美国国家公共电台 NPR More Vets Who Are Coping With PTSD From Sexual Assaults Get Honorable Discharges

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Sexual assault is still a major issue for the U.S. military. Reports rose 10 percent last year though there is some discussion about whether that's an increase in the number of assaults or increased willingness of troops to report them. Victims of rape 1 in the military often don't speak up. Those who do risk retaliation 2 - sometimes even a less than honorable discharge. Among those veterans, there's another number going up though - the number of people getting their records corrected to show that they served honorably. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE 3: Sexual assault and harassment 4 affect female troops at a higher rate. But since the military is still mostly male, it's men who make up a much larger number among the thousands of sexual assault victims each year. But women report the crime more than twice as often as men, which is what makes Heath Phillips so rare because he speaks about it publicly.

HEATH PHILLIPS: Nobody should have to go through this.

LAWRENCE: Phillips was sexually assaulted repeatedly right after he joined the Navy. He says the trauma 5 drove him to alcoholism and to go AWOL. He was kicked out of the Navy in 1989 with an other than honorable discharge.

PHILLIPS: I was 18. I had no clue the stigma 6, the pitfalls 7 and downfalls that having that discharge would carry. I was denied jobs. I was denied any type of - joining any veteran organizations. I was deemed as, like, a bad person. And then when you try going to VA, having that discharge completely barred me from VA help.

LAWRENCE: Philip said he spent 20 years as a drunk - sometimes suicidal. He got sober in 2009. In 2015, the VA finally diagnosed him with PTSD connected to sexual assault. But still, the military review boards refused on three separate appeals to change his discharge. Then he got a phone call last Wednesday.

PHILLIPS: I probably said, oh, my God at least 150 times.

LAWRENCE: It was his lawyer Coco Culhane, calling to say the fourth appeal had won.

COCO CULHANE: The military are finally sort of catching 8 up with the notion that all of his behavior was driven directly by post-traumatic stress disorder 9 and the trauma he's experiencing.

LAWRENCE: Culhane is with the Veteran Advocacy Project. She says the Pentagon bowed to pressure in 2014, telling discharge review boards to give liberal consideration to vets 10 with PTSD. Last year, Congress made that law and required the boards to start reporting how often they give upgrades. And the numbers continue to rise. After years when it was considered a long shot, the boards this year have granted about half of all the appeals by veterans who survived sexual assault. But it's a small number applying. Many vets have long ago given up on it, says Don Christensen, a former Air Force prosecutor 11 who now leads the group Protect Our Defenders 12.

DON CHRISTENSEN: We'll hear from people from the Vietnam War still who, you know, just kind of reach out because they want to talk to somebody but have no real hope that they're ever going to get relief.

LAWRENCE: Heath Phillips is hoping his example will encourage others. His upgraded honorable discharge, 29 years after he left the Navy, is on its way in the mail.

PHILLIPS: The original, I'm going to post it on the wall in my office, just so I can reflect on it. Just - it lets me know how strong I was.

LAWRENCE: He's thankful, he says, that he didn't give up. Quil Lawrence, NPR News.