My Invisible War

Many people don't know that since 1997, I have fought my own invisible war.

This chapter of my life will be the most difficult and honest story for me to put out into the public. I am not sure how it will be perceived, what comments will be made, or what people will think of me, but I am compelled to tell my story.

As many know, I joined the United States Marine Corps in 1996, graduating Boot Camp in 1997. After attending Marine Combat Training, I was sent off to my schooling to learn my job in the military. When we stepped foot at Camp Johnson, NC, a new beginning in my military life began. This was the first time that since joining the Marine Corps that I would train with male Marines.

On March 17th, 1997, a bus dropped us female Marines off at Camp Johnson. I remember vividly that when the bus stopped, the male Marines greeted the bus as if we were the "new meat". Sadly, we were. The males were very helpful though; as soon as we started to take our sea bags off the bus, they would haul them off to our barracks. They would offer to show us around base, offer to run with us, offer to basically do anything for us. Not going to lie, but many of us ladies loved the attention.

I made friends pretty fast, many of them being men. I thought that the men were less "catty", not judgmental, down-to-earth, and overall, made better friends then most of the women. My boot camp friend, Kristina, was my "buddy". Basically, if we went anywhere, we had to have a buddy with us. Kristina and I were pretty much attached at the hip. We did everything together from eating together to hailing a cab to go to the club.

One afternoon after I had duty at the barracks, she introduced me to two Marines that she met that day. She was telling me how nice they were and that they were very genuine. The Marines knew who I was because I was the Platoon Leader of our class, so I was always standing in front of my class when we would march to our classrooms.

After we all met each other, the four of us did everything together. We would go to clubs together, shop together and basically, once we were granted liberty, us four were hunting each other down. After a while, I started to take a strong interest in one the Marines, and he the same. Jerome and I started dating. As soon as we started dating, other habits started to happen. The worst habit? Drinking under age. I am not just talking about a beer here and there. In fact, to this day, I have never had a beer. Jerome would buy me liquor. I never had a dry glass. I knew better. I knew I shouldn't have drank. I knew that something bad would happen. But I did it anyway.

The closer Jerome and I became, the more I pushed Kristina out of my life. I found myself going out with Jerome and his friends without my buddy. I felt that I was a strong person and that I was completely capable of taking care of myself. I also felt safe because I was with a group of Marines. They wouldn't hurt me, right? 
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The night that my personal, invisible war began was on April 18, 1997. I remember this day as if it were yesterday.

Jerome and I went out into town for a night out, like we had for the previous few weekends. This time, we had two of his other friends with him; Mike and Sasha. I knew of the guys, so I didn't think that my safety was ever in jeopardy. We went out to the clubs this night; I remember drinking so much liquor that I could barely walk. As we walked from the club, the guys decided that I was too drunk to go back onto base, so they decided to rent a hotel room instead of heading back to base and risk me getting into trouble.

During the cab ride back to the hotel room, Jerome told me that he had some news to tell me. He told me that he found out prior to us leaving for the evening that he was going to be a father. He went on to tell me that he had a girlfriend back home in Alabama and had gotten her pregnant while he was on boot camp leave. I was devasted. I was angry, hurt, crying uncontrollably. Granted, a majority of these behaviors were due to my drunkeness and not the actual betrayal. I told him that I was upset with him and just wanted to go bed.

As we pulled into the hotel parking lot, I couldn't look at Jerome in the eye. I ran out of the cab and cried on a curb in the parking lot. Sasha, the other "friend" in our group, told me to lay down and sleep it off, so I followed him into the rented hotel room.

In the room, Mike, another person of the  group, was already passed out cold on the bed. I took off my shoes and laid next to him, fully clothed, and tried to fall asleep. I heard some yelling outside between Sasha and Jerome, but I had no idea what the fight was about. I just assumed Sasha was yelling at him for the news that Jerome had dropped on me.

