Breaking ranks on dark side of army life
Valerie O'Brien recounts a life of brothels, beatings and bullying in the military, writes Alison O'Riordan
One of the first female combat soldiers in the Irish Army has lifted the lid on life in the military -- telling how, on overseas missions, soldiers became regulars in back-street brothels.
Valerie O'Brien has painted a very different picture of army life from the glossy recruiting posters -- and paid dearly for it.
Horrified to discover just how much of a "man's world" the Army was, the driven Cork woman was also to suffer sexual harassment, isolation and depression during her service with the Defence Forces.
Valerie's father and grandfather had both been in the Irish Army. "I was surrounded by military all my life. I was a tomboy and I wanted to be a soldier and saw it as an opportunity to travel. I wanted to live the dream," she said.
Little did she know what she was letting herself in for. She had to fight hard to be seen as an equal with the men.
"The Army is certainly male dominated. I don't think it should deter women from joining, but they should go in with open eyes realising that it's very hard, and it's even harder after you have children. I do feel my maternal instincts as a mother were chipped away at.
"Because I was trying to fit in with lads I concealed my femininity and covered myself up. I cursed and adopted male mannerisms to fit in and fade into the background so I wouldn't stand out," she said.
Valerie first began to feel like she had made a big mistake when she had to go on tours of duty to the Lebanon and Eritrea.
The ex-corporal whistle-blowing soldier claims many troops were red-light addicts on overseas missions especially in Eritrea in East Africa in 2002. The mother-of-two said Irish soldiers regularly visited a local brothel, signed in with their United Nations identity cards, paid prostitutes with pizzas and chickens and held "condom parades".
"Eritrea is a war-ravaged country. There was a bar and restaurant up the road from the camp called the "Ber Hiba", however upstairs there were two rooms which operated as a brothel.
"The Eritrea women were some of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life, like supermodels with caramel skin and deep velvety chocolate-brown eyes and they worked here because they were so poor.
"I was amazed at the level of Irish soldiers who frequented the brothel, it was a common occurrence.
"The only flaw from the soldiers' point of view was that each person had to produce their United Nations peace-keeping card, then they paid the hourly fee for the room.
"Sometimes you would be timed. It would happen every night of the week. I drank there a lot myself but I became so desensitised to the situation. At the start, the women were paid in cash but towards the end of the trip the soldiers started to slowly realise the women had no choice but to be there as they were desperate and I saw the tables turn. The soldiers would pay them with a chicken or a pizza from the fridge in the camp.
"I did hear of a situation where a woman was beaten by an Irish soldier and she ended up in hospital for a few days.
"We also had condom parades where we would get into an orderly queue and got issued with two boxes of condoms each," she said.
When in the Lebanon on another tour of duty, Valerie felt that many of the comments that were aimed at her by her co-workers were hurtful and degrading. Only now realising she was being sexually harassed, she was told she couldn't do things because she was a woman.
"Another soldier was found guilty of physically assaulting me; she punched me in the face. Things like assault happen when there is such a degree of bullying. She was charged and found guilty.
"I also suffered from isolation in Lebanon as they left me in a cabin on my own," she added.
The Defence Forces said in a statement to the Sunday Independent: "A military police investigation, initiated from Ireland, took place into an incident in Eritrea and a number of personnel were charged and disciplined under the Defence Act 1954."
The struggle to be a mother and keep up her army career took its toll on her health and she developed an eating disorder, viral encephalitis and fibromyalgia (ME), while her marriage also broke up after, after just three years, in 2007.
"In the end I hung up my army boots because I was physically sick and I wanted to reconnect with my children and femininity. I was broken in every way emotionally and physically. I had had enough of army life after being there 10 years," she said.
Now a qualified beautician -- a far cry from army fatigues, punishing training and the shadow of men -- Valerie is not sorry she joined the army.
"I have no regrets putting the story out there. I walked in my boots, nobody else, and I have a right to tell it.
"It was the dark side of army life and obviously whoever was out there wants it kept quiet and never to come out, but it's my story and it happened. I have a right to tell my story," she said.
In The Shadow of Men, Is the Army any place for a Woman? by Valerie O'Brien is available in all bookshops.
Originally published in
