Rhonda Cornum

As a flight surgeon with the 229th Attack Helicopter Regiment, then-Major Cornum was aboard a Black Hawk helicopter on a search and rescue mission, looking for a downed F-16 pilot, during the Persian Gulf War.[6] When the helicopter was shot down on February 27, 1991, she suffered two broken arms, a broken finger, a gunshot wound in the back, and other injuries.[6] After regaining consciousness, she said her first thought was "Nobody's ever died from pain."[7]

Cornum was captured, made a prisoner of war (POW), and sexually assaulted by one of her Iraqi captors.[8] She was first taken to Basra and then held prisoner for a week in Baghdad and released on March 5, 1991.[3] In addition, she was subjected, with other prisoners, to a mock execution.[7] Nevertheless, when she was the senior-ranking prisoner, she took responsibility for other POWs. She later co-wrote a book about her experiences, She Went to War: the Rhonda Cornum Story (ISBN 0891415076), with Peter Copeland.

In an interview with the New York Times, she said the sexual assault "ranks as unpleasant; that's all it ranks....everyone's made such a big deal about this indecent assault, but the only thing that makes it indecent is that it was non-consensual. I asked myself, 'Is it going to prevent me from getting out of here? Is there a risk of death attached to it? Is it permanently disabling? Is it permanently disfiguring? Lastly, is it excruciating?' If it doesn't fit one of those five categories, then it isn't important." She continued, "there's a phenomenal amount of focus on this for the women but not for the men," citing that the "mistreatment of [fellow POW] Major Jeffrey S. Tice of the Air Force, who had a tooth explode from its socket when he was tortured with jolts of electricity."

Cornum resumed her military career after she returned to the United States. She also served as the staff urologist at Eisenhower Army medical Center at Fort Gordon, Georgia.[3]

She testified about this to the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Services. Initially, she did not mention this abuse, at the request of her chain of command, when first repatriated. She gave additional detail in her book.