Sexual assault has been rampant since I entered the military. In 1982, I was drugged by two pilots from the California ANG at Williams AFB, AZ. These 2 pilots kept a grey recipe file of all of the women they had assaulted. I do not know their names but their faces and what they did to me are seared into my being. I have survived over 15 suicide attempts so far. I have a plan, the means and the history.

I also worked as a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) and was certified as a SANE-A. You can imagine (or can you?) what doing this work did to me. I hoped it would give me power to help people that were suffering from a similar horrific act. I could not imagine my suicidal ideation could get worse. It did.

To qualify for a rating, there has been a requirement of proof but sexual assault by its very nature is a violent act done in secret, hidden away by those who are assaulted by shame, frustration, guilt. Rapists don't offer their names. Although most rapes are committed by someone known to the victims, the military population is extra vulnerable. We are away from our communities, our families in a culture that cherishes public image over personal sacrifice.

You have begun an overhaul. I beg of you, the suicides of MST are every bit as dead as casualties from any other part of war. Do not let this issue get lost; do not let it get swept under the rug, hidden in the closet, buried under mounds of paper. We do not want medals. We need treatment, competent care and a means to get a disability rating without being repeatedly raped by the process.

just as we ask if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, we must conclude that death by suicide because of military sexual trauma is still death.

Will I live long enough to have resolution?

Kim L. Patterson, Maj, USAF
Robert Dole Regional Medical Center patient
Wichita, Kansas