Ever since she was a kid, Orlinda Marquez dreamed of being an officer in the military. “I bought a rucksack from an Army surplus store. Ran to and from school with that rucksack.”
Marquez took an ROTC scholarship and graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden with a degree in engineering and geophysics. She entered the Army Corps of Engineers in 1987 as a second lieutenant.
“I was in charge of 36 men, and they didn’t like it,” she recalled.
Marquez, 40, of Denver keeps a scrapbook of that time, full of awards for athletic events and other accomplishments. “This is the person I was,” she said, nodding to it. “Ambitious, motivated.”
A man in her unit was helping her train for company runs.
Afterward, at her barracks, he sexually assaulted her, she said. She did not immediately report the crime. She was the officer, and he was the noncommissioned officer, and Marquez felt she would be blamed because she was supposed to be in control, she said.
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Afterward, Marquez said, “I quit. I found every excuse I could from a stubbed toe to a cough that wouldn’t go away” to not participate in any events. She kept to herself, and gained weight rapidly.
When she finally reported the assault in September 1989, the battalion commander said she was making up the complaint to “ruin” the man’s career, she said.
She was immediately given a reprimand for being overweight, then accused of cheating during a physical fitness test, she says.
“They questioned my integrity, and that was the last straw. That’s when I buckled.”
In August 1990, she applied for medical school at the University of Colorado at Denver and was accepted. But a phone call about her assault from an officer, who may have been investigating another crime by her attacker, sent her reeling emotionally.
“After that call, I couldn’t concentrate,” Marquez said. “I had to drop out of med school, and my life has been all about dropping out ever since. … I have a degree that I should be making about a six-figure income. Yet since the military, in 12 years’ time I’ve gone through 31 jobs. No relationships to speak of. I push them away.”
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She wonders what has happened to her life, her plans. “Why can’t I fit in? Why am I always on the outside looking in? What’s the point to this life – I can’t do anything right.
“I think, ‘I could be a colonel right now …’ I felt like I was weak. I let them break me.”
She has gone to the VA for help, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and attends counseling sessions for sexual trauma. She has been hospitalized for depression.
Group therapy at the VA is helping her put the pieces of her life together, Marquez said. “I’ve not totally accepted I’m a worthwhile person yet, but it’s helping me get there.”