Betrayal in the Ranks

Transcription

D I G I TA L N E W S B O O K
INTRO
PART 1
As many as 200,000 women have been sexually assaulted while serving in the armed forces.
PART 2
Over the past decade, nearly 5,000 accused Army sex offenders have avoided prosecution.
PART 3
More than 10,000 cases of spouse abuse were substantiated annually between 1997 and 2001.
PROFILES
In 2000, 12,068 cases of spouse abuse were reported; only 26 led to courts-martial.
Series written by
Kathryn Scott Osler
and Miles Moffeit
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SURVEY
Photography by
Amy Herdy
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RESOURCES
BETRAYAL
IN THE RANKS
and Helen H. Richardson
D I G I TA L N E WS B O O K
8
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THE DENVER POST ©2004
BETRAYAL IN THE RANKS
R EPORTERS :
P HOTOGRAPHERS :
Kathryn Scott Osler
Helen H. Richardson
R ESEARCHERS :
Barbara Hudson, Sue Peterson
Copyright©2004 The Denver Post,
1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202.
ON THE WEB
DESIGNERS :
Roger Fidler, Rekha Sharma
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1
PART ONE
3
8 For crime victims, punishment
8 [ GRAPHIC ] Army sex offenders:
how cases were handled
8 Trauma lingers in victim’s life
PART TWO
19
8 Home front
8 [ GRAPHIC ] Army domestic
violence offenders: how cases
were handled
8 ‘I felt the military abandoned
me’
PART THREE
33
8 Military’s response to rapes,
domestic abuse falls short
7
8
8 Rape victim thinks of child
‘as gift’
PROFILES
40
8 Coping with anguish and
anger
RESOURCES
58
8 Learn more about sexual
assault and domestic violence
8 About the numbers
SURVEY
61
8 Please let us know what you
think about this series and the
Digital Newsbook concept.
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This Digital Newsbook was
designed and produced for The
Post at the Kent State University
Institute for CyberInformation.
More information about this
project can be found at:
www.ici.kent.edu
INTRODUCTION
RESOURCES
DIGITAL NEWSBOOKS
CONTENTS
PROFILES
You can find a multimedia
presentation, audio/video portraits
of the victims, documents from
their cases, and interviews with
the reporters at:
www.denverpost.com
PART 3
All rights reserved. No part of this
Digital Newsbook may be used or
reproduced in any manner without
written permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied
in articles or reviews.
housands of women have been sexually assaulted in the United
States military. Thousands more have been abused by their
military husbands or boyfriends. And then they are victimized
again. This time, the women are betrayed by the military itself. They
are discouraged from reporting the crimes. Pressured to go easy on
their attackers. Denied protection. Frustrated by a justice system that
readily shields offenders from criminal punishment.
The women suffer for it. Some cannot talk about what happened.
They were killed by men whose violence was allowed to escalate. Other
victims struggle with anger over a trusted system that betrayed them.
The Denver Post spent nine months investigating how the military
handles sexual-assault and domestic-violence complaints. The stories,
originally published as a three-part series (Nov. 16-18, 2003), detail
the newspaper’s findings that military commanders routinely fail to
prosecute those accused of such crimes. The Post also found the victims often are left vulnerable to retaliation and even threats against
their lives because of a lack of victim advocates. More than 60 women
told The Post stories of being beaten or raped while in the military.
Most never found justice.
PART 2
T
About the series
PART 1
Amy Herdy
[email protected]
Miles Moffeit
[email protected]
2
INTRO
THE POST TEAM
INTRODUCTION
INTRO
A DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORT: PART ONE
For crime victims, punishment
S U S A N A R M E N TA
◆
“I know the way the military structure is;
it will happen to young people coming in. … I want people
not to be like me. I want those girls to come forward. I know
it’s going to hurt them so much more if they don’t.”
For more of Armenta’s story, see Page 45
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have to be ruined before the military listens?” asked Fictum, who
left the Marines after attempting
suicide later that year.
Parallels to Fictum’s case
emerged last February when
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SURVEY
commanders humiliated her and
deprived her of sexual-trauma
counseling. She also was investigated for lying, even after Holguin’s admissions.
“How many young ladies’ lives
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PART 2
M
arine Joseph Holguin
sank to the floor, hugged
his knees and told the
polygraph examiner that fellow
lance corporal Sally Fictum had
said no.
Accused of raping Fictum, Holguin had maintained in previous
interviews that the act was consensual. But he changed his story
twice after the polygraph results
showed deception.
“Holguin stated he continued
through with the act ... although
she had told him to stop, because
he felt ‘things had gone too far to
stop,”’ an investigator wrote in an
Aug. 11, 1993, report. “Holguin
stated he had made a mistake.”
Holguin was charged with rape.
By October, however, his commander dropped the criminal
case, using discretionary power
granted under military law.
A retired Marine attorney who
reviewed the examination results
for The Denver Post said: “Based
on the documents I’ve reviewed,
they let a rapist walk.”
The 19-year-old Fictum faced
her own punishment. She said her
PART 1
Women who were raped while serving in the military say they
were isolated and blamed for the attacks, while the system they turned to for
help has treated the men who assaulted them far more humanely.
PART ONE
4
— Jennifer Bier, a Colorado Springs therapist who has counseled military victims
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■ These problems take a human
toll. Dozens of veterans told The
Post that being assaulted ruined
their careers and sent them down a
destructive path, including addictions and suicide attempts. Many
carry the scars for life. “When
I looked at the American flag, I
used to see red, white and blue,”
said Marian Hood, a veteran who
said she was gang-raped. “Now, all
I see is blood.”
The Post also found that the
military fails victims of another
abuse — domestic violence. Soldiers who beat their wives or girlfriends usually avoid jail.
To investigate the military
justice system, The Post interviewed victims, reviewed thousands of documents, including
court records, databases, medical
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is widespread in the
armed forces, where more than
200,000 women serve. Sketchy
military record-keeping makes it
impossible to quantify. The Pentagon puts the percentage of women
raped in single digits, yet two
Department of Veterans Affairs
surveys in the past decade found 21
percent and 30 percent of women
reported a rape or attempted rape.
The comparable civilian figure is
lack support services, and many are left vulnerable
to pressure and intimidation from
commanders and peers. Despite
a 1994 congressional mandate to
establish victim advocacy programs, the Department of Defense
has a shortage of advocates to help
safeguard women and navigate the
military’s bureaucracy.
RESOURCES
■ Rape
■ Victims
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toward sexualassault crimes is routine. Over
the past 10 years, twice as many
accused Army sex offenders were
given administrative punishment
as were court-martialed. In the
civilian world, four of five people
arrested for rape are prosecuted.
Nearly 5,000 accused sex offenders in the military, including rapists, have avoided prosecution,
and the possibility of prison time,
since 1992, according to Army
records. The Air Force released
only limited data, and the Navy
and Marines gave out none. But
civilian victim advocates say the
trends are similar.
“The military system is like
a get-out-of-jail-free card,” said
Jennifer Bier, a Colorado Springs
therapist who has counseled military victims.
PART 3
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■ Leniency
nearly 18 percent, according to
a federal survey in 2000. During
congressional hearings in 1991,
witnesses estimated that up to
200,000 women had been sexually
assaulted by servicemen.
PART 2
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reporting her sexual assault. “I
was betrayed.”
The Post’s interviews and an
analysis of records found:
PART 1
dozens of U.S. Air Force Academy cadets stepped forward to
report that they faced punishment, attacks on their character
and intimidation after reporting
sexual assault, while their attackers escaped criminal charges.
Military officials said the troubles were limited to the Colorado
Springs school.
But a nine-month investigation
by The Post found that the academy scandal is part of a deeper
problem.
All the armed forces have mishandled sexual-assault cases by
discouraging victims from pursuing complaints, conducting
flawed investigations and depriving victims of support services,
according to interviews with military women and an examination
of records.
Military officers often have
ignored or hidden problems
and findings related to sexual
assaults.
The obstacles to pursuing justice are wrenching, more than 50
sexual-assault victims told The
Post. Many fear retaliation, damage to their careers and being
portrayed as disloyal. And those
who do report are often punished,
intimidated, ostracized or told
they are crazy by their superiors.
“These people were supposed
to be my family,” said Michelle
Swanson, an Army intelligence
specialist who said she was discouraged by a supervisor from
INTRO
“The military system is like a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
5
27%
1992
18%
28%
1993
917
53%
25%
756
56%
22%
21%
22%
1994
1995
895
50%
906
54%
19%
22%
31%
1996
705
52%
733
50%
737
51%
27%
28%
22%
25%
21%
22%
27%
21%
31%
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
676
48%
706
38%
18%
44%
2002
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The Denver Post / Jeffery A. Roberts and Thomas McKay
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* Administrative also includes non-judicial Article 15 hearings. Some serious crimes, such as rape, may have
been handled administratively because only a lesser charge could be proved.
** Other includes “no action reported” and where the action was left blank in the database.
Percentages may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding. Click here for more about the numbers
Source: Denver Post analysis of U.S. Army database
RESOURCES
20%
1,090
54%
Action
Administrative*
Military Courts-Martial
Other**
PROFILES
1,177
53%
PART 3
The statistics below are based on the year a crime was investigated, which in some instances may not be
the same the year the crime was committed. The Army says that a spike in offenders in 1996 and 1997 is
partly due to the establishment of a hotline to deal with sexual harassment complaints from Aberdeen Proving
Ground in Maryland. Some of the incidents reported to that hotline occurred before 1996 and 1997.
PART 2
Army sex offenders: how cases were handled
PART 1
consistent evidence that one
exists.
During the past 13 years, the
military has grappled with sexualassault scandals — from the 1991
Tailhook convention to the 1996
Aberdeen Proving Ground investigation to the Air Force Academy
— only to be met by criticisms and
findings of coverup and inaction.
And studies and surveys showed
a military culture that demeans
women.
Even deeper problems emerge in
the stories of women such as Sally
Fictum, Michelle Swanson, Denise
Arroyo and Jennifer Neal. Swanson
to problems and under constant
review.
“It is a bit premature to say that
we believe that changes need to be
made throughout the Services in
the handling of reports of sexual
assault,” the Pentagon statement
said.
“Obviously, the incidents at the
Air Force Academy put the issues
of sexual harassment and sexual
assault in newspapers; so we try
to remain attentive to the current policies and the needs for
improvement.”
But overall the military has not
solved its justice dilemma despite
INTRO
records and Defense Department
memos.
The newspaper also spoke with
two dozen Veterans Affairs sexual-trauma counselors across the
country, who characterized the
women’s stories as credible and
part of a disturbing pattern.
Department of Defense leaders,
including Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, declined to be
interviewed for this report. Pentagon officials replied in writing
to questions submitted by The
Post.
They characterized the military justice system as responsive
PART ONE
PART ONE
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Like Joseph Holguin, thousands of accused sex offenders in
the military have escaped imprisonment during the past decade,
military records show.
Many of them avoided criminal
prosecution through administrative actions that offer no possibility of prison or a criminal record.
Fort Benning’s commander was
trying to prosecute a chaplain,
Capt. Robert Peebles, for molesting a 15-year-old boy who was
found wandering the base partially clothed one night.
Peebles confessed to assaulting
the boy, as well as to past sexual
misconduct, court records show,
and prosecutors were preparing
the case for trial.
“I had the taste of blood in my
mouth,” prosecutor James Willson
testified in a lawsuit by the boy’s
family nine years later against the
military and the Catholic Diocese
of Dallas.
The court-martial was derailed,
however, by Delbert Spurlock,
then-assistant secretary of the
Army, according to Gen. James
Lindsay, former commander of the
base where Peebles was stationed.
“Let him resign,” Spurlock said
in a telephone call, according to a
1994 deposition given by Lindsay
in the same lawsuit.
Spurlock was concerned about
bad publicity because another
chaplain had recently been
accused of sexual misconduct,
Lindsay said. “We have just gone
through all of the trauma associated with the press coverage of
this event,” Lindsay recalled Spurlock saying. “We really don’t need
another one.”
PART 3
◆
They faced job-related discipline
such as reprimands, rank reductions, counseling and fines. Some
were allowed to resign.
Since 1992 in the U.S. Army
alone, the cases of 4,801 servicemen accused of offenses ranging
from rape to indecent acts upon
a child were handled administratively, according to records.
That is more than twice the
2,033 suspects who were sent to
court-martial, the military’s version of a criminal trial, for the
same offenses. In 1,283 other
cases, commanders took no action,
and for 1,555 offenders, Army
commanders never reported the
outcome.
Direct comparisons with the
civilian world are impossible
because the justice systems are different. But an analysis by the U.S.
Department of Justice found that
in 1990, civilian officials sought
to prosecute 80 percent of people
arrested on suspicion of rape.
Unlike civilian law enforcement,
military officials rely heavily on
administrative punishments as
an option to prosecution. Military
leaders consider, according to the
Pentagon statement, “the effect of
the decision on the accused and
the command.”
In 1984, top military officials
faced such a decision.
PART 2
was in the Army. Fictum, a Marine.
Arroyo, Air Force. Neal, Navy.
All four not only survived the
punishing rigors of boot camp, they
loved it. Pursuing justice proved to
be a crueler obstacle course.
Although they have never met,
all said they faced threats of punishment and attacks on their
credibility after reporting their
assaults. Their attackers faced
little or no criminal punishment.
The military did not provide them
with a victim advocate, forcing
them to reach outside the armed
services for help and support.
“Most of my clients’ cases are
strikingly similar,” said Beth
Hills, a civilian advocate who
represented three of the women,
as well as more than 100 others
assaulted in the military during
the past decade. “In terms of how
harshly the military treats them,
all you have to do is change the
name on the case file.”
PART 1
— Beth Hills, a civilian advocate who represented three of the women
INTRO
“Most of my clients’ cases are strikingly similar, … In
terms of how harshly the military treats them, all you have
to do is change the name on the case file.”
PART ONE
7
INTRO
“The far-reaching role of commanding officers in the
court-martial process remains the greatest barrier to
operating a fair system of criminal justice.”
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Dane N. Bogle. Two Air Force
women testified in a hearing that
Bogle sexually assaulted them
two days apart at Dover Air Force
Base, Del., in spring 2001. One of
the victims, 19-year-old Denise
Arroyo, now a civilian, accused
him of entering her room and raping her after she had been drinking with friends. The other victim
also said Bogle sexually assaulted
her in her room.
Bogle was headed for a courtmartial, but instead his commanders allowed him to resign.
Maj. Gen. George N. Williams
approved an “other-than-honorable discharge” at the request of
Bogle and his wing commander,
Scott Wuesthoff, military court
records show.
Wuesthoff noted “inconsistencies” in Arroyo’s story because she
had been drinking, records show.
The other victim, citing religious
beliefs, asked only for an apology,
records show. She could not be
reached by The Post. Both women
supported Bogle’s resignation.
Arroyo said she did so only
after months of pressure from
officers under her commander,
Col. S. Taco Gilbert III. She said
they threatened to charge her
with alcohol violations, but didn’t.
While Arroyo was on leave recovering from her attack, she said,
PART 3
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soldier to prosecution. The system
has defenders and critics.
“We have found the UCMJ is
perfectly capable of dealing with
any kind of rape allegation,” said
Col. Craig Smith, chief of the Air
Force military justice division. “I
am completely confident that my
military law lets me get at any
conduct that’s going to arise.”
Officials say administrative
punishments give commanders
useful options.
But in 2001, the Cox Commission, a panel formed on the
50th anniversary of the UCMJ,
noted that “the far-reaching role
of commanding officers in the
court-martial process remains the
greatest barrier to operating a fair
system of criminal justice.”
The commission focused on the
rights of accused soldiers but also
said its review stemmed from “a
near-constant parade of high-profile criminal investigations and
courts-martial, many involving
allegations of sexual misconduct,
each a threat to morale and a public relations disaster.”
Even serial offenders are allowed
to resign with administrative punishments. And, they can slip back
into the civilian world with no
criminal record. Peebles, the military chaplain, is one example.
Another is former Airman
PART 2
Spurlock told The Post: “I don’t
have any memory of it.”
Peebles, who declined to comment to The Post, took a job with
the Dallas diocese after leaving the Army. He resigned in
1986 amid accusations he had
assaulted another boy, according
to court records. The civil lawsuit
was settled. Peebles now lives in
New Orleans and has worked as a
lawyer.
Such leniency is made possible
in large part by a system created
by Congress exclusively for the
military.
In the civilian world, prosecutors decide whether to investigate
and try accused offenders. In the
military, soldiers’ bosses — commanders — make those decisions.
The philosophy behind the
system is to keep soldiers in line
so they know they must answer
to superiors with the power to
convict if they choose not to go
to battle. The approach has been
used by other countries such as
Britain and Canada, though both
scaled back commanders’ powers
in recent years.
The Uniform Code of Military
Justice has been adjusted periodically, sometimes giving the
accused greater protections. Commanders still retain broad powers,
including whether to even send a
PART 1
— Cox Commission in 2001
S A L LY F I C T U M
◆
“It’s been my sense of validation.”
PART 3
— Former Marine lance corporal discussing a report on her
attacker’s polygraph test, pictured on the table behind her
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7
ber, Col. J.W. Smythe dropped the
criminal case against Holguin.
“They let a rapist walk,” Pat
Gallaher, a military prosecutor for
two decades who now is in private
practice in Buffalo, N.Y., said after
reviewing an official report on the
examination. “I would have prosecuted him.”
Gallaher said the Holguin case
qualified as rape because Fictum
said no.
Smythe, now retired, said he did
not recall the case. He said advisers would have helped him make
the proper call.
“I can’t make a decision like
this without advice from lawyers,”
Smythe said, adding that his job is
fighting wars. “We know how to
blow up tanks.” Smythe also said
RESOURCES
She ran crying into her barracks
room past her roommate and into
the shower stall. The roommate
called authorities.
On Aug. 10 Holguin was wired
to a polygraph machine as an
examiner asked if he had had
sexual intercourse with Fictum.
He said no. “Deception was indicated,” according to a report of the
interrogation.
Holguin changed his story
the next day, saying he and Fictum had consensual intercourse.
Again, “deception was indicated.”
It was then that Holguin
crouched on the floor and admitted Fictum had said no. He signed
a statement detailing the events
that night, records show.
But two months later, in Octo-
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INTRO
squadron leader Russell Cutting
told her that he planned to put her
to work in the same dining hall as
her attacker.
“I didn’t want to go back there.
All I could think was that I would
be raped again,” Arroyo told The
Post, adding that Cutting’s remark
persuaded her to quit the Air
Force.
Gilbert, who later went on to
become commandant of cadets at
the Air Force Academy in 2001,
was accused by several cadets of
derailing their cases and pursuing
punishments against them. Gilbert denied that.
Bogle, who now lives in New
Jersey, did not respond to requests
for an interview. Dover officials
and Arroyo’s former supervisors,
including Gilbert and Cutting,
declined to be interviewed. The
Pentagon issued a written statement for Gilbert, saying:
“The Air Force did not discourage Ms. Arroyo from pursuing
this case in any way. We took several extraordinary steps to care
for Ms. Arroyo’s (safety) needs in
this case, including allowing her
to take extended leave.”
