Dead woman found near Carson was a soldier

DENVER — A 28-year-old Army corporal from Fort Riley, Kan., was found dead amid blood and flower petals in a Colorado motel room, apparently after a Valentine’s Day quarrel with her soldier boyfriend, according to a court document released Tuesday.

The body of Cpl. Kimberly Walker was found Sunday in Colorado Springs, police said. Army Sgt. Montrell Lamar Anderson Mayo, who is stationed at Fort Carson outside Colorado Springs, surrendered later that day to police in Greenville, N.C.

Read the entire story here.

Insight into Military Cover-up of Murders

Sgt. who was murder witness sues National Guard, says retaliation

The article above makes me wonder why the Military is so eager to maintain its "reputation" that it would pervert the cause of justice.  Military members have the same responsibility to report wrongdoing that civilians do.  They should be able to give court testimony without the imprimatur of a Military Service.  They should not be protecting murderers for the sake of a public profile.

In many cases, families are not given information about the deaths of loved ones for this reason.  This has got to stop. 

Honor implies truth telling.

Carson sgt. convicted in murder of spc.

FORT CARSON, Colo. — A soldier was found guilty of unpremeditated murder in the killing of a fellow Fort Carson colleague on Thursday.

A military panel reached the verdict against Sgt. Vincinte Jackson after several hours of deliberation. The panel of eight Army officers and enlisted soldiers — the equivalent of a jury in a civilian trial — also found Jackson not guilty of premeditated murder. A conviction on that charge could have carried a sentence of up to life in prison without parole.

The sentencing phase began soon after the verdict was read.

During Jackson’s court-martial, his lawyers conceded he killed 28-year-old Spc. Brandy Fonteneaux of Houston but argued that the slaying was so brutal and random that it couldn’t have been premeditated.

Read the entire story here.

Soldier's slaying in US is bitter irony for family

DENVER -- Army Spc. Brandy Fonteneaux's death came not on a battlefield in Afghanistan but on an infantry post in Colorado - allegedly at the hand of a fellow soldier - and that makes the pain even worse for her family.

The 28-year-old from Houston had been stabbed 74 times when she was found in her room in a Fort Carson barracks on Jan. 8, Army investigators said. Officials said she had also been choked.

"We could have taken this much better if Brandy had been killed in war," said Fonteneaux's aunt, Bevenley Thomas, who raised her from infancy. "But to be murdered here in the U.S. in your barracks in your sleep is just not right."

Read the entire story here.

Robert Bales Charged: Military Scrambles To Limit Malaria Drug Just After Afghanistan Massacre

In 2004 in the United Press International, this reporter and reporter Dan Olmsted chronicled use of the drug by six elite Army Special Forces soldiers who took mefloquine then committed suicide. (Suicide is relatively infrequent among Special Forces soldiers).

"You're ready to take that plunge into hurting someone or hurting and killing yourself, and it comes on unbelievably quickly,” said one Special Forces soldier diagnosed with permanent brain damage from Lariam. “It's just a sudden thought, it's the right thing to do. You'll get a mental picture, and it's in full color."

Also that year, the UPI report showed how mefloquine use was a factor in half of the suicides among troops in Iraq in 2003 -– and how suicides dropped by 50 percent after the Army stopped handing out the drug.

Read the entire story here.

Stepmother of Slain Female Soldier Asks Court to Show Leniency

Posted on Mar 25, 2012

Images courtesy friends of Morganne McBeth

Army paramedic Morganne McBeth died under suspicious circumstances in Iraq in 2010.

By John Lasker

Spc. Nicholas Bailey, the second and final suspect charged in the 2010 stabbing death of Army paramedic Morganne McBeth, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter March 9 and later that day was sentenced to nine months in military prison and given a bad-conduct discharge.

Bailey, in a court-martial proceeding at Fort Bragg, N.C., admitted his guilt “as part of a plea deal,” a website of News 14 Carolina reported. He had faced a more severe charge of negligent homicide.

McBeth, a popular 19-year-old from Virginia, was in a tent on a military base in Iraq with Bailey and Spc. Tyler Cain when she was stabbed near the heart.

Read the entire story here.

Fort Bragg soldier enters guilty plea in 2010 stabbing death in Iraq

Sylvia McBeth pleaded for mercy for her daughter's killer, but a military judge still sentenced him to prison and ended his Army career.

Spc. Nicholas Bailey, 24, was sentenced Friday for the accidental killing of Spc. Morganne McBeth in Iraq in 2010. He was demoted to private, given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to nine months of confinement.

Read the entire story here.

Fort Bragg soldier agrees to plead guilty in fellow soldier's 2010 stabbing death in Iraq

A Fort Bragg soldier has agreed to plead guilty to charges related to the death of Spc. Morganne McBeth in Iraq in 2010.

Spc. Nicholas Bailey is expected to plead guilty March 9 to involuntary manslaughter, according to the 82nd Airborne Division.

Read the entire story here.

We thought she was safe

Last April, straight out of the Army’s course for human resources specialists, Gamboa was sent to the Headquarters Company of the 1st Personnel Command, in Schwetzingen, Germany — and, her mother thought, to safety.

But on Sunday, two Army officers showed up at Posada’s door. They told her that her daughter, a 19-year-old private first class, full of life and laughter and recently home for the holidays, was dead.

