Although veterans can apply to change their discharge status, it's typically a long and losing battle: It can take up to 24 months for discharge-review boards to decide on a case, according to a report published by the Veterans Legal Clinic at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in 2020. On average, fewer than 15 percent of discharge-upgrade requests across the military were approved in fiscal year 2018, the report found.
尽管退伍军人可以申请改变他们的退伍身份，但这通常是一场旷日持久的失败之战：哈佛法学院法律服务中心退伍军人法律诊所于2020年发布的一份报告显示，退伍军人审查委员会可能需要长达24个月的时间来裁定一起案件。报告发现，2018财年，全军平均只有不到15%的退役升级申请获得批准。
Called bad-paper discharges, these administrative separations can cut veterans off from jobs and V.A. services, as well as education benefits via the G.I. Bill. (Veterans can apply to get a character-of-service upgrade to access V.A. health care, but few are granted.) Since 2010, the V.A. has been required by law to provide health care services to any veteran who has experienced a military sexual assault, regardless of discharge or disability status — but in reality, many are turned away and told they're ineligible. The 2020 Veterans Legal Clinic report found that the V.A. has denied services to as many as 400,000 potentially eligible veterans. "They're summarily just kicked out," says Rose Carmen Goldberg, a California lawyer who for years represented veterans who survived military sexual trauma. "It is very, very frustrating."
这些被称为“不良退伍”的行政分离措施会使退伍军人失去工作和退伍军人事务部（简称VA）的服务，以及通过《退伍军人事务部法案》获得的教育福利。（退伍军人可以申请服务升级，以获得退伍军人医疗服务，但很少有人获得批准。）自2010年以来，法律要求退伍军人医疗服务机构为任何经历过军队侵犯的退伍军人提供医疗服务，无论退伍或残疾状况如何——但实际上，许多人被拒之门外，并被告知她们不符合资格。2020年退伍军人法律诊所的报告发现，退伍军人事务部拒绝为多达40万可能符合条件的退伍军人提供服务。加州律师罗斯·卡门·戈德伯格多年来一直为从军队性创伤中幸存下来的退伍军人辩护，她表示，“她们很快就被赶出去了。这非常非常令人沮丧。”
The original assault, the absence of a reliable system of justice and the lingering isolation can send victims into spirals of anger and self-blame and cause them to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. They are twice as likely as other women veterans to later experience intimate-partner violence. Women veterans who suffer a military sexual assault are also roughly twice as likely as other women veterans to become homeless. Yet many don't "realize what the pain they were experiencing stemmed from," says Sara Kintzle, a research professor in the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, so they don't know what kind of help they need.
性侵遭遇、缺乏可靠的司法系统和长期的孤立会让受害者陷入愤怒和自责的漩涡，并导致她们用酒精或药物自我治疗。她们日后遭遇亲密伴侣暴力的可能性是其他退伍女兵的两倍。遭受军队性侵犯的退伍女兵无家可归的可能性大约是其他退伍女兵的两倍。然而，南加州大学苏珊·德沃拉克-佩克社会工作学院的研究教授萨拉·金泽尔表示，许多人“并没有意识到她们所经历的痛苦源于什么”，因此她们也不知道自已需要什么样的帮助。
Even when veterans can get V.A. health care, they don't always feel safe enough to pursue it. In many V.A. clinics, women find themselves surrounded by men, some of whom harass and assault them, compounding their traumas: In 2019, a study found that one in four female veterans was harassed by other veterans during visits to V.A. health care facilities.
即使退伍军人能够获得退伍军人事务部提供的医疗保健，她们也不会总是感到安全，可以去寻求医保。在许多退伍军人事务部诊所，女性发现自己被男性包围，其中一些人会骚扰和侵犯她们，这加剧了她们的创伤：2019年的一项研究发现，四分之一的退伍女兵在退伍军人事务部医疗机构就诊期间受到其他退伍军人的骚扰。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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