Tamekiah Aguirre
But that year proved 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 Fort Hood Texas—Tamekiah Aguirre joined thousands of other women veterans and spoke out about being sexually assaulted in the military. Under the hashtag, #IAmVanessa Guillen, a social media movement to end military sexual trauma captured national headlines and led to investigations into the alarming rates of sexual violence in the US Military. Nearly one out of four women in the U.S. military are sexually assaulted by a fellow service member.
Born the day after Veterans Day, November 12, 1969, Aguirre grew up in Washington D.C., immersed within military cultural and surrounded by American history. Her father served in the US Marine Corps during the Vietnam War-era and was stationed in 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 US Army on January 26, 1993, and served four years active duty. She remained in the Army reserves until 2003. She is a 100 percent disabled veteran.
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
“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."
Crossing the divide
"But the thing that you have to understand about me, I know that 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. You know? And I think what society do you know the citizens, they forget that it's a disconnect. Just like you made in your statement, there is a disconnect somewhere because there's like, Oh, they're in the military. Yeah, we wear a uniform, but that's about it. We still, you know, we get sick, We have to go to the doctor. We need surgeries. You know what I'm saying? We cry. We are emotional. You know what I'm saying? We- we- we hurt, we have pain, but we are just doing something in a different way because we chose to sacrifice on a voluntary, 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. We're all still United States, United States citizens, and we are all people of these different cultures and of this society, but we have to work together."
Significance
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 social justice and equality. Tamekiah Aguirre reminds us that civilians also have a civic responsibility to speak out, to protest, to advocate for social change and systemic reforms--and to defend those who serve.
Full oral history interview:
This page has paths:
- Tamekiah Aguirre, Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide, by Jason A. Higgins Jason Higgins
- The Voices of Veterans Jason Higgins
- Navigating Racism in the US and in the Military Jason Higgins
- #IAmVanessaGuillen Jason Higgins
- Speaking Out Jason Higgins
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This page references:
- Tamekiah Aguirre on Military Sexual Trauma, Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide
- Tamekiah Aguirre, on Crossing the Miltary-Civilian Divide
- Tamekiah Aguirre, Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide, by Jason A. Higgins
- Tamekiah Aguirre on Military Justice Reforms, Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide