one victims investigation - ndsu - north dakota state

11/13/2014 Inside One Victim's Military Sexual Harassment Investigation

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonvingiano/heres-what-happened-when-a-soldier-recorded-the-investigatio?bffb 1/8

Katie Rapp

Katie Rapp was surprised when she was told to go to a Perkins restaurant outsideCincinnati to discuss the investigation into her claims of sexual harassment.

Rapp, a member of the Ohio National Guard, sat in a corner booth trying to fend offa panic attack as she described her experience in Afghanistan. A Beyoncé songblasted in the background.

“Everything I went through in [the] country was hard. It really sucked,” Rapp toldBuzzFeed News. “But my investigation was the hardest four hours of my life.”

It’s been over two years since Rapp was sent home from Afghanistan and 19 monthssince her investigation interview in March 2013. In about 30 days she will learn if shewill get her wish to receive an honorable medical discharge from the military, or berequired to stay until her contract ends in 2018. She had been distracting herselffrom thinking about the case by attending classes in biochemistry at the Universityof Cincinnati, but has since taken some time off due to the medical board evaluationprocess.

Rapp’s case was assigned to Lt. Col. Lisa Gammon. The National Guard andGammon would not comment on how many previous military sexual assault casesGammon had investigated, but, according to her LinkedIn profile, she had beenworking with the Ohio National Guard since 2008.

Rapp had already become disillusioned with the National Guard by the time she metwith Gammon. Rapp claims that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by men onher unit, both while deployed in Afghanistan and also during basic training in SouthCarolina. She said that after reporting the incidents, her captain transferred her to adifferent platoon, rather than punishing her alleged harassers. She was sent to amandatory psychological evaluation, diagnosed with an “adjustment disorder,” andsent home.

“I learned that nobody believes you unless you can prove it,” said Rapp. So she



decided to record her interview with Gammon, just in case the meeting didn’t gowell.

In her words, “It was four straight hours of victim-blaming.”

While Rapp’s investigation is only one example of more than 5,000 annual reportedsexual misconduct cases in the military, the audio recording she took and providedexclusively to BuzzFeed News gives the public a glimpse into exactly what happensduring that process.

Katie Rapp

At the restaurant, Rapp and Gammon were joined by Kori Cioca, a survivor ofmilitary sexual assault whom Rapp had met just days before at a screening of thedocumentary The Invisible War. Cioca, who is one of the film’s subjects, attendedthe event and stayed for a Q&A after the film.

“I knew I had to stay there and talk to her,” said Rapp. “I wanted to know whenpeople would start taking what I said seriously, if it would get any better. I told her Ihad an investigation hearing in the next couple days, and she said she’d come withme. She said I didn’t need to go alone.”

The Perkins wasn’t too crowded that morning. After getting their coffees, Gammonand Rapp sat in a corner booth, away from the hordes of people ordering food andchatting with friends in line. (Although the noise from the restaurant makes therecording difficult to hear at times). Cioca remembered a family sitting just a fewtables away. A waiter only interrupted them once or twice during the lengthyinterview.

“Katie’s investigation really reminded me of my own,” Cioca, who was raped sevenyears ago and given an honorable misconduct discharge, told BuzzFeed News.“That’s why I knew she needed a tape recorder. She didn’t have one when I got tothe restaurant, so I downloaded one on my phone and I recorded the whole thing.”

At the start of the recording, Gammon is criticizing the Sexual Assault Resource

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/09242013_Statutory_Enforcement_Report_Sexual_Assault_in_the_Military.pdf

http://invisiblewarmovie.com/

http://www.notinvisible.org/kori_cioca_since_the_invisible_war



Center (SARC)’s involvement with the case.

“We already have a problem with the investigation,” Gammon told Rapp during thefirst two minutes of the interview. When she first opened up a sexual harassmentcase with the Ohio National Guard, Rapp sought the help of a member of SARC,Lieutenant Karista Myers. According to Cioca, Myers “wanted to make real changeswithin the military.”

In the recording, Gammon said she had problems with Myers’ report and that shewanted to “start from scratch.”

On Myers’ efforts, Gammon says, “She has really overstepped her boundaries. She’sa first lieutenant who hasn’t got a clue how to do her job.” She continues to make aracially charged comment about Myers’ qualifications, which is audible about 30seconds into the recording below.

Since the March 2013 interview, Myers has been promoted to Captain, Rapp said.