I heard the hotel door slam and in walked Sasha, pumped. He was yelling and just had this look in eyes. I rolled over onto my back and continued to cry. Next thing I know, Sasha starts to undo my jeans' button and unzips my pants. I couldn't really figure out what was going on, but all my body could do is freeze.

Sasha then pulled down my jeans and underwear. I tried as hard as possible to knock him off of me, but between the alcohol, fear and fatigue, my body wouldn't move. I tried crossing my ankles so that he couldn't penetrate me, but he continually took his knee and jabbed it in between my legs, forcing my legs apart. I tried moving my body back and forth, but failed to get him off my body.

He noticed that I was trying to fight back, so he took the palms of his hands and forced them around my throat. I could then feel his fingers digging into the back of my neck. I laid there, helpless. My body was completely frozen. I couldn't move anything. I let him do what ever he wanted out of fear. I had no idea what to do. I tried to move my arm to wake up Mike, the Marine who was passed out on the other side of the bed, but my arm felt like it weighed a 100 pounds. I simply could not lift it. I looked at Sasha, with tears in my eyes, hoping he would see the pain that he was causing me. I looked into his eyes, and all I could see were eyes of anger. He turned into a different persona. I started to yell, "Stop, get off of me" but that only caused him to become more violent. He then covered my mouth, blocking my air intake. I gave up the fight, and just let him win. I laid there, in fear, for what felt like a lifetime. I tried to picture myself somewhere, but his constant thrusting brought me back to where I really was.

After he was done, he ran outside the room and started to beat his head against a pole. Jerome then ran into the room and saw that I was undressed. He started yelling at me, "you are such a whore. Whore! Dirty whore." I laid there, defenseless. I was still consumed with fear, that I couldn't tell him what he did.

Sasha came back into the room, pumped. He took out a disposable camera and started taking pictures of me nude. All I could do was cry. He then told me that if I told anybody back on base what happened, he would show the pictures to the command to show them how big of a whore I was. I felt trapped. Sasha eventually left the room to go get something to eat. I laid there, in pain, in shock,  in humiliation, and in search for answers as to why he would do this to me.

Jerome eventually came back into the room to chastise me more. I was then able to find the strength to tell him, "Sasha raped me".  Jerome stood up, put his hands on his head. As he paced back and forth in the room, I imagined that he was scheming up a plan to hide what happened or to hopefully beat up Sasha for what he did. After all, I was his "girlfriend". Just not the pregnant one. After about 10 minutes, Jerome sat on the bed next to me, and held me. He apologized to me, but made me swear that I wouldn't tell anyone what happened.  He then reminded me that I was drinking underage so I would also get into trouble, so it was best to let it go and try to forget about what happened. In fear for my life, I just nodded in agreement. It was a secret that I would hold onto for about 2 years.

The following day, I laid in my bed, still stricken with fear. My roommates were worried about me, but I just assured them that I was sick. I stared at the concrete wall for what seemed like days. I felt like a prisoner in my own life.

Later that evening, Sasha came to my room. I told my roommates that I didn't want to see him, but he insisted that he come in. He asked if they would leave the room so that he could talk to me. They obliged as they knew that we were friends.

He sat in a chair beside my bed and stared at me. I cried and hid my face into the pillow. He continued to try to talk to me, but he knew that I wasn't going to talk back.  He then grabbed a pen and paper and began to write me an apology letter. He gave me the letter, and I just threw it right back at him. He stood up and started to yell at me, calling me a whore. My roommates came back in after they heard him yelling at me, and he just pushed them back out the room.

He looked at me, in disgust, and put his hand up as if he were to punch me. As I flinched, he glared at me and said "you are lucky your roommates are outside, Bitch." As he began to walk out the door, he asked what happened to the camera that he had used to take nude pictures of me. Luckily, I had grabbed the camera on my way out of the hotel room that morning, so I went to my bag, pulled it out in front of him, and threw against my wall locker. The camera broke open, exposing the film inside of it. I then grabbed the filmed, completely unrolled it, ensuring that it could never be developed. He looked at me, in shock, and walked out the room yelling, "you just messed up." He slammed the door and I went right back to staring at the wall, numb. My roommates came back in to ask me what happened, but I refused to tell them. I got up, got dressed, and left for the rest of day. Suicide was on my mind.

