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After serving in Iraq, Klay was recruited to Military Barracks Washington in the nation's capital, where she says she was falsely accused of adultery, taunted as a "slut" and "whore" and told to "deal with it" by a superior. She said the situation became so uncomfortable that she requested a deployment to Afghanistan, but that request was denied because she was told she was too critical to the command. Klay alleges she was raped inside her row house near the barracks on the morning of Aug. 28, 2010, by a senior officer and a civilian friend. Klay said she reported the rapes and left the barracks, but was told she must have invited the harassment because of her clothing. She says one of her alleged attackers was ultimately court-martialed, but was judged guilty of lesser offenses of indecent language and adultery. She became so despondent amid the retaliation that she attempted suicide, she said. Another plaintiff, Elle Helmer, who says she was told she got a public affairs position at the Marine Barracks because she was considered the "prettiest," reported being sexually assaulted by a commanding officer following a St. Patrick's Day pub crawl in Washington's Capitol Hill in 2006. She says she was discouraged from submitting to a rape kit and medical examination, was told she needed to toughen up and was investigated for public intoxication and conduct unbecoming. She left the Marine Corps soon after. "It took approximately 72 hours for the victim to become the accused in this example, and that was really the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition," Helmer said. Although The Associated Press normally does not identify the victims of sexual assault, Klay and Helmer agreed to publicly discuss their case. "Are they saying we're all lying? Are they saying it doesn't happen? Hiding behind their rhetoric of zero tolerance is entirely cowardly and misleading and they know it," Helmer said.
[Associated
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