Myers declined BuzzFeed News’ request for comment. Numerous emails and phonecalls to Gammon were not returned.

Gammon discusses why SARC officer Myers shouldnot be involved in Rapp’s case.

Due to the location of the interview and the recording device, the audio is at times difficult to hear.

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Gammon’s first question regarding Rapp’s case was about whether she took anymedication and how it affected her memory.

“Are some details foggy?” Gammon asked.

“It’s not that I don’t remember,” said Rapp. “It’s just that I’ve retold the story so manytimes. I’ve pushed and pushed. … My therapists call it PTSD.”

Several minutes into the interview, Gammon asked Cioca about her own experiencewith sexual assault. All three of the women then discussed the double standard ofwomen in the military. Gammon pointed out that women in the military need to worktwice as hard as men. “If you can understand that concept, you’ll understand whatyou’re up against,” she stated matter-of-factly.

Gammon cracked a joke that about 80% of women in the military are “sluts.” Rappalso called a woman on her unit a “slut” during the interview, saying, “One specialistasked me why I didn’t like her, and I told her it’s because she’s a slut and heractions were going to get me hurt. I was one in 12 women going over [toAfghanistan] with over 300 guys and no female leadership, and don’t you realize, tothem we’re all just females?”

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Gammon, Cioca, and Rapp discuss the doublestandard for women in the military.

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Around an hour and 20 minutes into the interview, Rapp described the harassmentshe says she experienced. She described one instance where a soldier corneredher in the dark “in between her legs” and made sexual comments about her.

At 1:18, Gammon defended the men on Rapp’s unit:

You have to understand, this is an all-male unit; they don’t know how todeal with women. … He’s a guy, he’s thinking from a guy’s perspective.

Rapp continued describing being sexually harassed, detailing lewd comments thesoldier made to her, and at 1:28, Gammon asked: “Why didn’t you push him?”

Rapp told Gammon that it was because of his ranking. “He was my first sergeant,”she said.

Seemingly defending Rapp, Gammon replied, “By virtue of his ranking, he createdthis situation. He might not have realized it, but it was inappropriate.” Then Gammondescribed what Rapp could have done differently to prevent the harassment. “Didyou ever talk to him about the way you felt when he behaved like that?” she asked.

Later, Gammon brought this up once more, asking, “[When he was harassing you]why didn’t you tell him this was inappropriate or uncomfortable?” (2:50)

Rapp describes an incident of harassment and fieldsquestions about it from Gammon.

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During the investigation, Rapp told investigators that her squad leader, SSGStephen Ritchey, was one of her only friends in her unit.

“Be honest with me, did you sleep with him?” Gammon asked Rapp during theinvestigation.

“No,” said Rapp, who was engaged at the time. She said he was the “one person











looking out for me.”

Both Ritchey and Rapp said they have repeatedly been forced to defend theirfriendship to the National Guard. Ritchey, who was also interviewed by Gammon forRapp’s investigation, told BuzzFeed News that he was asked if he had sexualrelations with Rapp.

“Even if we did have an inappropriate relationship,” Ritchey said, “it would not havechanged anything about people sexually harassing Katie. I think Gammon had justbeen in it for a long time and came into the investigation like, ‘I’ve seen all this crapbefore.’”

He added that because Rapp did not claim she was raped or physically assaulted,her case was harder to prove.

“People who have legitimate complaints about sexual harassment have been hurtby a system that doesn’t believe harassment claims are consistently legitimate,”Ritchey said.

Gammon questions Rapp about another incident ofharassment.

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There are other moments of the investigation Rapp felt were inappropriate.Gammon asked Rapp whether she had sex with her husband while she was stayingat basic training in South Carolina. At one point later in the interview, Gammonquestioned her about being a dancer at a strip club years before ever joining themilitary. “Did they [your harassers] know you were a dancer?” Gammon asked.

When Rapp — holding back tears — asked to take a break, Gammon denied therequest. About an hour later, Gammon suggested they “take a breather” and thewomen stop the conversation for several minutes.

Three hours into the interview, Gammon suggested that Rapp wanted to leave themilitary after having only “one bad experience.”

I’m seeing somebody who really wanted something, and had one terribleexperience, and the system for whatever reason is stacked against you. …This is a business, no more different than a car business. You have onebad experience, and then you tell everybody what a bad experience itwas. If it was a positive experience, maybe you’ll tell one or two people,but if it’s a negative experience, then you’re going to tell a lot morepeople. So can we do something to make this a more positive experiencefor you?

