Male sex abuse revealed in ranks

Thousands of male veterans report enduring sexual trauma during their military careers

Greg Helle. Image copyright © 2003, Courtesy of Greg Helle

In 2001, the lifelong Iowan came to Florida to save his life. Helle entered a one-of-a-kind U.S. Veterans Affairs program in St. Petersburg designed exclusively to counsel men who were raped or sodomized in the armed services. At the Bay Pines VA Medical Center, Helle learned during his daily sessions that many other men had been sexually assaulted by peers or superiors in the military.

Helle never reported his rape. He didn't think his officers in Vietnam would believe him. And even if he did report the rape, he was certain the friends of the attacker -- another GI who bunked across the hall -- would kill him.

"The rape ruined my life," said Helle, 52, today the administrator of a 400-student veterinary teaching hospital at Iowa State University.

Greg Helle, a veterinary hospital administrator from Ankeny, Iowa, says he was raped during his tour in Vietnam by fellow soldiers. A Florida Today investigation uncovered thousands of veterans who say they suffered sex abuse in the military. Image copyright © 2003, Courtesy of Greg Helle

The preliminary results put the projections of sexual trauma cases in the tens of thousands, including hundreds of men now living in Central Florida.

"This is a national crisis, but nobody will listen to me," said mental health counselor Roger Girard, a 22-year military veteran who treated dozens of sexually assaulted men, including Helle, at Bay Pines. "The brass of the military don't want to admit this happens because it's a black eye." [...]

http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/special/militaryabuse/militaryabuse.htm, 2004-03-13

Rape haunts soldier

Secret nearly pushed man to suicide

By Alan Snel
FLORIDA TODAY

Greg Helle cannot sleep without a hunting knife at his bedside. He accepts that he will take Valium for the rest of his life.

Image copyright © 2003, Courtesy of Greg Helle

There's no easy way to cope with the emotional pain of being raped while serving in the military, said Helle, one of the few male veterans in this country to go public about his sexual assault.

"I had so many plans on how I would kill myself it was pathetic," said Helle, a 52-year-old Vietnam vet who has self-published a book on his combat and sexual assault traumas. "This ruins lives."

By his own admission, Helle said he was a naive 18-year-old farm boy from Iowa when he arrived in Vietnam on April 19, 1969. He was a rock-hard 5-foot, 7-inch former high school wrestler grounded in the basics of life in Midwest corn country: God, country and family.

Raised on a north-central Iowa dairy farm, Helle was engaged to a high school senior and planned to enter the ministry when he enlisted to fight a war in southeast Asia.

The last movie he saw before going to war was John Wayne's "Green Berets," a movie that mythologized the lives of American soldiers in Vietnam while glossing over the brutal realities of war.

Moments after landing in Vietnam, Helle ran by metal caskets on the runway. During his first week, a rocket hit his barracks and killed two men.

Helle said he was instructed to pick up the body parts from the two men and place the remains from two soldiers in a single body bag.

"What struck me was that there was no sadness," Helle recalled. "It was bag them and get 'em out of here."

He was trained as an Army supply clerk. But in Vietnam, he was told he would be an infantryman.

A month after arriving in Vietnam, Helle killed his first enemy, a Viet Cong who was crawling through wire near a perimeter line. "The way I grew up was very religious. I learned 'Thou shall not kill.' It did not say, 'except in war.' "

To survive, soldiers drank, took drugs and tried to suppress emotions, Helle said.

After a night of drinking in June 1969 -- two months after he arrived -- Helle ripped off his clothes, plopped on his bed and passed out. In the middle of the night, he woke up.

"Another soldier was on top of me and in me," Helle recalled. "I was sober enough to know what was happening, but too drunk to fight."

Helle did not report the attack. He was afraid no one would believe him. He was afraid his attacker and his buddies would kill him. He was afraid of being labeled a homosexual.

So, for the rest of his tour of duty, Helle kept a bayonet attached to his bed.

"I spent the 18 months after the rape scared of anyone who was Vietnamese and anyone who was American. . . . I was totally alone," he said. "I trusted nobody."

For 30 years, Helle kept this secret to himself. He didn't tell anyone until after he contemplated killing himself. In November 1999, Helle put an AR15 semi-automatic rifle to his head.

He didn't pull the trigger. Helle called a Veterans Health Administration counselor in Des Moines, Iowa, instead and began the emotionally painful process of peeling back the layers of his decades-old war trauma from both his combat and his sexual assault.

"I knew if I didn't get help, I was dead," he said.

In August 2001, Helle went to Florida to Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg. He had heard of a counselor, Roger Girard, who had a program designed specifically to treat sexually traumatized men in the military.

The men were housed in quarters on the medical center's grounds and listened to one another's stories as part of the program. Helle was there for three months.

Helle began talking about being raped. Men listened to his story. He listened to theirs. And Helle began healing.

"I learned why I was doing the things I was doing and feeling the emotions that were overwhelming me. Yes, it had to do with the combat trauma I experienced, but it had a lot to do with a much darker secret . . . sexual trauma," Helle said.

Helle still lives in Iowa, working as an administrator at Iowa State University's veterinary hospital in Ames.

To share his story, he is selling a book on his combat and sexual assault traumas entitled, "A Walk in Hell." Helle plans to start making book appearances this month. "I'm worried about the veterans of tomorrow. I don't want another 20-year-old kid coming home and living the rest of his life like I have," Helle said. "Get massive help for him right away. Believe him and help him." .

http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/special/militaryabuse/militaryhelle.htm, 2004-03-12