more than at any time in American military history. The results of these conversations show that there is far more to be desired among its members, regardless of DOD initiatives. Among the lower ranks—where personnel eat, live, and sleep within the same facilities as each other day in and day out—the attitudes toward sexual harassment become less grave or noticed by others eager to turn a blind eye to disruptions of any kind that