Protect Our Defenders News Blog

 

VA has higher burden of proof for PTSD claims related to sex trauma

The Medill News Service reports:

Jamie Livingston joined the Navy in 2000 because she “wanted to be part of something bigger than myself.”

But during her seven years in uniform, she was sexually harassed and says she was subsequently raped twice, and now is fighting for disability benefits to cover the trauma stemming from her experiences — a fight that many victims of military sexual trauma suffer through, experts say.

Livingston was 19 and had just arrived at Naval Station Everett, Washington, when her direct supervisor, a chief petty officer, ordered her to perform sexual favors and “show her body” before getting the approval she needed to work on the flight deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln.

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