The New York Times - 12.09.2019

A2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 K

For the past six years, the news photogra-

pher Mary F. Calvert has been taking

pictures that reveal the civilian lives of

veterans with trauma that lingers long

after their discharge from the military. Her

work has focused primarily on women who

were victims of military sexual assault. But

she said she started to hear from men who

asked, “When are you going to tell our

story?”

“Sometimes a story just finds you,” Ms.

Calvert said.

Women are more likely than men to

experience sexual assault in the military —

in a 2019 Pentagon report, 6.2 percent said

they had, compared with 0.7 percent of

men. But the overwhelming prevalence of

men in the ranks means that about half of

military sexual assault cases involve a

male victim, amounting to about 10,000 per

year.

Today, The Times is sharing the stories

and photographs of six men who chose to

make their suffering visible. The Depart-

ment of Veterans Affairs has formally

recognized each man as a victim of serv-

ice-connected sexual assault.

“If she did not do this story, then no one

would do this story,” said James Estrin, a

staff photographer who has worked closely

with Ms. Calvert.

Ms. Calvert’s photographs show haunted

daily lives. The decaying smile of Paul

Lloyd, who, after being assaulted in the

Army National Guard, can’t allow a strang-

er like the dentist to get close. The tortured

bathing routine of Ethan Hanson, who,

after enduring sexual trauma as a Marine

recruit, avoids taking showers.

The work also displays something else:

a profound sense of trust between photog-

rapher and subject. Ms. Calvert spent

years getting to know these men. She calls

them “my guys.” She slept on their

couches. She joined them on errands. And

she was upfront about her purpose.

“I told them that if you are upset, then

we are probably taking pictures,” Ms.

Calvert said.

Looking for light bulbs in the grocery

store, Mr. Lloyd picked up a candle that

smelled like the shampoo he had used in

the shower when he was assaulted. A

picture shows him crumpled in the aisle,

head in his hands.

Flashbacks like that kept Mr. Lloyd up

late. So Ms. Calvert set an alarm for the

middle of the night and found him buzzing

around the house, cleaning. It was hard to

keep pace. Then he went up to the bed-

room.

“I always have this talk before a shoot,”

she said. “ ‘I have to show what this is like

for you.’ He understood. He said, ‘You can

come up, Mary.’ ”

In the picture, viewers see Mr. Lloyd

standing on the bathroom sink, his wife

asleep in the bed nearby.

The article that appears with Ms.

Calvert’s photographs was written by Dave

Philipps, a correspondent who covers

military affairs for The Times. He won a

Pulitzer Prize in 2014, while working for

The Gazette of Colorado Springs, for his

coverage of wounded combat veterans.

Mr. Philipps was born and raised in

Colorado Springs and still lives there. It’s a

military town; the Air Force Academy and

three active military bases are close by. He

grew up among service members. They

were his neighbors; he was playmates with

their children.

He said that he’d long intended to write

about the sexual assault of men in the

military.

“There is silence built in at any level of

the institution,” Mr. Philipps said. “Maybe

a soldier reports something, but the person

above them doesn’t. It never becomes a

policy issue or a needed fix.”

Last spring, Mr. Philipps was shown Ms.

Calvert’s photos.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God. This is it,’ ” he

said.

Ms. Calvert introduced him to Mr. Han-

son, 29; Mr. Lloyd, 30; Billy Joe Capshaw,

56; Bill Minnix, 64; Heath Phillips, 48; and

Jack Williams, 71.

The 2019 Pentagon report indicated that

20,500 active members experienced sexual

assault in 2018, an increase from 2016.

“As long as those numbers keep going

up, there is something wrong,” Ms. Calvert

said.

Times Insider

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

Mary F. Calvert has spent six years documenting victims of military sexual assault, including

Ethan Hanson, above, at home in Austin, Minn. He was discharged from the Marines in 2014.

MARY F. CALVERT

A Window Into 6 Haunted Lives

By TERENCE McGINLEY

To read these men’s stories, go to Page A26. To see

more of Ms. Calvert’s photographs, go to

nytimes.com.

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