For many years, I thought that what had happened was, in part, due to me being kind to this person. Or, because I never told him to stop the first time he said something like that. Or, because I laughed at one of his advances. Yes, I laughed, but not because I liked it… but because I didn’t know what else to do, so the most natural thing for me to do was to laugh and continue walking as if nothing had happened.
The problem with me doing that was that my reaction probably sent him the wrong message, like I was enjoying his comments, or the attention that he was giving me when, in fact, it was the complete opposite. I hated it. I hated the attention. I hated what was said to me. And I hated the fact that I still had to work with this person even when I hated everything about him.
Thank God things didn’t go any further after he asked me if he could go and visit me in my house because, a couple of days later, this person got in trouble for something completely unrelated and he was, immediately, transferred out of the command, which meant that I was never going to see him again.
Now that I think about it, I was fortunate that things didn’t get too bad and that I was able to move on from it without having to put myself in the awkward position of having to accuse him with my superiors, but other women in my command were not that lucky. Some of them had to endure months of sexual advances from other soldiers, and because they were afraid, they didn’t say anything.
I am sad for them, and I wished I could have been strong for them and say something when I had the chance. Now, it’s probably too late for me… for them.
Or is it?
Sexual harassment in the military is a terrible, terrible problem and, us, the people who had experienced it or are currently experiencing it need to stand up and say something. I didn’t do it because I was afraid, but if you are in that position, I invite you to stand up, to be strong, and to tell someone, so that you can regain your life and your dignity back, and so that the person who is doing this can pay for what he/she is doing. The truth is that their time is up.
The military is not an easy place to work at, and when people add situations like this to the whole military experience, they are taking away the focus that these men and women need in order to do the jobs they were trained for. And that my friends, that’s a very dangerous thing to do. An armed forces member whose focus is compromised could end up in someone being killed. That’s how important it is for military members to have their mind and heart 100 percent in the “game,” and sexual harassment takes that away from them.
The bottom line is that we need to stop this nonsense.
To the sexual harassers, today, I tell you… if you can’t keep your hands and your comments to yourself, then you need to look for help because we will not tolerate this any longer. You can rest assured that this is not a witch-hunt. It’s just that YOUR.TIME.IS.UP. And we will not tolerate this kind of behavior anymore.
Marielys Camacho-Reyes, MS is a military spouse, a U.S. Army Veteran, and the author of the newly released book Cleaning Out My Closet: My Road from Self-Discovery to Emotional Healing available in Amazon.
