Ramona Booker, photographed Jan. 18, in Florida, dreamed of being a pilot, so she joined the U.S. Air Force. She said a man whose advances she had turned down, sexually assaulted her

Ramona Booker, photographed Jan. 18, in Florida, dreamed of being a pilot, so she joined the U.S. Air Force. She said a man whose advances she had turned down, sexually assaulted her

Ramona Booker was 22 when she said she was attacked on a base in England, more than 25 years ago. She said a military man visiting from another base hid in her room while she was in the restroom and then attacked her.
"Your life changes in a matter of minutes," she said, talking openly for the first time. "When it's done, you're happy to be alive. How can you rebuild your life after that."
Booker didn't come forward. She only agreed to talk now to help other victims. A self-described loner, she never married or had children.
Booker, who said she had trouble walking after the brutal attack, reported the incident to the person in charge of the dorm. After a few days, she said she was reassigned from the aircraft mechanic job she loved and said airmen in her unit turned against her.
"They kind of got rid of me," she said. "They shooed me over. You get taunted, you get harassed."
"This shouldn't still be happening," she said. "They are not going to warn you, they are not going to tell you about the problems when they are trying to recruit you. I think they should implement a safety class for women going (into the military) now."
Women like Booker and Arnold bear mental scars for decades, experts say.
"It forever impacts the ability to trust others," said Scott Fairchild, a Melbourne psychologist who treats traumatized veterans. Fairchild said it causes victims to be cautious, depressed and insecure.
Intense turmoil
Arnold was 18 when she went into the Army in 1977, and "had no idea what the military was like."
She said she reported the first of two sexual assaults and "all it did was get me in trouble." She learned other women in her unit had stories of attacks. "We were blackballed. We sat in the commander's office. We might as well had been lying."
"The military needs ... to acknowledge that it's not reported because of fear," she said.
She describes nightmares and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder but says she learned to cope. She moved to Brevard from Tennessee in 2011 looking for a quieter life. She shut out many details of what happened, until she got the call from the daughter she'd given up after the attack.
The sudden call has caused intense turmoil. Her husband and their 28-year-old daughter did not know of her attack, until now.
"I came here with hope of living a peaceful life on the beach," she said.