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'My Daughter’s Dream Became a Nightmare': The Murder of Military Women Continues
"My daughter's dream became a nightmare," sadly said Gloria Barrios, seven months after her daughter, US Air Force Senior Airman Blanca Luna, was murdered on Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.
On March 7, 2008, Senior Airman Luna, 27, was found dead in her room at the Sheppard Air Force Base Inn, an on-base lodging facility. She had been stabbed in the back of the neck with a short knife. Luna, an Air Force Reservist with four years of prior military service in the Marine Corps including a tour in Japan, was killed three days before she was to graduate from an Air Conditioning, Ventilation and Heating training course.
When she was notified of her daughter's death, she was handed a letter from Major General K.C. McClain, Commander of the Air Force Personnel Center, which stated that her daughter "was found dead on 7 March 2008 at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, as the result of an apparent homicide." When her body was returned to her family for burial, Barrios and other family members saw bruises on Blanca's face and wounds on her fingers as if she were defending herself. One of the investigators later told Mrs. Barrios that Blanca had been killed in an "assassin-like" manner. Friends say that she told them some in her unit "had given her problems."
Seven months later, Luna's mother made her first visit to the base where her daughter was killed to pry more information about her daughter's death from the Air Force. Although the Air Force sent investigators to her home in Chicago several times to brief her on the case, she was concerned that the Air Force would not provide a copy of the autopsy report and other documents, seven months after Luna was killed. The Air Force says it cannot provide Mrs. Barrios with a copy of the autopsy as the investigation is "ongoing." Mrs. Barrios plans to have an independent autopsy conducted.
She was accompanied by her sister and six persons from a support group in Chicago and by several concerned Texans from Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton. The Chicago support group, composed of long time, experienced social justice activists in the Hispanic community, also included Juan Torres, whose son John, an Army soldier, was found dead under very suspicious circumstances in 2004 at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Because of his battle to get documents from the Army bureaucracy on the death of his son four years ago, Torres has been helping the Barrios family in their effort to gain information about the death of Luna.
When Mrs. Barrios and friends arrived on the Air Base they were greeted by five Air Force officials. Mrs. Barrios requested that her support group be allowed to join her in an Air Force conducted bus tour of the facilities where her daughter went to school and the lodging facility where she was found dead, but the request was denied. Mrs. Barrios then asked that her friend and translator Magda Castaneda and retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright be allowed to go on the bus and attend the meeting with the base commander and investigators.
After consultation with the base public affairs officer, the deputy Wing Commander Colonel Norsworthy decreed that only Mrs. Barrios' sister and Mr. Torres could accompany her. Neither Mrs. Barrios, her sister or Mr. Torres is fluent in English. Mrs. Barrios told the Air Force officers she did not feel comfortable with having translators provided by the Air Force and again asked that Mrs. Castaneda be allowed to translate for her as Mrs. Castaneda had done numerous times during Air Force briefings at her home. She asked that retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright be allowed to go as she knew the military bureaucracy.
In front of the support group, the Air Force public affairs officer George Woodward advised Colonel Norsworthy not to allow Mrs.Casteneda and Colonel Wright to come on the base and attend the meetings as both were "outspoken in the media and their presence would jeopardize the integrity of the meeting with the family."
Mrs. Castaneda countered that
during a previous meeting with the Air Force investigators in Chicago,
she had been told by one investigator that she asked too many questions.
Could that be the reason that she unable to accompany Mrs. Barrios,
she asked? Mrs. Barrios also reminded the officers that after
she was interviewed for an article about her daughter that was published
in July in the Chicago Reader "Murder on the Base" (http://www.chicagoreader.com/
Mrs. Castaneda demanded that Woodward provide her a copy of the article on which he based his decision to recommend to the deputy base commander that she not be allowed on the base and translate for the family. Several hours later Woodward gave Castaneda an article from Indy media in which she was quoted as the translator for Mrs. Barrios in which she had translated Barrios' statement that "Luna a four year Marine veteran."
While Colonel Wright (the author of this article) has written numerous articles concerning the rape and murder of women in the military, she reminded the officers that she holds a valid military ID card as a retired Colonel, that she had not violated any laws or military regulations by writing and speaking about issues of violence against women in the military and that most families of military members who have been killed are at a disadvantage in dealing with the military bureaucracy in finding answers to the questions they have about the deaths of their loved ones. She reminded the officials that the parents of NFL football player Pat Tillman, who after three Congressional hearings on the death of their son in Afghanistan in 2002, still don't have the answers to the questions of who killed their son and why hasn't the perpetrator of the crime been brought to justice. Families of "ordinary" service members, and particularly families limited knowledge of the military and with limited financial means find themselves at the mercy of the military for information.
