From battlefield trauma to sexual assaults, stress is a nightmare, and VA is trying to respond better

After the improvised explosive and rifle attacks from the enemy, and after the sexual assaults and harassment from their own comrades, some female veterans find their way to the red brick house in Batavia to heal.

As if the horrors of war were not enough, women in uniform have been under assault for years in a culture that has failed to vanquish sexual attacks and harassment against them. Just last week, the Pentagon released figures indicating that one-third of military women are sexually harassed and many others sexually assaulted.

So the need for the red brick house at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Batavia is well documented.

It is home to a post-traumatic stress program exclusively for female veterans and is one of only four such facilities in the country.

Up to six women can be accommodated at the home, and when discharged, they are expected to continue with rigorous outpatient services. Healing does not come overnight.

“It’s very new for the VA and for the world,” said Dr. Terri F. Julian, manager of the VA’s post-traumatic stress program in Batavia.

Many of the female veterans who enter this cozy two-story house with its “Welcome Home” sign had been attacked by men — and sometimes women — who wore the same uniform and swore the same oath to defend the United States as they did.

“When you go into the military and take that oath, you don’t think that the person serving next to you might end up being your enemy,” said Angela Marie Dias, an Air Force and Army veteran who served in the Persian Gulf War and has been sexually assaulted twice by fellow airmen. “You ask for help repeatedly, and there’s apathy. You give up when nothing gets done.”

Now, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, women also are suffering the emotional wounds from battle.

“Military sexual trauma is the most common trauma we see. One in four women in the military experiences it, and that’s higher than the national level,” Julian said. “But as our troops return home, we are beginning to assist [female] veterans with trauma related to combat exposure.”

Last year, the program’s first full year of operation, 41 women sought help at the home. About a quarter of the women had served in the current wars, but that figure has more recently jumped to 70 percent.

Across the country last year, 1,475 female veterans were admitted to the four women-only homes and numerous other residential programs for men and women the Department of Veterans Affairs operates to deal with mental trauma.

Last year, 2,688 sexual assaults were reported in the military, compared with 2,947 in the previous year.

In releasing those numbers, the Pentagon also said a 2006 survey of 24,000 members of the military found that one-third of the female service members said they were sexually harassed, compared with 6 percent of men.

The creation of the four women-only facilities for post-traumatic stress represents a recognition of how challenging it is to treat female veterans who have experienced mental trauma from war and sexual attacks, VA officials are quick to acknowledge.

The multiple issues, VA counselors say, require women to stay for eight weeks.

Men being treated for post-traumatic stress at the larger Batavia facility stay for a month.

The Buffalo News does not usually name the victims of sexual assault. But most of the women in this article said they were willing to be identified in order to help others in similar situations. Three of the women who stayed at the Batavia facility said they were raped by other service members. In addition, two of the women interviewed had experienced combat either in the Iraq War or the Persian Gulf War and suffered trauma from those experiences.

Their stories are heartbreaking.

Silence based in fear...

Jenifer Manz joined the Navy in 1981, a 20-year-old from the Jamestown area who thought she might make a career out of the military. Sexual attacks against her soon changed her mind. During her four years of service, she says, she was raped three times, twice by men and once by three women. She tried to file complaints but said she was admonished. So she kept quiet.

“I stuck out my four years to get my honorable discharge. There were several reasons for not reporting the incidents, threats of losing my security clearance, a married man threatened my life because he said it could get back to his wife, and the other situation with the women was just too embarrassing,” said Manz, now 46.

During her stay at the residential program last fall, Manz said, younger women shared stories that convinced her that sexual attacks against women are still common in the military.

“Some of the same sexual-abuse stuff I went through, the younger girls are suffering, though not as bad,” said Manz, who now lives in Genesee County.

With help more readily available now, VA officials say, steps can be taken sooner to counter the damage.

“They won’t have to wait 20 or 30 years,” said Diana Koch, a clinical social worker at the women’s facility.

