Update on Suzanne Swift

This is from Sara Rich, mother of Suzanne Swift, the young woman who refused to return to Iraq after she accused her superiors of raping and sexually harassing her. Read about Suzanne and her case here:

Ft Lewis, good bye and good riddance.

Suzanne is heading to her AIT training in Virginia at Ft. Lee today. Let's hope the folks there are more humane and helpful. In my opinion if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. It is the neanderthal mentality of people in uniform at Ft. Lewis that perpetuate and support military sexual violence. The command there allowed this to happen to Suzanne and then made it worse for her by putting her in prison and stripping her of all her rank.

A photographer from the New York Times magazine came out to take pictures for a huge piece coming out in a few weeks. Ft Lewis command threatened Suzanne with another court martial if she went through with it and then took away her off base privileges. Finally, after having to fight with them AGAIN, they agreed to allow her off base for the photographer, who flew in from out of town, as long as she was ESCORTED! Don't they know if she was going to run again, she would have done it a long time ago. I had to call a Colonel to get the escorts to respond to Suzanne, then they returned her calls and she made the photo shoot. We will let you know when the NYTM hits the press and then we are planning some major action in DC against military sexual violence.

Once again, we will not stop until there is justice for Suzanne and the thousands of other men and women who have been sexually abused in the military.
Peace~

Sara Rich, M.S.W