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Rapp and her niece on her last day of basic training. Katie Rapp

Rapp grew up dreaming of a career in the military. She was eager for deployment.She joined the National Guard in 2008, but was injured during training the followingyear and was told she could get out on a medical discharge.

“I didn’t see the military as a short-term thing for me. I wanted it so badly,” Rappsaid. So she went back to training and finished in 2011. When she first volunteeredfor deployment, she was disappointed she wasn’t selected. A few months later,however, a commander called her and said she was being deployed to Afghanistan.

The harassment started during pre-mobilization at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, Rappsaid. Her husband lived nearby, a detail that Rapp’s harassers allegedly noticed.The alleged harassers would ask her details about having sex with her husband,often while making sexual advances toward her.

Sitting in a plane months later headed to Afghanistan, she was terrified — not onlyof entering a war zone, but also because the men who had been taunting her werepart of her unit.

“I was hoping the women would band together,” Rapp told BuzzFeed News. “But itdidn’t happen.”

Rapp endured the alleged harassment for weeks before reporting it to her captain,Todd Kaiser.

“Capt. Kaiser told me that if I didn’t cut the crap he would charge me withdisobeying a direct order in a war zone,” she explained. “He went on to make sure Ifully understood that the penalties were as high as being punishable by death.”

Ritchey elaborated that had it “been handled differently by Capt. Kaiser, it neverwould have gotten so out of hand.” After reporting the harassment, Rapp wasreassigned to a different platoon. Her harassers were given a “stern talking to,”Ritchey said.



When Ritchey asked Kaiser why he moved Rapp instead of her harassers, Kaiserdenied that it was about the sexual misconduct reports. He allegedly told Ritcheyshe was transferred because he had heard that there was an inappropriaterelationship between Rapp and Ritchey, he recalled.

“I said I would welcome that investigation and he should open an investigationabout that if he was worried about it,” Ritchey said. “But instead he moved her.”

After moving platoons, Rapp was sent to see a military doctor who diagnosed herwith an “adjustment disorder.”

One woman on Rapp’s unit, Shannon Kinney, said that Rapp never hadpsychological issues. “She’s a smart lady,” Kinney told BuzzFeed News. Rapp saidthat her only psychological problem is PTSD from her harassment and the way shewas treated by the military leadership. After her medical diagnosis, Rapp wasordered her to return home and was accompanied out of the country by Kinney.

Rapp and her mother on the day she was deployed in 2011. Katie Rapp

After the meeting with Gammon, Cioca and Rapp took the recording “right to thecommanders,” said Cioca. “And it started a fire.”

“Everybody was scared of me when they found out I recorded the investigation,”Rapp said. “I finally had proof that my claims weren’t being taken seriously.”

Later, Rapp played the recording for her commanders and generals, includingLieutenant Colonel Thomas Moore, the battalion commander, who Rapp said wassupportive of her and helped her bring the case to the attention of the OhioNational Guard chief of staff.



Tagged: katie rapp, buzzfeed news, gammon, military sexual assault, ohio national guard, sexual harrassment

“LTC Moore told me that he was proud of me,” Rapp recalled. “He said recordingthe interview was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

Rapp’s alleged sexual harassers are still active in the military, Ritchey said. He alsosaid Kaiser has since been promoted to major.

Numerous emails and phone calls to the Ohio National Guard and Moore were notreturned. An Ohio National Guard captain who wished to remain anonymous toldBuzzFeed News that Rapp’s investigation was not “typical,” but the source alsoadmitted no previous involvement with military sexual assault investigations.

Gammon left the National Guard in April 2014, the Ohio National Guard confirmed toBuzzFeed News. The reason for her departure is unclear.

Rapp is now waiting to hear if she will be able to leave the military. Gammon hadsuggested that Rapp be deployed again but with a mostly female unit, so that shecould have a more positive experience. Instead, Rapp hopes she can receive anhonorable discharge.

“I don’t want to wear the military’s uniform anymore,” Rapp said. “It makes me sick.”

Contact the reporter: [email protected].

CORRECTION

Rapp was engaged during her deployment in Afghanistan, not married. The firstalleged instance of harassment was at pre-mobilization in Mississippi, not duringbasic combat-training in South Carolina. Nov. 12, 2014, at 10:45 p.m.

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