From Victim To Accused Army Deserter

The accused sergeant she had sex with is now out of the Army.

Swift's allegations also concern an incident after she returned home from Iraq.

While at Fort Lewis, Swift said, another sergeant in her chain of command made a number of lewd comments to her. One day, when she asked him where to report for duty, he told her: "In my bed, naked."

She said that later, in front of her fellow soldiers, he asked her for sex and she told him to shut up, using an expletive. He ordered her to do push-ups. She reported him to the equal opportunity officer.

The sergeant was given a letter of admonishment and reassigned to another unit. In the Army's news release about her case, officials noted how well the complaint process worked in the incident at Fort Lewis.

The way Swift described it, sexual remarks are part of military life--and she heard many of them. But she said there is a distinct difference when it comes from a superior. "The other soldiers don't have power over you," she said.

Since 2005, the Pentagon has stepped up efforts to aid in reporting such incidents -- posting victims' advocates in many units, for example -- but even so, said Kaplan, the Pentagon spokesman, "when you're in Iraq, you're quite spread out," and soldiers in small units may have difficulties.

Swift had been home from Iraq for eight months when word came about a second deployment in January. After she made her decision to not go, her mother took her to a therapist, who diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder related to the alleged sexual offenses. (Swift said that the Army later told her that based on its evaluation, she showed stress disorder symptoms but did not have the full-blown disorder.)

Her mother also hired a lawyer, who contacted Fort Lewis to try to arrange a discharge. But the Army said it would not negotiate with deserters, according to Swift's mother. In June, Eugene's police department came knocking at her mother's door.

Swift was arrested in the living room of her mother's home.