Marine Sally Fictum’s experience with military justice began
after a run on the beach with
Joseph Holguin outside Camp
Schwab on Okinawa. It was July
29, 1993. When Fictum stopped to
rest, she said, Holguin threw her
to the sand and raped her.
This was the account Fictum
said she gave military police after
she rushed back up the beach,
struggling to get a foothold in the
loose sand in her military boots.
PART ONE
PART ONE
9
INTRO
“These women, over and over again, go through
psychological evaluations, punishments,
and character assassinations.”
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On June 14, 2001, Navy sailor
Jennifer Neal, who ranked near the
top of her engineering class, went
to a cookout at the Naval Training
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◆
Center in Great Lakes, Ill.
When Jessie R. Capers, a fellow
petty officer, asked her to get him
a beer from his room, Neal agreed.
Capers followed her in.
He grabbed her by the throat,
pinned her to the bed and raped
her, Neal said. Neal then did everything a prosecutor would want her
to do.
She immediately reported the
rape.
She went to a hospital, where
doctors collected DNA evidence
and investigators took photos of
her bloody and torn clothing and
the bite marks that covered her
chest and neck.
But despite all those steps, Neal
was threatened, intimidated and
deprived of basic assistance from
the military that a woman in civilian life could expect, said Beth
Hills, the civilian advocate.
Neal’s experience underscores
another defect in the military justice system, according to the Miles
Foundation, a Connecticut-based
nonprofit victim advocacy organization that has helped more than
5,800 victims of military-related
sexual assault since its founding
in 1987.
“These women, over and over
again, go through psychological
evaluations, punishments, and
character assassinations,” said
PART 3
Close
She copied the file.
She and her parents began a
letter-writing campaign asking
military officials to investigate the
handling of her case. They said
they never got results.
Several months later, Fictum
said, she was granted a medical
discharge due to psychological
trauma from the rape. The charges
of lying were dropped, she said.
Marine officials refused to release
records of the case.
Years later, Fictum said, she forgave Holguin. What she couldn’t
forgive, and struggles with today,
is how the military treated her.
“He (Holguin) admitted his
wrong,” Fictum told The Post,
recounting her story publicly for
the first time. “They never did.”
Last year Fictum, now a thirdgrade teacher, stood in the glare
of her backyard fireplace, tossing
papers into the flames. The medical records went into the fire. So
did most of the criminal-case file.
But Fictum saved Holguin’s
polygraph admission.
“It’s been my sense of validation.”
PART 2
that he would have considered the
“character” of the alleged victim
in deciding whether to prosecute
Holguin.
Reached by telephone in California, Holguin said, “I have nothing to say for your story.”
Fictum said she was never told
about Holguin’s admissions. But
she was investigated for allegedly
making false statements. During
a meeting called by investigators
two months after she reported
the rape, Fictum was told that her
roommate accused her of lying
about it.
“But, I’m telling the truth,” Fictum recalled saying.
Back at her barracks, she began
gathering every pill she could find
from friends and swallowed a
handful.
She awoke in the hospital the
next morning with tubes running
from her nose and stomach.
Released from the hospital, she
resumed a recent assignment as an
aide in the battalion commander’s
office. Alone one day, she noticed
a brown file cabinet labeled “NIS,”
for Naval Investigative Service.
Inside was a file with her name on
it. She flipped through it.
She discovered the account of
the polygraph examination showing that Holguin admitted to forcing intercourse. Her anger boiled.
PART 1
— Christine Hansen, the Miles Foundation director
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Siegfried told The Post he did not recall a meeting at which he
allegedly made the above statement. He said he did not seek to
hide information, and he characterized Rosen as “mental.”
Close
PART 3
“(Maj. Gen. Richard Siegfried, left) told us to make sure this
doesn’t come out. He was concerned that this would reflect
negatively on the Army.” — Dr. Leora Rosen, right
PART 2
members.
Yet as soon as Furey left, Siegfried pulled some panel members
into his office and moved to contain what he considered a publicrelations bombshell, Rosen said.
“He told us to make sure this
doesn’t come out,” Rosen recalled,
adding that Siegfried seemed
“concerned that this would reflect
negatively on the Army.”
Siegfried told The Post he did
not recall Furey’s report or the
meeting afterward. He said he did
not seek to hide information out
of embarrassment, and characterized Rosen as “mental.”
“The Denver Post shouldn’t
be writing about this,” Siegfried
said. Other panel members said
they couldn’t recall the meeting or
declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements.
Rosen, now a senior analyst
for the U.S. Department of Justice, said: “I can fully appreciate that Gen. Siegfried might not
remember every little sidebar that
occurred seven years ago. People
tend to remember events that they
perceive as particularly salient.
That meeting certainly got my
attention, and I kept notes.”
Furey said she isn’t surprised
PART 1
no one will believe them,” Furey
wrote.
“Threatened with bodily
harm.”
“Referral for psychiatric evaluation.”
“Refusal to pursue complaint.”
“No forensic medical exam.”
“Lack of support advocacy
within the command.”
Military women faced intimidation and punishment from commanders, Furey said, and were
vulnerable, in part, because they
had no victim advocates.
Furey said her research found
that victims were isolated and
blamed after their attacks. Victims also were given disciplinary
or psychiatric discharges.
Furey ended her report by urging the panel to recognize the
need for victim advocates, ideally
female service members. She said
the approach should be modeled
after civilian police programs in
which advocates assist victims in
obtaining legal help, counseling
and preparing safety plans.
During Furey’s presentation, the
chairman of the Army panel, Maj.
Gen. Richard Siegfried, expressed
concern, recalled Dr. Leora Rosen,
then a scientific consultant to the
10
INTRO
Christine Hansen, the foundation’s director. “Everything from,
‘You sleep around’ to ‘You’ve got
mental problems’ to ‘You’re a lesbian.’ And in the majority of our
cases, there has been no justice for
the victim.”
After the 1996 Aberdeen scandal in Maryland, in which Army
drill instructors were accused of
raping trainees, defense officials
formed a committee to examine
sexual misconduct.
The next year the committee, known as the Senior Review
Panel, held confidential Pentagon
briefings on the issue. Joan Furey,
director of the VA Center for Women’s Affairs, was among the first to
make a presentation.
Furey told panel members that
women veterans increasingly were
seeking sexual-trauma counseling. VA counselors across the
country were consistently reporting disturbing trends from their
cases.
Furey described more than a
dozen ways women were discouraged from reporting crimes and
derailed from pursuing justice,
according to her report, obtained
by The Post.
“Supervisory personnel stating
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20-year-old Neal turned to Hills
for help.
A Navy medical board began
the process of discharging her for
being “unable to adjust to military
service.”
“Clearly ... what (Neal) is unable
to adjust to,” Hills wrote in notes
she kept on the case, “is being
raped by a shipmate on base, and
discovering that this criminal has
more rights, freedoms and protections than she does as a victim.”
Neal said her commander
informed her that charges against
Capers could be dropped because
she had “voluntarily entered his
room.” The Post was unable to
locate the commander.
Hills intervened, complaining to superiors on Neal’s behalf.
Among her complaints, Hills said,
was that investigators interviewed
Neal without an advocate present
and had not made plans to provide
an escort to the trial.
On Dec. 18, 2001, Capers was
convicted of rape at a court-martial. He was sentenced to a reduction in rank, a forfeiture of pay
and three years in prison.
Neal took little satisfaction in
his punishment. She had planned
on a military career. The rape took
that away, she said.
“Before the rape, I felt like I was
in this big balloon and I was sky-
PART 3
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Commanding officers were
often the culprits. Fifteen women
said they were assaulted by a
member of their command or a
higher-ranking colleague, heightening their fears of retaliation.
In the majority of the cases the
Miles Foundation has handled,
the assailant had a higher rank,
executive director Hansen said.
Even when their cases are prosecuted, military rape victims say,
they face mistreatment from commanders and others.
The situation becomes “psychological warfare,” said Hills, the
civilian victim advocate. “After
their rapes, they are in no condition to deal with these pressures.
The commands take advantage of
them.”
Neal says that happened to her.
After his arrest, her attacker,
Capers, was released. Though
Neal says she was told his movement would be restricted, he was
able to roam the base freely, and
she was afraid to leave her room to
eat at the dining hall.
On July 12, Neal requested a
meeting with her supervisors,
one of whom threatened to have
her committed to the psychiatric
ward, she said.
“They kept telling me I was
crazy,” Neal said. Unable to find
a victim advocate on her base, the
PART 2
that the panel did not pursue her
findings. A Clinton appointee,
she no longer heads the women’s
affairs center but still works for
the VA.
“The military doesn’t agree
these are issues, that this is a faulty
system,” Furey said. “Therefore,
they won’t take responsibility for
it. The question is, how do you
get a society like the military to
change if they don’t acknowledge
these problems exist?”
Four years later, another military panel raised publicly one of the
findings Furey presented in vain.
Though Congress in 1994
required the military to set up
advocacy programs, today the
majority of installations still lack
victim advocates, according to
Deborah Tucker, co-chair of the
domestic violence task force, which
advised the military to address the
shortage in 2001.
The Pentagon is providing services to victims as “defined in the
law,” according to the statement to
The Post, and intends to expand
the victim advocate program as
funds become available.
Most of the women who told The
Post they were sexually assaulted
in the military said they were discouraged from reporting or they
were too scared to report their
assaults.
PART 1
— Beth Hills, a civilian advocate who represented three of the women
INTRO
“What (Neal) is unable to adjust to is being raped by a
shipmate on base, and discovering that this criminal has more
rights, freedoms and protections than she does as a victim.”
PART ONE
12
INTRO
high; I was so happy,” Neal said.
“Then he crashed my balloon.”
◆
◆
“These people were supposed to be my family.
All through basic training, that’s what you’re taught.
Now I know that’s not true.”
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7
military police.
Swanson said investigators
questioned her that day but failed
to collect the tampon for fingerprint analysis, or collect DNA evidence. Swanson and her mother
say the additional physical evidence would have strengthened
the case and led to a tougher punishment.
Douglass was sentenced to four
months in prison, documents
show. The Post could not reach
him for comment.
Swanson said her commanders
were more focused on punishing
her for drinking before the assault.
Despite promising they would not
take disciplinary action against
her, they did, Swanson said.
“They were blaming me.”
RESOURCES
The assault occurred on Jan.
18, 2002, after Swanson returned
to her barracks room at Camp Red
Cloud in South Korea from a night
of drinking with friends. Sgt. Jason
L. Douglass walked through her
open door, pinned her on her bed,
removed her tampon and sexually
assaulted her, she said.
“He weighed 200 pounds. I was
drunk,” she told The Post. Swanson said she fought him off and
screamed. She immediately went
to a supervisor, who told her to
“sleep on it,” she said. “He said,
‘This will affect your life and his,”’
she remembers.
Swanson didn’t take his advice.
She wrote a statement about what
happened and told another supervisor, who reported the crime to
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MICHELLE SWANSON
PART 3
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The military has been dogged
by criticisms that its investigations were flawed, tainted or
incomplete.
In 1992, a Pentagon report
assailed the Navy’s investigation
into Tailhook for “attempting to
limit the exposure of the Navy and
senior Navy officials to criticism.”
In 1999, a National Academy of
Public Administration panel said
problems abound in sex-crimes
investigations. “Improvements ...
are needed from the unit to the
departmental level.”
The NAPA panel, requested by
Congress, called for better training, organization and recruitment
of women as investigators, and the
addition of sex- crime specialists.
Panel members also raised concerns about commanders’ influence, saying allegations of interference persist. They called on the
Defense Department to “vigorously enforce guidance” against
improper influence.
Four years later, the Pentagon
has yet to act on the recommendations, said William Gadsby, director of management studies for
NAPA. Defense officials say they
have taken steps “to ensure that
appropriate changes have been
made.”
The Post also found examples of
shoddy investigations. U.S. Army
intelligence specialist Michelle
Swanson faults botched treatment of her case as a factor in her
attacker’s light sentence.
PART ONE
13
INTRO
Her commanders did not
respond to interview requests
from The Post.
◆
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SHARON MIXON
◆
“I was awarded for valor when I was in Desert Storm, so it
wasn’t like I was a coward. I was a good soldier.”
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As a young combat medic during
Operation Desert Storm, Sharon
Mixon carried litters of wounded
soldiers, wiped patients’ blood off
her hands, ran at the shrill whistle of an incoming bomb and saw
children die.
None of it, says Mixon, now 33,
was as devastating as when fellow
American soldiers gang-raped
her in June 1991 and a military
police officer rebuffed her effort
to report it.
Mixon, a former member of
the Colorado National Guard, has
been in counseling for more than
two years. Diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, a mental illness caused by trauma, she
receives VA disability benefits.
During the past decade, thousands of women have streamed
through the doors of VA hospitals and veteran centers, seeking
help in dealing with the trauma
of their rapes. They bring stories
of devastation and loneliness, of
being unable to hold down jobs or
maintain relationships. They are
haunted by fear. Many sleep with
weapons.
For those who never found support in the military after their
rapes, the VA is, finally, a haven.
They can find not only professional
counseling but group therapy with
fellow veterans who they say have
shared a special kind of hell. Dozens of VA counselors told The Post
that the trauma for veterans is
PART ONE
14
INTRO
“There is a stigma of mental-health-care counseling
in the military. You can be discharged based
on your mental-health record.”
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attempt but to distract herself
from the emotional pain.
The memories flooded back.
Mixon was 21 and waiting with
other soldiers to process out of
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, after seven
months there. In an apartment
building, soldiers played cards
and talked about going home.
Someone had bootleg liquor in
a water bottle, and Mixon took a
drink. “The next thing I remember is waking up facedown on a
cot. Somebody was on top of me,
penetrating me.” She was disoriented, as if under anesthesia. She
remembers two men holding down
her arms. They told her, “We’ll kill
you if you talk about it.” But she
did.
Hours later, Mixon reported her
assault to a military police officer.
“He said, ‘What did you expect,
being a female in Saudi Arabia?”’
she recalled. “When I told him it
was fellow American soldiers, he
told me if I knew what was best for
me, to keep my mouth shut. I was
too dumbfounded to even react. I
just felt defeated. The other feelings and the anger came afterwards.”
Today, she cries at the memory.
“You know, I was awarded for
valor when I was in Desert Storm,
so it wasn’t like I was a coward. I
was a good soldier.”
PART 3
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sation. It is, however, recognized
as a cause of post-traumatic stress
disorder, which does qualify. The
VA defines PTSD as “psychological symptoms that may occur after
a person experiences a traumatic
event” such as a physical assault,
severe accident, natural disaster
or combat. A 1998 VA study says
that sexual trauma may be harder
to cope with than the effects of
combat.
Yet because many sexualtrauma victims don’t report their
assaults, they struggle to live with
the debilitating effects of PTSD
on their own, experts say. Many
abuse drugs or alcohol in an
attempt to numb their pain. They
isolate, unable to trust anyone.
They have problems sleeping and
eating, and may develop physical
ailments including stomach, heart
or gynecological disorders.
“They’ve often experienced
years of trying to cope with
it, years of anxiety they’ve not
understood and cannot explain to
themselves,” said Carol O’Brien,
director of sexual-trauma services
at Bay Pines VA Medical Center in
Florida.
Mixon presented a brave face
to the world until 1999, when she
began having flashbacks. The
tears would not stop. She began
cutting herself, not in a suicide
PART 2
uniquely devastating because they
believed they were in a safe, supportive environment.
“If I was captured, I would have
been mentally prepared,” Mixon
said. “If you got shot, everyone
would be there to sew you up, to
take care of you.”
In many cases, victims told The
Post, no trauma counseling was
made available. Some rejected
counseling because it is not confidential.
“A lot of them wait anywhere
from 10 to 30 years” for therapy,
when they are out of the military,
said Claudia Chavez, a VA sexualtrauma counselor in St. Petersburg,
Fla. “There is a stigma of mentalhealth-care counseling in the military. You can be discharged based
on your mental-health record.”
Since 1999, the VA has provided
free counseling and treatment for
military sexual trauma. VA officials, who spent $6 million on
the treatment last year, estimate
it will cost more than $100 million through 2015. Because of the
stigma surrounding sexual trauma,
said Carole Turner, director of the
Women Veterans Health Program
for the VA, “the information is a
gross under-representation of the
magnitude of the problem.”
Sexual trauma does not qualify
as a disability that brings compen-
PART 1
— Claudia Chavez, a VA sexual-trauma counselor
PART ONE
15
INTRO
After her breakdown in 1999,
Mixon enrolled in a residential
treatment program at Bay Pines.
“This program lifted the
world off my shoulders,” she
said, “because I was treated with
respect.”
PART 1
◆
“I was beaten and raped for my country. That
should be enough.”
For more of Hood’s story, see Page 17
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tub and dumping Hood in. They
dunked her head under water, she
said, until her drill sergeant said,
“We’re done.” Then they left.
It had been dusk when Hood
answered the door. It was deep
into darkness when her friends
returned to find her lying in a bath
of blood and water. “I remember
laying on the stretcher and looking
up at the stars. I remember them
putting me into the ambulance,”
Hood said. “Everything sounded
muffled.”
At the military hospital, Hood
said, she heard a nurse tell a doctor she thought Hood has been
raped.
“Oh, we have girls come in all
the time and claim this. She probably just got into a fight with her
boyfriend,” she recalled the doctor
saying.
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assumed they had forgotten something, and opened the door.
Her drill sergeant stood there.
He smashed the door into her
face, she said, bloodying her nose.
Behind him stood four other men.
Dressed in fatigues, they pushed
their way into the room.
The men took turns raping and
sodomizing her, Hood said. They
beat and kicked her, fracturing her
ribs, right knee, nose, right cheekbone and spine. They urinated on
her, burned her with cigarettes,
split her lip and spit on her, while
threatening to kill her.
Hood would later recall it
seemed as though her spirit left.
And so, detached, she watched her
body suffer.
The men ransacked the motel
room, taking money and traveler’s
checks, before filling the bath-
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MARIAN HOOD
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PART 2
Two years ago, Army veteran
Marian Hood sat down at the desk
in her living room in South Boston and wrote a letter to each of
her four young daughters, to be
opened when they turn 21.
Hood’s mother had been Army,
her father Air Force.
She wants the legacy to stop.
There may be no better example than Hood of the human toll
exacted by sexual assault in the
military. Like her, thousands of
female veterans are believed to
have suffered in silence after being
raped by fellow servicemen. Either
they did not report, their story was
never taken seriously or, like Hood,
they were too broken to pursue it.
It is a prison Hood is determined her girls will never know.
She tells them she wants them
to go to college instead of following her path.
“I told them it’s because Mommy
was hurt really bad by some really
mean people, and I don’t want that
to happen to them.”
She was 18 and had just graduated from basic training in December 1987. To celebrate, Hood said,
she and some girlfriends rented a
room at a motel near their base,
Fort Dix, N.J.
Her friends left to go shopping.
