My reaction to the Times Magazine Piece

This Sunday in the New York Times Magazine there ran a piece about the state of depression in female soldiers. (It can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/18cover.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=magazine)
I have very mixed feelings about the article, most of which I have trouble attributing to the actual problem described in the piece, or the way it is written. Author Sara Corbett mentions herself in a reporting context many times in the piece, but never offers her opinion-- a feature that I feel is almost detrimental. At first read, I'm struck by the ubiquity of the word "alleged", as each time rape, depression, or anything negative affecting the women comes up. While I understand the technicalities of having to include this word, I found it distracting, and in the case of the first woman who's story was told, downright misleading.
As Corbett explains the story of Army Specialist Suzanne Swift, who went AWOL from her troop and then blamed it on her "alleged rape", all the red-tape words make it seem that the author (and therefore the reader should) believes the story of rape to be a lie. When the reader is reintroduced to Swift at the end of the 16 pages they finally see the psychlogical impact of the experience, and only then can start to believe her claims.
Interupting Swift's story are the results from a number of interviews Corbett conducted with female soldiers, as well as statistics regarding rape, depression, and how they're affected by gender when it comes to wartime politics. The overarching theme of the piece seems to be arguing that women are more vulnerable to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), due to the combination of witnessing war violence, and experiencing rape. But what Corbett fails to offer is much of a solution; while she advocates a women's center in California for the discharged female soldiers to rehabilitate from their PTSD, she doesn't seem to have much to say on any methods of preventing rape, or in-army PTSD screenings.