Manz suffered for decades. She was in and out of civilian hospitals for more than 20 years, seeking treatment for personality disorders, social anxiety, and drug and alcohol abuse. She had attempted suicide 13 times.

“I was diagnosed with all this stuff when it was really post-traumatic stress disorder from sexual abuse,” Manz said. “I’m getting better finally, only because of this facility and being properly diagnosed.”

But with only four residential units established just for women, prospective patients often have to travel long distances for treatment. About 50 percent of the female veterans who went to Batavia are from outside this region.

A change in perspective

Dias, 40, who served in the Air Force and Army, drove for seven hours last June from her home in Massachusetts to Batavia. When she arrived, she says, she found a nurturing and safe environment, a contrast to the anxiety-filled life she had been living for years with memories of a rape and attempted rape by fellow airmen.

And though she felt secure at the house, she said, it wasn’t always easy confronting the baggage that took her there.

“Not everything is cookies and cream,” she said. “There’s some tough stuff. Sometimes what hits you from your past hits you so hard you feel like you’re going to lose your breath.

“But I want to tell you, they teach you how to breath and they teach you how to avoid that hole in the sidewalk.”

The women are taught how to create a sense of safety in their lives, according to VA counselors.

“After being victimized, it feels sometimes like you can never be safe again. The program helps women get a perspective,” Julian said.

As for the emotional scars from serving in combat zones, she explained, “post-traumatic stress disorder has been called a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.”

Dias says her memories of the Persian Gulf War remain painful and often cause sleepless nights.

“I was almost kidnapped by a man in a market over there when I was on a break. He was sniffing me and saying he wanted to marry me. He tried to grab me and pull me away,” Dias said.

Mental trauma, regardless of source, changes how patients view themselves, others and the world.

To cope with flashbacks and intrusive thoughts, among the most common symptoms of post-traumatic stress, women learn grounding skills, such as taking notice of five items in their immediate surroundings to remind them “you are here and not there,” Julian said.

Positive mental imagery and cultivating positive thoughts are other tools. If an activity proves too taxing, the veteran is encouraged to change course. Group therapy, individual counseling and prescribed medication are all part of the regimen.

What is true of both female and male veterans, Julian said, is that they often do not recognize that they have tremendous inner strength. The job of the staff, she said, “is to hold up the mirror so that they can see themselves the way we see them — strong, creative and resilient.”

Dias says her stay in Batavia helped change her perspective.

She explains it this way: For years after three intoxicated airmen watched another airman try to rape her, she excused the trio by telling herself they were drunk and unable to help.

“At Batavia, I learned that I didn’t have to accept that rationalization — that they could get away with it because they were drunk,” she said of the inaction by the three airmen.

Like Manz, she had tried to report the sexual assault, but no one would take her seriously.

A third woman interviewed for this article said that she, too, had a positive experience in Batavia but asked that the details of her case remain private.

A veteran of the Iraq War, the Buffalo Niagara region woman said she was raped before she was sent to Iraq. She says she is now trying to get her life back on track.

‘Peace . . . from within’

VA counselors say that it is unrealistic to think that eight weeks at the Batavia facility can reverse mental illness from war or sexual attacks.

“The hope is that they’ll take the skills we’ve introduced them to back to their primary outpatient provider and continue to work on having those skills be a part of their lives,” Koch said. Manz has taken this advice to heart.

After completing her stay at Batavia, she moved from her Southern Tier home to Genesee County to be closer to VA follow-up services.

“All I do is work hard on this 24/7, because I really don’t want to suffer anymore,” Manz said.

Other women share her commitment. A screened-in porch at the red brick house bears signs of their devotion to recovery.

Before leaving, they are encouraged to paint messages on the tiled blocks of the porch floor to inspire new arrivals.

A woman named Portia sums it all up in two words: “Amazing Grace.”

Debra wrote, “Peace has finally come from within.”

And a woman identified as “JM” wrote: “This begins a journey of a fractured heart made whole.”