The base Catholic Chaplain and the Staff Judge Advocate, both colonels, were silent during the exchange. One would have thought that perhaps a chaplain who watched as Mrs. Barrios, a single mother whose only daughter had been killed and whose English was minimal, broke down in tears and sat sobbing on the curb as the public affairs officer described her friends as "outspoken and a threat to the integrity of the meetings" would have been sensitive to a grieving mother's need for a family friend who had translated in all the previous meetings with the Air Force investigators-but he was silent. Likewise, the senior lawyer on the base who no doubt had handled many criminal cases, would have recognized that a distraught mother would need someone who could take notes and understand the nuances of the discussion in English during the very stressful discussions with the investigators-but he was silent. Instead, the colonels bowed to the civilian public affairs officer's advice that "outspoken" women were a threat to the "integrity of the meeting."
Eventually, Mrs. Barrios, her sister Algeria and Juan Torres met with Brigadier General Mannon, the commander of the 82nd Training Wing and with three members of the Office of Special Investigations. Mrs. Barrios said they were given no new information about the investigation and questioned again why her friends, who over the past seven months have been a part of the briefings from the Air Force, had been kept out of meetings where the Air Force officials knew they were not going to provide any new information.
Since 2003 there have been 34 homicides and 218 "self-inflicted" deaths (suicides) in the Air Force and in 2007-2008 alone, 5 homicides and 35 "self-inflicted" deaths according to the Public Affairs office of the 82nd Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force base.
On the same day Mrs. Barrios went to Sheppard Air Force Base, October 3, 2008, the US Army announced that a US Army woman sergeant had been killed near Fort Bragg, North Carolina by a stab wound in the neck. Sergeant Christina Smith, 29, was stabbed on September 30, 2008, allegedly by her US Army husband Sergeant Richard Smith who was accompanied by Private First Class Matthew Kvapil.
Smith was the fourth military woman murdered in North Carolina in the past 9 months.
On June 21, 2008, US Army Specialist Megan Touma, 23, was killed inside a Fayetteville, NC hotel, less than two weeks after she arrived at Fort Bragg from an assignment in Germany. She was seven months pregnant. Sergeant Edgar Patino, a married male soldier assigned to Fort Bragg whom Touma knew from Germany and who reportedly was the father of the unborn child, has been arrested for her murder.
On July 10, 2008, Army 2nd Lt. Holley Wimunc, an Army nurse at Fort Bragg, was killed. Her estranged husband, Marine Corporal John Wimunc of Camp Lejeune, NC has been arrested in her death and the burning of her body and Lance Corporal Kyle Alden was arrested for destroying evidence and providing a false alibi.
Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach had been raped in May 2007 and protective orders had been issued against the alleged perpetrator, fellow Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean. The burned body of Lauterbach and her unborn baby were found in a shallow grave in the backyard of Laurean's home in January 2008. Laurean fled to Mexico, where he was captured by Mexican authorities. He is currently awaiting extradition to the United States to stand trial. Lauterbach's mother testified before Congress on July 31, 2008, that the Marine Corps ignored warning signs that Laurean was a danger to her daughter .
On Wednesday, October 8, at 11:30am, a vigil for the four military women and all victims of violence will be held at the Main Gate at Fort Bragg followed by a discussion on violence against women at the Quaker Peace Center in Fayetteville, NC and a wreath laying at Lafayette Memorial Park. The events are sponsored by the Coalition to End Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in the Military, Veterans for Peace and the Quaker Peace Center.- Posted in
73 Comments so far
Show AllAs a gender - males are dangerous and costly to society. We women have been way too lax in dealing with it. Many men (I would guess at least half) are afraid of women and deal with that by exerting their physical force.
Severe opposition is a measure of success (because) one inevitable result of winning a majority change in consciousness is a backlash from those forces whose power depended on the old one.
- Gloria Steinem
And for those who are reading this thinking "male bashing" - re-read the article above. Female bashing is the topic, the topic I respond to. Female bashing maims and all too often kills. "Male bashing" (read: reality response) just hurts feelings (too damn bad). And most of the men I know agree with me.