Hearing a knock, Hood said she
PART ONE
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INTRO
“That (surgery) would take away
what dignity I have left. Death I can deal with.
Living has been harder.”
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press nerves in her legs. Hood’s
medical history is consistent with
her account of a brutal attack and
rape, her orthopedic surgeon said.
And records show that her severe
back pain began then. The VA
diagnosed Hood with PTSD “due
to the in-service stressor of a sexual assault.”
There are other reminders of
the rape: a chipped bone on Hood’s
right knee, seizures from a blood
clot in her brain, rectal problems,
a scar on her lip.
Then, in 1998, Hood faced a new
heartbreak. She was diagnosed
with cervical cancer, which this
year spread to her intestines.
“They’ve given me a time limit
— three years if I don’t do the surgery,” which she refuses to have,
as it would leave her with a colostomy bag. “That would take away
what dignity I have left. Death I
can deal with. Living has been
harder.”
Her instructions for her daughters are explicit. “I have a will.
They join the military, they get no
money.”
And although she is a veteran,
she refuses to fly an American flag.
“The red represents the blood
I’ve shed. The blue represents my
bruises — the way my face looked.
I was beaten and raped for my
country. That should be enough.”
PART 3
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“The most exciting thing was to
go down to the riverbed and drive
trucks through the mud.”
Basic training was a breeze
except for her drill sergeant, who
pressed Hood for sex, she said.
She refused and reported him, but
said a supervisor told her she was
delusional and gave her extra duty.
“I was young and naive,” she said.
“I wanted to be all I could be, and
he didn’t see me that way.”
The rape, and her powerlessness
in reporting it, she said, “changed
everything.”
She spent two months in the
hospital. “When I got out, they
gave me a bus ticket, discharge
papers and sent me home,” Hood
said.
She arrived home in February
1988. She never told her mother
what happened, Hood said, “but
she knew.”
Seven months later, her mother
put a .38-caliber revolver in her
mouth and pulled the trigger.
Hood has struggled with guilt over
her mother’s suicide.
“For a long time, I felt like that
was my fault,” she said.
Now 34, she lives with her
daughters, ages 4, 7, 9 and 14, in
government housing.
Her body is a litany of scars.
She has had four surgeries on
fractured vertebrae that painfully
PART 2
Military police arrived.
“They came in, looked me over,
and said they’d be back the next
day,” Hood said. “The MPs didn’t
come back at all.”
Her drill sergeant did. Her second day in the hospital, Hood said,
he brought her yellow daisies.
“He said if I told, no one would
believe me,” Hood said. “I flipped
out.”
Reporters and military officials
could not locate him for comment,
so The Post is not using his name.
A senior officer at Fort Dix at the
time did not respond to requests
for comment.
She was hospitalized two weeks
before calling her mother to say
she was coming home. “She asked
why, and I said, ‘I don’t want to tell
you,”’ Hood recalled. “I begged
her not to come see me because I
didn’t want her to see my face.”
DeLois Hood had been in the
Army. Yet, she would never talk
about it and didn’t want her
daughter to enlist.
“I believe she was raped,”
Marion Lane, 65, Marian Hood’s
father, said of DeLois Hood. During their two years together, Lane
said, DeLois Hood would often
lapse into despair.
Marian Hood, eager to leave
Columbus, Ga., joined anyway. “I
wanted to move away,” she said.
PART 1
— Marian Hood discussing her cervical cancer
PART ONE
17
INTRO
PART 1
PART 2
BY AMY HERDY
PHOTOS BY KATHRYN SCOTT OSLER
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A
fter she was beaten and raped in the military, Marian Hood said, she had to rethink
everything about her life.
There no longer would be a military career. So she
began working as a secretary for a car dealer. Hood
married and divorced twice. She had two daughters
by her first husband, and two by her second. Her
only son had heart problems and died as an infant.
When her second husband became violent, the
5-foot-3, 116-pound Hood fought back and broke his
nose. “I told the police I would do whatever it took”
to protect her and her daughters, she said.
In 1992, she snapped again. Out with a group of
girlfriends before a wedding, she walked out of a club
to avoid a man who had been pressuring her to dance.
He followed her outside. She said she pulled out a
straight razor and cut him. “I blanked out,” Hood
recalled later. “People came out and pulled me off.”
She was charged with attempted manslaughter.
Her attorney cited her military history as reason for
the attack, Hood said, and she avoided jail in a plea
agreement that included counseling.
That counseling changed her life.
“That was my awakening period,” Hood said. “I
didn’t know who I was. Didn’t know why I was so
angry.”
Now 34, she lives with her daughters, ages 4, 7, 9
and 14, in government housing in South Boston. She
relies on myriad medications.
“I was kicked so bad, my spine is like an ‘S,’ ” she
said of the beating she suffered during her rape.
PROFILES
Trauma lingers in victim’s life
PART 3
Marian Hood hugs her youngest daughter, Gabby, 4, in their apartment. She has left a will that stipulates that her four
daughters not enter the military. ‘They join the military, they get no money.’
PART ONE
18
INTRO
Diagnosed in 1998 with cervical cancer that has
spread to her intestines, she undergoes chemotherapy every week. It burns her skin, makes her so sick
at times that she throws up all day. “What keeps me
going are those four kids.
“I wonder why things happened. I would have
been a different person. A lot was taken from me.”
In December 2002, the
Department of Veterans
Affairs awarded Hood disability payments based on
her having post-traumatic
stress disorder. On Aug. 28,
she received notice that she
is losing Medicaid benefits
because her income exceeds
the limit by $82 a month.
She underwent surgery on
her back the week before. Now she is panicked that
mounting medical bills will dash her plans. She had
hoped to buy her sister a business and a house in her
hometown of Columbus, Ga., so her sister could take
care of Hood’s children after she is gone.
“I’m not afraid of death. The only thing I worry
about is my babies. Not being able to hug them or
comfort them. ... But I’m tired of fighting.”
She wants to complete a book of poetry before she
dies. “That will be my legacy.”
PART 1
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A beating and gang rape in
December 1987 left Army
veteran Marian Hood with
a fractured spine and other
injuries, she says. She’s had
four surgeries since then
on vertebrae that painfully
press nerves in her legs, and
she also is battling cervical
cancer that has spread to her
intestines. Hood, seen, at left,
with boyfriend Rey, in her South
Boston home.
INTRO
A DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORT: PART TWO
PART 1
While civilian
prosecutors crack down
on domestic abuse, the
military emphasizes
counseling and tells
commanders to consider
the accused’s career.
PART 2
PART 3
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front
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Tears flow when Christina Croom talks about the 1999 killing of her sister,
Tabitha. The Army had backed away from prosecuting Sgt. Forest Nelson,
Tabitha’s boyfriend, but has now reopened the case.
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F
ort Bragg police amassed a
3-inch-thick homicide file
to prove Sgt. Forest Nelson
killed his girlfriend, and two military prosecutors said they would
take him to trial.
A witness saw Nelson’s car
backed up to Tabitha Croom’s
apartment door the night she disappeared. And hikers found her
body 500 feet behind his barracks,
among other evidence in the case.
But last year, as the North Carolina Army base faced intense
public scrutiny over a cluster of
domestic-violence murders, Nelson’s commanders shut down the
investigation.
“We all thought he was going to
trial,” said Ann Croom, Tabitha’s
mother. “I will never understand
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RESOURCES
■ Some soldiers go on to kill
their partners after their threats
were known to commanders or
after they were given light punishments for previous assaults. A
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military leaves victims
vulnerable. Many military bases
lack advocates to help safeguard
women who have been beaten or
are in danger. Commanders must
react faster to threats of violence,
in part by ensuring that abusers
are kept apart from victims, military consultants say. In 10 cases
reviewed by The Post, an advocate
was not provided, and in some
instances commanders who knew
of assaults or threats downplayed
concerns.
PART 3
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■ The
PART 2
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■ The military has been slow to
respond to congressional mandates
and other calls for improved investigations. In 1988, Congress told
defense officials to report crimes
to the FBI. Today, the military has
yet to finish the computer system
designed to comply with the mandate. Congress told the Department
of Defense to respond by June 30 to
a task force’s recommendations on
improving military handling of
domestic violence, but Pentagon
officials have yet to comply.
month before Navy sailor David
DeArmond killed his wife and
mother-in-law in 2002, his spouse
sought a restraining order, citing a death threat. Commanders
received a copy of the restraining
order but did not provide her a
victim advocate or restrict DeArmond to the base. Commanders
also contend they did not know
that DeArmond choked his first
wife during a Navy stint in San
Diego. The couple later divorced.
Top Department of Defense
officials refused repeated requests
by The Post to discuss their handling of domestic-violence issues.
Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld’s office released a statement to The Post saying defense
officials are cracking down on
domestic violence.
“We are working with the services to ensure that commanders take domestic violence seriously and take appropriate action,
including court-martial proceedings when appropriate,” the statement said.
“DOD wants to stop domestic violence because it’s the right
thing to do,” David Lloyd, head
of the military’s Family Advocacy
Program, said in a symposium
presentation last year. “We are
as concerned about this national
problem as anyone else.”
Domestic abuse is pervasive in
the military. Between 1997 and
2001, more than 10,000 cases of
spouse abuse a year have been
substantiated in the armed forces.
Of those cases, 114 were homicides
of adults, according to military
records.
PART 1
■ Batterers in the military are
rarely prosecuted. In the Army,
twice as many accused domestic-violence offenders faced jobrelated discipline in the past
decade as faced criminal prosecution in a court-martial. In 16 murder cases, administrative actions
were taken against the accused,
but the Army provided no details.
The other service branches did not
disclose any data. In a report this
year, a congressionally formed
task force said the Department of
Defense was too lenient with abusers and added: “Offenders must be
held accountable for all criminal
conduct.” Often, offenders are
allowed to leave military service
with an honorable discharge.
20
INTRO
how they could do that. Never.”
The military investigative file
obtained by The Denver Post does
not explain why Nelson’s commander shelved the case, using his
discretionary power under military law. The documents indicate
Nelson faced administrative punishment, noting that “disciplinary
action is pending.”
The Army reopened the murder
investigation last summer after The
Post raised questions about the case
and uncovered evidence of violence
in Nelson’s previous marriage.
The Croom homicide and other
domestic-violence incidents, a
nine-month Post investigation
found, reveal a secretive justice system tightly controlled by
commanders that routinely fails
to prosecute domestic-violence
offenders and creates obstacles for
victims, sometimes leaving them
unprotected.
Some end up dead.
The military often mishandles
cases of domestic violence, as well
as sexual assault, according to a
review of thousands of military
documents and interviews with
dozens of victims.
Among the The Post’s findings:
PART TWO
PART 3
33%
34%
1992
1993
27%
26%
168
49%
139
53%
144
51%
134
52%
24%
25%
25%
23%
29%
24%
28%
27%
23%
37%
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
24%
26%
17%
31%
1994
1995
1996
140
43%
118
40%
129
40%
12%
48%
2002
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The Denver Post / Jeffery A. Roberts and Thomas McKay
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* Administrative also includes non-judicial Article 15 hearings. Some serious crimes, such as rape, may have
been handled administratively because only a lesser charge could be proved.
** Other includes “no action reported” and where the action was left blank in the database.
Percentages may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding. Click here for more about the numbers
Source: Denver Post analysis of U.S. Army database
RESOURCES
21%
159
48%
Action
Administrative*
Military Courts-Martial
Other**
PROFILES
20%
186
49%
PART 2
The statistics below are based on the year a crime was investigated, which
in some instances may not be the same the year the crime was committed.
229
46%
PART 1
Violence to examine how the military handles abuse cases.
The 24-member task force, with
civilian and military members,
concluded this year that the system needed an overhaul to hold
batterers accountable, protect victims and train commanders.
According to the Defense
Department statement to The
Post, military officials agree with
most of the recommendations and
are in the final stages of reviewing
them.
If the military does change its
approach, it will be overcoming a
historical tendency to downplay
the severity of domestic-abuse
problems, said Deborah Tucker,
Army domestic violence offenders:
how cases were handled
239
48%
21
INTRO
Few studies have compared
military domestic-abuse trends
with the civilian world. One study
performed for the Army in the
early 1990s suggested that the
prevalence of the crimes could
be twice as high as in the civilian
world. Other studies have concluded rates are similar. A 1999
study found that the Army showed
a higher rate of cases with severe
injuries.
A series of spousal killings at
Fort Campbell in Kentucky during
the late 1990s, as well as concerns
raised by The Miles Foundation
and other advocacy groups, led
Congress in 2000 to create the
Defense Task Force on Domestic
The military defines domestic
violence as acts of physical, sexual
and emotional abuse. For statistical purposes, however, the military often does not count intimate
partners such as girlfriends as
domestic-abuse victims, contrary
to the civilian world.
The rate of reported spouse
abuse in the military declined
from 1997 to 2001 - from 22 per
thousand active-duty personnel
to 16.5 per thousand. But memos
show that Pentagon officials
believed in 2001 that the decline
was caused in part by fears that
reporting the crimes could hurt
careers, and that commanders
were not reporting all incidents.
PART TWO
PART TWO
22
INTRO
“It’s a sad commentary on the military justice
system that we still do not treat domestic violence
like other serious crimes.”
◆
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such crimes were incomplete.
Separate data the Army provided to The Post this summer
show that more than 800 soldiers
faced administrative penalties
during the past decade, more than
twice the 400 who went to courtmartial. Specific punishments
were not disclosed. The outcomes
in 320 cases were blank.
In the most severe domesticviolence cases — murder — 16
accused offenders were handled
administratively, the records
show. An equal number faced
court-martial proceedings.
The outcomes for 14 homicide
cases were blank.
Defense Department task force
members were frustrated when
they encountered similarly incomplete data early in their review,
said Tucker, the panel’s co-chair.
“We were stymied by a lack of
information,” Tucker said. “Information came back to us blank or
blacked out. This said to me that
(military officials) really don’t
want to know how bad the problem is.”
The Pentagon says its solution to the poor tracking of crime
— called the Data Incident Based
Reporting System — should be
fully operational next year.
After touring several military
installations, task force members
PART 3
While civilian prosecutors in
the past two decades have cracked
down on abusers, the military
emphasizes counseling and
instructs commanders to consider the effect of punishments on
careers of the accused.
Often, offenders are given
administrative punishments. Or
no discipline at all.
“It’s a sad commentary on the
military justice system that we still
do not treat domestic violence like
other serious crimes,” said Casey
Gwinn, a San Diego prosecutor
and member of the domestic-violence task force. “When was the
last time somebody robbed a bank
and expected only counseling?”
The task force found the system
severely flawed, preventing true
accountability for offenders whose
violence typically persists, leaving
victims on their own.
“Commanding officers must
ensure that the institution, not
the victim, is responsible for hold-
ing the offender accountable,” the
task force report said.
Civilian prosecutors place a
high priority on convicting abusers, said Denver District Attorney
Bill Ritter, who chairs the board
of the American Prosecutors
Research Institute. Two decades
ago, domestic violence was too
often considered a family matter,
he said.
“Now there is a focus nationally
on the scourge of domestic violence,” Ritter said. “Prosecution is
part of it.”
Batterers are rarely prosecuted
in the military, but the exact picture is obscured by flawed recordkeeping and the fact that commanders have failed to report
punishments of their service
members to a central office, documents show.
In 2000, 12,068 cases of spouse
abuse were reported to the military’s Family Advocacy Program, which handles abuse cases,
according to a Defense Department memorandum submitted to
Congress.
Of the 1,492 cases investigated
by military police, the memo
shows, only 26 led to courts-martial. The outcomes of 983 incidents
were not reported by command
officials. The memo also states
that databases designed to track
PART 2
co-chair of the now-defunct task
force whose recommendations are
being considered.
“Philosophically, domestic violence has been viewed by the military as a case of family dysfunction, not through a lens of criminal
behavior.”
PART 1
— Casey Gwinn, a San Diego prosecutor
LAURA SANDLER
◆
“All we have to protect us are the laws and the systems
that are put in place, and when they are neglected,
women not only die but they are left with lifelong
scars that may or may not heal.”
For more on Sandler’s story, see Page 48
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ment, records show. Tampa police
arrested him on a felony charge
of battering a pregnant woman,
which was later reduced to a misdemeanor because Hine would not
cooperate.
Base officials weren’t concerned
about the violence, Coleman said
in a telephone interview with The
Post. “They were mad at me for
bringing negative publicity.”
A supervisor sent him to a Mental Health Skills class.
“I told him I didn’t really need
it because I wasn’t starting anything,” Coleman said. “He told me
it would be in my best interests to
ework things out.”
RESOURCES
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PROFILES
most sophisticated batterers today
avoid accountability in the military. They’re really sorry. They go
to counseling. They want to save
their career.”
James Coleman, a Marine
assigned to Central Command at
MacDill Air Force Base in Florida,
was sent to counseling before he
went on to smother his girlfriend
and prop her corpse on the couch
for a week. He later smothered her
infant son and put the boy’s body
in the freezer.
On Sept. 15, 2002, Coleman
pushed and choked his pregnant
girlfriend, 19-year-old Jessica
Hine, at their off-base apart-
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INTRO
discovered that offenders in the
military typically escaped prosecution.
On a visit to the Spangdahlem
Air Base in Germany, records
given to the task force showed that
most airmen who abused their
spouses or girlfriends in 2000 and
2001 avoided incarceration.
Five airmen received light punishments for choking their wives
or girlfriends, records indicated.
Their punishments included reprimands, extra duty and fines.
“Case after case, the victim said
nothing was done,” Tucker said of
the military in general. “Then,
when we look at the records at the
base, it showed indeed little or
nothing was done.”
Instead of taking abusers to court
for severe assaults, they found,
commanders relied on counseling
and anger-management classes.
Members sat in on domestic-violence case-review committees, used
to screen cases and recommend
clinical treatments for batterers.
“One of them had blood and
guts everywhere, and they were
talking about it like it was a minor
dispute,” Gwinn, the San Diego
prosecutor, said of a meeting at
Camp Lejeune, N.C. “The social
worker said, ‘Put (the husband
and wife) in counseling.’ Our jaws
dropped.”
Commanders’ decisions are
inconsistent, Gwinn said.
“We deal with some who say,
‘This guy is wastewater. We bilge
out our wastewater.’ Others say,
‘Just because he can’t get along
with his wife doesn’t mean he
can’t be a good Marine.’ ... The
23
PART TWO
PART TWO
24
INTRO
“He came to his command and said, ‘She said this
under duress. She didn’t mean it. My service record
reflects I’ve done nothing to warrant this.’ ”
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tary committee members) would
say, ‘Yes, we do.”’
The military camp argued that
proposing changes to the code,
which Congress wrote and can
modify, would be too politically
charged to result in any change.
The UCMJ has been modified but
not revamped since it took effect
half a century ago.
The task force decided not to
tackle changes in the UCMJ.
The heart of the panel’s findings was to encourage the military to aggressively investigate
and prosecute crimes by setting
up domestic-violence intervention teams. Team members would
ensure that victims had advocates
to aid them and create safety plans
immediately.
