Over the years, Gloria White, now 41, has amassed hundreds of pages of documents concerning what she says was her 1981 rape while she was an Army private stationed in Indiana. White reported her assault by a civilian right away but nobody was prosecuted. She said her commanders downplayed the incident to civilian investigators.
Two months later, she was honorably discharged.
Medical records show she reported that she was raped and has suffered from nightmares, depression, lack of concentration, anger and inability to trust since then.
They also reveal what she had to endure after the attack. Like many female veterans who spoke to The Post, White said the Department of Veterans Affairs is geared more toward providing disability benefits to men than women.
A male VA psychiatrist who examined her in 1984 wrote that White had some symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, but lacked others, such as “survivor guilt.” He referred to what happened to her as “a bad experience.”
The psychiatrist asked about her sex life after the rape, such as whether she was able to enjoy intercourse.
After the 1984 visit, White said, “I was so humiliated, and had no support and was made to feel as if I had no right to be there, let alone to ask for any help at all.”
“Today,” wrote another psychiatrist who evaluated her later, “this kind of detailed questioning of a woman who had been sexually traumatized … would be considered inappropriate at best, and harassing and voyeuristic at worst.”
After her military service, White became a teacher but had to stop working in 1998.
That year she suffered a nervous breakdown and was then diagnosed with PTSD, for which she was granted benefits and given counseling.
Then living in Washington, she applied for additional compensation for the 14 years she said she lost due to a wrong diagnosis. The VA turned her down.
White kept battling for benefits. This year, the psychiatrist who made the initial diagnosis said he saw “no problem” in altering that finding and agreeing that she had PTSD.
Her case is on appeal. It is not about money, White said, it is about acknowledgement of her pain.
“I was re-victimized, exploited and discriminated against,” White said. “There is the rape of my soul, again. I cannot live with this decision and face myself daily.”