I took a cab ride to the New River, and just stared into the dark waters. The beam from the lighthouse would grab my vision for a minute. During my temporary blindness from the light, images of the night before would come back and haunt me. I then realized that this nightmare will not go away when I wake up tomorrow morning. This nightmare will always be a part of my life.

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On Sunday, I took a cab to the church out in town. I found peace after going to church, but didn't have the opportunity to speak with a priest for guidance. I just went back to my room, and prepared my uniforms for the following week. I didn't speak to anyone. I just stayed to myself, hoping no one would ask me questions.

On Monday, we started out the day with physical training. I never had a problem with physical training, but found that I could barely run one mile with out freaking out. Once my body heat would raise and I felt the heat leaving my body, I would have a panic attack. As I would gasp for air and stop running, I would cry because I had no idea what was going in my mind and body.  Over the following week, I continued to fall out of runs and started to receive adverse marks from my instructors. I was fired as the Class Leader.  I started to think that what happened was the cause of my issues.

After a couple weeks of falling out of runs, a Corporal in our class asked me what was going on. I looked at her in fear, because I didn't know what would happen once I told her. Would I get in trouble for drinking? Will I be called out in front of the whole base to be made an example of? What will happen to me? I kept telling myself that this would be a way for me to get the help that I needed to fix my mind, but it took me a few days to tell her the truth. I went up to her on a break a couple days later and confessed, "Corporal Lopez, I am messed up in the head because back in April, I was raped after a night of drinking." She them looked at me straight into the eyes and told me, "You can't tell anyone. You will get into trouble and you will make other female Marines look bad. You just need to fix your mind on your own." I shrugged my shoulders amazement and shock as she walked away.

A few weeks later, I graduated from my school and was stationed right across the river from Camp Johnson. I continued to have problems with running. Once my body would get hot, I would completely shut down and I have a hard time continuing on, which caused me to get into a bit of trouble. I now knew that the rape was the root of my issue, but I was still afraid to tell anyone, especially a unit that was predominantly male. Being a woman in the Marine Corps was hard enough; trying to prove that you are good enough was a daily must for women Marines. We seemed to be the underdog no matter how well we performed. 

We had a Commanding General's Readiness Inspection shortly after I checked in. Since I was one of the few women in the unit, I was chosen to participate in the Physical Fitness test, which was part of the readiness test. Naturally, I failed. The ridicule commenced the moment I passed over the finish line at 31:33. I failed by 33 seconds, but that was the least of my worries.

I was called in to talk to the Training Officer, who told me that I was an embarrassment to the unit. This is the first impression that I made to the unit, and was warned that this "failure" will haunt me for the rest of my career. I was then called lazy, told that I was an insult to the Marine Corps and that I make all women Marines look bad. As I heard these words, I just wanted to close my eyes and go somewhere else and just cry. I just wanted to say, "Sir, I was raped. I can't help this", but I chickened out. I took the abuse and carried on with my day and the constant reminder at how horrible I was.

For six months I was on remedial physical training. Up at 0530 every morning and running. No matter how much I tried to talk myself from quitting during a run, my mind and body would shut down once I got hot. I couldn't beat it. I couldn't finish the run. The flight surgeon put me on light duty until they figured out what was wrong with me. Many tests were ran on my heart and lungs to see what was wrong, but nothing negative ever showed up.