They also argued that military
officials should conduct fatality
reviews after domestic-violence
homicides to pinpoint failings of
the system. The reviews, increasingly common in civilian communities, would critique how police,
commanders and social services,
among other agencies, respond to
domestic-violence incidents.
Otherwise, “domestic-violence
policies and case-management
practices ... may inadvertently contribute to the death of a victim or
offender,” said the task force report.
A year after the recommen-
PART 3
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hit her. With the baby in her arms,
she repeatedly tried to climb out
the bedroom window or run out
the front door, but he pulled her
back each time.
Finally, he choked her to death,
then left her for a week on a couch,
at times sitting next to her to watch
football on TV.
Finally, Coleman placed Hine’s
body in a brown suitcase with the
head and feet sticking out both
sides, and dumped it in a wooded
area.
For a week he fed the baby sporadically until finally the child was
“not looking good,” he told police,
so Coleman smothered him. He
wrapped the body in a white sheet
with red roses before placing him
in a Staples cardboard box and
putting the box in the freezer.
On Dec. 26, Hine’s body was
found. Police questioned Coleman,
and he confessed. Now in jail, he
faces two charges of murder.
The rules — the Uniform Code
of Military Justice — that give
commanders wide discretion in
handling cases such as Coleman’s
ignited a battle among the members
of the domestic-violence task force.
“We had these horrendous
arguments,” said member Peter
McDonald, a retired Kentucky
judge. “We would say, ‘But you
don’t do anything to them.’ (Mili-
PART 2
Central Command spokesman
Maj. Pete Mitchell said that after
Coleman’s arrest, “he came to his
command and said, ‘She said this
under duress. She didn’t mean
it. My service record reflects I’ve
done nothing to warrant this.”’
Mitchell said the commanders
decided to let civilian authorities
handle the matter. But Coleman
became violent again.
On Oct. 28, 2002, Hine told
police Coleman choked her. As
civilian prosecutors reviewed the
case, Hine returned home to Coleman. On Nov. 15, she told police
he beat and kicked her. Officers
drove her to a domestic-violence
shelter, where she stayed briefly
before again going home.
Mitchell said that if police were
involved, “his chain of command
would have known about it.” He
said Coleman’s supervisor was no
longer at Central Command and
could not be reached for comment.
Coleman said he continued with
counseling twice a week for about
two months while the fights with
Hine escalated.
Finally, Coleman said, “things
got worse until the last one, when
she died.”
On Dec. 7, 2002, Coleman later
told police, he and Hine argued
over the stereo being too loud. He
PART 1
— Maj. Pete Mitchell, Central Command spokesman at MacDill Air Force Base
PART TWO
25
INTRO
dation, Fort Bragg suffered five
domestic homicides. Tucker said
task force members saw it as a
perfect opportunity to perform a
fatality review.
“One of our members dashed
into the office of the secretary of
defense and said, ‘Let us do this,”’
Tucker said. “But the secretary
had already assembled a team.”
Not a fatality-review team,
however. It was an Army panel
that focused on the soldiers’ postcombat stress.
“In the crisp, bright light, Fort
Bragg might have shown the benefits of a complete investigation”
into the system, Tucker said.
At the same time, Fort Bragg
investigators were looking into
another slaying, the details of
which stayed hidden.
No one can know whether
Tabitha Croom’s life could have
been saved had Fort Bragg done
a better job of handling domesticviolence cases. But, experts say,
the case shows how batterers, like
burning fuses, can give off visible
smoke trails before an explosion.
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PROFILES
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Ann Croom, above center, Tabitha’s mother, is flanked by daughter Christina,
left, holding her son Elijah, and Ginger Bullard, Tabitha’s friend, holding another
of Tabitha’s nephews, Justin. They’re seated behind a portrait of Tabitha.
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From the thick wilderness
around Fort Bragg to Croom’s
small apartment in Fayetteville,
N.C., the trail of evidence in her
1999 death always seemed to lead
investigators back to her boyfriend, Sgt. Forest Nelson, documents and interviews show.
“Investigation established probable cause to believe Sgt. Nelson
committed the offense of murder,”
reads the cover of the evidence file
obtained by The Post.
PART TWO
26
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told police he saw Croom walk to
Nelson’s car and get in.
Around midnight, Croom’s
next-door neighbor, Henry Moore,
heard “rumbling or tussling”
noises coming from her apartment, according to a police statement. He noticed Nelson’s car
backed up to Croom’s apartment,
with the trunk lid open. He later
recalled seeing white sheets in the
trunk.
The next day, Croom’s purse was
found in a downtown Fayetteville
trash bin. The sheriff’s department began a missing-person
investigation, interviewing family
and friends. They learned about
Croom’s fears in recent months
and sought to question Nelson.
Talking to detectives the next
week, Nelson “showed no emotion” and denied any role in her
disappearance, records show. The
trunk to his car was open that
night, he told police, because he
was unloading laundry.
During the interview, Nelson
kept his arms and hands underneath a table. But at one point, he
raised his arms to make a gesture.
That’s when investigators noticed
“numerous scratches” covering
them.
They snapped pictures, speculating they could be defensive
wounds. Nelson said he had been
PART 3
Close
said. When Croom began talking
about how he slapped and pushed
her and made ominous statements, friends urged her to leave
him, they told The Post.
“She told me he would say
things, like, to scare her,” said
Maria Davis, a friend of Croom’s
since the ninth grade. “She said
he told her he could kill somebody
and nobody would find the body
or anything. I told her she should
break up with him, get rid of him,
he wasn’t good for her.”
In April 1998, Croom filed a complaint with the Cumberland County
Sheriff’s Department, stating that
Nelson knocked over her TV set and
threatened her and her family.
And in September 1999, she
reported that Nelson pounded on
her front door, yelling, records
show. She declined to press charges
in both incidents.
Croom tried to break off the relationship. She started dating other
men, and Nelson, who also was
seeing another woman, was growing fiercely jealous, records show.
Oct. 4, 1999, was the last day
anyone saw the 22-year-old Croom
alive.
Nelson was the last person
known to have been with her. He
picked her up that night from the
Fayetteville Omni Theater, where
she worked until 11:30. An usher
PART 2
Yet after two years of building a case with the help of civilian law-enforcement agencies, the
investigation was “terminated” in
November 2002. The report noted
that “the offense was committed
by a person who is no longer subject to the UCMJ.” Fort Bragg officials declined to comment because
of the reopened investigation.
“There was enough evidence to
take him to trial,” one investigator
close to the case told The Post. “The
bottom line is that his chain of command decided to let him go.”
Nelson, who now lives in the
Washington, D.C., area, ended his
tour of duty with the Army in February 2002, records show. He did
not respond to an interview request.
For several years, Nelson served
in the 9th Psychological Operations Battalion, responsible for
propaganda missions. Its motto:
“Win the Mind, Win the Day.”
But he never won over Croom’s
friends and family, interviews and
records show. From the beginning, the relationship between the
Fayetteville native and the older,
cigar-smoking Nelson struck
Croom’s friends as odd.
Croom, a part-time exotic
dancer, was gregarious and always
smiling; Nelson was silent and
circumspect. He never seemed to
fit in with her crowd, her friends
PART 1
— Maria Davis, a friend of Croom’s since the ninth grade
INTRO
“She said he told her he could kill somebody and nobody
would find the body or anything. I told her she should
break up with him, get rid of him, he wasn’t good for her.”
8
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7
They were stunned to find out
earlier this year that he had left
the military without facing prosecution.
Ann Croom and Maria Davis
said they are dumbfounded and
angry about the lack of justice in
Tabitha’s death.
“He’s living his life, when
Tabitha can’t,” Davis said.
Ann Croom was more upset
when she learned from The Post
that there is another violent chapter to Nelson’s story that military
investigators missed.
In January 1992, seven years
before Tabitha Croom died, Nel-
PROFILES
jurisdiction over Nelson’s unit
were backing off prosecution.
Fort Bragg Special Agent David
Rodgers discussed the possibility of
having Nelson reassigned to another
unit, under a different command,
where two other prosecutors supported sending him to trial.
“They stated they would seek
to prosecute Sgt. Nelson if he were
reassigned,” Rodgers wrote in a
Sept. 25, 2001, report.
By late 2002, Croom’s family members said, Cumberland
County sheriff’s investigators were
telling them that Fort Bragg would
probably court-martial Nelson.
PART 3
Back
Justin, above, views
photos of his aunt
Tabitha, whom he
never knew. At left are
newspaper clippings
of the disappearance.
PART 2
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PART 1
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27
INTRO
nicked while on a 4-mile “terrain
run” with a friend. But records
show his friend had no similar
scratches and did not see cuts on
Nelson’s arm the day of the run.
The friend said he did notice
scratches the day after Croom disappeared.
When Nelson took a polygraph
examination several days after
Croom was reported missing, he
denied involvement in her disappearance.
“The examinee was being deceptive when answering the relevant
questions,” the examiner, David
Soldano, wrote on Oct. 13, 1999.
In December 1999, hikers
found Croom’s body covered
in thorns in a wooded area 500
feet from Nelson’s barracks. The
medical examiner ruled her death
“strongly suspicious of homicide”
and consistent with strangulation
but could not establish a cause
of death because the body was
severely decomposed.
Because the body was found at
Fort Bragg, military investigators
took over the case with the consent of the local district attorney.
Police believed that Nelson’s
arm scratches could have been
caused by those thorns, records
show, and the medical examiner
agreed they were consistent with
the theory. Lt. Col. William F. Lee
authorized a search of Nelson’s
Ford Escort. The search produced
“head hairs microscopically
similar” to Croom’s in his trunk,
records show.
But by September 2001, records
indicate that an investigator on the
case believed that officials with
PART TWO
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In the U.S. military, a serviceman with a record of spouse abuse
can be honorably discharged.
That happened in Colorado
Springs, when Rockford Beassie,
an Airman of the Year at Peterson Air Force Base in 1999, was
released from the Air Force in
January 2001.
His honorable discharge came
His supervisor violated military protocol by failing to report
one of the incidents to Beassie’s
squadron commander, according
to Peterson officials who reviewed
the case. Nicole Beassie said her
husband never attended the angermanagement classes. He could not
be reached for comment.
“The Air Force became my husband’s No. 1 enabler,” she said. “As
long as his superiors did not think
his abuse was a problem, neither
did he.”
A Defense Department study
showed that of abusers who left the
military between 1988 and 1993,
75 percent to 84 percent received
honorable discharges. For all military personnel who left the service
in the study period, 90 percent
received honorable discharges.
The study also found that 54
percent of abusers had been promoted in those years, compared
with 65 percent for the overall
military population surveyed.
Because Beassie received an
honorable discharge so he could
take a higher-paying civilian job,
his wife and 3-year-old daughter
could not qualify for a military
insurance program called Transitional Compensation, Peterson
officials said. That program is
limited to spouses whose husbands are separated from the ser-
PART 3
◆
three months after civilian police
charged him with a misdemeanor
for dragging his wife, Nicole, down
a stairway by her feet, records
show. Beassie pleaded guilty.
Such a discharge was warranted
because his entire Air Force service record was considered, said
Lt. Col. Albert Klein, the staff
judge advocate for Peterson. Even
though Beassie’s record included
an administrative punishment
for the Oct. 28, 2000, assault and
his commanders knew Nicole
claimed he abused her two other
times, Peterson officials said,
the Air Force considered him an
asset.
“In our eyes, he was a pretty
good guy,” Klein said. “We look at
the entire service record.”
According to military rules
governing discharges, commanders determine whether a member’s
service “generally has met the
standards of acceptable conduct
and performance of duty for military personnel, or is otherwise so
meritorious that any other characterization would be clearly inappropriate.”
Nicole Beassie said that in
response to her two previous abuse
allegations, officials sent Rockford
Beassie to marriage counseling
and gave him the option of attending anger-management classes.
PART 2
son’s wife at the time, Angela,
walked into the emergency room
at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, a civilian hospital in Fayetteville, her abdomen bleeding from
a gunshot wound, records show.
“We started arguing” after she
told him she wanted a divorce, she
told The Post. “He shot me one
time in the abdomen. He had me
to say it was just a struggle, so the
military wouldn’t find out.”
That was the story she gave the
hospital, medical records show.
She divorced him. The military
insurance program paid for much
of her recovery, she said.
But she added that no criminal
investigator interviewed her about
the shooting — or about Tabitha
Croom’s death.
In August, Fort Bragg told The
Post that the investigation had
been reopened in light of the new
evidence.
PART 1
— Nicole Beassie, whose husband was given an honorable discharge
INTRO
“The Air Force became my husband’s No. 1 enabler. As
long as his superiors did not think his abuse
was a problem, neither did he.”
◆
Finiello’s paintings reflect her pain after the years
she spent with her husband. “Women came out of my exhibit
crying and hugging,” she said.
For more on Finiello’s story, see Page 53
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potential victim.
“It’s probably the second most
frequent reason a victim gets in
touch with us: the fact they have
a restriction or a protective order
and he has now left the base and
assaulted her,” said Christine
Hansen, executive director of the
civilian Miles Foundation, which
has assisted victims in more than
11,000 cases of military domestic
abuse since its inception in 1987.
The scenario happened again at
Fort Campbell in August 2000.
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other news organizations reported
that commanders knew of threats
in at least two cases but did not
enforce orders restricting them to
the installation.
Since then, there have been
more deaths.
Often, commanders have failed
to enforce protective orders,
despite having the power to monitor perpetrators and restrict them
to housing or order confinement.
They also can require escorts and
issue orders barring contact with a
8
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DOROTHY FINIELLO
PROFILES
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PART 2
Several military abuse cases
in recent years have revealed that
commanders knew of threats or
violence by soldiers before they
went on to kill their wives or girlfriends, raising questions about
whether officials took strong steps
to protect victims.
After a string of spousal killings at Fort Campbell in the late
1990s, CBS’s “60 Minutes” and
PART 1
◆
29
INTRO
vice for abusing them, according
to the law.
Nicole Beassie said the base
was trying to protect Beassie and
its image by releasing him honorably.
The Beassies divorced in the
summer of 2001. Nicole and their
daughter have been left without
military benefits to deal with
mounting medical bills and living
expenses.
Members of the Defense Department domestic-violence task force
said the transitional compensation law needs to be more flexible, so commanders cannot create additional hardships for abuse
victims.
Meanwhile, Nicole Beassie has
appealed to Defense Department
officials and U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., to help her obtain the
transitional compensation, saying
that because she was abused, she’s
entitled to the money. The military
has rejected her appeals.
“It’s nice to know a criminal
shares the same integrity as the
good men and women who serve
the United States honorably,”
Nicole Beassie said.
PART TWO
PART TWO
30
INTRO
“The danger to her couldn’t have been any clearer.”
— Nancy Kreidman, a legal adviser for domestic-violence victims
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visitation rights to see the children
with her permission.
“There was not evidence to
believe the threatening statement
constituted intent to commit this
crime,” the statement said.
Yet other warning signs were
known to the military, such as
DeArmond’s conviction in 1994
for choking his first wife. He
received counseling through the
Navy for the offense, Navy officials
acknowledged. But they did not
have his California record because
policy does not require transfers
of closed cases, they said.
In 1999, The Miles Foundation
and 79 other victim-advocacy
organizations asked the Pentagon and Congress to require that
when service members move to a
new base, any records of abuse are
transferred with them.
Zaleha’s family said the military
should have done more to safeguard her. They also were angered
that the charge against DeArmond
for killing his wife was reduced
from murder to manslaughter in
exchange for his guilty plea. The
base commander also agreed to
limit DeArmond’s prison time for
both slayings to 30 years.
A panel of fellow sailors eventually sentenced DeArmond to 22
years. He will be eligible for parole
in about eight.
“For him to get 22 years for
killing two people?” said Zaleha’s
brother, Kasti Ahmad, who lives
in Singapore. “Is this justice?”
PART 2
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military police station and confessed.
Despite the death threat, DeArmond’s commanders had not provided Zaleha with a victim advocate to help her with a safety plan.
And though DeArmond was separated from his wife, commanders
had not restricted him to his barracks or provided for supervised
movement.
“He was offered a room in the
barracks as a result of comments
that he made indicating that he
had problems with his marriage,”
said a written statement released
by the base.
Pearl Harbor officials said in
the statement that Zaleha’s safety
was discussed the previous January as part of a “counseling process” but said regulations prohibit
them from releasing more information.
Nancy Kreidman, a local legal
adviser for domestic-violence victims whose agency helped Zaleha
obtain the restraining order, said
the base should have done more
to protect her, such as supervising
DeArmond’s barracks stay and
providing her an advocate to follow up on safety concerns.
“The danger to her couldn’t
have been any clearer,” Kreidman
said.
Officials
defended
their
response, noting in the statement
that Zaleha DeArmond agreed to
amend the restraining order prior
to her death, allowing her husband
PART 1
Sgt. Derrick McFowler, violating
a state protective order as well as
an order to stay on base, drove off
the Fort Campbell grounds, found
his wife, Silke Meyer, and killed
her before fatally turning the gun
on himself, local police said.
“He was supposed to be
restricted to the barracks, but
they’re not really restricted,” said
Brian Prentice, a sheriff’s investigator in Clarksville, Tenn.
Fort Campbell authorities
declined to comment about the
case.
And the scenario repeated itself
in June 2002.
It was a month after David
DeArmond, a sailor based at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, flew into a
rage while arguing with his wife,
Zaleha.
He broke the dining room table.
He trashed her Koran holy book.
And he tried to flush their wedding album down the toilet.
“You are going to pay for everything you did to me,” he told her.
“Die. Bitch.”
The death threat and violence
were described by Zaleha in court
papers she used to obtain a civilian restraining order for him to
stay away from her.
A month later, DeArmond, who
had been living in the barracks,
entered their home on the base
and bludgeoned Zaleha with an
iron skillet, killing her. He then
stabbed her mother to death. The
next morning, he walked into the
PART TWO
31
INTRO
PART 1
PART 2
BY MILES MOFFEIT
PHOTOS BY HELEN H. RICHARDSON
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n the middle of the argument, her husband
unlocked his gun box, telling her she needed to
feel the barrel of his 9mm pistol.
“This has got to be a joke,” Toni Walker recalled.
In seconds, Kent Walker, an Army pilot stationed
in Jacksonville, Fla., pinned her to the floor of their
bedroom, she said, jamming the barrel into one
of her eyes, then into her lips so hard it chipped a
tooth.
“Open your mouth, open your mouth,” he said,
grinding the barrel against her teeth.
“We don’t want to go out like this,” she remembers crying. “We have a little girl.”
The next few hours were a blur, shifting back and
forth between her pleas for him to stop choking her
and his putting the gun to his own head, she said.
She persuaded him not to kill her, she said, shortly
before he collapsed on the bed from exhaustion. She
ran to a neighbor’s house to call police.
Jacksonville sheriff’s officers soon entered the
house and found him asleep with his fingers curled
around the gun, blood on the barrel, according to
the report. They arrested him.
“Our world had crumbled,” she told The Denver
Post recently.
