Trigger Warning: Assault by a Romantic Partner-- Blurry Lines, Power Dynamics, US Army Life

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Today for Devotions with Daniela, we are reading from the first book of Daniela, my story of growing up in the Children of God religious cult and going into the cult of the US Army.

[00:00:09]We are in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and I have met this contractor who's a former Marine who works on the base.

[00:00:18]We'd been a couple, kind of a couple for months. Friends publicly, but folks knew the real deal.

[00:00:24]He wasn't risking nearly as much as me.

[00:00:26]Contractors were basically bulletproof, not under the military justice system, but so far away from their countries of origin that they didn't really fall under their rules, either.

[00:00:37]I ignored the sinking feeling that told me to be careful.

[00:00:41]Then one night he confessed that the ex he'd mentioned wasn't really an ex. She was actually his girlfriend back home where he would return, finally cashing out the millions he'd banked during his contractor years to move back to Colorado, buy a house, marry the girl, and enjoy the American dream. He wouldn't be back.

[00:01:00]He wished me the best and held me while I cried.

[00:01:03]I felt so alone, left behind on the interminable sands.

[00:01:09]I couldn't bear one more person falling away from my life.

[00:01:12]That night I sobbed for hours, sitting beside him in his truck and listening to the melancholy music he played while staring at the shipping containers that dotted the landscape.

[00:01:23]I don't remember why we ended up in his room, but it had to have been on purpose because getting there wasn't easy. We had to sneak into the building, pass many other rooms, and slip in quietly.

[00:01:35]The Army didn't allow civilian clothes even off duty, and if anyone saw me in my uniform, I could be reported and my career would be over because there's no sex allowed during deployments.

[00:01:46]As a woman, I stood out wherever I went, everyone watching to see where I might be headed in the dark.

[00:01:53]In his room, we talked all night long.

[00:01:57]At some point, we began to argue and I moved to the bed wanting to be physical, wanting to be held one last time.

[00:02:04]I'd taken his shirt off and he'd put it back on, but he'd looped his arms around me anyway.

[00:02:10]We were fighting, but also making out.

[00:02:13]When he pinned my wrists, I thought it was a joke.

[00:02:16]When he'd begun to move on top of me, I didn't get upset. Wasn't this what I'd wanted?

[00:02:22]When he began to tear at my clothes, I helped him take them off.

[00:02:27]But when he turned me over and held me down, face pressed hard to the pillow, and began to do things to me that I'd never given him permission to do, I opened my eyes and my gaze was drawn to my boots on the floor.

[00:02:40]My combat boots. My one thing made for women, meant to stay on base, but which had already been out on so many missions on the open sand.

[00:02:50]They had already faced what the men thought was danger.

[00:02:53]And there they were, unlaced and haphazardly tossed into the corner.

[00:02:58]I stared at the way the laces pooled on either side, one boot standing straight up and the other slightly tipped over, leaning on its buddy.

[00:03:07]I realized I didn't have a buddy.

[00:03:10]I didn't have anyone I'd be able to tell, anyone I could lean on. I thought that person had been him.

[00:03:16]The same man on top of me, holding me down as I tried to struggle.

[00:03:22]There they were, the evidence of my crime.

[00:03:24]The only thing an investigation might care about. I had taken off my boots. I had sat on his bed. I had wanted him to touch me.

[00:03:34]Nobody would ever believe I was being raped by a man I had been trying to sleep with.

[00:03:40]And nobody would care.

[00:03:42]So, like I'd been trained in my youth, I stopped fighting.

[00:03:46]I knew there was no point.

[00:03:48]I stared at the boots until they began to blur in my vision.

[00:03:52]I stared and stared until he was done.

[00:03:56]And then I sat up calmly and put my clothes back on.

[00:03:59]Somehow, I still had a voice.

[00:04:02]I asked him why he hadn't asked me.

[00:04:04]I asked why he'd forced me.

[00:04:07]I asked why he didn't stop when I told him to.

[00:04:11]"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know."

[00:04:14]He repeated again and again, his hands covering his face.

[00:04:19]He got dressed as I put my boots on.

[00:04:22]Hole by hole, I laced them back up. The evidence that I'd deserved it.

[00:04:27]I'd been telling myself for years that if it ever happened again, I'd be fierce. I'd fight. I'd certainly report it.

[00:04:35]I wouldn't be like that 14-year-old girl who'd lain there and taken it, certain that it was her fault.

[00:04:41]I was protected now. I was somebody.

[00:04:45]I existed.

[00:04:47]But I didn't report it, and I couldn't.

[00:04:50]I'd been breaking the rules. I'd gone with him on purpose.

[00:04:54]I'd taken off my boots intentionally.

[00:04:58]I knew nobody would care that I'd been raped, and I knew nobody would believe me.

[00:05:03]If I walked out of his room and reported anything, it would end my career forever. And it wasn't until I was writing this book that I realized he knew that, too.

[00:05:13]He picked up his keys, and I picked up my assault rifle, and we walked to his truck in silence.

[00:05:19]I noted the ultimate irony of this assault, that I'd been armed while he had not.

[00:05:26]He drove me to my room.

[00:05:28]He hugged me and told me to keep my chin up.

[00:05:31]Then he drove away, and I never saw him again.

[00:05:35]I felt the blood pulse in my body, and I heard it in my ears, along with Captain Madison's warning, "You'll probably get raped while we're here."

[00:05:44]Now that it had happened, maybe my constant fear always waiting for the attack would subside, I thought.

[00:05:52]But the words continued to echo in the back of my head.

[00:05:56]Watch your back.

[00:05:57]Don't get raped.

[00:05:59]Don't get yourself raped.

[00:06:05]You can get signed copies of Uncultured paperback attached here or listen to me read it to you anywhere you get your audiobooks.