In the Spring of 1999, the Commanding Officer of the unit was sick of hearing about me falling out of runs or barely passing my runs, so he spoke to the Squadron Flight Surgeon to try and get me kicked out the Marine Corps. For about one year, the Navy did everything in their power to try to medically discharge me, but I would continue to fight and begged the Navy not to kick me out. The flight surgeon had enough of me and told me, "your unit doesn't want you, your commanding officer doesn't want you and the Marine Corps doesn't want you. The decision isn't yours anymore." With every bit of strength and courage that I had, I softly told the Lieutenant, "Sir, the reason I fall of runs isn't because I am lazy, or that I don't try or that something physically is wrong with me. I have mental challenges that don't allow me to do what my mind has set to do. Sir, in April 2007, I was raped and I never received treatment or counseling for what happened." I felt a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. I was finally brave enough to face what happened.

The Lieutenant told me that he would get me the counseling that I needed, and that he would tell the Commanding Officer what the root of my problem was, or what he believed it to be - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I remember the words the Commanding Officer told me once he found out. He called me into his office, shut the door, and asked me what happened. I told them the story. After pouring out the details to him, he muttered, "you drank underage around other male Marines? You deserve what happened to you." I couldn't believe what I had heard. I walked out of his office with as much pride as I had left in my body to hold my head up high. I went back to my officer-in-charge to tell him what happened and he gave me the best advice; go down to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and file a report about what happened. This bastard needs to pay for what he did to you." And I did just that.

I went back to my barracks room, dug through all my letters and found the letter that Sasha wrote me where he apologized for what he did. I took my medical records with me so that they would see that my performance dropped after the rape happened. Luckily all the dates coincided with one another (Luckily, Sasha dated the letter he wrote me) and I felt I had enough evidence to have him prosecuted. I took my evidence, and marched down to CID.

The investigators were very thorough in their questioning. They listened to me and didn't judge. They asked me questions and I seemed to have all the right answers. They told me that even though a rape kit wasn't done and that I didn't report it after the rape occurred, his confession in the letter should hold up rather well.

A few weeks after I filed the complaint, CID called me back down to go over his side of the story. They mentioned in their report, the moment my name was mentioned with the rape charges, he broke down and cried. To me, that would mean guilt, but I guess you can't be found guilty until proven guilty. CID then told me that everything will be forwarded to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Kaneohe Bay, HI. This day, my world began to change for the better - or at least that is what I thought. 

For that whole summer, I looked forward to finding out what was going to happen, but I never heard from anyone and no one would answer my phone calls. I eventually transferred from North Carolina back to Kansas City. I felt better coming home. I assumed that this would be the best bet for me. I became engaged to a Marine I worked with at my old squadron and was settling back into my ways. I had the comfort of having my parents around me, my church and friends. I felt this was the change that I needed. Leaving North Carolina was a great decision. Once I checked in my new unit, physically I was a bit better; I didn't fall behind as easily that I had in North Carolina and my unit was more helpful as they all knew about my "legal" issue. 

My new Sergeant Major would periodically check in with me to see if I hard anything new about my case, but I didn't hear anything. I still only had unanswered phone calls. Lucky for me, my new unit was preparing for a trip for Hawaii that following summer in 2000. Since no one would respond back to me, my new Commanding Officer and Sergeant Major took matters into their own hands. They went to the Judge Advocate's Office in Hawaii and asked to speak to the Investigating Officer in charge of my file. Basically, this IO was the military attorney assigned to me. My unit leaders demanded a full copy of the case and they received what they asked for. That spring in 2000 after they came back from their Hawaiian planning meeting for our unit's trip, my Commanding Officer called me back into his office. I seriously thought that I was in trouble because he looked so upset.  He said, "Marine, do you know what I have in my hand?" "No, Sir." I answered quietly, as I stared at a thick, red folder that he was waving in his hand. "This Marine is a copy of your case that I received while I was in Hawaii. I am beyond pissed because this bastard is still in my Marine Corps. I spoke to your IO; let's just say, you will receive a phone call very soon from him." By this time, I was preparing for my May wedding, so my mind was taken off of the case for a while. One day I was moving in our apartment shortly after getting married, I finally received my phone call from the IO. 

