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Kori Cioca left the Coast Guard with a broken jaw and post traumatic stress disorder. She experienced near constant physical pain and mental anguish and attempted suicide. After months of waiting to be approved for surgery through the Veteran’s Administration, she was denied because she claimed her jaw was broken by her supervisor when he brutally raped her while she was serving in the Coast Guard. Before being raped, Cioca had fended off aggressive advances by her attacker and found no protection from the institution she was serving. After reporting the assault, her attacker was not convicted of a crime, and Cioca herself was threatened with a court martial.

Kori Cioca is one of several female survivors of military sexual assault profiled in the new documentary film by film makers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, Invisible War, that examines the epidemic of rape in the US military. The statistics are startling. A female soldier is more likely to be sexually assaulted than killed while serving in the military. The Department of Defense estimates that in 2010 over 19,000 sexual assaults occurred in the military, but only 14% of victims reported the crime. Men in the military are also affected far more than expected – in 2010 over 100,000 veterans were found to have suffered from military sexual trauma, with men comprising more than 45%. Through interviews with rape survivors and military personnel, the film, Invisible War exposes a military culture that covers-up sexual assault in the ranks by blaming victims and turning over responsibility for investigating alleged crimes to peers and colleagues of the perpetrators.

The Invisible War has won a number of awards including the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for best documentary. The New York Times said of the film, “[t]his is not a movie that can be ignored.”

GUEST: Susan Burke, lawyer in Washington DC, representing 48 veterans and active service members in 3 lawsuits against Secretaries of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, and Leon Panetta

The Invisible War is currently showing at the Laemmle Monica Four Plex.

Visit www.InvisbleWarMovie.com for more information.