VETERANS RECALL EXPERIENCES OF HARASSMENT

When Lillian Burgfeld joined the Women's Army Corps in 1942, the phrase "sexual harassment" didn't mean much to her.

Burgfeld, who now lives in Cape Girardeau, was 28 years old and worked at a Chicago munitions plant while her infantryman husband served in Europe. She took a leave of absence to join thousands of other Wacs supporting the boys overseas.

Her basic training was in Daytona Beach, Fla. Her first assignment was at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland -- the same Army base now at the heart of a huge investigation.

Burgfeld tested ammunition underground and said she felt comfortable with all the men around her.

"Wacs could go out night or day and none of the men would make a pass at them," she said. "You know how a lot of them do now? Back then, they never made any kind of reference about what they wanted to do with you."

Military women say the situation is much different 54 years later.

A special hotline was set up at Aberdeen Proving Ground after four drill sergeants and a captain were charged with raping or sexually harassing at least a dozen female recruits. More than 4,000 women have called the hotline since the scandal broke in September.

In a separate case at Fort Leonard Wood training base in Missouri, four noncommissioned officers were charged last week with violating the Army's ban on personal relationships with trainees.

Other branches of the military also are facing the problem of sexual harassment. On Wednesday, the U.S. Air Force's sexual harassment hotline switched from offering service only during working hours to offering it around the clock.

That switch didn't surprise Nancy Holden. The Sikeston native joined the Air Force in 1989. During her four years in the military, she helped at least one younger recruit deal with a sergeant who harassed her.

The incident was at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, and Holden helped the recruit file a report. Air Force officials set up a sting operation and later prosecuted the sergeant in military court.

"I feel sorry for the girls it happened to, but if it had been reported, it would have stopped," Holden said. "Until you have been in the military long enough to understand how things work, you don't know what to do."

Today Holden works for a state police association in Jefferson City. She suggested military women talk to their chaplains if they are sexually harassed. While she didn't draw any unwanted sexual attention while serving her country, other women likely will.

"You are entering a society still very much geared toward men," Holden said.

Dawn Wise of Sikeston was part of that society in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. She was married to a fellow Army recruit at Fort Benning, Ga., but Operation Desert Storm quickly separated her from her husband.

Wise attracted unwanted attention from a drill sergeant and a captain during her three-year tour of duty. Tall and thin with bright blue eyes, she stood out among the other mechanics.

"If you're going to go into the Army, you're going to get hit on," she said. "They will find some way to get you by yourself or give you special treatment to get into your pants.

"If you don't give in, they give you some sort of duty you don't want or call you out as a bad example."

Wise was honorably discharged in 1992 and said she doesn't resent the Army for her bad experiences with the two officers.

But as far as Lillian Burgfeld is concerned, stories like Wise's are shocking. She stayed with the WAC even after her first husband was killed in Europe. She met her second husband, Gilbert Burgfeld, while working in an Army hospital where he was a patient.

They left the service in 1944 and moved to Southeast Missouri.

Widowed for the second time, Burgfeld has no regrets about her time in the Army. Sunday was her 82nd birthday, and she proudly brought out an 8-by-10 photo of herself in uniform to show visitors.

If she were 28 years old today, she said, her life would take a different path.

"I wouldn't be in the Army now," Burgfeld said. "No matter what they do, stuff like that at Aberdeen will still go on."