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• 1 media/Image 2 - Vanessa Guillen Memorial, Mark FElix_AFP-Getty Images, Aug 14,2020.png media/Tamekiah Aguirre horizontal.jpg 2023-01-19T15:42:55+00:00 Tamekiah Aguirre 41 image_header 2023-07-24T14:40:40+00:00 In 2020, Tamekiah Aguirre experienced two pivotal and nearly catastrophic moments in her life—she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was hospitalized and nearly died from COVID-19.
  
  But that year proved to be life-altering in other ways as well; in the summer of 2020 — between the time that Vanessa Guillen was reported missing and the discovery of her body outside of Ft. Hood, Texas — Tamekiah Aguirre joined thousands of women and spoke out about being sexually assaulted while in the U.S. Military. With the hashtag, #IAmVanessaGuillen, a social media movement to end military sexual trauma began. It captured national headlines and led to investigations into the alarming rates of sexual violence within the U.S. Military: nearly one out of four women in the U.S. Military are sexually assaulted by a fellow service member. 
  
  As an Army veteran born the day after Veterans Day, November 12th, 1969, Aguirre grew up in the nation's capitol immersed within military culture and surrounded by American history. Her father served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War-era and was stationed at the Washington Naval Yard. Her mother served the community as a social worker and, later in life, worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs. 
  
  Aguirre enlisted in the U.S. Army on January 26th, 1993, and served for four years on active duty. She remained serving in the U.S. Army Reserves until 2003. 
  
  Surviving Military Sexual Trauma
  
  In 1995, Aguirre was sexually assaulted by her immediate supervisor and then experienced retaliation after reporting the incident. Even though her attacker was court-martialed and reduced in rank, Aguirre was ostracized in the Army.

  “I can still recall everything in my mind. I still have nightmares about this man. The things that he did, the things that he said, the disrespect that he displayed. The verbal abuse, the emotional abuse that came with all of it, because it was abuse, abuse in a way that I didn't understand at that time. But since I've aged and been able to . . . talk to other victims of military sexual trauma, you can connect some things together. . . . The worst thing that I did was I tried to deal with all of this on my own by being silent.”
  
  During the court-martial, Aguirre was disbelieved and interrogated as if she committed a crime. “The court martial,” she recalls, “was traumatizing for me. Very traumatizing to be in a court setting and being badgered with questions and things that [were] . . . demeaning in so many ways. Just demeaning as a woman.” She admits, “It took me years [of] counseling . . . to get past the point of knowing that it wasn't my fault—but it did happen. And like I said, when I suppressed it and it surfaced, it surfaced with a vengeance.” 

  
  Fighting for Military Justice Reforms

  “The chain of command needs to be completely removed out of the investigative process. That has been an issue simply because the chain of command feels that they're losing authority.... I don't know if you know about the recent death that happened in Germany with Sergeant Denisha [Montgomery] Smith. She was murdered as well. She talked about some things that were being done. She contacted her family, told them some things that was being done to her--kind of like Vanessa Guillen. A little different here and there in the details. But when she comes home, she's also in a coffin.
  
  I think the main thing is you have to get the command out of the investigative process. You have to keep them completely away from it.... You have to give the command, the right to discipline. That's their job. But at the same token, it's also dangerous. So we're asking that it be completely taken away from the chain of command when there are charges of sexual trauma--when there's charges of sexual abuse--when there's charges of rape.
  
  The United States government can do whatever it wants to do. It definitely can do whatever it wants to do, and you can't keep standing behind legislation that is not dealing with the present moment. The present moment is that we have members in the United States military that are dying, that are being killed, that are committing suicide as a result of military sexual trauma. ... These are the people that have taken the oath to protect the borders of this country. Who's protecting them, who's protecting them? You have to protect them, and that is where I come in. All my grassroots organizers, participants, and the people that protest with us and the civilians that are rallying with us, that's where we come in. We have a lot of social issues in our world. Yes. But this one, this doesn't make any sense. Make it make sense.
  
  How are you going to put on a uniform and say, I'm raising my right hand, and I'm going to pledge to protect this country. But you're not being protected. Your civil rights is being violated. You're being violated because you're a woman."

  
  Beneath the Uniform
  
  "You are a person beneath that uniform. When you take that uniform off, you are a human being. You are an individual. You are someone's brother, someone's sister, someone's child. And I think what society, the citizens, they forget that. It's a disconnect. . . . We still get sick. We have to go to the doctor. We need surgeries. We cry. We are emotional. We hurt. We have pain. . . . We voluntarily sacrifice our lives to protect yours. So if we are protecting you, we need you to protect us because guess what? In the realm of all of this, we all are still United States citizens. . . . But we have to work together."
  Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide
  
  All too often media and policy makers alike homogenize military communities, using tropes about supporting the troops to quell protests for racial justice or to silence dissent. But veterans’ issues are intrinsically part of American society; veterans do not exist in an apolitical vacuum; their lives and experiences are bound up with ongoing fights for social justice and equality. Tamekiah Aguirre forcefully calls on civilians to uphold their civic duty--to speak out, to protest, to advocate for social change and systemic reforms--and to defend those who serve. 
  
  Tamekiah Aguirre's Full Oral History Interview: