US Military Sexual Trauma
Video Transcript
Hello, I’m Eric Gang, the Veterans Disability Attorney. I want to talk to you a little bit today about a sensitive topic, and that is military sexual trauma (MST). If you’ve been through that experience, you know how devastating it can be, and you also know how devastating it can be when the VA denies this claim. You probably feel like they’re just unwilling to believe you—and frankly, the VA is not willing to believe you unless they have hard proof that this incident took place.
But the problem is, most victims of military sexual trauma, as you know, do not report that this took place. There’s a lot of shame and guilt, whatever it is; you tend not to talk about it. Especially male victims of sexual trauma—it’s known that scientific evidence shows they tend not to report these things. So now, how do you improve your claim? The VA will not believe you because you don’t have proof, yet you never told anybody and kept it a secret. I’ve seen cases where guys keep it secret for 20, 30, or 40 years and don’t even tell their wives.
I know how difficult these situations can be, but there are ways to prove these claims. I can tell you from experience, I’ve been down this road with countless veterans. We’ve come out successful on the other side, so I know there are ways to prove these claims.
Using Circumstantial Evidence
Here’s the important thing you need to understand: you’re generally not going to have documentation that a rape took place, for example. But there may be circumstantial evidence that will tend to establish that this took place.
The VA regulations and adjudications manual provides examples of these types of proofs. For example, there may be a change in behavior that occurred afterwards. There may be a decline in work performance. Maybe all of a sudden you take up excessive drinking and utilize illicit drugs. All these things would tend to establish that there was a change and something happened. Maybe you broke up with your girlfriend afterwards, or you got divorced from your wife. Maybe everybody around you says that there’s something different about you.
I had a case one time with a young man who was raped in the service. When he got home to the states, everybody that knew him before and when he got back testified that he was a different person—that something had changed about him. We were able to use that evidence in combination with the report from a mental health professional to win his claim.
Evidence that something took place or changed could also be requests for transfer. I’ve had cases where men are raped in the service by somebody in their unit, and so they keep making requests for transfer to get away from the perpetrator. These requests for transfer can be used as evidence to prove that something took place.
Finding Evidence in Medical Records
Medical evidence can also be buried in the file to prove the claim. Let me give you an example of a case we just won. A young man was raped in the service. He never told anybody, but he was clearly traumatized because he tried to get out of the service by feigning homosexuality, which at the time was not something permitted in the service. And they denied the claim for almost 10 years.
He finally retained our services and we litigated the case successfully at the U.S. Court of Appeals. On remand at the board, we retained two psychologists and a medical doctor because we found, buried in his medical records, a handwritten note. It was hardly legible, but it was there: a notation of rectal venereal warts.
The medical doctor gave expert testimony that this type of situation is consistent with sexual trauma. That, combined with the testimony of the two psychologists who said this young man (who by this time is in his 60s) had all the symptoms of somebody who is the victim of military sexual trauma. The board granted that claim. It was one of the shortest decisions I’ve ever seen because they really had no choice but to grant that claim.
Your Next Steps
So when you have a situation like this, you must look very carefully at the circumstantial evidence surrounding your life at the time:
– Did your work performance decline?
– Did you start using drugs and alcohol?
– Did you make requests for transfer?
– Did people around you notice that something changed?
These are very important factors. I want to encourage you, if you’ve been in this situation before, if you are facing a denial for military sexual trauma (which usually involves PTSD as a result), and you’re struggling with the appeal, to take advantage of the resources available on this site. If you’d like to explore how we may be able to help you, I invite you to contact us.