He continued to grill me with questions as if I were the person on trial. He would twist my words around while I gave him my account. I couldn't stop shaking as I spoke to him. He would then tell me that I was drinking underage and that I would most likely get charged for that and lose my rank and pay. He continued to chastise me and my poor decisions, and pretty much told me that I have no case because the Marine that I am going after is a terrific Marine. He has a 300 PFT, an expert rifle shooter and has received good marks from his command. His command states that he is an outstanding Marine and that they are proud to have him in the Corps. He then began to ramble off to me how I have problems finishing a run and when I do, I barely make it under 31 minutes, that I was a low expert shooter with the rifle, and that my previous command wanted me kicked out. He then told me, "why should I believe you?"  All I could say was, "because you need to because I am still a person."

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That summer, I was happily married and actually had a baby on the way (my son, Micah, was our wedding night gift; getting pregnant on your wedding night is very unique) and found way heading out to Hawaii. My command wanted me out in Hawaii so that we could get this case rolling. Since I was advance party with my unit, I was given an extra week to get things ready for the unit and to get my affairs in order. 

As we pulled into the base supply office, our small group walked around to pick up our gear that we were going to use while there in Hawaii. As we walked around the supply bay, I was checking out the marines' desks that were stationed there. Then a name that I hoped to never see in person grabbed my eye.  I was standing right in front of Sasha's desk. I stared at the desk and my body became paralyzed. My heart began to beat hard, I started to sweat, I couldn't speak and I eventually ran out of the bay. A Sergeant that was with me followed me back to the 5-ton truck and asked me what was wrong. I looked up to talk to him and then right in front of our 5-ton, Sasha crossed right in front of it. Anger took over my body and started to jump out of the 5-ton while yelling, "you rapist! You ruined my life. RAPIST!" The Sergeant had no idea what was going on, but being the good person he was, he hugged me, consoled me and told me that were leaving without asking any questions. Within a minute, I was out of the parking lot and saw my rapist in the rear-view mirror.

The following day, I found myself back on base, this time in front of the investigating officer. He asked me," What kind of result are you looking for if this were to go to trial? You do understand that your name and private life will be smeared in the media. Your name plastered on the newspapers? How would your family feel? You're married now and pregnant. Don't you just want to move on with your life and leave the past in the past? You are messing with a good Marine's career." Bravely, I replied, "Sir, I once was a stellar Marine like he was, but after he raped me, he took a piece of me that I have never been able to get back. When do I get my closure? I want him to look me in the eye and apologize for what he did to me. Does he realize that when I am intimate with my husband that I have panic attacks and freak out when I get hot? Does he realize that he damaged my military career, something that means a lot to me? Does he realize that I will emotionally be scarred for the rest of my life? Does he realize that I have tried to commit suicide numerous times because I can't get rid of the look on his face as he raped me out of my mind? Why do you care more about him than me? He raped me. I didn't rape him."

The IO looked at me, and with a stern face, told me, "if you take this trial, they will charge you drinking under age and you will lose rank. Think about you new family." "Sir? could you at least arrange for him to apologize to me face to face? I don't care if he gets time in the brig or not. I need closure. I need to know that he knows what he has done to me and how he has ruined me. I need closure."

The IO shrugged and shook his head in agreement. He then replied, "in order for that to happen while you are still here in Hawaii, you will need to sign your rights away as a witness." With a pen in my hand, I foolishly signed my rights a way, in hopes that I would finally get my apology three years later. 

Let's just say, it is now 2013 and I have yet to receive my apology. The IO lied to me and since I signed my rights away, I was told that there was nothing that I could do. No matter what, the military is always going to be the men's club. Who cares what happens to their female "brothers". We are disposable in my eyes. I look back at this event and wonder how I have made it as far as I have. I truly believe that I am trying to prove that I AM better than he is. I am the better person. Yet, to this day, I still fight in my invisible war. I may silent in this fight, but I continue to fight. In my eyes though, I deserve my Medal of Honor. I am forever wounded mentally.