GIA
I think much of the female bashing is ignorance. I think quite a lot of women suffer and languish in ignorant paternalistic religious societies. Education is the key and empowering women to have businesses. When women are educated and have money things change in a big way. I don't think men are fundamentally aggressive. This sounds like a radical statement, but when you look at maternalistic societies, you see a very different story. When you compare for example the Chimpanzee behavior to Bonobo behavior, you see two very different stories.
We have been propagandized to believe that it is our duty to fight wars and conquer people, and force our religious beliefs down people's throats. When we give up war and promote education and learning and financial equality, the female bashing will not be necessary.
Sorry I have no compassion for whoever joins the American military, male or female.
When you join a hive of contract killers you'll eventually get what's coming to you.
An idiot as yourself an inhumane sad piece of tripe whom I am completely 100% positive has never had a daughter and assuredly has no caring, understanding splice of a bone in their ?body?would do all womanhood a great service by zipping that slit in your face when demeaning Mothers of Murdered daughters more pain undeniably unecessary and an embarassingly unwelcome by all that regardless of their opinions of the military retain humanity in regards to Moms whose daughters have been viciously murdered feel you tutti tatle terror troll could kindly STFU out of the simple care for these mothers and dead daughters. Thanks so Fucking much you filth.
BillofRights
what do people expect to get when you take "normal" people and train them to be cold blooded, no questions asked killers, polite and respectful humans, male or female?
the whole idea of the military is to kill. period.
and yes this will be a huge problem when all these government trained killers come home from the 2 failed experiments in the middle east, forced on america by the mic...
misogyny is not just a radical islamic thing, it is rampant it the americas as well.
Go back to sleep... shit for brains.
Sioux Rose
Things sure are coming apart fast for a lot of people! I just heard a friend say California declared bankruptcy? Does anyone know if that's true? Our nation's economy is shot, it's morality is in a sewer, and the weather will be adding fuel to the fires. We become what we dwell upon; and since our media is awash in vile and violent imagery--MUCH of it aimed at attacking women--these outcomes are depraved and disgusting but make sense given the atmosphere that makes such behavior more than possible.
I'm in California and haven't heard anything like that. Things are going on as usual.
Good point about the media manifesting the reality from what it spits out. Garbage in, garbage out.
Well, California has said it needs 7 billion in emergency funding from the federal government because it cannot raise enough in the capital markets to meet its obligations. In short, it needs the money to be able to pay its bills, as it cannot get the money for itself. That's tantamount to bankruptcy. fwiw, Massachusetts is in the same boat... they came up 170 million short a week or so ago for their regular payments into their municipalities and interest payments. That too is tantamount to bankruptcy.
If you need ten bucks to pay a bill today and don't have it, you're bankrupt. It doesn't matter if you're getting a million bucks tomorrow if you don't have the ten bucks today. That's the situation that both California and Massachusetts are in right now.
I find it worrying... California and Canada are about the same size, economically speaking... so if it can happen to them, it can happen to us.
On the economic illumination you have provided, then, any major corporation down to the neighborhood small business person that borrows to offset material expenses, payroll, utility expenses on a 30 day turn around is bankrupt.
I'm a native Californian and its generational. I have seen this state government fight tooth and nail over every budget for over 40 years. I have seen multiple billion dollar deficits disappear in the next January tax estimates.
This one is different because Bush is an asshole, holding back payable funds to this state for political reasons. His favorite past time is extorting political power for legitimate payments to the states. Ahhnold has stood up to that shitbag in D.C. more than once, and Bush the chimp doesn't like people who can see through his fay cheerleader games.
Fill me in on something: Why do some wealthy people marry those homely people who lay stiff as a board in bed and would rather have separate beds or even bedrooms? Myself, I think it has to do with convenience rather than mutual attraction. And that arrangement is neurosis waiting to needle any brain.
Don't worry. Arnold knows that once President Obama is in, he'll hand it to him. Relax.
In that case our whole government is broke. We have to borrow money from foreign countries like China and Japan to pay the bills including our military bill. Our entire financial system is in the gutter that includes Europe. The next masters of the universe are China and India. Soon they will tell us they won't finance anymore of our stupid wars. How ironic? We have an idiot president who runs the entire Western financial system into the ground, and we have 3rd worlders telling us they won't finance our silly aggression.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I know Gov. Schwartzenegger of CA just asked the Feds for $7 Billion dollars to bail out his State's government.
