By Brian Farrell
ARLINGTON, Va. (DC News Now) — As a member of the U.S. Air Force, Terace Garnier served people here in the United States and around the world, including in Japan.
Garnier, who was a broadcast journalist in the military, covered a variety of stories, all the while working to tell her own story.
Garnier wrote No Longer Silent, a book in which she discusses the pain and survival that came as the result of sexual assault.
“I had just got back from pre-deployment training, and I remember the retaliation I experienced right after that assault happened, and the craziest thing for me was I was a part of a program that helped sexual assault survivors in the military,” said Garnier.
“When I was assaulted, I didn’t even take my own advice, because I had an award-winning radio show, I was involved in the community, I was in magazines,” explained Garnier. “So, for me, I wanted to be able to provide that safe space for survivors, to know that you don’t have to suffer in silence.”
In addition to using her voice to advocate for sexual assault survivors on various platforms, Garnier’s service to the DMV community can be found in the work she does as co-coordinator for the Urban Journalism Workshop through the Washington Association of Black Journalists. Garnier volunteers with TAPS, a group that, in part, works with children whose parents died while serving overseas or who died by suicide.
Garnier, who has overcome or lives with other challenges, including a heard condition that can cause palpitations or cause her limbs to go numb or give out, currently is working on a nonprofit group called RISE to help people in television, entertainment, or journalism cope with some of the stresses that come with demands of those fields.
“Everything that’s happened to me has made me the woman that I am, and it’s led me to where I am, and I couldn’t picture life any other way,” shared Garnier.
“When we do things for others, we just do it because we know it’s the right thing to do,” Garnier said. “As long as I’m helping one person overcome their trauma or heal, all of it’s worth it.”
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