“They just told me she was found stabbed in her barracks,” Posada said.

Read the entire story here.

Military Injustice: Going Light on Murder

THE RUSS REPORT
Katharine Russ

The first of two trials surrounding the murder of 19 year-old Specialist (SPC) Morganne McBeth in July 2010 began Monday in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. SPC Tyler Cain, 21, of North Carolina, charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice, was found guilty and now faces demotion to the rank of private and 45 days in prison. Cain will be allowed to stay in the Army.
Read more...

Soldier's lawyers seeking money for crime scene expert

Lawyers for a soldier charged in the death of a fellow paratrooper in Iraq last year have asked for an expert to help reconstruct the crime scene.

Lawyers for Spc. Nicholas D. Bailey made the request to a military judge during a hearing Thursday on Fort Bragg.

Read the entire stort here.

Is This How We Treat Our Female Soldiers?

Is this how we treat our Female Soldiers? Families seek answers about daughters' "Non-Combat" deaths

This story by John Lasker has been republished by CleveScene.com among other publications. Interested in runnin it? Contact david AT spot DOT us.

 U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher McBeth has endured two tours in Iraq, where he regularly engaged in combat hell. The 28-year-old has served for 10 years, but during summer 2010, war finally got him and his family. The military told him his younger sister, U.S. Army Spc. Morganne McBeth, had suffered a noncombat related death in Iraq and they weren't at liberty to explain exactly how she died.

All military families deserve closure after their loved ones’ deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the McBeths are still waiting eight months after the tragedy.

“They haven’t told me anything,” said McBeth, fighting his emotions. “I have no clue what happened to her.”

The military has not offered a definitive explanation as to what happened to 19-year-old Morganne, who lived to jump out of C-130 Hercules aircraft.

While leaving McBeth completely out of the loop, the military has attempted during the last several months to explain Morganne’s death to her parents, Sylvia and Leonard McBeth, of Fredericksburg, Va.

Initially, the military told Morganne’s parents she accidentally stabbed herself and that it might have been a suicide. Her parents didn’t buy it and reached out to Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.). Pressure from Wittman apparently convinced the military to offer some kind of information because soon after his involvement, the military told them Morganne’s death was likely a murder.

Two male soldiers from her unit have been charged and are free while the investigation continues. Spc. Nicholas Bailey, 23, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and conspiring to obstruct justice by giving a false statement. Spc. Tyler Cain, 21, was charged with conspiring to obstruct justice.

The story of the McBeth family and its need for closure is not an isolated experience. There are scores of military families who want clear answers about what happened to their daughters and sons in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the most publicized stories is that of icon Pat Tillman, whose death some believe the Department of Defense tried to cover up to glorify the U.S. military as it aggressively continues to seek new volunteer troops in the post-9/11 world.

For just women, there are at least 20 families who believe the military isn’t telling the truth about how their daughters died in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to retired Army Col. Ann Wright, who served in Somali during the early 1990s and quit her State Department job in 2003 in protest of the Iraq invasion.  

More than 130 U.S. military women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Department of Defense has deemed nearly 50 deaths noncombat related. Wright said at least 20 of the noncombat deaths are suspicious, and their families are speaking out to some degree.

Out of the 20 female soldier deaths under scrutiny, military reports document 14 as suicides. Many of their families refuse to accept the military’s explanation and believe their daughters died at the hands of others, possibly fellow soldiers.

This much is clear: The mysterious deaths of female soldiers coincide with an increase in reported sexual violence against women in the military.

Because of this, these families question whether their daughters’ suicides were actually rapes and murders. If so, then military investigators either bungled their investigations or are orchestrating cover-ups during wartime, when the Department of Defense is more dependent on female soldiers than ever before.

Since 2002, most enlisted U.S. military men that have committed suicide have done so in the U.S., perhaps in the aftermath of exposure to combat. But for enlisted women soldiers, they’re more likely to commit suicide overseas and on base, especially within Afghanistan and Iraq, Wright said.

“The question of why women would be more likely to commit suicide outside the U.S. than once home should be investigated,” she wrote in an article for StopMilitaryRape.org.

Here are several stories of female soldiers who the military said committed suicide or were victims of noncombat deaths, and their families and friends are refusing to accept the military’s explanations:

Army Spc. Seteria Brown,22, of Orlando, Fla. Friends said everybody loved the outgoing and positive Brown, who left behind a 6-year-old daughter. The military said while stationed in Afghanistan in 2008, she put her M16 barrel to her heart and pulled the trigger.

Army Pvt. Tina Priest, 20, of Smithville, Texas. Her mom said she was shy and “a follower.” She wanted to be a medic, but several weeks into her 2006 deployment to Iraq, she called home saying she had been raped and that “no one was going to believe her.” Just a few days after telling her mother, the military said Priest put her M16 barrel to her heart and pulled the trigger with her toe.

Army Staff Sgt. Amy Tirador, 29, of Albany, N.Y. The military said while Tirador was on perimeter guard duty in Iraq in 2009, she shot herself in the back of the head. A former unit mate, Army veteran Gena Smith said: “Amy was a remarkable soldier and inspiring leader. Her family is insisting that they will do whatever it takes to prove she didn’t kill herself.”

