Domestic Violence Awareness Month, first launched in October 1987, was meant to be an avenue for individuals and organization to unite to fight domestic violence by raising awareness.
Fort Jackson is playing its part throughout October by dressing in purple and holding various events like a DVAM candlelight vigil Tuesday at the Main Post Chapel.
Col. Stephen Elder, Fort Jackson's Garrison Commander, said he finds it "really important that we support this" because most people know "someone involved with it."
The installation's Family Advocacy Program, in conjunction with the Post Religious Support Office, held the vigil to allow Fort Jackson community members to hear first hand how domestic violence affects someone.
Yakesha Means, a professional counselor who works with children, spoke about how she overcame the obstacles of a childhood of DV so others can "overcome abuse and break the cycle of domestic violence," said Kamala Henley, a victim advocate with FAP.
Before Means passionately spoke about growing up in a household wracked with DV, she played a 911 call from a child calling about an incident in their home.
When Means was child she would wake up in the middle of the night hearing her mother calling her name and screaming for her father to stop hurting her. She walked in the bedroom and her father would stop and come over to the end of the bed and say to her, "Go back to bed. Everything will be all right."
Means told how she looked up to her father and wanted to please him. When her father was imprisoned for selling drugs it allowed her mother to file for divorce. In her teens, Means replaced the father figure with an older man who treated her just like her father treated her mother. He would sexually assault her until she turned the tables on him and was arrested and sent to juvenile detention. After her and her father were released from jail, her father, even though married to another woman and had a family with her, would murder her mother before taking his own life.
"It felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart," she said as teared welled up in her eyes. "It was all I could do to breath. That's why I am here today … to remember the victims of domestic violence and to honor those who survived.
She spoke of meeting another DV survivor who said, "Each time we as survivors tell our stories it allows us to heal."
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