Female soldiers have been returning from Iraq with not only combat-related trauma, but also with deep emotional wounds from their experiences of sexual assault within the military. “Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served,” according to journalist Helen Benedict.

The Miles Foundation, a private nonprofit organization that tracks sexual assault within the armed forces has been seeing  an upward trend in the number of reported cases of sexual assault in the military.

Sexual violence against women in the military is a horrific problem that is too often being glossed over by the mainstream media. In Salon, Benedict wrote an in-depth piece on this grave subject matter. Benedict is also working on a book dealing with the issue of sexual assault in the military; The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq is due to be published on April 2009.

The blog Jezebel brings attention to the story of Private First Class LaVena Johnson. Much evidence suggests that Johnson was raped, abused and murdered in Iraq. She was found with a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals (perhaps to eliminate DNA evidence of rape), and a bullet hold in her head. Despite this, the military has been insisting that Johnson’s death resulted from suicide, even though Johnson had no recorded history of depression or suicidal tendancies. Johnson’s father has been working for almost three years now to get someone to investigate the death of his daughter; but hasn’t had much success.

Johnson’s story is not an isolated one. If the public does not hold the military accountable to these acts of assault and neglect, we can only expect the issue to persist if not worsen.