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Gates, Rumsfeld sued over US military's rape epidemic
A landmark lawsuit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleges that the military's repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated, violating the plaintiffs' Constitutional rights.
"There are three types of women in the Army," says Rebecca Havrilla, a former sergeant and explosive-ordnance-disposal technician. "Bitch, dyke, and whore." During the four years that Havrilla was on active duty, she was called all three"by fellow soldiers, team leaders, even unit commanders. Once, during a sexual-assault prevention training, the 28-year-old South Carolina native claims, she watched a fellow soldier"male"strip naked and dance on top of a table as the rest of the team laughed. While deployed in Afghanistan, Havrilla spent four months working under a man she alleges bit her neck, pulled her into his bed, and grabbed her butt and waist"on a daily basis. When, on the last day of her deployment, she alleges she was raped by a soldier she considered a friend, it was, she says, "the icing on the cake."
But Havrilla calls herself lucky: the end of her military commitment was in sight. In other cases, soldiers have had to keep fighting alongside, or even under, the person who assaulted them; been ostracized by their units for reporting an attack; or, as another woman says, simply "shoved to the side." Havrilla and 16 others are now plaintiffs in a class action suit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleging that their failure to act amounted to a violation of the plaintiffs' Constitutional rights.