Marine Lance Cpl. Stacy Dryden, 22, of Canton, Ohio. The military said Dryden did not kill herself but was found deceased in a portable latrine in Iraq in 2008. Historically, female soldiers have referred to the on-base Porta-Potties as “rape traps.” What is significant about Dryden’s case is that her death, according to military investigators, was due to injuries suffered during a “friendly wrestling match” she had with a U.S. Navy sailor who body-slammed her onto concrete. The sailor has not been charged with any crime. Dryden’s family pressed for clearer answers, and in January 2011, military investigators changed their explanation and said the wrestling match was actually a hostile confrontation after the sailor made a derogatory remark to Dryden.

Is this how we treat our female soldiers?

Similar to the McBeths, the family of Pvt. Lavena Johnson could not get a straight story out of Army investigators on their daughter’s 2005 death in Iraq. Her death has come under intense media scrutiny. Johnson has become the face of noncombat female death and has been championed by Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman.

The Department of Defense’s first official version claimed that Johnson, a violin player and honor student, killed herself by putting the barrel of an M16 in her mouth as the tent she was in burned around her. She ended it all, in a fiery rage, said investigators from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D, because a new boyfriend of two months dumped her in an e-mail from Kentucky.

In 2009, C.I.D. changed answers in a written statement to Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina. C.I.D. stated Johnson never set fire to the tent, even though eyewitnesses first on the scene testified that parts of the tent were in flames.

According to military documents, Johnson’s commanding officer, James Woods, told investigators that before her suicide, she was always smiling and that he did not see any changes in behavior.

The Senate Armed Services Committee eventually signed off on C.I.D.’s investigation. Case closed.

The story of Lavena Johnson, however, is far from over. Five years have passed since her death, and Lavena's father, John Johnson of St. Louis, Mo., is still battling the military. He said he has one simple reason for this: The evidence that his daughter didn't take her life but instead was raped and murdered is too great to ignore.

The military's official autopsy revealed a busted lip, broken teeth and scratch marks on Lavena’s neck. Two ballistics experts, Donald Marion and Cyril Wecht, also told the family that Lavena’s wounds were not consistent with an M16 and that the alleged exit wound from the top of her head looks more like an entry wound caused by a 9 mm pistol.

Her father and friends also paid to disinter her body for a second autopsy, and new X-rays revealed a broken neck. The second autopsy showed that the military had removed part of Lavena's tongue, vagina and anus and didn't tell the Johnsons about this or document the removals in the first autopsy.

As implausible as it sounds, the taking of body parts such as the heart or brain without notifying the family has happened to several other female soldiers whose deaths were ruled noncombat related.

Ed Buice from the Naval Criminal Investigative Services, or NCIS, said, “Since (these female soldiers) were adults, no parental permission would have been required, and organs are generally placed back into the body cavity and [the] torso is sewn up.”

John Johnson believes the missing body parts were taken to cover up a sexual assault.

"My daughter wanted to serve her country, and they're going to insult her like this?" he asked angrily. "The Army had the absolute chutzpah to say she killed herself. We believe she was raped and murdered by a contractor. If they had a daughter [that died in a war zone], they would be acting the same way; there's no doubt. And I'm not resting until something is done."

What the U.S. military says about Lavena, Morganne and others

Chris Grey, chief of public affairs for the C.I.D., the lead investigating body on Lavena’s case, said his heart goes out to John Johnson.

“Some families have a very difficult time believing a loved one would do this,” he said. “Other journalists have been turned off by the very complete and thorough criminal investigation we underwent.”

The case remains closed, but Grey asked that anyone with new leads in Lavena’s case to come forward. If the information is legitimate, her investigation will be reopened.

John Johnson has pushed Grey for answers, and his tenacity has not gone unrewarded. His efforts have helped expose a disturbing part of the U.S. military — what some people refer to as military sexual trauma, or MST.

Johnson said he believes the Department of Defense is fully aware of MST and trying desperately the keep the problem off the public radar because recruiting young women, who are increasingly joining the military, will suffer.

In 1970, women accounted for 1.4 percent of all military personnel, according to military documents. Today, that number is 20 percent, or 300,000 women. When troop levels in the Iraq war zone theatre were at their highest, there were four times more women in theatre than during the 1991 Gulf War.

More women are also being ordered into combat. According to a January 2011 CNN article, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission called for a gradual end on the ban on women in combat, even though the ban was seemingly already in effect.

Since 9/11, women soldiers have garnered two Silver Stars. And before 9/11, one Silver Star had been awarded to a female. According to a March 2010 New York Times article, Marine “female engagement teams” that are heavily armed and in full gear are on patrol in the Afghan countryside to win over Afghan women.

Even though the military’s need for women soldiers is apparent, “There is a pattern of violence against women soldiers, especially in Iraq,” said an anonymous Congressional staffer who spent hundreds of hours investigating the Johnson case.

Army veteran Tiffany Jones-Wright, who’s been championing the awareness of one of the 20 deaths of female soldiers under suspicion, said on many bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, men outnumber women probably 30 to 1.

“It could be a civilian contractor or the military,” she said. “The men on base are crazy. They keep coming at you, coming at you. It’s like you’re new meat to them. Sometimes they approach me with my husband right there.”

