Donald Trump’s latest tapes are sickening. He is exulting that he is powerful enough to do whatever he wants to a woman. I’ll spare you the exact wording. It is crude. You’ve probably heard it anyway. I remember thinking, “Well, this is it. There’s no coming back from this one.

Except there was. Right away, the supportive posts began on facebook. They want us to believe that all men talk like this.

Except they don’t. All men do NOT talk like this. You don’t get to tell me that.

I know plenty of men, and I have never heard any of them talk like that. Furthermore, not one of them is okay with Donald Trump’s words.

One of his supporters carried it a step further. Not only do all men talk like this, but women do too. The basis for his belief is that he worked in an industrial setting. He admitted to being no angel, but he listened to women who talked worse than the men. These women, he claimed, were the ones who ran to file sexual harassment suits for no reason.

I disputed his point with one well known two word phrase that invoked cattle.

He came right back and called me a hypocrite.

He does not know me better than I know myself. He does not get to say that.

Are there rough women out there? Yep. That’s undisputable. But I can tell you for a fact that if a woman is behaving in a lewd and sexually provocative manner, there are going to be witnesses to that, and her ‘case’ will generally not get very far. There are not a huge number of conniving women targeting innocent men in sexual harassment cases

Statistics prove otherwise and he does not get to say that.

Another supporter claimed that if we can’t handle hearing Donald Trump on this tape, we surely don’t want to hear how men talk about women in the military. He said that because men talk this way doesn’t mean that they act this way.

Google Army rape statistics. Ft. Hood in particular. Yeah. He doesn’t get to tell me that.

You know what? I feel very strongly about Trump’s words. I will tell you why. It is a story that I don’t tell. I honestly don’t think that I’ve ever told anyone, but this is what happened.

After I finished with basic training at Fort Leonardwood, I went to Fort Sam Houston for my AIT. My six month class did not begin for a couple weeks. There were a group of us in the same situation. Every morning after formation we were sent out on detail. This meant that any base organization that needed a few extra bodies to get work done could call for us.

That particular day, I was called to work with a group of soldiers who would be my classmates. There were a half dozen of us, two women, four men and we were working for the day cleaning up a motor pool. There were a couple non-coms directing our work.

The talk got ribald very quickly. One thing that I had learned in the military is that the men talked rough. It was not something that a woman should make a big deal about. You simply kept your mouth shut and did what you were told. This is what I did. This is what the girl who was with me did. One of the guys told a joke, and I laughed but said nothing and continued working.

Later, I went to use the restroom. Much to my shock, one of the non-commissioned officers that I was working for pulled me into the men’s room, and slammed me up against the wall. I was struggling, but he was a big fellow, and he was doing all those things that the Donald bragged about on his awful tape. He was also telling me that I wanted it. He knew that I did because I had laughed at a joke he told.

You know what saved me? A male classmate walked in to use the bathroom. He was a big guy with a booming voice. He bellowed, “HEY!!!!!!!!” and everything stopped. I ducked out of the men’s bathroom and into the women’s room. Alerted by the hubbub, the girl I was working with burst into the bathroom. We stayed there for a long time as I struggled to get my military bearing back.

Here’s the rub. The girl with me in the ladies room did not see any provocation for this man’s behavior. When I finally got the courage to step out of the ladies room, my male classmates were supportive as well. We spent the rest of the morning working, not making eye contact with the two guys in charge, doing as we were told.

But we were one short. The man with the booming voice had stalked out of the motorpool in a rage. He was marked AWOL and picked up later by the M.P.s. He was roaring drunk. To be honest, the man had a drinking problem. That day was different. He had an excuse for it. He gave that excuse to the commanding officer.

I was called into the office immediately. My commanding officer wanted to know what happened. I told him. I was dismissed, and I went back to my quonset hut and I spent a lot of time pondering the wisdom of my decision to join the Army.

How can I say it? You go on. You do what you need to do. The next morning I was in formation again, and again, I was sent on detail. This time, I was sent to a different motor pool. I was helping prepare the general’s jeep for a parade.

This time, there were no classmates. Just one non-commissioned officer who drove the general’s jeep. Fresh out of basic training, I knew there was no sense going against a lawful order. I was very nervous, but I had learned my lesson. I kept my mouth shut. I did what I was told and I did not laugh at any jokes.

It didn’t matter. I was pushed up against the wall and I was reliving the exact. same. thing. Only this time there was no booming classmate to save me. I saved myself. I don’t think that the man expected me to fight but I did and when he saw that I was not going to stop, he did.

However, the man did corroborate the first non-commissioned officer’s story. I was asking for it. I was acting provocatively. I deserved it.

I remember the rage of that. Absolute rage. The Army could have asked my classmates what happened. They didn’t. Instead they chose to put me in a situation where there were no witnesses. Where the NCOs story would be backed up. I was told that if I chose to fight this, I would be stuck at Fort Sam on detail for a long, long time.

I was embarrassed. I was afraid that I’d be thrown out of the Army, that I’d be disgraced, that my family would not believe me, all sorts of things that, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have worried about at all. But I did. So I shut up, I got my training done, I got out of Sam Houston.

Now, a full 35 years later, I heard the Donald’s tapes. I heard his gloating about what a man with power can do to a woman…and get away with it.

I was outraged. A furious white hot rage. I remembered what it was like to be that woman.

Donald said, “They let you do anything.”

Yeah. He doesn’t get to say that.