‘The military’s #MeToo moment:’ Fort Hood victims speak out

Leader's need to be engaged and those that fail, need to be held accountable. It is the least that can be done for those that serve our nation. This is unacceptable behavior anywhere, let alone in our ranks

I have a published article on Research Gate which outlines many of these issues. The military is straggling behind mainstream society in addressing and resolving these concerns.
Rich

CSM, I could not disagree with you more. As a military police investigator I look at this crime differently than perhaps you do.

This was not a failure of leadership. The leadership never had a chance to deal with it because PFC Guillen never reported being sexually harassed! Her sister was spoken to and told investigators that she had received a promise from Vanessa to file a formal complaint with SHARP, the Army's Sexual Harassment / Assault Response and Prevention program, the next day but unfortunately that day did not come. The suspect believed that he had already been reported and murdered her in the armory. Without a complaint how can you possibly expect leaders to take charge in a situation such as this?

I have looked into each and every single deceased service member and the circumstances surrounding it and reported my findings numerous times. I have given specifics. The vast majority were off post and unrelated to Fort Hood at all.

There were eight fatal traffic collisions on a post with 200,000 people. That's larger than most towns that soldiers come from by leaps and bounds. I started at Fort Hood as a traffic accident investigator and was certified as such as well as an Accident Reconstructionist. Have you ever rolled on a call of a pickup truck with a sheared off roof on the side of the road with its headlights still on? You arrive on scene and you find a cow in the bed of the truck along with the head of the service member that hit the cow. Clean decapitation. Or a deuce and a half pulling another one with a driver playing games in the second one causing a jackknife. The windshield bisected the second driver and it killed him. That one could have been avoided with proper leadership. Screwing around coming back in from being out in the field. But that's not this year.

There have been five homicides on Fort Hood one of each is PFC Guillen. The military being all voluntary now you get a mixed bag of soldiers. Some of them are one step ahead of the law that has charges to put on them. You can have Army regulations out the butt but that's not going to change your criminal. A criminal is a criminal. A dope slinger is a dope slinger. I believe that if the Army would allow military policemen to act more like civilian police officers and make investigatory traffic stops instead of just speeding ticket stops they might actually intercept more of the drugs. Or more of the gang banging. Or more of the burglaries that have just occurred. But no. They are more across between security officers and police officers that patrol around and respond to calls only when given. They are not encouraged to act proactively. That's on the military! That's a failure of leadership.

There have been six suicides. I think you and I both know that this is part of the military. A SM gets a Dear John letter in the mail and gets drunk and tries to slit his wrists. Where he feels like his platoon Sergeant is riding his ass too hard. Or this or that. So they drink. A lot of that drinking you and I both know is in the barracks and I would agree on that one that could be I feel your of leadership. The CQ should be making walks for the barracks and making sure the things are right. If you need to call him a Dorm Dad/Mom - call him whatever you have to and make sure do their job. Just like college. Pull the SDNCO in on it if you have to.

Once again we cannot assume this to be a total failure of leadership. You can have somebody with a Captain as a Company Commander and that person can still turn around and murder another SM. It's not a failure of leadership. That's a failure of human decency and Mankind. You can have a soldier that turns 21 and goes out and ties one on the night before and then shows up for a 7 a.m. PT run still drunk any falls out during the run. This one could be borderline. Perhaps a squad leader should have noticed that PVT Chee was intoxicated and unable to perform PT. Perhaps not. The only way to get around something like this would be to regulate the consumption of alcohol during the work week and we both know that's not going to happen in the military. Going out and getting drunk with the guys and girls is part of the military life until you find a nice person and get married and settle down for the rest of your career.

All I can ask if you CSM is that you'd be fair in your analysis. I don't know what information you're going on that bulletin board is BS to a point. They have turned her in to a poster girl for sexual harassment. I don't know if I would want that to be the case for one of my four daughters. Let me tell you from one soldier to another that if you were to touch any one of my daughters I might spend the rest of my life in prison but that person would not be walking this Earth. I get the me-too movement or the new Movement Fort Hood has started.

Let me remind you if I made that the statistics for Fort Hood are no different than any of the other two large military installations. Fort Hood is just getting all the notice because it pretty little girl was murdered. I don't mean to be callous when I say that either. I think it's absolutely terrible. I prayed she'd be found alive. But I knew she wouldn't be, you know what I mean? Even army cops have gut feelings.