http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081218/SPECIALS/812180372/-1/SPECIALS&template=domesticviolence_story
Posted on: Thursday, December 18, 2008
Domestic violence in military might be bigger problem than Hawaii statistics suggest
Many see violence against military wives as a ‘big-time problem,’ but official statistics tell different story
By Rob Perez
Advertiser Staff Writer
Sitting at a Windward O’ahu spouse abuse shelter, thousands of miles from her alleged batterer, Kaliegh Cuervo lifted her blouse to reveal a small scar from a bullet wound on her left side.
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It serves as a permanent reminder of the brutal attacks she said she suffered on the Mainland after her then-Marine husband returned from a second deployment to Iraq.
The attacks left other lasting effects. Her right eye is permanently damaged. She has false teeth. Doctors told her she no longer can bear children.
After the second Iraq tour, Cuervo said, her husband came back a different person. He had trouble sleeping, was more withdrawn, more prone to violent outbursts. The first evening back, she said, he got night sweats so bad the mattress was soaked to the box-springs and had to be replaced.
“It was pretty scary,” said Cuervo, 36, who changed her name and fled to Hawai’i to get away from her ex-husband. “He wasn’t the man I married.”
Cuervo’s description of how the stresses of war transformed her former spouse sounded remarkably similar to what many other military wives and girlfriends have told Hawai’i court personnel, domestic-violence counselors, victim advocates and others to explain their partners’ violent or emotionally abusive tendencies.
Advocates believe such behavior helps explain why some civilian agencies that deal with returning troops or their spouses have seen a spike in domestic-abuse cases involving veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It’s a big-time problem,” said William “Clay” Park, a former case manager and veterans specialist with Helping Hands Hawai’i.
Maj. Carlton Nishimura, head of Honolulu Police Department’s criminal investigation division, said his unit saw few military domestic-violence cases before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Now, he and others said, police are seeing them more frequently.
Glenn Komiyama, the Judiciary’s adult client services branch supervisor, likewise said temporary-restraining-order filings involving military members seem to have increased since troops began returning from deployments.
If the rate of military abuse has risen in Hawai’i in recent years, the official statistics hardly reflect that.
The Army and Marines, the two branches that have shouldered the lion’s share of deployments from the Islands, have reported seeing little change in the number of substantiated domestic-abuse cases locally.
The Army total actually dropped from 160 cases in fiscal 2003 to 119 last fiscal year. The Marines recorded 57 administrative cases in fiscal 2006, unchanged from five years earlier.
The Hawai’i Army National Guard, which sent roughly half its 5,500 members to the war zones in 2004 and 2005, reported a similar experience. Before the deployment, the Guard averaged about one domestic-abuse case in the court system per year, according to spokesman Chuck Anthony. After the deployment, he added, the average has remained basically the same. The data include restraining-order cases.
Army spokesman Loran Doane said the decline in substantiated Army cases and the increase in personnel devoted to combating domestic violence and supporting families in Hawai’i indicate the programs are working.
“We’ve succeeded in what we wanted to accomplish,” he said, stressing that the programs will continue adapting to the changing needs of soldiers and their families.
Some outside the military say the numbers fail to capture the true extent of the domestic abuse problem within the services, tending to minimize it.
“I really do think it’s a much bigger problem than what’s being publicly acknowledged,” said Kata Issari, program director for the Family Peace Center, which provides services for Hawai’i offenders and victims.
Nationally, the picture is mixed. One study suggested that the Army’s domestic violence rates overall are no worse than for civilian families. Another noted that one in five veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan reported symptoms of combat stress or major depression, which can contribute to domestic violence. Still other studies have shown increased substance abuse problems – another contributor to domestic violence – among recent combat veterans.
The Miles Foundation, which provides help to battered military wives nationwide and at foreign bases, has seen its caseload skyrocket since the wars started. Before October 2001, it had roughly 50 new cases a month, according to Margaret Bowen, the foundation’s director of research and resources. As of June of this year, it was averaging nearly 170 cases per week.
“We’re seeing a big correlation between deployment and an increase in the number of cases and the severity of violence,” Bowen said.
Part of the problem is that the behaviors that underlie domestic violence – power and control – are closely aligned to the command mindset in the military. Additionally, the combat ethos – warriors take charge and show no emotion – can spell disaster in an intimate relationship if the soldier has trouble readjusting and bottles up his feelings.
“It’s like jamming a cannon,” said Joe Bloom, program director for Catholic Charities Hawai’i’s therapeutic services. “Eventually, it’s going to blow up.”
Most troops typically have no major problems adjusting. But as more members return to Hawai’i from their second, third and fourth deployments, the chances of domestic strain tend to rise, the experts say. Because of that, some agencies are bracing for even more abuse cases.
“I fully expect we’ll see quite a huge jump,” Bloom said.
One area in which military abuse cases tend to frequently surface in the civilian community is in the civil courts, where temporary restraining orders are issued.
Ed Flores, executive director of Ala Kuola, a nonprofit that helps people file TRO petitions, said the vast majority of military cases it handles involve troops recently returned from deployments.
“A lot of these wives will say, ‘He’s not the same person,’ ” Flores said.
Family Court Judge Michael Broderick, who decides restraining order cases three mornings a week, hears that line all the time. Broderick estimated that roughly 20 percent of his TRO cases involve military members.
