“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.” 

“It surfaced with a vengeance to a point where I was not able to contain it anymore and I didn't know what was happening to me. I remember going to the doctor and I'm like, I feel like I'm losing my mind. You know? And at that time when I came out of the military, the Department of Veteran Affairs did not have any type of you know, protocols set up for women like myself that was a victim of military sexual trauma. There was no counseling in place. There was nothing in place for us. So I get out and I'm trying to deal with all of this on my own.”

That's where I found my voice. My voice was found during the missing time of Vanessa Guillen. The young soldier who was at Fort Hood who went missing in April of 2020, and I remember the day like it happened yesterday—the news came on, and this beautiful young lady was there. I mean, just beautiful. And the more I kept looking at that child—because I'm old enough to be Vanessa's mother—I saw myself all over again. I saw myself all over again, and I cried so much for Vanessa, and I still do. I cry for Gloria Guillen, who we call Mama Guillen. I cry for her father. I cry for Myra Lupe, the entire Guillen family for what that young lady went through. They definitely betrayed her. They failed her. They failed her in so many ways. In so many ways.

But that young lady's story is what gave me the strength to be transparent and tell my truth outside of that military arena, outside of that court martial. I have been able to talk about it now and not feel ashamed and not feel alone because when that hashtag came out, #IAmVanessaGuillen, there were so many of us. There were so many of us, and we just got to a point where we were like, we're not gonna be silent anymore. Her death led to a protest. That's how Our Sister’s Keeper came about. Thirteen women we're just chit– chitchatting and talking about this story on Facebook. The next thing you know, we had a whole movement . . . We made history on August the first of 2020. We made history, and we vowed . . . to make sure there is never another Vanessa Guillen. How do you get murdered on a military installation and you're in a arms room? How does that happen? Make it make all kinds of sense, but it will never make sense. It will never make sense to a military sexual trauma survivor. It will never make sense to the Guillen family. It will never make sense to the lawyer who is representing that family. It's never going to make sense to anyone until somebody is completely held accountable.”

“One of the things that needs to happen with respect to a reform, 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, you know, that they're not being able to discipline and I think it can be done, but it has to have the chain of command as well as a civilian outside entity looking in at all of the actions, it's where now that is what's supposed to, you know, transpire, but is it really gonna happen that way? That's what's being said. But is it going to be done? You gotta look at, I don't know if you know about the recent death that happened in Germany with Sergeant Denisha Smith, I think it's Denisha Smith. She was murdered as well. She talked about some things that were being done. You know, she contacted her family, told her some things that was being done to her. Some kind of like Vanessa Guillen. A little different here and near in the details. But when she comes home, she's also in a coffin. So for me, 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, because it's like this, if they like a soldier or sailor or airmen or whoever, oh, we're gonna protect them. If they don't, then they could throw you out, you know, to the wolves. Like, we're not gonna protect you, we're not gonna do this, we're not gonna do that for you. So it's, the dynamics of it is very, it's very touchy, because, you have to give the command, the right to discipline. That's their job there. But at the same token, it's also dangerous. So we're asking that I meet, that it could be completely taken away from the chain of command when there are charges of sexual tr- trauma, when there's charges of sexual abuse, when there's charges of rape, things of that nature. So it can be done. 

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, you know, legislation that is not dealing with the present moment. You know, the present moment is that we have members in the United States military that is dying, that are being killed, that are committing suicide as a result of military sexual trauma. You know what I'm saying? You can't keep allowing that. How in the world are you going to allow that? And 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 place and all my grassroot, you know, organizers and participants and the people that protest with us and the civilians that are rallying with us. That's where we come in. You know, there we have a lot of social issues in our world. Yes. But this one, this doesn't make any sense back to make it make sense. Like, how are you going to put on a uniform and say, I'm, you know, 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."