Jones-Wright said she is sick of the way women are being mistreated by the military. She’s also passionate about Brown, her former unit mate, who the military said put the barrel of her M16 to her heart and ended it all on base in Sharana, Afghanistan, in 2008.

“Even if you met her the first time, (you would know) she wasn’t capable of this,” Jones-Wright said. “She was a happy person. They way she talked about her daughter … she would never do this because of her daughter. Never!”

The MST numbers: present and unknown

MST, which encompasses both assault and harassment, and also includes male victims, is no dark secret and in no way a new trend for the military.

Two decades have passed since Tailhook, where Navy aviators forced female officers to run a gauntlet where they were groped. A seminal moment in bringing attention to MST occurred in 2003, when the American Journal of Industrialized Medicine published a study in which it interviewed roughly 500 female veterans who were enlisted sometime between Vietnam and the first Iraq war. According to the study, one in three stated she experienced “one or more completed or attempted rapes.”

In 2006, Congress mandated the Department of Defense to initiate a comprehensive program to track sexual assaults. MST victims said it’s stunning to consider the department took until the 21^st century to begin totaling sexual assaults annually within all five military branches and oversea commands.

In fiscal year 2008, 2,900 sexual assaults were reported. This was a nine-percent increase across the armed forces and a 26-percent increase in war zones from 2007. For fiscal year 2009, there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault, an 11-percent increase across the armed forces from 2008 and a 33-percent increase in war zones.

These figures do not include the troop members and veterans who were scared to come forward. The Department of Defense has estimated the number of unreported sexual assaults in the armed forces is between 50 and 80 percent.

Seeking to reveal MST statistics the Department of Defense refuses to make public, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Service Women’s Action Network filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense and the Department Veterans Affairs in December. The groups said the Department of Defense needs to release the number of convictions, acquittals and sexual-harassment complaints to expose the entire MST problem.

Predators know they can get away with it

What is painfully unmistakable is that the U.S. military has a culture where rape victims are re-victimized when they try to report crimes to commanding officers, Wright said.

“Most times the perp is good friends with the platoon sergeant or commanding officer, and they tell the victim, ‘You’re nothing but a private, and you want to ruin the career of this guy who wants to make the military his life?’” Wright said. “They tell the private, ‘Just shut up.’ This type of intimidation is so prevalent.”

According to military law, commanding officers have the final decision on whether military personnel of their unit are charged with a criminal offense that occurred while on duty. In a war zone, the air of intimidation, according to Wright, can be ratcheted to another level simply because the victim is surrounded by violence and confusion.

“They’ll say, ‘You’re going to be dead by tomorrow,’” Wright said. “‘Raping you is just the cost of war. We’ll just chalk it up (your murder) to unsafe security.’”

Wright said the foremost reason why some male soldiers are so brazen about rape and sexual harassment is simply because the military tolerates it, even while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists the military doesn’t stand for any type of MST.

According to 2007 Department of Denfense statistics, 600 out of roughly 2,200 sexual-assault cases investigated had suspects facing any sort of accountability.

One hundred eighty of the 600 suspects were court-martialed, meaning they would face trial by a military court. This means just under 10 percent of military sexual-assault suspects faced prosecution that year; in the civilian world, 40 percent on average face prosecution per year.

Nonpunitive administrative action or discharge was recommended for 220 of the 600 suspects, and the final 200 suspects were given nonjudicial punishment. Nonjudicial punishment is essentially a slap on the wrist and involves being subjected to extra work duties, for instance.

The other 1,600 sexual-assault cases for 2007 were dropped.

Coincidently, a 2008 Government Accountability Office survey found 50 percent of military sexual-assault victims never even reported the crime because they felt nothing would come of it.

“This matter is a laughing stock among men in the military,” Wright said. “It’s like a joke for the guys because they know they’ll never get prosecuted. The atmosphere in the military is you know you can get away with it.”

What was their non-action truly worth?

To gauge just how seriously the Department of Defense takes MST, victim advocates said they consider how the department ran its 12-member Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military.

In 2005, Congress mandated the Department of Defense to form this task force to develop prevention strategies and track data. But in 2008, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, discovered the task force hadn’t done anything substantial regarding MST (PDF).

The 12 task force members spent $15 million over three years and told the GAO they needed the millions to pay civilian staff and cover travel expenses.

What was the task force’s non-action truly worth? Wright said nearly 6,000 military rapes occurred during those three years.

To the Department of Defense’s credit, another task force at the time — the Department of Defense Task Force Report for Victims of Sexual Assault — realized the department needed a lead office to establish and enforce sexual-assault policy matters across the armed services.

In 2005, the Department of Defense created the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, or SAPRO, which strictly deals with sexual assault and harassment, and its accomplishments are gaining traction.

SAPRO established a 24-hour global hotline, a number given to all soldiers during their pre-deployment training. According to a January 2011 article in The Christian Science Monitor, the Army is also training 4,000 victim advocates and sexual-assault response coordinators, or SARCs, and the Navy has trained an estimated 12,000 healthcare personnel for sexual-assault response.

Additionally, the Department of Defense created the Sexual Harassment/Assault Responsive Program, or SHARP, a grassroots effort for all military personnel, which has produced a rap song titled “I.A.M. STRONG.” The song’s chorus includes: “You need to … Intervene! Motivate! Act! … Turnin’ the other cheek is a thing of the past!”