“What I frequently hear (from the wives and girlfriends) is that he’s different, he’s like a stranger, he acts in ways he never did before,” Broderick said. “The truth is, I hurt for these guys. But I still grant the restraining orders” if the woman’s safety is at risk.
Broderick recalled a recent case in which a soldier acknowledged that he repeatedly hit and threatened to kill his girlfriend. Dressed in his military fatigues, the soldier came to court agitated, pacing in the tiny room.
He told the judge he had been wounded in Iraq and had killed people. Although he admitted abusing his girlfriend, he implored Broderick not to issue the protective order she sought.
“I’m begging you, don’t do this,” the soldier pleaded as his girlfriend cried only a few feet away. “Don’t take away from me the one person I love and the only person who can help me through this crisis.”
In considering whether to issue the order, Broderick said he had to separate the soldier’s pain and war experiences from the woman’s safety. Because the judge believed she clearly was in danger, he issued the protective order. “It was really, really hard,” he said.
In another case, a woman told the court that her military husband threw her to the ground and started choking her. She was able to get away and ran outside, where her husband grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her into the street, according to her restraining order petition. He finally let go and walked to her garage, where he punched holes in the wall.
Those types of cases are not uncommon in the daily stream of restraining-order requests to come before the courts.
Broderick said he has noticed other common themes in military cases, especially among the men returning from Iraq. Jealousy seems to be a frequent factor, with the soldiers telling the judge about suspicious e-mails their partners received or concerns because the partners were going out at night with friends. “In almost none of the cases is there a basis for the suspicion at all,” the judge said.
Broderick said he also is seeing more military men who seem genuinely confused that the judge doesn’t understand why they ended up abusing their partners. “It seems a disproportionate number have recently returned from Iraq.”
The public’s glimpse of the domestic violence problem in the military has come mostly from horrific criminal cases that have generated widespread media coverage.
The case of Hawai’i Army National Guard soldier Tyrone Vesperas, for instance, received national attention last year when he was charged with various murder-related crimes after he allegedly stabbed his 14-year-old son to death. The teen was protecting his pregnant mother during a domestic dispute on the Big Island.
Vesperas and his wife, Cheryl-Lyn Vesperas, had separated shortly after he returned from a tour in Iraq. During the argument, the wife also was stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen, police said. The unborn child did not survive.
Cuervo said her case got local media coverage partly because of the severity of the abuse. Her ex-husband is facing prosecution on a variety of charges, including domestic battery and kidnapping, she said.
Cuervo told her story from the Windward shelter in October on the condition that her former husband not be named. Because she has changed her identity, including her Social Security number, with the help of the federal government, she did not want her new name linked to her old one. She has since left the shelter.
Cuervo, who often broke into tears as she recounted what happened, said her husband was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his second tour in Iraq. After he became particularly violent one night, Cuervo said she went to an emergency shelter, and four other women whose husbands were in the same Marine unit already were there, seeking refuge from their abusers.
Cuervo said she was hospitalized for several months after one beating, has had eight surgeries since then and considers herself lucky to be alive. “Every day of my life is a blessing,” she said. “When I look in the mirror now, I see hope.”
To counter the domestic violence problem, the military provides extensive training to its troops before, during and after deployments. Families also are offered classes to help them understand and cope with the lengthy deployments.
Once home, the soldiers go through more extensive sessions covering a range of topics, from substance abuse to suicide awareness. And because readjustment difficulties may not surface immediately, similar sessions are provided at several subsequent intervals, such as 90 and 180 days later for the Marines.
“These symptoms don’t manifest themselves immediately upon return,” said Marine Capt. Seth Gibson.
Since the deployments started, the Army in Hawai’i has added to its community service staff to offer expanded programs to soldiers and their dependents.
Workers, for instance, conduct life-skill classes and other family-friendly services. New parents can get home visits from family consultants and can join group sessions for specialized help.
Consultants provide problem-solving counseling and other assistance to help families cope with deployment stresses.
“Without a doubt, the Army definitely has stepped up to the plate to increase service delivery and support for soldiers and family members across the board,” said Cole Weeks, Family Advocacy Program manager for Army Community Service at Schofield Barracks.
The military also provides two options for victims to report abuse. One enables the victim to get medical, counseling and other treatment while law enforcement authorities pursue an investigation. That option could result in prosecution of the alleged abuser, with potential ramifications on his military career. The other option allows the victim to get treatment without requiring notification of the alleged abuser’s command and law enforcement.
“We do treat this issue very seriously and have a plethora of programs,” said Marine spokesman Maj. Alan Crouch.
With the Hawai’i Guard expecting more marital problems and divorces in the wake of a current deployment, the second for the group, it is planning to hire more workers to track cases and provide additional support services.
Among the services will be a mobile team with family specialists who can go to people’s homes.
Park, the former Helping Hands veterans specialist, said the military is trying to cope with the domestic violence problem, but not nearly enough is being done. Tracking of the problem is insufficient and more counseling and other intervention programs are needed, Park said.
He said he has spoken to many combat veterans who are struggling to cope with the after-effects of the war and whose marriages have ended or are under tremendous stress.
“The system is failing the guys and their spouses,” Park said.
Reach Rob Perez at rperez@honoluluadvertiser.com.
