Katie Rapp, a soldier who reported sexual harassment while she was deployed in Afghanistan in 2011-2012, recorded her four-hour interview with a sexual assault investigator and provided it exclusively to BuzzFeed News.
Katie Rapp
Katie Rapp was surprised when she was told to go to a Perkins restaurant outside Cincinnati to discuss the investigation into her claims of sexual harassment.
Rapp, a member of the Ohio National Guard, sat in a corner booth trying to fend off a panic attack as she described her experience in Afghanistan. A Beyoncé song blasted in the background.
"Everything I went through in [the] country was hard. It really sucked," Rapp told BuzzFeed News. "But my investigation was the hardest four hours of my life."
It's been over two years since Rapp was sent home from Afghanistan and 19 months since her investigation interview in March 2013. In about 30 days she will learn if she will get her wish to receive an honorable medical discharge from the military, or be required to stay until her contract ends in 2018. She had been distracting herself from thinking about the case by attending classes in biochemistry at the University of Cincinnati, but has since taken some time off due to the medical board evaluation process.
Rapp's case was assigned to Lt. Col. Lisa Gammon. The National Guard and Gammon would not comment on how many previous military sexual assault cases Gammon had investigated, but, according to her LinkedIn profile, she had been working with the Ohio National Guard since 2008.
Rapp had already become disillusioned with the National Guard by the time she met with Gammon. Rapp claims that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by men on her unit, both while deployed in Afghanistan and also during basic training in South Carolina. She said that after reporting the incidents, her captain transferred her to a different platoon, rather than punishing her alleged harassers. She was sent to a mandatory psychological evaluation, diagnosed with an "adjustment disorder," and sent home.
"I learned that nobody believes you unless you can prove it," said Rapp. So she decided to record her interview with Gammon, just in case the meeting didn't go well.
In her words, "It was four straight hours of victim-blaming."
While Rapp's investigation is only one example of more than 5,000 annual reported sexual misconduct cases in the military, the audio recording she took and provided exclusively to BuzzFeed News gives the public a glimpse into exactly what happens during that process.
Katie Rapp
At the restaurant, Rapp and Gammon were joined by Kori Cioca, a survivor of military sexual assault whom Rapp had met just days before at a screening of the documentary The Invisible War. Cioca, who is one of the film's subjects, attended the event and stayed for a Q&A after the film.
"I knew I had to stay there and talk to her," said Rapp. "I wanted to know when people would start taking what I said seriously, if it would get any better. I told her I had an investigation hearing in the next couple days, and she said she'd come with me. She said I didn't need to go alone."
The Perkins wasn't too crowded that morning. After getting their coffees, Gammon and Rapp sat in a corner booth, away from the hordes of people ordering food and chatting with friends in line. (Although the noise from the restaurant makes the recording difficult to hear at times). Cioca remembered a family sitting just a few tables away. A waiter only interrupted them once or twice during the lengthy interview.
"Katie's investigation really reminded me of my own," Cioca, who was raped seven years ago and given an honorable misconduct discharge, told BuzzFeed News. "That's why I knew she needed a tape recorder. She didn't have one when I got to the restaurant, so I downloaded one on my phone and I recorded the whole thing."
At the start of the recording, Gammon is criticizing the Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC)'s involvement with the case.
"We already have a problem with the investigation," Gammon told Rapp during the first two minutes of the interview. When she first opened up a sexual harassment case with the Ohio National Guard, Rapp sought the help of a member of SARC, Lieutenant Karista Myers. According to Cioca, Myers "wanted to make real changes within the military."
In the recording, Gammon said she had problems with Myers' report and that she wanted to "start from scratch."
On Myers' efforts, Gammon says, "She has really overstepped her boundaries. She's a first lieutenant who hasn't got a clue how to do her job." She continues to make a racially charged comment about Myers' qualifications, which is audible about 30 seconds into the recording below.
Since the March 2013 interview, Myers has been promoted to Captain, Rapp said.
Myers declined BuzzFeed News' request for comment. Numerous emails and phone calls to Gammon were not returned.
