Raped and Silenced in the Barracks

The Pentagon fails to protect U.S. troops from sexual abuse -- sometimes with deadly results

When military sexual assault survivors call Susan Avila-Smith, she advises them to keep their mouths shut while she works on getting them home

“It breaks my heart to do that,” she says, “but I want to get them out alive and that’s my main goal.”

Since she left the Army in 1995, Avila-Smith estimates that she has helped about 1,200 rape survivors separate from the U.S. Armed Forces and claim their Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits

founder of Women Organizing Women

The Lauterbach case, according to Avila-Smith and many others, exemplifies the “criminal failure” of all branches of the military to address sexual assault for what it is—a violent crime

It is a “broken system” that she says puts victims on the defense, grants immunity to assailants and, in the end, puts rape survivors who have the courage to speak out, in even greater danger

the abuse as collateral damage