PROFILES
‘I felt the military abandoned me’
PART 3
With her daughter, Elizabeth, at her side, Toni Walker looks at a photo taken five days after the beating she suffered
in January. Police arrested her husband, Army pilot Kent Walker, but Florida prosecutors dropped the case. Toni, who
says she wants to forgive him, decided not to testify.
32
PART 1
testify against him, and finally decided not to.
“He’s been punished enough. I did not want his
children to see him go to prison.”
Kent Walker referred questions to his attorney,
who told The Post that a polygraph test Walker took
substantiated his assertion that he did not abuse her
that night. The attorney declined to give the document to The Post.
Toni Walker said she finds solace in the Bible,
playing the guitar and being with her children. She
also is trying to forgive her husband.
“The scar on my heart is what hurts the most,”
she said.
INTRO
PART 2
PART 3
The assault on Jan. 19 of this year was the flash
point of almost a year of abuse, after her husband,
42, had survived a helicopter crash that killed his
co-pilot.
After the incident with the gun, she asked his
Florida National Guard commanders to restrict him
to the base, records show. A brigadier general wrote
back, saying military lawyers would handle the case,
but he did not address her specific request.
“They said they would order him not to talk to
me, but I told them that that wouldn’t stop bullets
from hitting me,” she said. “I felt the military abandoned me.”
She said she asked for a victim advocate to help
create a safety plan but never received one. Florida
Guard officials did not return calls from The Post.
Toni Walker was on her own. She spent almost
a month in a shelter with her 8-year-old boy and 1year-old daughter, trying to stay safe and find a job.
Finally, she moved into her own apartment. After
contacting local crisis centers, she obtained a victim
advocate in the Navy to advise her and to help her
plan for recovery.
Florida prosecutors dropped the domestic violence case against Kent Walker, his attorney said.
Toni Walker said she agonized over whether to
PART TWO
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Top, Toni Walker strums a tune on a
guitar for Elizabeth in their apartment,
which still holds memories of her
marriage. Above, Walker prepares a
quick bottle of formula for her daughter.
At left, Waller and her son, Preston,
stand arm in arm during service at First
Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.
INTRO
A DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORT: PART THREE
PART 1
Military’s response to rapes,
domestic abuse falls short
◆
“I was asked the question, ‘Was I ever sexually assaulted
in the military?’ ” recalls Susan Armenta, above. “No one
ever asked me that question. I had been labeled depressed. I
thought a minute and said, ‘Yes.’ ”
For more of Armenta’s story, see Page 45
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still lack an advocate.
After a Department of Veterans
Affairs official warned a Pentagon
panel six years ago that rape cases
were being mishandled throughout the military, committee members said that was a concern. But
the VA official’s findings were
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tims of sexual assault are vulnerable because there are not enough
advocates to represent their interests and develop safety plans. As
Congress did in 1994, the task
force called for more advocacy
programs. But task force members
say a majority of military bases
8
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VA H O S P I TA L S U P P O R T G R O U P
PROFILES
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PART 2
S
candal after scandal, time
after time, experts inside
and outside the military
have pointed out shortcomings in
how the armed forces handle cases
of domestic violence and sexual
assault.
They have offered solutions,
pleaded for changes.
And, a nine-month Denver Post
investigation found, the military’s
response to suggestions and criticisms has fallen short or fallen
flat.
Many of the warning signs have
been glaringly public.
After a naval aviation convention in 1991 where more than 100
officers sexually assaulted and
harassed dozens of women, investigations were undermined and no
one was convicted. Experts called
for more aggressive punishment
of offenders. But today, leniency
is still the rule, as military leaders
continue to choose administrative punishments twice as often
as criminal prosecution for those
accused of sexual assault and
domestic violence.
The Defense Task Force on
Domestic Violence found over the
past three years that military vic-
PART THREE
34
■ Lessen
the authority commanders have to decide whether
an offender is prosecuted and who
sits on the court- martial panel.
■ Remove legal hurdles for victims who want to pursue claims in
court or to obtain benefits.
victims who report
crimes by granting them amnesty
for lesser violations such as drinking at the time of their assault.
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■ Protect
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more advocates for victims of rape or domestic violence,
improve investigations and keep
track of offenders.
“The system is grossly tainted,”
said Dorothy Mackey, a retired
Air Force captain who now heads
a rape-victim advocacy group in
Ohio. “It’s a Trojan horse — it
looks really good, but it’s not what
it appears to be. And it’s done a
great disservice to our military
veterans.”
The pattern of problems goes
back at least 15 years.
In 1988, a Pentagon survey
found that more than 90 percent
of military sexual-harassment
victims did not report their incidents, some because they feared
they would be blamed. At the 1991
Tailhook Association convention,
117 naval officers were implicated
in sexual misconduct at a Las
Vegas hotel, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general. Most
were administratively punished;
none were convicted.
In 1997, following a sexual
assault scandal at the Aberdeen
Proving Ground in Maryland, an
investigative panel shelved findings linking sexual harassment
to military culture, according to
an adviser to the panel. Two years
PROFILES
Print
■ Hire
■ Require more openness and
accountability from the military,
which has failed to adequately
respond to repeated scandals and
criticism.
PART 3
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change the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But when it comes to
sexual assault, “it is a bit premature
to say that we believe that changes
need to be made throughout the
services in the handling of reports
of sexual assault,” officials said in
their statement.
The Post research revealed that
the military mishandles cases of
sexual assault and domestic violence. Some interviews with military victims of sexual assault were
conducted even after Pentagon
officials ordered VA centers not to
make patients available to speak
with the newspaper.
The Post found widespread
consensus on how to improve the
system:
PART 2
omitted from the committee’s
report to the Pentagon.
Despite calls for reform from
within and outside the military,
the armed forces and Congress
still grant commanders disciplinary discretion, allowing them to
be lenient with criminals whom
they also regard as good soldiers.
The system remains so insulated and resistant to change that,
as a last resort, one woman who
was sexually assaulted in the Navy,
Kori Hansler of Seattle, is seeking
justice from a unique venue — the
United Nations.
“It wasn’t just the rape” that
damaged Hansler, said her attorney, Dan Johnson. “It was the military’s refusal to validate the events
and take any action that caused as
much harm.”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other officials
declined to be interviewed for this
report.
But Rumsfeld’s office released
a written statement to The Post,
saying military officials are considering changes proposed by the
domestic violence task force and
agree with most of its recommendations. “Because we review policies and procedures on an ongoing
basis, we have been making changes
for some time,” the statement said,
adding that it is up to Congress to
PART 1
— Dorothy Mackey, a retired Air Force captain who now heads a rape-victim advocacy group
INTRO
“The system is grossly tainted. It’s a Trojan horse — it
loooks really good, but it’s not what it appears to be. And
it’s done a great disservice to our military veterans.”
PART THREE
35
INTRO
“It (the law) is antiquated. It needs to be held to a higher
standard. The military, in my opinion, is normalizing rape.”
— Dorothy Mackey, a retired Air Force captain who now heads a rape-victim advocacy group
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In Great Britain and Canada,
courts in recent years have sharply
curtailed the discretion commanders can exert over military
justice.
But in the United States, the
military’s justice system has been
only modestly modified during
the past few decades.
Not since the 1970s has Congress fully assessed the military
system, which gives commanders
the authority to determine whether
their soldiers face criminal punishment and to choose the people
who will judge the accused.
Military officials contend that
such powers are central to their
mission of maintaining order and
discipline. “The purpose of military law is to promote justice, to
assist in maintaining good order
and discipline in the armed forces,
to promote efficiency and effectiveness in the military establishment, and thereby to strengthen
the national security of the United
States,” the preamble to the military justice code states.
In 1999, Congress told the Pentagon to plan for random selection
of court-martial panel members, a
change that would take away the
power of commanders to decide
who hears a court-martial.
PART 3
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◆
The Joint Service Committee,
the military panel that reviews the
armed forces’ legal system, disagreed and said the system should
be retained.
Then in 2001, the Cox Commission implored Congress to conduct
a top-to-bottom review of the military justice code.
The commission said the rape
statute in the military code should
be changed to directly prohibit a
service member from pressuring
someone of lower rank to have sex.
The move would reflect civilian
trends to address coercion.
Many of the Air Force Academy
cadets and military sexual assault
victims who spoke to The Post
said they were assaulted by someone who outranked them.
“It (the law) is antiquated,”
said Mackey, the former military
officer. “It needs to be held to a
higher standard. The military, in
my opinion, is normalizing rape”
with its policies and procedures.
Not so, said Col. Craig Smith,
chief of the Air Force military justice division.
“Force, under our military law,
does not have to be just physical
force,” Smith said. Force can also
mean intimidation or threats, he
said, “where a victim’s resistance
would be futile.”
And while the issue of force
and consent may not be addressed
fully in the military justice code,
PART 2
Close
look into sexual assaults at the
academy until late last year.
PART 1
later, a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration said
that problems were widespread in
military criminal investigations
into sex crimes. Military officials say they’ve responded with
changes but provided no specifics,
and NAPA says the Pentagon has
taken no action.
In 2001, the Cox Commission, an independent panel that
reviewed the military justice code
on its 50th anniversary, found that
commanders had too much discretion. The Defense Task Force on
Domestic Violence in March 2003
recommended dozens of ways to
better handle domestic violence
cases, such as providing advocates and reviewing how the system managed cases in which the
victim died. The task force report
said victims “wish they had never
disclosed their abuse because the
disclosure damaged their military
careers.” Pentagon officials said
they agree with 80 percent of the
proposals, but they missed the
June deadline for responding to
the findings.
This year’s sexual assault scandal at the Air Force Academy
followed two decades of warning signs. In 1996, for example,
an academy official warned that
“female cadets may be at high
risk for physical or sexual abuse
because of institutional culture.”
The Air Force did not aggressively
PART THREE
36
INTRO
“It’s a total conflict of interest. The commander can
choose zero punishment all the way to court-marshal.”
— Christine Hansen, director of the Miles Foundation
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In 1998, Christine Hansen was
walking the corridors of the U.S.
Capitol with Sen. Paul Wellstone
and his wife.
Hansen’s Miles Foundation had
counseled thousands of military
victims of domestic violence and
sexual assault.
Wellstone asked her: “What
would it take to help these
women?”
She replied, “A B-52 bomber.”
He looked confused.
“What I mean is, if you took
the money it cost to build and
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◆
PART 3
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to take in abuse cases,” the report
stated.
Many in the military support
the current system.
“Removing the commander
from the panel selection process
… sends the message that the
military justice system is more
important than the military,”
Army lawyer Maj. Christopher W.
Behan wrote this year in the Military Law Review.
“At best, random selection
confers no actual benefit on the
military justice system. At worst,
it adds additional administrative burdens that needlessly complicate the system, reduce its
efficiency and, most critically,
withdraw from commanders the
ability to direct the disposition of
their personnel.”
PART 2
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In the British military justice
system, the duties of the commander, or convening authority,
are divided among three bodies.
A prosecuting authority decides
whether to take a case to courtmartial, an administration officer
selects the court-martial panel
members based on recommendations from other officers, and
a reviewing officer justifies the
decision.
After a 1992 court case that
challenged the Canadian military justice system, Canada also
restricted the commander’s role so
he no longer has the authority to
appoint judges or panel members.
A director of military prosecutions determines whether to pursue a case, and court members are
chosen under a modified random
selection process based on rank.
This ensures greater fairness
than the U.S. system, Mackey
said, where “you have people who
are under the thumb of the commander. Any of those people on
that jury who vote differently than
what he wants — I dare say their
career is over.”
The military itself, in a study
ordered by Congress in 1993,
found “concerns and complaints
of arbitrary and inconsistent punitive responses” to abuse.
“Commanders … need more
guidance on when and what types
of legal or administrative actions
PART 1
he said, it can be found in military case law and the manual for
courts-martial.
“So I have a lot of resources,”
Smith said.
The Cox Commission also criticized the role of the commander in
the military justice system.
Commanders’ broad powers,
the commission said, can subvert the true meaning of justice.
For example, one service member can be court-martialed for a
felony, while another committing
the same crime can be handled
through lighter, noncriminal
administrative actions.
“It’s called command discretion, and it’s a total conflict of
interest,” said Christine Hansen,
Hansen, a lawyer who has handled military cases and heads the
Miles Foundation, which assists.
“The commander can choose zero
punishment all the way to courtmartial, and he can ask himself,
‘Is this a good soldier?’ And he can
ask, ‘What is our financial investment in this soldier?”’
In the U.S. military, a commander appoints panel members
to hear court-martial cases for
charges that the same commander
has referred to the court. Other
countries, such as Great Britain
and Canada, have changed their
justice systems by removing top
officers from this apparent conflict of interest.
PART THREE
37
INTRO
“These women need rabble-rousers. They need advocates to
fight for their rights and make sure they stay safe.”
— Deborah Tucker, a co-chair of the domestic violence task force
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Grainger ran into a federal law
called the Feres Doctrine, which
holds that members of the armed
forces cannot sue the military for
injuries received on active duty.
So Grainger suggested another
tack: Go around the Pentagon
and the courts and go before the
United Nations.
Attorneys Dave Breskin and
Dan Johnson said they intend to
appear early next year before the
Commission for Human Rights
to ask for accountability of the
officers in charge, compensation
for Hansler and safeguards for
preventing cases like hers in the
future.
Some legal experts, frustrated
with a lack of improvement in how
the military handles rape cases,
have called for an independent
investigative agency to handle
sexual assaults.
The Violence Against Women
office of the U.S. Department of
Justice, among other organizations, has called for a congressional investigation into military
sexual assaults that would parallel
the domestic violence task force.
At issue in the Hansler case is
a basic violation of human rights,
Johnson said. “If Kori had been
taken prisoner and raped in Iraq,
there would be outrage,” he said.
Said Hansler: “I would like something back from the people who are
responsible for my daughter.”
PART 2
Close
advocates to fight for their rights
and make sure they stay safe.”
Lily Grainger was on a mission
to find justice for a young Navy
victim of sexual assault.
Kori Hansler was 19 when two
fellow sailors assaulted her on
board the aircraft carrier USS
Abraham Lincoln more than two
years ago, leaving her bruised,
infected with a sexually transmitted disease and pregnant.
Her assailants, Donnell D. Taylor and Damany S. Degrant, were
found guilty of conspiracy to commit an indecent act, indecent acts
and sodomy. Taylor was sentenced
to a “bad conduct” discharge and
nine months’ confinement, with
five months’ credit for being held
before trial. Degrant was sentenced to the same discharge and
six months’ confinement, with a
credit for five months.
While Hansler’s assailants
spent less than a year behind bars,
the Navy labeled her “a discipline problem,” her attorney said,
and gave her a general discharge.
Hansler became homeless and a
single mother to a child who she
says is a product of the rape.
In the summer of 2002, she
turned to a civilian law firm to
force the military to compensate her for emotional distress.
Grainger was assigned to research
the case.
But everywhere she turned,
PART 1
maintain the B-52, we could put
enough personnel in place to help
victims,” Hansen recalled telling
Wellstone, who died last year in a
plane crash.
Hansen sought more money
to staff victim advocates on all
military bases to help victims of
domestic and sexual assault. Such
advocates provide safety planning
for victims and help them navigate
the military’s legal system.
Wellstone later supported a
$5 million appropriation toward
the effort. But millions more are
needed to provide women help,
Hansen said. Today, a majority of
the roughly 300 military bases lack
advocates, said Deborah Tucker, a
co-chair of the domestic violence
task force. A network of civilian
agencies, such as rape crisis centers, has scrambled to fill the gap.
During the past 10 years, there
has been an outcry for more from
organizations and government
agencies, including the Department
of Justice, the Defense Department’s own task force, Veterans
Affairs officials and more than a
dozen advocacy organizations.
Under the Family Advocacy
Program, which handles most
domestic violence complaints, the
approach is tailored for treating
the perpetrator, not protecting the
victim.
“These women need rabblerousers,” Tucker said. “They need
PART THREE
38
INTRO
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
Two-year-old Angelina cries as Kori Hansler runs a comb through her hair. Hansler gave birth to the girl nine months
after she says she was raped while serving aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
BY MILES MOFFEIT
PHOTOS BY HELEN H. RICHARDSON
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n the medical exam following her sexual assault
on Jan. 21, 2001, the military doctor asked Navy
sailor Kori Hansler if she had any bruising. “Then
she gave me some ibuprofen,” Hansler recalled. “That
was it.” Hansler said she did not think to ask for
emergency contraception. “I thought, ‘You can’t get
pregnant from being raped.”’
On Oct. 21, 2001, Hansler gave birth to a daughter,
whom she named Angelina. Like all new mothers, she
scrutinized her newborn, but for a different reason.
“When she was born, she looked just like one of
the attackers,” she said. “She has his eyes, and his
hands. The forehead and hairline.”
The method of her daughter’s conception does not
change how she feels about her, Hansler said. “I just
think about it like, a sperm donor. She was born on
my Grandpa’s birthday. He had passed away the year
before. I thought of her as a gift.”
Yet her daughter also is prone to extreme mood
swings, Hansler said, and she’s not certain how much
of it is normal 2-year-old behavior and how much is
passed on from her father.
“My daughter, she throws these fits constantly
now. … The attitude, I want to blame on him.”
After her pregnancy became apparent, Hansler
PROFILES
Rape victim thinks of child ‘as gift’
39
PART 2
PART 3
PROFILES
At left, Hansler shops with Angelina and
her younger daughter, Mackenzie, 9
months. She spends the entire $328 in
food stamps she receives for a month
during one trip to the store. Hansler also
gets disability payments from the VA and
has learned to stretch a dollar, she said,
but often runs short of diapers and baby
formula before the month is over. Below
left, Hansler ties Angelina’s shoes while
getting the girls ready for one of their
infrequent trips out. One place Hansler
turns to for support is her church, where
the pastor, below right, and his wife help
watch over the young family.
PART 1
my movies and just lay there.” She is physically and
emotionally unable to work, she said. “I can’t handle
being away from my kids, even though I can’t handle
being with them.”
She has no car and dreads the crowds on public
transportation, so she and her daughters rarely leave
their cramped apartment, where she shares her bedroom with the baby. She sees friends on occasion,
and although she is not in therapy, she turns to her
church for support.
Life holds little joy. Hansler says she is simply
existing. Yet she is not bitter and is thankful for her
daughter. “She’s helped me be stronger than I am.”
INTRO
said, “the Navy just let me go. I was on the streets.”
She moved into a homeless shelter in Washington
state, where she has lived for about a year. Her second
daughter, 9-month-old Mackenzie, was the result of a
brief relationship.
Hansler receives disability benefits from the
Department of Veterans Affairs for post-traumatic
stress disorder and migraine headaches, and hopes
to soon have a place of her own.
The migraines began after her rape, she said, and
strike about twice a week. When they occur, she cannot function. “I get sick to my stomach. No lights, no
kids. … I shut the door to my room, turn on one of
PART THREE
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“When she was born, she looked just like one of the attackers.
She has his eyes, and his hands. The forehead and hairline.”
