Amazing work, chilling stories and the dark side of the inner working of rape in the military.
Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of multiple rape victims, THE INVISIBLE WAR is a moving indictment of the systemic cover-up of military sex crimes, chronicling the women’s struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. It also features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm of conditions that exist for rape in the military, its long-hidden history, and what can be done to bring about much-needed change.
At the core of the film are often heart-rending interviews with the rape survivors themselves—people like Kori Cioca, who was beaten and raped by her supervisor in the U.S. Coast Guard; Ariana Klay, a Marine who served in Iraq before being gang raped by a senior officer and his friend, then threatened with death; and Trina McDonald who was drugged and raped repeatedly by the military police on her remote Naval station in Adak, Alaska.. And it isn’t just women; according to one study, one percent of men in the military—a staggering 20,000 soldiers—were sexually assaulted in 2009
And while rape victims in the civilian world can normally turn to an impartial police force and justice system for help, rape victims in the military must turn to their command—a move that is all too often met with foot-dragging at best, and reprisals at worst. Many rape victims find themselves forced to choose between speaking up and keeping their careers. Little wonder that only eight percent of military sexual assault cases are prosecuted.
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Not overtly political, Bagdad Journal presents portraits of life from all sides of the polarizing conflict. With sketch pad and notebook in hand, Mumford illuminates the routine activities of a nation in turmoil-from the individual soldiers of American platoons to Baghdad residents going about their daily lives amid the chaos surrounding them.
Written in 1997, this moving poem about the homeless veteran really shows us the mentality of the veteran and tht of the civilian.
Since overseas operations commenced in 2001, the smallest number of American citizens who have ever served during wartime have conducted the 2 longest sustained conflicts in US history: 2.4 million full-time soldiers, or less than one percent of the population, have served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
