When I was 19 years old I was in the Army stationed in South Korea. My job was Clerical. So every soldier usually would come into my office at least once during their 1-year assignment. There were always male soldiers asking me to go down range (downtown). I was always wise and would take a battle buddy (a fellow female soldier). I had been stationed there about 8 months and an aviation soldier came in to get an ID card. He asked me to go down range and like every other time I asked a battle buddy to go with me. He was a gentleman. Very respective. Opened up the doors. Walked me to the door. Gave me a hug and did not attempt to do anything else. We started hanging out more and more in the next two months. I felt very comfortable with him. I felt like he was a true friend.
Two months had passed since our first hang out when he came into my office to ask me to come over to his barracks that night to watch a football game. I did not give it a second thought. So I made plans to go to his room that night. I felt comfortable with him so I went alone. I knock on the door, and I heard someone say “Come IN” So I proceeded to open the door and go in. Once I was in the room I saw there were about 12 male soldiers in the room. I got a knot in the pit of my stomach. I felt like this was not a good idea. But in like 30 seconds I convinced myself that it was okay “He is a nice guy he won’t let anything happen” “they are my fellow soldiers they got my back in combat they won’t let anything happen” So I agreed with myself and went around the bunks in front of me, grabbed a beer and sat on one of the bunks.
After about an hour I heard someone yell “LOCK THE DOOR” I look over at the door and 2 soldiers have locked the door and blocked it with their bodies. I realized that was not good. I got up and was ready to fight my way to the door. All of a sudden one of the guys hit me in my mouth. I fell back and partially blacked out. I realized that there were 12 of them and one of me. For the next 90 minutes, I was gang raped by all 12 guys. I continued to yell and scream when I could but not enough to have them hit me again. Once they raped me they threw me outside naked with my clothes in a pile beside me.
I did the best I could to get my clothes together and try to get dressed as fast as I could. I heard the barracks door open and I was trying to get myself together. A male soldier came over and was “helping” me get dressed. Handing me my clothes & and holding me up as I got dressed standing up. I started walking the 1/2 mile to my barracks and this male soldier walked with me. At this moment I was totally confused “Why is this guy helping me?” “Did he not hear me yelling and screaming” I soon realized as we walked by the hospital and police station that he was making sure that I did not report this. He walked me all the way to my barracks/ turned around and left. Never saying a word to me.
He had nothing to worry about. I had no plans of reporting it. I blamed myself for going in that room. (like I was giving them permission to do whatever they wanted because I walked in) I blamed myself for having a beer(in my head I was giving them permission as soon as I opened that beer) Plus I knew that if I pressed charges I would be locked down to that base until after the court hearing. At that point, I had less than 60 days until I was heading home for 30 days and then to my next duty station. All I wanted to do was leave Korea to go home and cry in my own bed until it was time to go to my next duty station. That is exactly what I did. And I told no one at that point.
I had distanced myself from the gang rape and even from myself. I was so disconnected from my body that I did not realize what had happened to my body. About 3 months after the gang-rape I was at my next duty station and had gone to get my annual woman’s exam. It was at that time I found out I had venereal warts. After the gang rape, I made little effort to connect with my body and know that anything was wrong. After finding this out I had to go for weekly treatment to get warts burned off. I felt like every week for 6 weeks I was reminded what had happened to me.
I grew so angry at those men for contracting an STD. I had hoped that the first guy that raped me was the one that gave me Venereal Warts and that somehow all the rest of the guys had gotten it. That is how angry and bitter I was about it. A few years afterward I actually talked to someone at Planned Parenthood to see if it was even possible for the guys to contract Venereal Warts. I found out it was not possible. It had to be dormant in the body for up to 72 hours before it could be passed to another person. It took me a long time to come to peace with the fact of contracting an STD. I thought once I was treated for the Venereal Warts that I would not have to deal with it anymore. It would be about 5 more years before I would find out that this would come up again. And again I would have to heal, learn and grow from this.
After I got settled into my next duty assignment. I did my best to lock those 3 sexual traumas in a closet. I planned on never opening up that closet again. But I would soon realize that I was subconsciously feeding that monster with my self-blame, self-doubt, anxiety, and isolation that I would be going through. That small cute Gizmo monster from Gremlins would soon grow into a 7 foot Sully monster from Monster Inc. It was hard to control anymore. Finally, that monster escaped from that closet. I had nothing else to do but to face that monster. Sometimes in some future blogs, I will go more in debt of how I stopped feeding that monster and learned to control that monster and was finally able to let him go into the wild where I knew he would no longer harm me. Take Care Much Love