The rap mirrors SAPRO’s fundamental prevention for sexual assault and harassment against the female soldier — bystander’s intervention.

Karen Whitley, SAPRO director, said just as society has learned to take the keys away from an imminent drunk driver, the Department of Defense urges military personnel to intervene in situation they believe might result in MST.

Whitley said inspiring major shifts in cultural attitudes, such as the effort to raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving over the last 30 years, takes eight to 10 years before witnessing any lasting success.

“We’re now five years into this,” she said. “I feel the military leads the way on improving societal issues, and I feel we’re going to make a difference here.”

But not long after its creation, SAPRO became a target of MST advocates. They argue some of SAPRO’s newly implemented policies to help encourage more victims to report MST crimes — such as restricted reporting — are not tough enough and even laughable.

Restricted and unrestricted reporting

Army veteran Susan Avila-Smith runs the MST advocacy group VETWOW, which stands for Veteran Women Organizing Women.

Avila-Smith’s been advocating for MST victims since 1995, after the military refused to punish her Army ex-husband after he jumped up and down on her pregnant stomach and killed their baby. Yet what enraged her to become an MST advocate was what happened after she sought justice from commanding officers.

“I was told not to talk to anybody about it or I would be BCD’d, which is a Bad Conduct Discharge,” she said.

Avila-Smith said VETWOW represents 3,000 veterans who were raped during their enlistment, and nearly all of them told their commanding officers about the crime. Many revealed to her the fallout from this was worse than the rape itself, she said.

Before the military put into action new sexual-assault reporting procedures in 2005, military law offered rape victims only a single choice if they were to seek an investigation. Tell company-level commanding officers about the rape and who the alleged rapist was. Company-level commanders oversee between 75 to 200 troops and are judge and jury when handing down criminal charges that occur while on duty.

Thus it's no surprise some Department of Defense sexual-assault task forces of this decade have made the issue of confidentiality for rape victims a top priority. This is a clear signal that the re-victimization of rape victims in the military is arguably the greatest obstacle to derailing MST.

Seeking confidentiality, SAPRO initiated a two-track sexual-assault reporting policy in 2005 called restricted and unrestricted reporting.

Restricted reporting allows the victim a new choice — to bypass chain of command by not having to disclose the name of the victim or the rapist.

Instead, restricted reporting permits a victim to call a SARC on a hotline or tell a victim advocate such as a chaplain or healthcare professional. Once a restricted report is made, advocacy and counseling is initiated for the victim, but an investigation is not triggered.

Unrestricted reporting sticks with military tradition. Service members who desire an investigation, along with healthcare services, must notify commanding officers of the rape and whom they’re accusing.

For the 3,500 soldiers who have utilized restricted reporting, Whitley called it “remarkable progress.”

“That’s 3,500 people we feel we’re helping who would have never come forward if not for restricted reporting,” she said. “And that tells me it’s working.”

But there are several glaring drawbacks to restricted reporting, Avila-Smith said, and the limitations are also posted on SHARP’s website.

According to the SHARP website, “Your assailant remains unpunished and capable of assaulting other victims,” and “You will continue to have contact with your assailant, if he/she is in your organization billeted with you.”

Essentially, an alleged rapist goes free under restricted reporting, and if the alleged rapist is in the same unit as the victim, which is a common occurrence according to VETWOW, the predator is still interacting with the victim.

“We’ve struggled with this, but what we want is people to come forward and get the care they need,” Avila-Smith said.

VETWOW and other MST advocacy groups refuse to acknowledge restricted reporting as a remedy to curb MST. Simply put, restricted reporting has meant 3,500 alleged predators got away with rape, she said.

“Restricted reporting? It’s a joke,” Avila-Smith said with a scoff. According to her, the number one thing the Department of Defense needs to do is hold commanding officers accountable — meaning higher-ranked commanders or civilians trained in prosecuting sexual assault are allowed transparency to the MST investigations of commanding officers and an equal or greater say when administering an indictment.

Other MST advocates are also championing institutional overhauls. U.S. Army veteran Olga Ferrer is the director of A Black Rose, a nonprofit MST advocacy group. While stationed in Kuwait during the Gulf War, Ferrer was alone in a shared shower facility when a male soldier snuck up from behind.

She filed a report and sought military police to help with the investigation, but instead they told her the “report had vanished.” She is adamant the only way to end MST is to involve a civilian element.

“Every military site — overseas or in the U.S. — should have a unit or group, that includes doctors, nurses, therapists, that investigates sexual assaults and does not fall under the DOD or military,” she said. “These people will be the ones where all sexual assaults will be reported to.”

She said restricted reporting makes her anger boil.

“The alleged rapist should immediately be removed from the victim’s unit, and the victim should also be placed somewhere else,” Ferrer said. “They should not be working together. Period. The only one being restricted is the victim.”

“Just tell the truth”

Avila-Smith believes civilians can remain patriotic and supportive of the troops but need to see the U.S. military and its culture with objective eyes.

“People don’t want to care because people don’t want to believe this is true,” she said. “And because it doesn’t exist to them, they have no empathy for victims.”