INTRO
A DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORT: PROFILES
Coping with anguish and anger
PART 2
ARABELLA RIBERA
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because of the threats and feeling
that no one would believe her.
She began to drink heavily,
in order to dull the fear and her
inhibitions. She became promiscuous. “I was disgusted with
myself. The guys I slept with, I
didn’t even like.”
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hands up her shirt, she “freaked
out,” she said. He stopped, and
told her the incident never happened, and that life would be hell
if she told anyone.
By that point, recalled Ribera,
now 37, “I was shot.”
She never reported the assaults
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PART 3
◆
Arabella Ribera came from a
military family. Her brother was
in the Air Force; her father, the
Army. In 1984, at age 18, she
joined the Air Force, and was sent
to Lowry. She had been in photography school there about three
months when she was invited to
a party off base. She got a ride
with a man in her dorm and was
caught off guard when he turned
on her in the car and forced her to
perform oral sex.
“I didn’t know what the hell he
was doing. He grabbed me and
pulled me down. … He wouldn’t
let me go. I was choking. I
thought I would die,” she recalled.
After that night, Ribera began
to drink heavily. A few days later,
walking home from drinking at
the airmen’s club, the same man
followed her to a remote part
of the base and sodomized her
again. She said she screamed and
cried until he let her go.
The next week, when a master sergeant followed her into a
bathroom and began putting his
PART 1
Most of the more than 60 women interviewed by The Post never
reported the attacks to authorities, fearing that they would not be believed
or that they would face retaliation. These are some of their stories.
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Paula Glover joined the Air
Force in 1965 at age 18 because
of some bad weather in Philadelphia.
“I ducked into a recruiter’s
office to get out of a snowstorm,”
Glover recalled. “I took the test
while I was there.”
Within a few months, she was
in technical school at Amarillo
Air Force Base in Texas. The one
hitch to her graduating: typing
class. Aware that if she failed the
class she would be sent home in
shame, Glover practiced. And
practiced.
The day she took the test, the
instructor, a sergeant, graded it
without telling her how she had
done. Then he asked if she wanted
to get something to eat.
After their meal, Glover recalls,
he stopped at a store and bought
a pint of Bacardi light rum and a
Coke. “I remember him coming
around the car to my door, but I
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PAU L A G LOV E R
don’t remember how I got in the
back seat,” she said of that day. “I
remember saying, ‘No! Stop!”’
“The next thing I know, I was
being let off at the barracks.”
She became pregnant.
“When I realized I was pregnant, I told my mother I wanted
an abortion,” Glover said. An aunt
performed the abortion using two
No. 22 knitting needles.
After that, Glover said, she
began drinking.
She never reported her rape.
“You have to report it to a man,
who talks to a man, who gives it
to a man, to make the decision.”
She never saw that sergeant
again. She had passed her typing
test and began to work.
After that, two things mattered: working hard and drinking
hard. “I got promoted quickly,”
she said. “I didn’t want a man to
be my supervisor again.”
She also became promiscuous, but sex was not enjoyable. “I
couldn’t have cared less. I was a
functional alcoholic. I drank my
way through many bases.”
She left the Air Force as a first
sergeant in 1975 and took a job
at the post office. “I convinced
myself that if I wasn’t sleeping, I
should be making money. And in
between, I always found time to
drink.”
Eventually, she was admitted
to the psychiatric floor of the
Philadelphia VA Hospital in 1998.
“The women there were very
compassionate,” she said. “I was
comforted.”
Once out, she began seeing
therapists but did not find them
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military, she said. “It’s so ugly,
you don’t want anyone else to go
through it.”
41
INTRO
Being a female in the military,
she said, meant “you had to fight
tooth and nail to compete with
the men. So I became one of the
boys. Had a foul mouth like the
men. Drank like them. I didn’t
know how to be a lady anymore. I
didn’t show emotion. I didn’t cry.”
Soon she became angry, and
then violent. She left active
duty in 1988, but stayed in the
Reserves until 1993. A host of
physical problems sent her to
the Denver VA Hospital in 1996,
where a doctor asked her if she
had ever been sexually assaulted.
“I said, ‘Yeah, but it’s no big deal.’
The doctor said, ‘Please, just
report it.”’
Months later, in an effort to get
help, she did report her assaults
to the VA. She was diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder
because of sexual trauma in the
military, records show. Still, “I
was in denial. I just wanted to get
married and have kids.” But she
couldn’t hold a job, and stopped
dating.
She began therapy, but at first
reliving the trauma was too much
to take. “I crawled on the floor,
cried and cried and said, ‘I can’t
do this anymore.’
“I didn’t want to die, but I
didn’t want to live.”
She ended up in the VA Hospital. She attends group therapy
with other women at the VA, and
feels there is much she has overcome. “I blamed myself. ... I want
to help other women know that
it’s not their fault, and they can
get counseling.”
“Things need to change” in the
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Ever since she was a kid,
Orlinda Marquez dreamed of
being an officer in the military. “I
bought a rucksack from an Army
Marquez, 40, of Denver keeps
a scrapbook of that time, full of
awards for athletic events and
other accomplishments. “This
is the person I was,” she said,
nodding to it. “Ambitious, motivated.”
A man in her unit was helping
her train for company runs.
Afterward, at her barracks, he
sexually assaulted her, she said.
She did not immediately report
the crime. She was the officer,
and he was the noncommissioned officer, and Marquez felt
she would be blamed because she
was supposed to be in control, she
said.
Afterward, Marquez said, “I
quit. I found every excuse I could
from a stubbed toe to a cough
that wouldn’t go away” to not
participate in any events. She
kept to herself, and gained weight
rapidly.
When she finally reported the
assault in September 1989, the
battalion commander said she
was making up the complaint to
“ruin” the man’s career, she said.
She was immediately given a
reprimand for being overweight,
then accused of cheating during a
physical fitness test, she says.
“They questioned my integrity,
and that was the last straw. That’s
when I buckled.”
In August 1990, she applied for
medical school at the University
of Colorado at Denver and was
accepted. But a phone call about
her assault from an officer, who
may have been investigating
another crime by her attacker,
sent her reeling emotionally.
“After that call, I couldn’t concentrate,” Marquez said. “I had to
drop out of med school, and my
life has been all about dropping
out ever since. ... I have a degree
that I should be making about a
six-figure income. Yet since the
military, in 12 years’ time I’ve
gone through 31 jobs. No relationships to speak of. I push them
away.”
She wonders what has happened to her life, her plans. “Why
can’t I fit in? Why am I always
on the outside looking in? What’s
the point to this life - I can’t do
anything right.
“I think, ‘I could be a colonel
right now ...’ I felt like I was weak.
I let them break me.”
She has gone to the VA for help,
was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and attends
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ORLINDA MARQUEZ
surplus store. Ran to and from
school with that rucksack.”
Marquez took an ROTC scholarship and graduated from the
Colorado School of Mines in
Golden with a degree in engineering and geophysics. She entered
the Army Corps of Engineers in
1987 as a second lieutenant.
“I was in charge of 36 men, and
they didn’t like it,” she recalled.
42
INTRO
helpful. “One white female psychiatrist called me an angry black
woman,” said Glover. “I told her
not to take it personally but that
she should leave the profession.”
Glover said one of those therapists diagnosed her with posttraumatic stress disorder and put
her on medication. At the time,
she did not tell VA officials she
was raped.
Finally, in September 2002, she
had a breakdown and planned to
kill herself. “I was tired. Tired of
not knowing, hurting, drinking,
being alone, getting angry.”
A friend stopped her, and she
was hospitalized for 19 days in a
ward with men. “THEY should
have been scared of ME,” she
jokes now. During that visit, a
doctor asked her for the first time
if she had been sexually assaulted
in the military, Glover said, and
she told her yes.
She joined a sexual-assault
treatment program. Now, she
said, “I better understand why I
did so much of what I did.”
And she wants to help other
women. “As a first sergeant, I kept
referral numbers to abortionists.
Told my rookies of the option.
Many came to me that had been
sexually assaulted. How do you
take this from people? This thing
needs to be told so badly.”
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“Every time I tripped over
another female veteran, it was
almost always the same story, and
there was no help for us,” recalled
Faren Jones, 38, who served in the
Army Reserves and the Navy.
In 1983, Jones was stationed
near Fort Bragg, N.C., when
she was raped in her home by a
Marine who was a friend of her
husband, she said. He choked her
and threatened further harm if
she told anyone.
She became pregnant, and
was not sure if the father was her
husband or the rapist. After five
months of anxiety, she miscarried.
Jones then attended a naval
aviation school in Memphis,
Tenn.
said, “I had enough. I threw stuff
in the office, said, ‘You will never
touch me again.”’ She was ordered
to go to the infirmary, and from
there an ambulance came and
she was taken to Oakland Naval
Hospital, where she was put in a
psychiatric unit.
Once released, she was told
she was being given an honorable
discharge for medical reasons.
Two days before the congressional aides were due to return to
Lemoore, she was barred from the
base, Jones said.
Still, as a result of her earlier
complaints, some of the men
were brought in for a hearing
before a captain. At the hearing, Jones said, she was asked,
“What clothes did you wear? Did
you brush your breasts against
them?” The men were given verbal warnings. “They got nothing.
I got destroyed.”
Nobody talked to her after
that. Now living in Florida, she is
unable to work and, some days,
struggles just to go grocery shopping.
Jones, who records show is considered by the VA to be 100 percent
disabled by post-traumatic stress
disorder related to sexual assault,
said she is still in treatment. “I
have flashbacks, panic attacks,
migraine headaches. So many
things I have to struggle with daily
just to get out of the house. It’s
taken over my life.”
“They looked at me and
laughed. I still get angry about
that. I was powerless, and have
been powerless ever since. But I’m
working on it.”
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FARE N JONES
She was walking home from
a movie theater one night with
a sailor from the base when he
suddenly pulled her into a dugout
on the baseball field and raped
her. She fought him hard enough
to make him bleed, she said.
Later, afraid of being blamed, she
washed her bloody clothes and
did her best to wipe the memory
of the rape from her mind.
Assigned to a job at Lemoore
Naval Air Station in California
as an engine mechanic, Jones
struggled for acceptance from her
peers. “Being a black female in
a nontraditional job is hell,” she
said. “From day one, they didn’t
like me.”
The hazing became malicious,
and happened every day. Sometimes, she said, they groped her.
She went to her commanding
officers, who dismissed her complaints, Jones said. She went to a
human resources officer, “who
told me I was hallucinating.”
A group of congressional aides
concerned about sexual harassment visited Lemoore in 1988 to
gather information, Jones said.
During an assembly, one of the
commanders told the aides “there
was no sexual harassment on this
base,” recalled Jones, who was
there. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t know
which base he’s on.”’
She stood up in the assembly,
she said, opened a notebook and
began reading incidents she had
recorded. “Then I pointed to
different people, talking about
things I had witnessed.” Silence
swept over the room, she said.
At work a few days later, Jones
43
INTRO
counseling sessions for sexual
trauma. She has been hospitalized
for depression.
Group therapy at the VA is
helping her put the pieces of her
life together, Marquez said. “I’ve
not totally accepted I’m a worthwhile person yet, but it’s helping
me get there.”
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INTRO
B E V E R LY K O N D E L
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because she was pregnant from
the rape, she said. “I told my
commanding officers. They were
dumbfounded, sympathetic. They
found out the officers’ names.
Nothing ever happened to them.”
Maurine, on the other hand,
was forced to accept an immediate
honorable discharge because of her
pregnancy, her records show. She
was sent to a Salvation Army home
for unwed mothers in Connecticut.
She arrived in May, had the baby
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“I was so scared,” Maurine
said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
She was 21. “You never heard
much about rape then. … I
remember thinking they could
kill me.”
She did not report it at first.
“They were officers. I was an
enlisted person. We were not supposed to fraternize. I was afraid of
being in trouble. You’re ashamed.
You don’t want anybody to know.”
But soon she had to tell,
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Maurine, 72, joined the Air
Force in 1951 at age 19. “I was
treated with respect,” she recalls
of basic training. “I was the only
woman in medical supply.”
At a party outside her base in
Westover, Mass., she accepted a
ride from two officers, pilots as
she remembers. They drove her
to a secluded area and took turns
raping her, she said.
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MAURINE
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Beverly Kondel was 18, in the Army and out with a
friend of a friend in the military when he invited her
home to meet up with his wife, whom she knew. Yet
his wife wasn’t there.
“He raped me,” Kondel, now 47, said of that night
in 1974. “The next time I saw him, he joked about
how he had to throw the sheet away because it had
my virgin blood on it, so his wife wouldn’t find out.”
After that, she said, “I started drinking pretty
heavy. Became promiscuous.”
The military attitude concerning rape, she said,
“was that it was always the woman’s fault.” So she
did not report it.
“My life was ruined. I had been brought up Catholic. Virginity was for your husband. … I felt like
I was ruined, damaged goods. As a result, I’m not
a mother and I’m not a wife. I know I’ll never be a
mother, but I hope to be a wife, if I can find someone
to put up with the idiosyncrasies of PTSD.”
She began therapy, but still struggles with depression and issues of self-worth. “I don’t know who Bev
Kondel is, and I live in her body. And I don’t know
how to find out who I am. I’ve had guns put to my
head over the years - I’m not very good at picking
men. After being raped, you don’t think you deserve
much in life. So it’s real hard to get it when you don’t
think you deserve it.
“I think I should have been a different person.”
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As one of the few women working in an ambulance unit at Tripler
Army Medical Center in Hawaii in
1983, 18-year-old Susan Armenta
did not question a supervisor when
he instructed her to wear only
dresses. Then he told her to wash
the ambulances in front of the barracks. Finally, he asked her to dinner, and she asked for a transfer.
She was alone in her barracks
early one morning when her next
supervisor walked in and sexually
assaulted her. As he was leaving,
Armenta, now 39, recalls his saying,
“Thank you. You just made my day.”
She did not report him, she said,
for fear she would be demoted or
punished. Two months later, she
left the service and eventually
joined the Reserves.
In 1991, Armenta was activated
for Operation Desert Storm. She
was at Fort Carson in Colorado
Springs doing laundry when she
walked back into her room and
suddenly felt a huge shove.
“I remember seeing a face and
blond hair. I know the person was
very heavy because I was hurting
so bad,” she recalled.
She remembers few details of
the rape itself, but can recall waking up the next morning feeling
numb. “I went to the bathroom
and saw the blood and the stickiness and the bruises,” she said. “I
took the longest shower of my life,
and that was it.”
Weeks later, she realized she
had contracted a sexually transmitted disease from the assault,
she said, and was treated by a doctor. She never told him what happened. “You just didn’t hear about
being raped in the military.”
She regrets that decision.
“I know the way the military
structure is; it will happen to young
people coming in, and I don’t want
them to be afraid to come forward.
... I want people not to be like me. I
want those girls to come forward.
I know it’s going to hurt them so
much more if they don’t.”
After the rape, Armenta
returned to work. “I drank wine
to keep myself under control. I
was so scared I would see him
again. One day at work I began
crying hysterically. I asked for
a chaplain, and the next thing
I knew I was admitted to the
psychiatric hospital.”
Because of her breakdown,
she did not go to Saudi Arabia.
After getting out of the hospital,
she said, people shunned her. “I
was treated like an outsider and a
coward.”
She took a job with the Department of Veterans Affairs as a
claims specialist, and one day at
the end of 2001 she was working
on a rape claim when she became
depressed, so she went to see a
counselor.
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S U S A N A R M E N TA
45
INTRO
in August. She put the girl up for
adoption. No one suggested she get
counseling. “I was just sent away,
and that was it.”
In the years since, she married,
had children and worked a series
of nondescript jobs so no one
would check her background and
perhaps find out about the baby,
she said. “It’s guilt and it’s shame.”
Then her anger began to surface, and it turned to rage. Her
marriage ended. “I couldn’t stand
for anybody to touch me.”
Finally, in January 2002, Maurine blurted out to a friend that she
had been raped. She began going to
the VA in Boston and getting counseling, which helps, she said. “I’m
trying to control my rage. I don’t get
angry like I used to. Sometimes I
feel like ripping the world apart. It’s
a horrible thing, rage.”
After the anger, she said, comes
depression. “Sometimes I get so
depressed I feel like I’m an empty
paper bag. But I fight it.
“I deserve more,” Maurine said.
“My life was ruined; it was completely wrecked. I could have been
anything. But I didn’t want anyone
to know I had a baby. I could have
stayed in the service, been an officer. I loved the service. And they
told me, ‘You have to go.’
“Sometimes I feel like ripping
the world apart. It’s a horrible
thing, rage. … I don’t like people.
I don’t trust people. I can’t work
with the public. That’s why I
stopped driving.”
She keeps a billy club at her
bed. “I can tell you no one will
ever touch me without my consent
again. Never.”
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In the report that cleared the
man accused of raping Navy
sailor Yuriria Acunapineda, the
investigator cited many reasons
for dropping the case:
No one heard Acunapineda say
no or cry for help. Her supervisor
said that, in general, he did not
believe she was a truthful person.
The investigator questioned
her fear, her emotional trauma
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It was hard enough to tell the
general about the baby.
Sofia Rodriguez was 25 and
had been in the Air Force one
year when she fell in love with
someone in her unit and became
pregnant.
So Rodriguez told the commander at McClellan Air Force
Base in California that she was
pregnant, and begged him to
allow her to stay, something the
military was just beginning to
permit in 1976. He agreed, but in
a mocking tone.
She was in her third month of
pregnancy and not yet showing
when she was raped. A staff sergeant, who had always appeared
quietly professional, told her he
would help her prepare for an
evaluation of her job as an aircraft
mechanic if she came by his home.
“The next thing I remember
… he was raping me,” Rodriguez
said. “I couldn’t move. All I could
Her only hope, Rodriguez said,
has been the VA in Denver. “I’m
doing better, and I believe it’s
because I have a support system.
I’m not alone. I no longer have to
be in denial. I couldn’t figure out
what’s wrong with me. Why can’t
I function?”
She now rents a room in Boulder
and is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder “for a traumatic experience she had in her
military service,” her records show.
“To be able to get to this point
seems like a miracle,” she said.
The trauma from rape, she
said, “takes your life if you let it.
... I joined the military with my
whole heart. You don’t expect to
be raped by your own peers or
superior.”
PART 1
SOFIA RODRIGUEZ
do was cry and think, ‘What’s
going to happen to my baby?’ I can
remember the tears coming down
my face, and he was saying I was
crying because I was enjoying it.
He had his hand on my throat.”
Rodriguez, now 51, doesn’t
remember how she got away. “I
went to my dorm, locked myself
in my room, and my whole life
changed.”
She did not report the attack
because she dreaded returning to
the general who had belittled her
before, and she was afraid the military would regard her as a troublemaker. “I was not about to ask the
same general for anything.”
After that, she withdrew. “I
blamed myself. I even thought
about suicide.” Yet at that moment,
she felt the baby move for the first
time. “It changed my perspective.”
She gave birth to a son in
August 1978, and stayed in the
Air Force three more years. After
that, she worked a string of jobs.
