“The Invisible War” examines the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military. It also looks at the institutions that cover up the violence, and the profound consequences it has for its victims. We interviewed director Kirby Dick as well as two of the film’s subjects, Kori Cioca and Trina McDonald. Cioca, who served in the Coast Guard, was beaten and raped by a supervisor, and then charged with adultery because he was married. McDonald was drugged and raped by military police on a remote Naval station in Alaska. We aired the interview in January on the heels of a military survey showing the number of reported violent sex crimes jumped 30 percent in 2011, with active-duty female soldiers ages 18 to 21 accounting for more than half of the of the victims.
Watch Interview
The One Oscar-Nominated Movie You Must See
By Alyssa Rosenberg via Slate
Posted Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, at 2:53 PM ET
As someone who grew up in a county which is basically one huge military base I am certainly not stunned or shocked by anything in this documentary. I'm just so glad that these people got to tell their stories and Sec Def Panetta saw and heard them. I worked on a base and the harassment was incessant, but I was lucky, I was a civilian employee and I lived within walking distance of police headquarters. I knew women who were not so lucky, and watching this brings back painful memories that I thought were dead and buried.