In regards to Lavena Johnson, Avila-Smith said, “It’s really truly amazing what the military will do to cover things up.”

“It would be so much better if the military just tells the truth,” she said. “It would be quicker, cleaner and a whole lot cheaper. Just tell the truth.”

Spot.us note: Susan Burke, a highly regarded Washington D.C.-based attorney is preparing to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of MST survivors to change how the U.S. military deals with sexual-assault committed within its ranks as well as its aftermath. The suit will ask for both damages and changes in the military’s practices so that everyone who wants to serve our country can do so free from sexual harassment and assault. Burke can be contacted at ssajadi AT burkeoneil DOT com. 

The following poem was written by “greensthings-2009” in the comments section of Katie Couric’s article “Sexual Assault Permeates U.S. Armed Forces.”

1979.

18 years old.

The Army.

Germany, sent out to the field for the first time.

The only woman and 1500 men.

I was the Medic, they were Engineers.

Alone, in the dark being watched, only I didn't know

Vilseck, Germany after two weeks without a shower, we were allowed to go to Tent city for 2 days.

Much Celebrating. Much Drinking. After showers the partying started.

I was invited.

A cute boy

Fun

free drinks

more drinks

Something wrong....

Room spinning

Dizzy

can't walk

being carried

pass out

wake up

can't move

tied up

can't talk

gag in mouth

voices

someone on me

wet between the legs

laughter

another body on me

tears

another body

all night

over and over again

how many?

Don't know

too many

over and over again

thrusting

sweaty

pawing

pain

tearing

more laughter

in and out of conscience

how many?

could be twenty

could be a hundred

all ranks

all sizes

all ages

all *******

all thrusting

all sweating

lots of pain

smell of greasy tent

smell of booze

smell of tobacco

smell of man sweat

smell of *****

smell of sex

all thrusting

all groping

all squeezing

all pawing

only one, who when he saw my tears, stopped in his tracks

But he walked out, and another came in to take his place

over and over again

no help

none in sight

all night long

in and out of reality

in and out of dreams

more body's

more men

more thrusting

how many hours?

finally the sweet release of awareness

awakening

naked

in the showers

bruises and blood everywhere

Pain

oh my God the pain

all consuming pain

my clothing in a pile

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

water is cold

scrub some more

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

scrub

put on uniform

met at door, by commanding Officer

stern words about MY behavior

told if I talked, it would be MY fault

Threatened with prison for "enticing"

handed orders to be transfered

Told to pack my bags

Transportation waiting

Warned again

If you talk, you die

or worse

watching blindly as the trees roll by

curling up inside of me

hiding the pain

hoping the pain will fade

as the bruises do

can't walk, can't sit, can't take a ****

blaming myself

Others have

so why not me?

Guilt

it weighs on a mind

remembering what was said

silence it is my friend

denial

lock the pain away

never talk they said

never talk I did

The pain it became my friend

To this day, it never ends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the first time I have EVER written or spoken about that night. The ONLY reason I have after thirty years is, because it is STILL going on! What happened to me, happens to thousands of women in the military ever year!

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This article was reprinted in its entirety with the permission of the author.

Update: Is This How we treat our Female Soldiers? Families seek answers about daughters' "Non-Combat" deaths

More families and friends of military daughters who died mysteriously reach out to Spot.us

posted by John Lasker at Friday, January 7, 2011

It hasn't been a week since Spot.us posted the story pitch "Is this how we treat our Female Soldiers? Families seek answers about daughters' "Non-Combat" deaths," but already several families and friends of military daughters have contacted Spot.us also seeking media coverage for their loved one. These patriotic families are questioning the military's official explanation for their daughter's death. Some believe their daughters were raped and murdered and the military, desperate to recruit young women, are orchestrating cover-ups.

This week, a fellow soldier and friend of of US Army Staff Sgt. Amy Tirador emailed Spot.us with the story of Tirador's death in Iraq in November of 2009. Tirador's story has gone largely unnoticed by the media, except for a story by ABC news. The friend's name is Gena Smith and she served under Tirador in Iraq. Gena, by the way, is a victim of Military Sexual Trauma, and vividly writes about how she's dealing with the crime and its emotional aftermath at http://www.regularfury.blogspot.com/.

After a lengthy investigation, the military has ruled Tirador's death a suicide (she's pictured above). She apparently had rubber arms because the military claims she shot herself in the back of the head. Tirador's death, and how the military handled it, mirrors what happened to Private Lavena Johnson, Specialist Morganne McBeth, Lance Corp. Stacy Dryden and others. A female soldier dies mysteriously while on a secure American base in Afghanistan or Iraq. Initially, the military tells the family she died from "non-combat" related events, without offering any details. A military investigation is initiated, but takes months to complete. The family essentially is left in the dark, and finally an explanation comes, but it is simply not believable.

This is what Gena had to say about her good friend:
"Staff Sgt. Amy Tirador was killed while on perimeter guard by a gun shot to the back of the head, and the Army wrote it off as a suicide. I was in the unit with Staff Sgt. Tirador and she was a remarkable soldier and inspiring leader. Her death was a tragedy that still makes my heart ache. No one knows exactly what happened to her, and her family is insisting that they will do whatever it takes to prove she didn't kill herself. They deserve to know the truth, as do the families of these other women (Johnson, McBeth, Dryden and many more)."