“I’ve always kept myself under the
radar — trying not to make any
waves.” Her relationships were
volatile and brief.
Last fall, it all caught up with
her. Stress had taken a toll on
her health, and when she arrived
at the VA Hospital in Denver for
medical services, seeing people in
uniform brought flashbacks.
“All the memories started
coming.” She began having panic
attacks so severe that, if driving,
she would have to pull over. Soon
she could not work, could hardly
function. She lost her job, then
her apartment and ended up on
the street.
46
INTRO
“I was asked the question, ‘Was
I ever sexually assaulted in the
military?’ … No one had ever
asked me that question. I had
been labeled depressed. I thought
a minute and said yes.”
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For Frances Hudson, it’s hard
to remember the details of each
time she was assaulted while
serving in the Army from 1965 to
1971.
There was the major who
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FRANCES HUDSON
grabbed her until she kneed him
in the groin.
There was another major who
stopped by her apartment unannounced to talk about work, then
began groping her. She screamed,
and a neighbor came to her door.
Her attacker left.
There was the commander’s
driver who pushed her against a
wall, trying to kiss her, until she
began slapping him.
There was the officer who gave
her a ride home when her car
was in the shop and followed her
inside. She fled to the bathroom
and locked the door, staying there
for hours until she was sure he
had left.
The first time, Hudson
reported the incident. She never
heard back from the Army.
In 1969, after a party at a base
in Germany, a lieutenant she had
dated raped her in her apartment
on Halloween night.
“I fought him at first, but he
was getting really aggressive, and
I was afraid I’d be seriously hurt,”
Hudson recalled through tears.
Finally, he fell asleep, and she fled
to a girlfriend’s home.
Frances Hudson was sexually
assaulted many times while in the
Army. The man who wanted to
marry her asked no questions.
Hudson says the problem of
sexual assault in the military has
been going on a long time.
She did not report that assault.
“There was no support,” she said.
“The standard reply was, ‘Are you
sure you want to ruin his career?’ It
(the consequences of reporting) got
around very quickly. The charges
PART 1
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nia, but he couldn’t acknowledge
what happened to her.
She said she would follow him
around the house saying “rape,
rape, rape” to force him to accept
reality.
She said she slept with many
men. “If I had sex with different
people, it would validate me. I
came so close to killing myself.”
At a homeless shelter for veterans in Long Beach, she met Linda
Miles, a caseworker who also was
a veteran and victim of military
sexual assault. Miles helped Acunapineda apply for benefits for
post-traumatic stress syndrome
and begin counseling.
Although she is only 24, she
said it’s hard to feel hopeful about
her future when she had planned
to remain in the Navy. “Everything I learned in there, it’s useless now. I have to start all over. I
feel it was all taken from me, what
I had worked so hard to get.”
47
INTRO
and brought up that she had been
drinking the night of the alleged
rape in June 2001.
There was one hitch: The polygraph exam of the accused rapist
showed he was deceptive when he
denied forcing Acunapineda to
have sex.
Still, the investigator dismissed
this “contrary piece of evidence”
with the accused rapist’s own
explanation: While at one point
Acunapineda said no, she later
changed it to yes.
“He coaxed her to allow him to
continue, which, according to his
description, was successful,” wrote
Navy investigator Kevin O’Neil in a
report dated Oct. 15, 2001. Therefore, O’Neil said, he recommended
the accused rapist, Roger Northern
II, receive no more than nonjudicial punishment. The Navy refused
to say if Northern was disciplined,
and he could not be reached for
comment.
O’Neil also discounted Acunapineda’s account of putting her
hands on Northern and choking
him after the encounter, something
backed up by an eyewitness who
walked into the bathroom where
the incident occurred. He also did
not give weight to the fact she ran
from the bathroom and immediately reported the alleged assault,
breaking down in tears to those
who asked her what happened.
During the investigation, Acunapineda said, “My chief, everybody, said, ‘You weren’t raped.’ ”
It took Acunapineda six months
after the alleged rape to be released
from the Navy. Once out, she
moved in with her father in Califor-
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In the summer of 1999, Laura Sandler walked into the office of her
boyfriend’s Fort Bragg commander, holding a stack of police documents
detailing a months-long streak of abuse by the soldier, Joshua Ott. There
was the April 10 report, in which she said he dragged her by the hair and
threw her into his car. There was the May 5 report about his death threat.
There was the recent restraining order from a local civilian judge.
Crying, a pregnant Sandler told them she feared for herself and the
baby she carried. She wanted help. “Yes, this is serious,” she recalled
Ott’s captain telling her. His commanders ordered him into anger-management classes. Sandler
said Ott only got angrier.
A few months later,
after she had delivered
their baby, she decided
to visit his barracks on
the North Carolina base
to retrieve her books and
personal belongings, she
said. Figuring she would
be safe while other soldiers
were around, she knocked
on his door. His roommates were sleeping. She later told police that
after she and Ott argued, he dragged her into his bathroom, grabbed
her by the neck, slammed her against the wall, pushed her against the
toilet, shook her and bent her fingers back. Trying to fend him off, she
scratched his abdomen. He then told her to get out.
Ott’s version: Sandler angrily showed up at his barracks asking if he
was going to beat her up in front of his friends, then started scratching
him after he tried to hug her. Investigators found both of them responsible but didn’t prosecute, she said.
Later, she returned to see his commanders. She showed them the
report of the latest incident. They had no reaction, she said. She left,
asking that they keep him away from her. Ott continued to harass her
until he was discharged and left Fort Bragg, she said. “He realized he
was untouchable,” Sandler said. Ott could not be reached for comment.
Sandler now lives in the Fayetteville area, where she works part-time
doing research for her father’s radio talk show. She also has spoken at a
congressional hearing and at fundraisers for victims of domestic violence.
She said she still lives in fear of Ott and has trouble trusting men. “Basically, Joshua and their commanders escaped accountability for the devastation they caused,” she said. “All we have to protect us are the laws and
the systems that are put in place, and when they are neglected, women not
only die but they are left with lifelong scars that may or may not heal.”
PART 2
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LAURA SANDLER
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48
INTRO
would never come out. You’d lose
your position, be transferred.”
She became pregnant from the
rape. “Even though I don’t believe
in abortion, there was no way I
was going to have his child and
be reminded of him the rest of my
life.” She borrowed money and
flew to England for the abortion.
Months later, she met the man
who would later become her husband. He also was in the military.
When he proposed, she consented
under one condition.
“I told him I was raped and
had an abortion, and if he could
accept that and never mention
it again. He agreed. We’ve been
married 33 years this December.”
Hudson married and left the
Army in 1971. She and her husband had one child, a son born
with multiple disabilities. “I dealt
with a lot of guilt from that. I
didn’t know if it was from my
abortion,” she said.
For years, she tried to never
think about the rape, but memories of it surfaced.
“I have problems to this day
— nobody can touch my face,”
said Hudson, now 60 and living in
Denver. “I freeze; I get flashbacks.
I can’t breathe because he (the
rapist) covered my face.”
Her son, who is in a wheelchair,
has trouble understanding why his
mother turns away when he reaches
out to touch her face, she said.
She now attends group counseling. “After all the brainwashing
you get in the military, you really
feel it’s your fault,” Hudson said.
“The hardest thing to get past
is that you are not the guilty one.”
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PART 3
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Constance Weeks, at
left, holds a T-shirt
bearing a portrait
of her daughter,
Constance Culbreth.
Culbreth’s boyfriend,
an Army sergeant,
has confessed to
killing Culbreth.
PART 2
with aggravated battery on a pregnant 18-year-old,
but police say she left the state and so the charges
were dropped. Culbreth’s mother, Constance Weeks,
said she believes base officials knew he was unstable
and yet worked to protect him and not her daughter.
Williams had received counseling while overseas,
police said, and had told his supervisors he was
stressed, having domestic problems and contemplating suicide. Upon his return to the States, Weeks
said, he checked up on Culbreth constantly, to the
point that it interfered with his work. “The military
asked her, ‘Why is he calling you all the time?”’
Weeks said, recalling a conversation with her daughter.
A few weeks before Culbreth’s death, Weeks said,
her daughter was brought to MacDill to meet with
Williams’ commanders. “They wanted him to stay in
the Army and her to keep him calm.”
Central Command spokesman Maj. Pete Mitchell
said that he had no information on Williams’ case and
that because of a high turnover rate, Williams’ supervisor could not be located. Weeks said she would like to
plaster posters of her daughter along the streets that
lead to MacDill for base officials to notice. “So every
time they drive by, they have to see her face.”
PART 1
The day she died, Constance Culbreth had brought
her 4-year-old daughter to her mother’s home and
told her family she was going to collect her things
and be back. She never made it. The scene where
Culbreth lay dying was so gruesome that the first
police officer to look into the room exclaimed, “Oh,
my God.”
“There was blood from one end of that apartment
to the other,” recalled Tampa homicide detective
Julie Massucci of the May 20, 2003, case. Culbreth,
20, had been stabbed and shot in the head. Her nose
was nearly severed. She had two stab wounds to her
left thigh, stab wounds to her right arm and left eye,
and gunshot wounds to her left arm, left cheek and
left ear, records show. She died minutes later at a
Tampa hospital.
Her boyfriend, Army Sgt. Richard Williams, had
returned to MacDill Air Force Base from Kuwait six
weeks earlier, police say. He confessed, telling detectives
he had been stressed while he was stationed overseas,
and was worried that Culbreth was being unfaithful.
“He felt like she drove him to do what he did,”
recalled Massucci of her interview with Williams. It
wasn’t the first time Williams had been violent with
a woman, police said. In July 2002, he was charged
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Jody Neal-Post’s medical
records tell the story of an attack:
the fingerprints on her neck, the
bruises up and down her chest
and stomach.
So does a May 2002 affidavit
from their 12-year-old-son: “He
got on top of her and then began
to beat her and choke her. I’m
PART 3
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JODY NE AL-POST
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Later, a “case review committee” concluded that Foy had
sexually abused her. He was given
counseling. Investigators said
there was insufficient evidence to
prosecute Foy.
Gillian Foy is staying with her
sister on the East Coast while
asking Congress and lawyers to
investigate the handling of her
case. Unable to find work, she is
applying for welfare and hopes to
return to school.
“The military talks a lot about
how important family values are,”
Foy said. “But if you are being
abused and speak up, you are
viewed as a troublemaker that
needs to be sent away. What they
said to my husband was: You can
do this again.”
afraid of my father right now and
don’t want to see him.”
The incident occurred during a
visit to New Mexico by Lt. Col. Ross
Gobel, who was stationed in Los
Angeles, to see their two boys, who
were in the custody of their mother.
The parents began to argue on
the porch of her home. Neal-Post
asked Gobel to leave the house.
She told police Gobel refused and
lunged toward her as she screamed
for her son to call the police.
Gobel ordered him not to, then
pushed her to the floor and began
choking her. After a few minutes,
Gobel jumped up and grabbed the
phone to call the police himself,
according to affidavits.
The local police investigated
and charged both Neal-Post and
Gobel. Both charges eventually
were dropped, she said.
Later, Neal-Post’s son, who she
said initially was too distraught
and scared to testify after the
incident, swore in an affidavit
that his father attacked his mom.
Gobel’s commanders in Los
Angeles reviewed the allegations and dismissed them. But
Neal-Post said the California
officials never questioned her or
the 12-year-old. Gobel and his
commanders did not respond to
requests for comment.
“From what I can tell, they
didn’t do anything to him,” said
Neal-Post, a lawyer based in
Albuquerque.
The base’s attorney wrote her
a September 2002 letter, explaining why his supervisors didn’t
take action against him for the
May incident. “This is a private
PART 1
◆
Last spring, Gillian Foy was
crushed to learn that her husband, Sgt. Sanz Foy, was having
an affair and had fathered a child
in the relationship. After she told
him she wanted a divorce, he went
into a rage, choking her until she
passed out, she told police. When
she awoke, he was raping her.
Afraid and ashamed, she said,
she didn’t immediately report
the assault to police at the Army
installation in Grafenwoehr, Germany, where they were based.
Instead, she slept in a separate
room while trying to plot her way
out of the marriage.
Over the next two weeks that
April, he would slip into her room
in the middle of the night and
rape her repeatedly, she said.
He would “take it” any time he
wanted, she said he told her.
“I finally decided I would leave
the house either on my own volition or in a body bag,” Foy said.
She packed her bags on May
9. For five hours, she told police,
they battled while he blocked
the door. She finally escaped to a
friend’s house.
She reported the attacks to his
commander, Sgt. Marc Hickey,
and the police. She expected he
would be prosecuted. Neither
Hickey nor Sanz Foy responded to
requests for an interview.
A few days later, she learned
that her husband, with his commander’s permission, had filed
papers to have her sent back to
the United States. She had three
days to pack.
50
INTRO
GILLIAN FOY
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Gloria Scott, 45, was in the
Army from 1980 to 1984 and in the
Army Reserve from 1985 to 1992.
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GLORIA SCOTT
While she was in training school, a
fellow soldier came to her home to
get notes for a class, beat her and
raped her. He told her he’d kill her
if she told, she said.
“I didn’t report it because
where was I safe on that base? He
could go anywhere ... and who
was I going to tell?”
She wants to warn women who
join the military that they need to
protect themselves and get help
if they are assaulted. “It’s too late
for me, but these young ladies
just beginning (in the military)
— who gives them the right to
snatch their lives away?”
“It has affected my life from
that time on,” said Scott, who
lives in Southern California and
last year was laid off as a telecommunications worker.
“I was just going through the
motions,” she said. “I had a lot of
hostility, terrible outbursts. Any
man, it was like, let me at him.
“I beat myself up a long time.
Why did I stop fighting him? It
was my fault. I couldn’t cope. I
still see the bruises. I don’t look
attractive to me because I still see
those scars.
“You say, ‘I’m going to suck it
up. I can cry in the shower.’ The
PART 2
◆
A year after Rose McGrail
joined the Army at age 19, a platoon sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga.,
kept her in and raped her while the
rest of her company went to the
field, she said. She fought him, and
he mocked her because she was so
small (5-feet-2).
She did not report him, she
said, because “he was in my chain
of command.”
“I wish the military were better
communicators to women,” she
said. “I had fear that if I reported,
I’d be retaliated against. Also,
counseling carried a big stigma.”
After that, she says, “I kind of
PART 1
ROSE MCGRAIL
shut down.” She drank, did drugs,
whatever it took, she said, to
numb herself. “I felt like nothing.
Vulnerable. Less than. Angry.
Hurt. Scared. Like I wasn’t protected and like I should be able to
protect myself.”
She went to Fort Stewart, Ga.,
where a major invited her to a
barbecue at his home. No one else
was there, she said. He tried to
rape her, and she fought him off.
After that, she began having discipline problems for her attitude
and would hide in the hospital
where she worked. She began to
drink and do drugs more.
Finally, McGrail left the Army,
because “I didn’t think I could
keep it together anymore.”
In 1999, a doctor’s exam triggered flashbacks of the rape, and
she was in a state of panic for
weeks. She hasn’t worked since.
“Everything crumbled. Like I
was living on a tower of cards and
someone knocked one out. Now
I’m working on building something substantial.”
McGrail, who lives in Florida,
was told she could not get service
benefits because she had no proof
of her assaults, and she is appealing that decision, records show.
Now her days are scheduled
around therapy and medications.
“Not what I had envisioned for my
life.”
51
INTRO
civil matter and appears to be an
outgrowth of the ongoing legal
disputes between you and your
former husband,” the letter said.
Neal-Post is battling with military officials to release records
that would show why her ex-husband was not punished.
“In the military, you are
rewarded for violent behavior.
This indoctrinates people to a
certain state of mind, that they
can do this even at home.”
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At Fort Gordon in Georgia,
women on base “were encouraged
to drink in our rooms, because
rape was an issue there,” said
Debora Johnson, who joined the
Army in 1969 at age 18.
Johnson and four other female
friends agreed to watch one
another’s backs. Invited to a
party, they reminded one another
of their deal. Yet after half a
drink, Johnson said, she felt very
disoriented. “Later on I learned I
was drugged,” she said.
“I have a shadow memory of
that night. Two men helping me
up a flight of stairs. I woke up the
lesson, (the nurse) left the baby
there all night, curled against my
stomach,” Johnson said, crying at
the memory.
“I didn’t think it was fair to
have kids after that. I feel like a
murderer.”
She retreated into an isolated
life. “I buried it deep, and I forgot.”
In 1990, she watched the movie
“The Accused,” with Jodie Foster portraying a woman who is
gang-raped. “I fell apart. Couldn’t
stop crying. The memories came
back.”
She began counseling, which
she continues. Still, she is angry.
“I don’t get along with people. I
get fired from jobs.”
In 1991, Johnson began receiving benefits for post-traumatic
stress disorder related to her rape.
To this day, “I’m deathly afraid
of hospitals,” she said. “I have to
take a tranquilizer before I do a
dental procedure.”
She has found an unusual
way to cope: her white standard
poodle, Echo. “I hate to admit
to being afraid of doing things,”
Johnson said, and Echo helps. She
takes him everywhere. “People
say, ‘You don’t look blind. What’s
wrong with you?”’
And although she jokes that
Echo is her service dog for “being
crazy,” Johnson wants others
to realize she is a sane person
coping with a horrible trauma.
“People who know me know I’m
not crazy. I’m really not crazy. If
you want to join the military, join
the military. But by God, watch
your back.”
PART 1
DEBORA JOHNSON
next morning” with a man raping
her.
One of her girlfriends also was
in the room. Silently, they got
dressed.
As they were leaving, they saw
a group of men outside the door.
At that point, Johnson said, she
realized she had been gang-raped.
She said she reported to the
officer on duty, a female lieutenant, that she had been gangraped. “She wrote nothing down.
She told me other women had
been raped at that party that
night and other women reported
the rapes, but nothing had been
written down.”
Ashamed and demoralized,
Johnson did not try to report her
assault again.
Months later, Johnson realized she was pregnant from the
assault. Her command scheduled
her to get an abortion, records
show.
After the abortion, the Army
gave her an honorable discharge.
“I wanted to stay in, and talked
to the major,” Johnson recalled.
“She said, ‘We don’t want people
like you in the military.”’
Back home, Johnson became
promiscuous, which experts say
is a common reaction to sexual
trauma. She became pregnant
again and scheduled an abortion.
The nurse reviewed her medical records and became angry
because Johnson was having
another abortion, she said.
The procedure involved
injecting her with saline solution, which caused her to have a
miscarriage. “So to teach me a
52
INTRO
other women are compassionate,
but they’re happy as heck it’s not
them.”
Now, she is gathering records
to prove her claim to the Department of Veterans Affairs for
benefits. “To this day I have the
same nightmare: I’m fighting for
my life. And when I wake up, the
covers are all jumbled and torn
up. But they tell me they need
proof something happened to me.
How dare they?”
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her husband’s actions and his command’s lack of
response. An investigation ensued, she said. Investigators never detailed their findings to her, but she
said Fort Bragg eventually dropped her husband in
rank and restricted him to the base. And this year,
documents show, he was discharged from the military. Fort Bragg officials did not respond to questions from The Post. James Finiello could not be
reached for comment.
