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It’s November, right around the Marine Corps birthday, and after more than ten years I’m finally sitting down with a counselor to talk about my experiences in the Marine Corps. She is a Marine veteran herself, specializing in counseling veterans dealing with the aftermath of “MST” (Military Sexual Trauma) and the first question she asks is, “Are you here because of a specific instance, or just the every day of being a woman in the Marine Corps?” We laugh, because if we don’t, who knows what will happen next?
When we give a political opinion that veterans “aren’t supposed to have” our service is questioned, or outright denied.
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I imagine we will spend my next appointment discussing the Marines United scandal. The response I have seen from fellow women who served in the Corps is pretty uniform; we are unsurprised. When we speak in favor of gender integration in the infantry, and we get rape threats, we are unsurprised. When we give a political opinion that veterans “aren’t supposed to have” our service is questioned, or outright denied. When these things happen – we are unsurprised.
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Perhaps the most difficult part of being a woman Marine Corps veteran is being faced with constant sexual degradation and harassment, constant denial of our service, constant invisibility, and constant alienation from the men who were supposed to be our brothers, and being completely, totally, unsurprised. I have yet to find an online community that serves Marines that is willing to police the men who joke about our rapes. I’ve stopped looking. What woman Marines have to do, what we have always had to do, is stick together in spite of our small numbers and in the face of disagreements, because the truth is, no one else knows what it is like to spend an enlistment as a woman in the Marine Corps.
Things are changing. The Commandant, Lt. Gen. Robert Neller, and other higher officials are putting plans in place to deal with this kind of thing, but Marines United reminds us that none of this matters unless we are willing to police our own. Of thirty thousand members, most actively serving or veterans only one man chose to come forward and report what was happening in the closed group. Only one man was willing to say it wasn’t acceptable to joke about raping fellow Marines, to steal their nude photos, to degrade them and deny them dignity. Only one.
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Because the only thing a male Marine can do wrong when it comes to interaction with/about women Marines is stand up and say, “This is not okay.”
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His reward has been hate mail, death threats, a “bounty” placed on nude photos of his daughter. More will come. He’ll be flooded. Because the only thing a male Marine can do wrong when it comes to interaction with/about women Marines is stand up and say, “This is not okay.” Of thirty-thousand men I am supposed to call my brothers, one man said it wasn’t okay to joke about the assaults many women veterans have experienced at the hands of their superiors and “brothers” in arms. Only one thought it was a bridge too far to post illegally obtained nudes of women that made the same sacrifices and joined the same “brotherhood.” Only one. He will suffer for it.
No one who organized, contributed to or commented on the site should be serving in our military or as #Marines @USMC https://t.co/JSzHHgAcDF
— Jackie Speier (@RepSpeier) March 5, 2017
When we talk about what should be done to the active Marines involved in this scandal, what could be done, how the USMC can move on from it, that’s what we need to remember – it was only one man. The rest were either completely okay with it or chose to report to Facebook rather than letting the USMC know about it. Perhaps, they believed that this was bad, but not so bad anyone should lose a career over it. Women Marines know this line of thinking too well; harassment, sexual assault, domestic violence, and any other behavior that negatively affects her might be wrong, but are often asked to consider, “do you really want to ruin another Marine’s career over this?”
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Here is the part where I tell you I served with great men. I served with men I consider family. I served with men who recoil in disgust at behavior like this, but when I look at the numbers I have to wonder – are they the one?
Because the fact remains, it was only one.
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Photo: Getty Images
There is an update to the story and it seems a shift in the conversation now that men have been victimized and “non-politically correct” groups may have been the victimizes.
http://wfla.com/2017/03/17/military-nude-photo-scandal-expands-into-gay-porn-sites/
Now the assumption is that the men consented. The assumption is still that other men had posted the images or the men themselves had. There is no concern for the possibility that female soldiers might have posted those images as revenge porn.
Thank you for your service and your story. I’m sorry to hear that the personalty cost to you was so high. There are some things that are indefensible. There are some things that my mentee told me while he was going through basic that stuck in my head. He mentioned that early in basic he was asked whether he would jump on a grenade to save his troop and his answer was no. He would sacrifice his life for his grandma, but not these guys. Toward the end of basic he was asked the same question. His answer was different.… Read more »
We do not need some diplomat inserting policy on something they have no clue about. They’ll just fuck it all up. I was there when women first started entering the Corps in numbers. Sure we bitched and moaned a bit about how their tests were dumbed down, the lighter duty in some cases, but hell, we bitched and moaned about everything so that got no pass. Beyond that, very, and I mean, very few issues. They proved themselves post haste, and we just assimilated them in and got back to business. Not sure what’s happening, but one thing I’m certain… Read more »
There was more than one. check out the NYT article that came out today.
Was it 30,000?
There are now two named people that worked to shut down Marines United. Thomas Brennan and John Albert. I’m sure there were other people that anonymously tried to help too. But, those two people are the only ones to let their names be given. So, you can’t just say that it was only one person. That’s a bit bleak. There are tons of good Marines out there as well that did not support this group.
I was speaking about the 30,000 Marines IN the group. And I’ll tell you what – replace the number “one” in this essay (which was written and submitted before the new report) with any number you’d like under 100 and ask yourself if that ratio should make me or any other woman Marine feel differently? I’m clearly not saying this is “all Marines” I *am* a Marine. I live in a house with two others. Ive been talking to Marines all day. But my experience in the Corps has taught me the hard way that this behavior is endemic. Please… Read more »