Help Encourage Reporting on Non-combat Deaths

My name is John Lasker and I am a freelance journalist from Ohio. I have written for Wired magazine, Christian Science Monitor, US Catholic magazine and many, many more. I am writing to let you know about my reporting project on "Non-Combat" deaths of female soldiers. As you know this is beyond an important issue that needs loud voices. To make it happen I need your help. The good news is, you can help fund this reporting effort at NO cost to you. That's right - it's free! Just register with the site. Take a brief survey on Public Broadcasting, receive $5 credit and donate.

And If I get the funding for this project, I plan on working more Non-combat death related stories. Donna has championed your cause with me, and this story is gaining momentum. Unfortunately the mainstream media or big media has not caught-on as of yet. But the mainstream media, like CBS nightly news, Sport Illustrated, has been copying my stories for years and I know the more I write, the more they'll take. So please follow the below instructions and donate to my story Is This How We Treat Our Female Soldiers? Families seek answers in daughters' "Non-Combat" deaths". Look for the picture of Private Lavena Johnson.

Step one: Just find my pitch on Spot.Us: http://spot.us/pitches/724

Step two: Click "Free Credits" login and take the quick questionnaire.
Step three: Confirm that you want to give the credits you just earned to my pitch.
Step four: Click "Free Credits" again if it's still there (sometimes there is more than one questionnaire available).

Step five: If you found steps 1-3 painless - share them with a friend.

We need to find 100 people who are willing to take a few moments out of their day to fund this story. If we can - then this important work can be produced and published so more people will know about TK.

If you'd like to read some of my work, here is a link to an feature story I had in US Catholic in 2009. This story focuses on the Pentagon's need of Catholic chaplains, and
the debate on how they can serve God and in a war zone at the same time.

http://www.uscatholic.org/chaplains

Mother of One Dead Soldier Suspects Sex Assault

By John Lasker

WeNews correspondent

Monday, December 20, 2010

At least 20 female soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in "noncombat" circumstances that their families find mysterious. The mother of one talks here about why she thinks sexual violence--not suicide--was her daughter's real killer.

Read the entire story by clicking here.

Ft. Bragg Soldiers Charged With Killing Comrade In Iraq

FORT BRAGG, N.C. --

Two Fort Bragg soldiers have been charged with fatally stabbing a combat medic while stationed in Iraq.

Spc. Nicholas Bailey and Spc. Tyler Cain are accused of stabbing Spc. Morganne McBeth on July 2, 2010.

Officials say McBeth died from a stab wound to the chest. In the original press release announcing the 19-year-old's death, DOD officials say she died as the result of a non combat incident that occured on July 1.

Read the entire story by clicking here.

SOLDIER'S DEATH A MURDER PROBE

Military now says area soldier who died in Iraq in July was murdered

Date published: 11/12/2010
By Rusty Dennen

The July death in Iraq of a decorated Army medic from the Fredericksburg area was murder, her parents say they have been told by military investigators.

The Army initially reported that Spc. Morganne McBeth, 19, a combat medic, died July 2 in a noncombat incident.

Read the whole story by clicking here.
Another story and video -- click here.

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Former Marine convicted in North Carolina of killing female colleague

By the CNN Wire Staff
August 23, 2010 6:47 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Former U.S. Marine Cesar Laurean was convicted in North Carolina on Monday of first degree murder in the 2007 death of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who was eight months pregnant when she died.

An autopsy showed that Lauterbach, 20, died of blunt force trauma to the head. Police unearthed her charred body from beneath a barbecue pit in Laurean's backyard in January 2008. She had disappeared the month before.

Laurean, who was dressed in black slacks and wore a white shirt and black tie, did not show any emotion as the judge read his sentence. He either said or mouthed something to someone in the audience of the courtroom before he was led out in handcuffs, video showed.

Laurean and Lauterbach were stationed together at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

North Carolina prosecutors alleged Laurean killed Lauterbach on December 14 and used her ATM card 10 days later before fleeing to Mexico.Laurean was arrested there in April 2008. He holds dual citizenship in the United States and Mexico.

Before her death, Lauterbach told the Marines that Laurean had raped her. Laurean denied it, and disappeared just a few weeks before a scheduled rape hearing at Camp LeJeune.

The DNA of Lauterbach's unborn child did not match that of Laurean, according to law enforcement personnel.

Authorities found Lauterbach's body after Laurean's wife, Christina, produced a note her husband had written claiming the 20-year-old woman slit her own throat during an argument, according to officials.

Although a gaping 4-inch wound was found on the left side of Lauterbach's neck, autopsy results indicated that the wound itself would not have been fatal and may have occurred after death.

Asked by a Mexican reporter at the time of his arrest whether he killed Lauterbach, Laurean replied, "I loved her."

Laurean's lawyer said his client would appeal the decision

Family of soldier who died in Iraq is still looking for answers

By Sandra Jordan of the St. Louis American

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 11:37 PM CDT

Memorial Day 2010 for John Johnson and his wife Linda Johnson was marked quietly at their Florissant home with a little barbeque shared with a few close family members and friends.

As he does most days, John Johnson thought about justice for his late daughter, Private LaVena Johnson, who was killed nearly five years ago on July 19, 2005 – just a little over a week before her 20th birthday.