“I was finally listened to,” Dorothy Finiello said.
“Once I got the system figured out, I got a response.
It seemed like they were aiding and abetting him.”
Finiello, meanwhile, has been trying to rebuild
her life. She recently staged an exhibit of her art,
showcasing some of her most painful pieces recalling
the abuse. More than 200 people attended.
“Women came out of my exhibit crying and hugging. Some told me about their abuse. My heart just
aches for these women. If it hadn’t been for God and
the love of my family and friends and my church, I
would be dead.”
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During the meeting at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Dorothy Finiello wore long sleeves to cover her
bruises. Her husband’s civil-affairs unit had invited
couples to the Army base in the summer of 2002 to
discuss counseling services and to introduce a new
chaplain in the wake of a series of spousal killings.
Finiello sat silently, tears welling up in her eyes,
she said. The previous December, she and her teenage children said, her husband, James Finiello,
pushed her head into a windowsill. Then, two weeks
before the meeting, the enlisted serviceman she had
loved for 10 years had another meltdown.
She said she found out that he was having an affair
and that he was secretly draining their bank funds.
Her husband, she said, had forced her to the floor
in their bedroom and stepped on her head with his
boot. “He told me not to say a word or it would be the
end of our marriage,” said Finiello, a Fayetteville art
gallery curator.
When she told one of his sergeants, he responded:
“Think about what you’re saying; this could ruin his
career,” she recalled.
Her paintings reflected her pain. Tears dripped
from the eyes of her subjects, many of them self-portraits. One depicted her sullen face recoiling at his
angry words.
In mid-June, she had called his team leader, Sgt.
William Wright, seeking help for marital problems.
His answer: “Pray about it.” Not satisfied, she went to
a captain, who told her he would look into it. Meanwhile, she said, Wright called her back, accusing her
of making unfounded allegations. After she insisted
she desperately needed help because her marriage
was falling apart, he gave her the number for the
Family Advocacy office at the base.
Unknown to Dorothy Finiello, her husband’s boss
was having his own meltdown. Two weeks later,
Wright killed his wife, burying her in a parachuterecovery bag near the base. Looking back, Finiello,
now pursuing a divorce, said she was lucky: “I can
say I survived.”
Once her husband moved out, she went outside his
command to the Army inspector general to report
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Beginning two years ago, 63-year-old Navy veteran Genevieve Turentine began having panic attacks, chest pain, nausea and dizziness.
While at a Department of Veterans Affairs women’s health clinic for a
medical exam, Turentine said, she was asked on a questionnaire if she
had ever been raped. She answered yes and was referred to a psychiatrist. “I never cried so much,” she recalled of that first visit. “I used
Kleenex after Kleenex, saying, ‘I’m sorry.”
She started going to group counseling for sexual trauma, and the
memories began coming back. It was spring of 1965, and Turentine was
assigned to Naval Air Station Lemoore near Fresno, Calif. A fellow sailor
had agreed to drive her to Los Angeles so she could visit a museum, she
said, when he suggested they take a side trip to Yosemite National Park.
She recalled dozing in the car. “My next memory is of him on top of
me, pulling at my clothes. I’m telling him to stop! Stop!” He raped her,
then drove her to Los Angeles and dropped her off at a YMCA, she said.
She said she did not report the attack for fear of being blamed. “I felt
so violated, confused, helpless, numb, powerless, angry, shamed and
grossly traumatized,” she said.
She married and worked as a nurse until the physical symptoms
from burying it caught up with her in 2000. “Rape? Three years ago, I
couldn’t say the word,” Turentine said. “I was in total denial.” Now, she
said, “I’m consumed by it. I want all the information I can get. If I can
help just one woman, look what that’s done. You’ve saved a life.”
Turentine is now a rape-victim advocate and urges women to report
abuse so the public is aware of the problem. “They don’t want to know
what’s going on with their wives and their daughters and their sisters
— but the American people need to know.”
PART 1
GENEVIEVE TURENTINE
◆
Lori says she was raped in a
children’s sandbox by a fellow
Navy service member. She was 18
that April in 1981, and had been
strolling with the sailor. She tried
to fight, then finally took her
mind elsewhere until it was over.
“I knew I wasn’t getting away, and
I wanted to just live through it.”
Four days later she was taken
by ambulance to the military hospital. She had contracted herpes,
which she told the doctor was
from her rape.
“The doctor wrinkled his
nose,” she recalled. “I was so
infected and swollen the speculum stuck and he used the heel of
his hand to force it in. He brought
in students, and he made them
watch. He told one of them to shut
me up so they shoved something
in my mouth and held me down
on the table.”
At the emergency room, a
military police officer asked her
what happened, she said, and
then demanded, “What were you
wearing?”
“I said, ‘A red T-shirt and
jeans,’ and he said, ‘Well, what
did you expect?’” she recalled. “I
was treated like I had done something wrong and I asked for it.”
She identified her rapist, but
doesn’t believe a formal report was
ever filed. “Nothing ever happened
to him.” About a month after the
rape, her face broke out in herpes
lesions. The outbreaks still occur,
Lori said, which is why she did not
want to be fully identified or photographed. “It’s almost constant.
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LORI
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Diane Brent’s first assignment
in the Air Force was in a building
where she was the only woman.
“They said the last female they
put there lasted only two weeks,”
Brent, now 48, recalled of her job
at McGuire Air Force Base in New
Jersey in 1973.
She was 18.
“The men were really profane.
They bragged about their sexual
exploits. Would rub up against
me. My staff sergeant would tell
me I had to gas his car, wash it.”
Soon his demands turned sexual. “He would tell me, ‘If you want
to make it in this man’s military,
you do what your supervisor says
and you don’t complain,”’ she said.
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DIANE BRENT
PART 2
◆
Denise Frame had just turned
18 and graduated from Marine
boot camp when a fellow Marine
followed her back to her barracks at
Camp Johnson in Jacksonville, N.C.
“I opened the door; it was him.
‘Bet you never expected me.’ He
pushed my arms against the steel
railings of my porch, raped me.
Then he left. I sat in the shower
and cried. Didn’t know who to
report it to.”
She confided in her roommate.
York, where she worked at various
jobs, including as a developmental aide for the handicapped.
Then a co-worker began to call
her names and follow her, but
when she reported him, she was
transferred, she said.
“It was like what the military
did — punish me for being a victim.” Now 34, she goes to counseling for sexual trauma. “I said,
‘I need help. I’m going crazy.”’
PART 1
DENISE FRAME
About a month after the January
1988 rape, Frame said, her roommate told a corporal what had
happened.
Frame said an officer “told me I
could go to sick bay to get checked
for AIDS, STDs,” she said, “but not
tell them why I was there.”
Then military investigators
began asking her questions, she
said. “How did I dress? Did I provoke him? Did I invite him in?”
“When they found out I had
left my door unlocked, they said it
was my fault,” she said. “I couldn’t
handle it.” Soon she asked them to
withdraw the rape charge.
Her commanders then charged
her with having a male in her
room and demoted her a rank,
records show. Her attacker was
charged with consensual sodomy,
she said. She has no idea what
happened to him.
After that, she said, she
resolved to never report anything
else. She said she was raped twice
more by fellow service members.
She got married and had a
daughter and was given an honorable discharge.
“I thought I was handling life
pretty good,” she said.
She moved to upstate New
55
INTRO
Now when I look in the mirror and
see those sores, I have to relive
this, and it never goes away, and it
never gets better.”
She also developed an eating
disorder. “After I got back to the
barracks, I stuck my fingers down
my throat, and it hasn’t stopped
since.”
She left the military in 1985,
and was able to work only briefly
at a post office. “Five or six days
will pass, and I will not leave my
front door.” Over the years, Lori
said, she has abused cocaine and
alcohol. “I kicked them,” she said,
“but I can’t kick the food.”
She gets disability payments
for having PTSD caused by sexual
trauma. Although the VA recognized the herpes as being “service
connected,” it does not qualify as
a disability, records show.
She’s been in and out of therapy for 20 years, she said, and on
a variety of antidepressants.
“I’m a broken vase. You can plug
the holes, but I’m starting to leak.”
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Navy veteran Linda Miles was
raped at gunpoint during ROTC
boot camp in Orlando, Fla., in
June 1975, she said. She was 20.
“I never told anybody” for fear
of not being believed, she said. “I
isolated. I drank.”
Later, she heard that the man
who raped her was court-martialed for being a serial rapist,
and that helped her heal, she said.
In 1979, Miles was stationed in
Sicily, at a base with 2,000 men
and 50 women. “It was unbearable. I’ve never been called ‘bitch’
so many times in my life.”
While stationed there, she
was supposed to model in a fall
fashion show, and she invited a
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They gave Karen Curtis her
earrings back.
She was 19 and had just
reported being sexually assaulted
while walking to her barracks on
her Army base, Fort Benjamin
Harrison, in Indiana.
When she told military police
what had happened, Curtis said,
“their reaction was very negative,
as if it was my fault.”
They questioned her, then left.
“Two to three hours later they
said they couldn’t find the person.” They found the place where
the assault had happened, and her
earrings, records show.
As far as base officials were
concerned, Curtis recalled, the
case was closed. “No one offered
counseling.”
“I was so young and so naive,”
she recalled of that time in 1968. “I
was a virgin. It traumatized me.”
Curtis became promiscuous
and got pregnant to get out of the
Army. She was given an honorable
discharge three months after the
rape, in August 1968.
She married and lived a normal
life for more than two decades.
But when she turned 45, she
began to melt. “Life became intol-
erable,” she said. She attempted
suicide. Then she divorced.
A Department of Veterans
Affairs psychiatrist diagnosed
her with depression. As she began
experiencing flashbacks, Curtis
started therapy in Seattle.
Curtis, now 55, feels as if she is
just starting to live again.
“I had blocked everything.
It has been a horrendous trip
because it hurts a lot,” she said of
her therapy. “But now, there’s a
wonderful reawakening.”
She wants the issue of sexual
assault in the military to be out
in the open. “It is time for these
women to be recognized,” Curtis said. “The military and the
government have ignored these
women over the years. It’s time
somebody understood this.”
PART 1
Close
KAREN CURTIS
56
INTRO
They drank alcohol, and he
raped her, she said. Within a week
she went to the captain in charge
of her unit and told him what had
happened.
“He just said that I should shut
up and bear it because that was
the only place I could work and
anyway he didn’t believe it was
happening because my sergeant
was married.”
She did not try to report it
again. “It meant my career. Without good performance ratings,
I couldn’t make rank. And rank
meant more money I could send
home because at that time I was
supporting my siblings.”
The sergeant forced her to have
sex several times over a period of
18 months until Brent was transferred to Japan. By that point, she
said, “I was drinking pretty heavily” to deal with the pain.
Her self-esteem plummeted.
“It formed a pattern after that
because I didn’t expect to be
treated any differently. That’s
what I felt I deserved.”
She went on to have a string of
abusive relationships, continued
to drink and got into trouble on
the job, finally leaving the Air
Force in 1989.
Estranged from her family, she
could not hold down a job. “If I
tried to work, I would get anxious, panic and then shut down,”
Brent recalled. She began living
on the street until she entered
May Day House, a homeless program in Buffalo, N.Y. She began
to get counseling in 2000.
“Now, it’s one day at a time,”
she said.
PROFILES
PROFILES
57
INTRO
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
Linda Miles, at right, shares her anguish with another rape victim, Yuriria Acunapineda. See her story on Page 46
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istration. She became certified as
a drug and alcohol counselor. She
receives disability from the VA
for post-traumatic stress disorder from her sexual trauma in
the military, records show. The
trauma still resurfaces.
At work in December 2002,
a male co-worker grabbed her
in anger, and it triggered flashbacks of her attack. She became
inconsolable and went into a deep
depression. “I could not function.”
Now, she wears dark sunglasses when she goes to the VA
for counseling to avoid eye contact with the men in the lobby.
RESOURCES
Close
She had a nervous breakdown,
records show, and moved in with
her parents in Southern California.
For years, she said, she stuffed
down the painful memories with
drug and alcohol addictions.
Then in 1994, Miles began
attending a women’s group at a
Veterans Affairs center in Los
Angeles and became sober. For
the first time in years, she said,
she has hope, not just for herself,
but for other women like her.
“Every time I meet a woman in
this group, I know there’s a way
out for her,” she said.
Recently, she received a bachelor’s degree in business admin-
PROFILES
fellow sailor she had formerly
dated to the event. Before the
show, he suddenly became angry
with her, dragged her to a remote
part of the parking lot, and beat
and raped her, she said. When she
returned to her base, she reported
the rape, Miles said. “I was asked,
‘What did you do to provoke it?’
— and I had two black eyes and a
broken nose.”
Her attacker was given a
psychiatric evaluation and then
fined, she said.
They were left on the same
base together. “I was scared to
be anywhere. I got out and came
home. I could not stop crying.”
INTRO
A DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORT: RESOURCES
PART 2
Some of the resources available to victims and
survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in
the military:
National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-SAFE or 1-800-799-7233
(TTY) 1-800-787-3244
PART 3
National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN)
1-800-656-HOPE or 1-800-656-4673
The Miles Foundation Inc.
P.O. Box 423, Newtown, CT 06470-0423
1-203-270-7861
[email protected] or [email protected]
www.mfrc-dodqol.org/domestic_violence/ppt/
Lloydslides.ppt
ONLINE RESOURCES
The Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence,
2001-03. The three volumes describe the military
system for dealing with domestic violence, and
recommend improvements.
www.dtic.mil/domesticviolence/reports/Start.pdf
armedservices.house.gov/Publications/
105thCongress/Reports/sexualmisconduct
interim.pdf
General Accounting Office report from 2000 on
Military Dependents: Services Provide Limited
Confidentiality in Family Abuse Cases. Overview
of spousal abuse and confidentiality issues.
www.gao.gov/archive/2000/ns00127.pdf
civicresearchinstitute.com/dvr_military.pdf
Print
Back
7
MORE ONLINE RESOURCES
8
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SURVEY
“A Considerable Service: An Advocate’s
Introduction to Domestic Violence and the
Military,” by Christine Hansen, executive director,
The Miles Foundation, 2001.
House National Security Committee subcommittee
study on Sexual Misconduct in the Military, 1997.
Findings include factors that inhibit reporting of
misconduct and variations in prevention efforts.
RESOURCES
To learn more about military-justice issues
involving sexual assault and domestic violence:
Close
PROFILES
Welcoming remarks of David W. Lloyd, director
of the military Family Advocacy Program, for a
domestic violence symposium in 2002. Provides
overview of services and statistics.
For more information regarding the Veterans
Association and sexual trauma counseling,
call 1-800-827-1000.
PART 1
Learn more about sexual
assault and domestic violence
59
RESOURCES
INTRO
7 MORE ONLINE RESOURCES
psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/
full/49/5/658
Rape cases increase
at Texas air base
Military brass pressed on
sex assault review
Senator demands
full investigation
“Development, Adoption and Implementation of
Military Sentencing Guidelines,” 2000. Review
in Military Law Review of disparities in military
court-martial sentences.
Air Force Academy Working Group Report, 2003 report
on sexual assault scandal at the Air Force Academy.
BETRAYAL
IN THE RANKS
PART 3
www.jagcnet.army.mil/JAGCNETInternet/Homepages/
AC/TJAGSAWeb.nsf/0/e679a02db2dcbbec8525697d00
55c3ce /$FILE/Volume165Immel.pdf
Department of Defense
names official to task force
PART 2
Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data
on Rape and Sexual Assault, a 1997 report from
division of U.S. Department of Justice.
www.vaw.umn.edu/documents/sexoff/sexoff.html
PART 1
Article in May 1998 Psychiatric Services magazine on
“Focus on Women: Duty-Related and Sexual Stress in
the Etiology of PTSD Among Women Veterans Who
Seek Treatment.” Study shows sexual trauma is more
influential than duty-related stress in producing posttraumatic stress disorder in military women.
www.af.mil/usafa_report/usafa_report.pdf
This story isn’t over.
“Don’t Tug on Superman’s Cape,” 2003 Military
Law Review article defending a commander’s
discretion in appointing court-martial panels.
DENVERPOST.com
www.jagcnet.army.mil/JAGCNETInternet/
Homepages/AC/TJAGSAWeb.nsf/
998537a74c7b990885256cfa0052d46c/
8ece463cca6b81a885256d7400545b55/$FILE/
Volume176Behan.pdf
Close
Print
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CLICK HERE
FOR CONTINUING ONLINE
COVERAGE OF THIS AND OTHER
DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORTS
SURVEY
MORE ONLINE RESOURCES
RESOURCES
www.jagcnet.army.mil/JAGCNETInternet/
Homepages/AC/TJAGSAWeb.nsf/
998537a74c7b990885256cfa0052d46c/
996878030256db7585256cfb0065e306/$FILE/
MLR%2027-100-137%2019920701.pdf
PROFILES
“The Court Martial Panel Selection Process: A Critical
Analysis,” 1992. Military Law Review article with
history and criticisms of court-martial panel selection.
8
8
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60
RESOURCES
INTRO
7 MORE ONLINE RESOURCES
Report of the Panel to Review Sexual Misconduct
Allegations at the U.S. Air Force Academy, 2003,
congressionally mandated report on AFA sexual
assaults.
Military brass pressed on
sex assault review
ABOUT THE NUMBERS
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DENVERPOST.com
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FOR CONTINUING ONLINE
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DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORTS
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This story isn’t over.
RESOURCES
Army domestic violence offenders:
how cases were handled 8
BETRAYAL
IN THE RANKS
PROFILES
Army sex offenders: how cases were
handled 8
Department of Defense
names official to task force
PART 3
GRAPHICS
Senator demands
full investigation
PART 2
The Denver Post asked for statistics on domestic violence and sexual assaults from the Army,
Navy, Air force and Marine Corps. Only the Army
responded in detail, providing computer records for
cases from 1992 through part of 2003.
The Post analyzed the data to determine how
soldiers accused of crimes were punished. Though
specific punishments were not provided, the data
show whether the suspects were handled through
the courts or through administrative actions, which
provide no possibility of prison. The Post grouped
the two types of administrative actions, “nonjudicial” and “administrative” to contrast the
numbers with court-martial cases. If an offender
faced multiple punishments, The Post made calculations using the most severe action listed for each
offender. Names were not disclosed by the Army.
Sexual assault crimes included child molestation, indecent acts, rape, carnal knowledge (sexual
intercourse with a minor), indecent assault, sodomy
and incest. Domestic violence included assault,
murder, voluntary manslaughter, attempted murder,
kidnapping, robbery, communicating a threat and
harassing communications.
Many sex crimes also were categorized as
domestic violence. Some more serious offenses
were handled administratively rather than by
courts-martial because only a lesser charge could
be proved, according to Army officials.
PART 1
www.dod.mil/news/Sep2003/
d20030922usafareport.pdf
Rape cases increase
at Texas air base
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INTRO
A DENVER POST SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEY
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Betrayal in the Ranks

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