https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECOqpv45tIo
Kori Cioca joined the Coast Guard to serve her country. But instead of protecting her homeland, she ended up needing to protect herself from her supervisor, who harassed, assaulted, and raped her—and went unpunished. Today Cioca struggles to earn benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to cover the medical difficulties that resulted from her rape.
The Invisible War chronicles the stories of Cioca and more than a dozen other veterans (mostly women) who were raped during their service. Setting these stories in the context of the military’s history of sex scandals and sexual assault reform, director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering’s goal is clear: to initiate change in military policy and culture. To that end, the 2012 documentary has been successful: Within days of viewing the film in April, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced major changes to military sexual assault policies.
The documentary explores four systemic issues related to military sexual assault: the high percentage of servicewomen being sexually assaulted (the filmmakers estimate about 20 percent), the low percentage of assailants being appropriately punished; the retaliation victims often experience; and military leadership’s inept response. Twenty percent is a higher estimate than the general rate of sexual assault, though it’s not inordinately higher (the general U.S.estimate is 1 in 6 women). Of course, sexual assault statistics are inherently imprecise because of low reporting and variances in how it is defined. The filmmakers posit that the military has a higher rate because of its pyramid power structure; military rank comes with power and automatic trust because soldiers are taught to simply obey.
In my nine years as a West Point cadet and U.S. Army officer (including an Iraq deployment), I never once felt in danger of being assaulted by a fellow soldier. I heard plenty of sexual innuendo and jokes, but viewed that as part of the male-dominated culture. While deployed to Iraq, I walked countless times through the living quarters by myself in the dark. Was I oblivious? Perhaps, but I find it hard to discount the sense of safety I felt around my brothers-in-arms.
Still, The Invisible War clearly shows that accused rapists in the military are rarely prosecuted, and the ones who are rarely serve jail time appropriate for their crime. This is due to how the military adjudicates sexual assault charges. Previously, unit commanders decided whether to court martial a soldier and also could choose to dismiss the charges or assign administrative punishments. This created a conflict of interest, since the commander would know both the victim and the accused. In many of the cases in the documentary, this resulted in no prosecution of the offenders and retaliation against the victims (often through adultery charges or refusing promotion). One of Panetta’s announced changes was to move the decision for court martial from unit commanders to higher in the chain of command.
Military sexual assault isn’t a new problem. It has been on and off Congress’s radar and the public’s conscience since at least the Tailhook scandal of 1991. Some changes were implemented after the media attention, but they were shallow. In 2005, the military created the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. It launched an ad campaign that was poorly received because it appeared to encourage victim blaming. New reporting procedures were developed that provided victims more options for how they reported incidents. I recall other changes during my service, including attending required annual training on prevention and reporting, and assigning a unit sexual assault response coordinator. These changes brought more attention to the sexual assault problem, but in my experience, they were received with apathy.
Thankfully, Panetta’s announcement goes much further than past efforts. It includes creating special victims units, retaining records centrally, increasing investigation and response training, giving victims the option to transfer bases, and moving the decision to prosecute out of the hands of unit commanders. These changes strike at the heart of the issue. However, servicewomen aren’t the only ones affected by the military’s sexual assault problem. I remember a soldier whose wife was raped while our unit was deployed to Iraq. Those cases are also left for the military chain of command to handle, yet they present a similar conflict of interest. Panetta’s changes are long-needed, but they might fall short of protecting military families.
It is easy to develop a negative outlook on the military after watching The Invisible War. However, viewers must remember that the documentary presents only one side of women’s military experiences. I believe the vast majority of military women have positive experiences that don’t include sexual assault. The film implies that no woman should enter military service because it is equivalent to accepting rape. This is a deceptive picture. The decision to enter the military is one that should be thoroughly examined, but it should not revolve solely around the possibility of rape.
The Invisible War is a poignant rallying cry for change. Sexual assault is a sin issue that is threatening the cohesiveness of the military family. The Bible warns about letting this sin fester. Examine the story of David’s daughter, Tamar. Tamar was raped by her brother Amnon, an event that was swept under the rug. Tamar’s brother, Absalom, told her to keep quiet and not worry about it (2 Sam. 13:20). Amnon suffered no apparent consequences. Similarly, servicewomen are being assaulted by their brothers-in-arms, but attackers are facing minimal punishment and victims are being told to “suck it up.” Tamar’s story has a clear lesson about what happens to families that ignore the sin of rape. David’s family was torn apart: Tamar desolate, Amnon murdered, and Absalom consumed with anger and banished as a murderer. If we are to heed the Bible’s wisdom, sexual assault in the military (and society) must be addressed thoroughly, in a way that punishes the evildoers and protects the victims.
DeAnna Acker is a West Point graduate, a former U.S. Army Military Intelligence officer, and an Iraq War veteran. She has also worked as an inner-city school teacher and is currently a freelance writer.
A woman blesses the day her brother accidentally shot her (Family Affair). An intersection in Florida houses an abortion clinic and a pro-life pregnancy care clinic on opposite sides of the street (12th and Delaware). An eighty-year-old man in Japan boasts he has patented 3,357 inventions (The Invention of Dr. Nakamats), while an eighty-year old man in Appalachia makes a single chair (Chairmaker). A town in Slovakia wakes one morning to find that half its citizens now live in the Ukraine (The Border). An island in the South Pacific loses its residents, who become the world’s first climate-change refugees (Sun Come Up).
A taxi driver in Yemen regrets once working as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard (The Oath). Two men in Sweden regret having sex change operations—and so they change back (Regretters). A half-Jewish teenager dares to try to assassinate Adolph Hitler (Surviving Hitler: A Love Story), and the denizens of a bar in Greenwich Village dare to stand against the police trying to arrest them for being gay (Stonewall Uprising). A Boston journalist sets out on an epic quest to reunite The Kinks (Do It Again), and a strange assortment of executives and artists set out to revive the slumbering giant that is Disney animation (Waking Sleeping Beauty).
As in years past, the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival provided a rich and varied mix of major, studio-backed (or purchased) films, and smaller independent works deserving of an audience’s time and attention.
While a great documentary is different in many ways from a great narrative film, at its heart it tells a gripping story. Sometimes it can be a story about a person or place you think you already know: Allen Iverson, Glenn Gould, or Daniel Ellsberg. At other times a great documentary can be about a person or event so gripping you can’t help but wonder, “How could I have not heard about this until now?”
Brazilian artist Vik Muniz goes to the world’s largest landfill to make works of indescribable beauty out of garbage (Waste Land). An Israeli baby broker flies frozen embryos from the United States to India, where the surrogate mothers charge less than their Western counterparts to carry a baby to term (Google Baby). One film follows soldiers on a fifteen-month deployment in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan (Restrepo). Another follows a boxing champion turned Buddhist monk on a single night through the city of Tokyo (Ito—A Diary of An Urban Priest).
Rob Lemkin’s and Thet Sambath’sEnemies of the People took both the Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award and Charles E. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award, while John-Keith Wasson’s Surviving Hitler: A Love Story took the Full Frame Inspiration Award. Directors Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus received career achievement honors.
Other films to keep an eye out for include Chico Colvard’s Family Affair, which has been purchased by Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Channel, Google Baby (HBO), and Stonewall Uprising (PBS).
Ken Morefield is an Assistant Professor of English at Campbell University in Buies Creek, NC. He is the editor of and a contributor to Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema (2008, Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