She joined the U.S. Army after graduating from Hazelwood Central High School to save money to pay her way to college. She never made it back home from Balad, Iraq.

Her death was not the result of a roadside bomb or an exchange of enemy fire. The Army calls it a suicide. Her family and others working on the case call it rape and murder.

The last five years have been very hard on the entire family, which includes LaVena’s parents; her three older brothers, John, JayVince and Jermaine Johnson; and her sister, LaKesha.

LaVena Johnson told her mother by phone in 2005 that she was looking forward to coming home to celebrate Christmas with her family.

A short time later, LaVena was found dead inside a contractor’s tent in Iraq. She was battered and shot, with a broken nose, shoulder and neck. She had burns on one side of her body and an aerosol can of accelerant nearby. Blood was found in more than one location in the tent where her body was found. Based on the evidence, her family believes she was also sexually assaulted.

Based on its investigation, the Army claims she committed suicide by shooting herself in the head with her M-16 rifle.

John Johnson said no ballistics test on the rifle is reported in the mounds of redacted evidence, and the wound type and fragment damage typically caused by M-16 fire is not consistent with the much smaller size and discrete shape of her head wound. The family believes, based upon the evidence, that the weapon used to kill LaVena was a handgun made by Beretta.

Team LaVena

This is not one family’s crusade. An entire team of people are working with John Johnson and his family members to get justice for LaVena. They are relying on documents from the initial Army autopsy, evidence from a second, private autopsy performed by Dr. Michael A. Graham after the body was exhumed two years later, and their own additional research.

John Johnson has spent the last five years pouring over graphic crime scene photos, letters and redacted reports. He has spoken to elected officials, congressional leaders and journalists from all over the world about his daughter’s case.

“We had a chance to get this all cleared up when Graham did that autopsy,” John Johnson said. “But he came back and said, ‘Inconclusive.’ And once he came back and said, ‘Inconclusive,’ all the news media backed off.”

Graham is the chief medical examiner for the City of St. Louis.

John Johnson said this issue is much bigger than his daughter. He believes the Army’s response to her death is part of a cover-up of a larger, chilling systemic ill – a horrible, dirty secret about the exploitation of females in the U.S. military.

An August 2008 article published by the anti-government John Birch Society, “U.S. Military Covering Up Possible Murders of Female Service Members,” links LaVena Johnson’s death to a number of other unexplained gunshot wounds and reported suicides by female members of the military serving in Iraq, describing the pattern as “highly suspicious.”

Anger fuels John Johnson’s pursuit of justice for his daughter and the affront that, despite evidence gathered by family and supporters, the Army is sticking to its story that her death was a suicide.

The Pat Tillman comparison

“There are a lot of people now that are beginning to question why the national media won’t cover this story,” Johnson said.

“We were told if we could get it to the national media, just like Pat Tillman’s family did, it will bust open just like Pat Tillman’s case did. But it didn’t happen.”

Tillman was a former NFL player who enlisted in the U.S. Army and was killed while on active duty in Afghanistan in 2004. After an initial cover-up claiming Tillman was killed by the enemy, and relentless activism by the Tillman family, it was revealed that he was in fact killed by friendly fire.

Tillman’s father, Patrick Tillman Sr., said the Army engaged in a “deliberate, calculated, ordered (repeatedly), and disgraceful” cover-up in an attempt to disguise the facts of his prominent son’s murder.

Throughout his family’s ordeal, John Johnson never thought that race played a role in how this case has been handled – until now.

“I believe that if LaVena was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, and her father was raising as much hell as I’ve raised and had the kind of proof that I had, you ain’t going to tell me that they would be treating that family like they are treating us,” John Johnson said.

He said a local TV station promised to follow the case and help them get justice for LaVena, only to have it squashed when it got to the network level.

“Once [the network] got involved, which is their parent company, they dropped us like a hot potato,” he said.

The LaVena Johnson story is not going away. Several black news media outlets around the country picked up the story after it was reported in The American two years ago.

It has received international coverage in Australia and New Zealand, and will soon get additional exposure in a new documentary slated for completion this summer. Filmmaker Joan Brooker-Marks also places Private Johnson’s death in the context of other non-combat deaths of female soldiers serving in Iraq that were reported as suicides.

John Johnson has two brothers with backgrounds, respectively, in criminal science and law enforcement. Both have repeatedly combed the evidence and pointed out discrepancies between what is seen in photos and what is reported in official military documents.

John Johnson said their analysis is being disregarded because it comes from family members.

“I think it’s ridiculous to say that because we are family we can’t see,” he said. “You’re going to hand me information, and then tell me that I can’t see? That’s insulting.”

Regardless, John Johnson is still not backing off.

“LaVena would have gotten better justice if she was killed on the streets of St. Louis than getting killed serving her country,” he said.

While Memorial Day is a day to remember those who were killed in war, John Johnson said that is a totally separate recognition from what happened to LaVena. His unwavering efforts to find out who is responsible for her death and for justice to prevail are living memorials to his daughter.

“To know that my daughter wanted to be in the military so badly – was proud of it,” Johnson said. “I know right now that she is rolling over in her grave, if that was possible, to know they are treating us like this.”