Stars and Stripes: Senate panel explores links between sex assault, PTSD and suicide
Stars and Stripes reports:
A fellow Marine drugged and raped him but served no prison time after conviction because the court admired the assailant’s 23 years of service, a military sexual assault victim told a Senate committee on Wednesday.
Then it got worse, former Lance Cpl. Jeremiah Arbogast told legislators. He was ostracized at his command and medically retired in 2006 as a result of mental health problems stemming from the attack. Then he was pushed by the Department of Veterans Affairs toward counseling groups full of men damaged by combat trauma.
Among that group, he was afraid to open up about being raped by another man. Suffering from crushing depression and post-traumatic stress, Arbogast felt he had nowhere to turn except suicide.
