Military sexual assault victims face agonizing choice

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/04/military-sexual-assault-victims-face-agonizing-choice

Military sexual assault victims face agonizing choice
By Stephanie McCrummen
The Washington Post
© April 15, 2014

The war veteran wakes up at 11 a.m. and spends the afternoon alone studying, and so it is not until early evening, during her shift at the restaurant where she works as a waitress, that the first lie of the day is required.

~snip~

The 27-year-old Navy veteran, who wants to be identified by only her middle name, Diana, lies to people from her unit, saying she came home early because she had a lump in her breast.

She lies to her parents, her friends and her boyfriend, who knows some of the story but not all of it.

She lies because she thinks she has to, because of the legal document she signed during her fourth month at Bagram air base, after she sneaked over to the hospital and asked to see the person who handles sexual assaults, after a nurse took Polaroid photos of bruises on her neck and scratches on her back, collected swabs and hair samples and put them in a brown paper bag.