When news broke that a Navy officer’s sexual assault claim was dismissed as a workman’s compensation issue, Dawn, a retired Marine, took a bat to a tree in rage.
Dawn is one of the survivors of military sexual trauma (MST) who is fed up with the direction of the armed forces under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has rolled back numerous initiatives to protect and promote women and minorities.
“I don't think people understand that this trauma never stops. You just learn how to deal with it. I still don't know all my triggers, but that story sent me into a trigger that I haven't had for a long time,” said Dawn, who requested use of her first name only out of fear of losing her disability benefits and retaliation from the Trump administration.
“All I could do was scream and cry.”
Dawn has taken to showing up at recruitment offices to discourage women from enlisting in the military while President Donald Trump is in office and Hegseth still leads the Department of Defense.
“I would sit there and tell women, ‘Do not go in,’” Dawn said.
“After this regime came in, don't go into the military. If you value your safety and your mental health, do not go into the military … I'm not going to allow another woman to enter the military so she can have what happened to me happen to her.”
Dawn said she was gang-raped in her barracks room while overseas and ended up getting pregnant from the assault, which happened more than 35 years ago.
The attack left Dawn “scared to death,” and no investigation occurred. Dawn said she “shut the hell up, and I didn't say anything” due to concerns for her career.
“We did not have a way to report anything. We did not have any confidentiality where we could go and talk to anybody and say what was going on, so I was just by myself,” Dawn said.
Katy Eilers, a veteran advocate, said she was assaulted by four military police officers while deployed as an Army medic at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq when she was 18 years old.
Seeing a judge dismiss the multi-year attempt for justice by Elsie Dominguez who said she was raped in her bed on a Navy transport ship, as a “workman's comp thing is just wild to me,” Eilers said.
“Every time I see another safety thing that Pete Hegseth took away for women in the military, it's like reliving that trauma all over again,” said Eilers, now 38.
To promote a “no more walking on eggshells” policy,” Hegseth has engaged in an effort to overhaul military equal and civilian opportunity programs, speeding up investigations and calling them “weaponized,” Federal News Network reported.
Earlier this month, Hegseth blocked dozens of promotions for women and minorities in the Army, and he previously intervened to remove female candidates from promotion lists, leading to no promotions of active-duty female Navy officers to one-star admirals — the first time that's happened in more than a decade.
“Under Trump, I still have a lot of active-duty friends, and they're messaging me, and they said all their protections are essentially gone,” Eilers said. “We always joke that every unit has a Hegseth, and we all warn the rest of the female soldiers about the Hegseth in that unit, just as a type of vibe. Active duty women are scared right now.”
Hegseth faced intense questioning during his confirmation hearing about a sexual assault claim against him from 2017 when he was then a Fox News host, which Hegseth vehemently denied.
“When I say a Hegseth … it's just like somebody [who] grabs you or touches you, and then says, ‘Oh, you're just being a pain in the butt,’ when you report it,” Eilers said. “It's a Hegseth, a jerk.”
The Pentagon responded to Raw Story's questions with an August press release about its Fiscal Year 2025 Sexual Assault in the Military report.
The report said an estimated 20,492 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2025, which represented a decrease in rates since the last report in Fiscal Year 2023.
Reporting of active-duty sexual assault incidents increased from 25 percent to 33 percent in that same time period, according to the press release.
"Dignity, respect, and discipline are foundational to the warrior ethos and the overall preparedness of the force. Sexual assault and sexual harassment undermine these values, eroding trust and threatening the mission," said Anthony J. Tata., Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness, in the press release.
"The FY 2025 report underscores our ongoing commitment to maintaining high standards, protecting our people, and building a unified, ready, and lethal fighting force."
As an advocate in Omaha, Nebraska, Eilers is working to shine a light on issues for women veterans. The common experience she hears from MST survivors is “nothing believed and nothing happening to them, and having to work with the person that raped you,” Eilers said.
Eilers said her own assault wasn’t “handled.”
“They didn't get in trouble. Nothing happened to them,” Eilers said. “I got moved though, and I just didn't speak about it again for a really long time. There was no therapy provided. There were no resources.”
A March report from the Department of Veterans Affairs said one in three women and one in 40 men report experiencing MST when screened by their VA provider.
MST survivors often say “I need therapy for the way they treated me after I was raped” regarding how military leadership responded to their attacks, Eilers said.
“The way I was treated after is what hurt the most,” she said.
MST victims have the opportunity to do an unrestricted report, where there’s a police investigation and medical treatment allowed outside of a military base, Eilers said. Restricted reporting can only be done with military medical personnel, and there’s no investigation, Eilers said.
“I did a restricted report because I was scared that the [military police] were gonna be mad,” Eilers said.
Dawn said she continued to be sexually harassed when she re-enlisted in the Marines when a leader frequently touched her butt. Women were treated as “less than” and called “walking mattresses,” she said.
“At that point, you become very numb. Your head is always on a swivel, and you can become very numb to things,” Dawn said.
Dawn said she got a hysterectomy at 26 years old after her cervix was damaged due to the assault.
“Not only did they destroy me mentally and emotionally, but they destroyed me physically,” Dawn said.
To improve support for MST victims, Eilers said restricted reporting should be ended, and more robust programs should be offered where victims can safely report assaults.
Dawn and Eilers support the Military Sexual Trauma Accountability Act, introduced in June, which would allow service members and veterans to file civil lawsuits against the government for cases of military sexual trauma and negligence.
But, ultimately, Hegseth needs to be fired, Dawn said.
“He's got to go. He's destroying our military. He doesn't want women in it,” Dawn said.
