CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As Veterans Day draws near, one Coastal Bend veteran is speaking up about her experience with sexual assault in the military.
Colonel Lisa Carrington Firmin served in the U.S Air Force for thirty years. She was sexually assaulted multiple times when she was 21 years old during her initial training.
"It's really hard because you can't just walk away. You can't just quit and say I'm leaving that organization because this happened to me. You signed an oath to serve. To experience something like that, I didn't want to get kicked out for failing to meet my training requirements so I just kept my mouth shut," Firmin said.
Firmin didn't speak about her experience until ten years after she got out of service. The death of Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old Army soldier, pushed her to speak up and write about her own experience.
Firmin said Guillen's death reminded her of what she felt at that age.
"I think because I am so diverse and the intersectionality in me as a woman, as a Latina, as a veteran, as a disabled veteran, as a sexual assault survivor...I think all those things help be be more empathetic with other people," Firmin said.
Firmin's latest book, Latina Warrior, is a collection of poetry and art describing her personal experiences involving sexual assault, discrimination and combat. While Firmin wrote all the poetry pieces, another combat warrior with a similar experience joined in to create the artwork to go with each piece.
Christina Helferich-Polosky served in the U.S Army for 11 years and is now also coping with her sexual assault experiences during her military career.
"As long as we were collaborating and doing it together and uplifting each other together, than we were on a path to healing. If I didn't go there and re-live my own trauma, than the art wouldn't have been authentic," Polosky said.
Polosky said although the poetry pieces were about Firmin and her journey, she saw herself reflected in the poems.
"I have a piece of Latina soul in my heart and I can carry that with me," Polosky said.
According to the Department of Defense, there were 1,928 reports of sexual assault in the Air Force alone in 2022. Those were only the ones reported.
The Air Force also had the largest annual increase in the history of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program.
Together, the two combat warriors continue to speak out on what many women in the military experience. They said although sharing your story can be difficult, you never know who it could help.
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