The Prisoner of War Experience

We all hope that no American serviceman, male or female, will be taken prisoner. Historically however, the risk of capture is small but real in all conflicts. Treatment of repatriated POWs has been discussed exhaustively, but has focused on men. Women have represented a very small percentage of the military, and until recently, an even smaller percentage of prisoners. Most of the information is probably equally applicable to female as to male repatriated POWs, but there has been nothing written specifically about the repatriation of women ex-POWs.

As the only woman ex-POW still on active duty, I would like to share my views on the repatriation process.

The primary concern of many health care providers, when caring for a returning female POW, seems to be the possibility of sexual abuse. I believe this emphasis on female sexual abuse is primarily cultural. I further believe this emphasis is derived from concerns about potential psychological after-effects of sexual abuse, and that it is based on the model of civilian women. It is vital to recognize that sexual abuse in the context of the POW experience is very different, for several reasons.

• Women in the military are not necessarily representative of the "average" American woman. A military career is still not considered a traditional path for women, and women who choose a military career may have a different "willingness to take risk" than women in the general population. They may not react like the "average" woman in the civilian setting.
  
• Most women in the military recognize that they are engaged in a high-risk occupation, and accept that there is a small but real risk of death and capture.
  
• Women in the military may have different priorities. For example, I was captured after being wounded by small arms fire and involved in a very significant aircraft shoot-down. My primary concerns were first, those that were life threatening (bleeding and internal injuries), followed by those that could result in permanent disability (multiple long bone fractures in my case). While I was subjected to an unpleasant episode of sexual abuse during my captivity, it did not represent a threat to life, limb or chance of being released, and therefore occupied a MUCH lower level of concern than it might have under other circumstances.

It is my opinion that sexual abuse should be considered just one of many potential physical and psychological torture techniques, whether the subject is male or female.

While individual experiences vary, many common stresses of captivity may need to be addressed. Among these* are the physical stresses of:

Crowding Diarrhea Epidemic diseases Exhaustion Forced labor Infectious organisms Injuries

Medical experimentation Nutritional deprivation Sleeplessness Torture Weather extremes Wounds

…and the psychological stresses of:

Boredom Close long-term affiliation Confinement Danger Family separation

Fear/terror Guilt Humiliation Isolation Threats Unpredictability

* Textbook of Military Medicine, Office of the Surgeon General, United States Army, The Prisoner of War, P. 435, 1995