According to NPR, “In
2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were
raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help
for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women
said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995
study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90
percent had been sexually harassed.”
The BBC
recently reported on The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women
Serving in Iraq by Helen Benedict. This book examines the extreme
difficulties female soldiers have in serving abroad. Benedict
interviewed several women in the military to get a deeper understanding
of the issue, and some of their stories were real eye openers.
Army specialist Chantelle Henneberry spoke of some of her experiences in Iraq, “Everybody’s
supposed to have a battle buddy in the army, and females are supposed
to have one to go to the latrines with, or to the showers – that’s so
you don’t get raped by one of the men on your own side. But because I
was the only female there, I didn’t have a battle buddy. My battle
buddy was my gun and my knife.”