A high school friend of mine had a grandmother that was in her late 90s when she passed away recently. She once told my friend that she'd been watching politics since she was a little girl and every time the Republicans got in power for any length of time the economy went to hell; they said let the market sort it out; they screwed up every war they got involved with; they concentrated wealth in the tip top of the upper-class, and they always re-packaged the same elitist, self-serving horse shit under new names and legions of American suckers would always buy it. Unlimited greed and depravity go hand in hand.
Trained killers need actual practice before joining the corporate world.
A man's gotta have that thousand mile stare.
Right, ezechair?
Tragic yes but someone will have to explain to me how this is any more tragic than the violent deaths and rapes of women outside of the military.
How many suicides of college students are there? How many rapes. Keep things in perspective "progressives". Everyone needs to drum up sales of their books.
"Tragic yes but someone will have to explain to me how this is any more tragic than the violent deaths and rapes of women outside of the military."
Typical Bush/Limbaughian tricks used to avoid the issue. If "real world" who is completely divorced from reality would quit listening to rightwing bullshit and actually learn to read, he/she might realize that the author is not singling anyone out.
"How many suicides of college students are there? How many rapes."
There are other articles on this site which discuss those matters if you cared to do your homework first instead of complaining about Hugo Chavez.
The other point here is that whether such murders are in the civilian or military sphere their increase is part of the overall decline of Amurka.
Before the house vets turn up to protest that these tragic crimes are the exception, not the rule-- a few bad apples, dontcha know-- I venture to say that it isn't just that military life is necessarily a culture of homicide. These crimes also speak to the discipline, or lack thereof, where such murders occur.
Once inhibitions against physical violence are trained out of recruits, who are programmed to maim and kill impersonally and reflexively, the responsibility to check and contain homicidal impulses shifts to the chain of command.
When ugly intramural atrocities like these begin to proliferate, it's a sign of lax or permissive policy. If there are no negative consequences to committing physical violence, both soldiers and mercenaries will do it because it seems "right" at the moment. Chances are they'll get away with it, because the chain of command sits on its hands or actively covers up.
And despite the protests of the defenders of the military here, it's clear that military justice has turned an even blinder eye than usual to excesses and atrocities during the illicit military operations promulgated by the present criminal maladministration.
Not to mention the well-known problem of the military persistently lowering its admission standards to allow known criminals and disturbed persons to join.
Anything goes.
Little Brother,
You need to zip it. Your lack of experience in life is starting to wear real thin.
I will tell your 'big brother,' or your mother.
DogLeg,
Your attitude of endless denial about the imperfections of the military are as tedious to me as listening to even a split-second of Bill O'Reilly. Just because you paint yourself as some sort of military hero doesn't mean everyone in the armed forces is heroic. I grew up near two military bases and some of those grunts and their offspring were the meanest, stupidest bastard sons of bitches who couldn't tell shit from shinola that I ever met. Three of them used to huff gasoline right from the pumps near the local liquor store between daddy's paychecks when they couldn't afford liquor or get away with stealing it. Dumbass violent lazy hicks their entire lives--the only thing they were good for was use as cannon fodder and even then I still believe they deserved only to be used in just wars. On the other hand, I've known decorated vets from WWII, Korea and Vietnam who were true heros and some of the best people on the planet. The military has good and bad people in it just like civilian society. People fight all sorts of different life and death battles inside and outside the military and are scarred in all sorts of different ways.
Little Brother, you used to maintain a modicum of sense I actually admired Please tell me whom exactly trained the males that haven't a link at all with the military that has taught that their following of a whim when they brutally rape and murder women and girls, great numbers unreported due to the gender of the victims? Tell me in all of your wise(Dom) please if you would, 'slpain it to one as simple as myself please?
BillofRights
Could you phrase the question?
No. Class clown, typecast forever. Tear, Tear...so sad, rephrase per chance?
BillofRights
As a veteran who once was a draftee, I have plenty of sympathy for young people (male and female) who enlisted into the US military service believing they were going to defend their country, rather than functioning as a foreign force of occupation anywhere abroad that their Commander in Chief chose to send them. My sympathy extends to those who signed up in the immediate aftermath of 911 out of personal patriotism, or those who went into the active duty forces, the national guard or the reserves chiefly for economic reasons, only to have the contractual understandings underlying their enlistment shredded beyond recognition by the Bush administration's war policies.
Even if you despise the cult of the warrior as much as I do, and reject the current overseas missions of the US military in the so-called war on terror, how does anti-militarism excuse forcible rape or murder of female soldiers? That is not "what's coming to you....." if you "join a hive of contract killers....."
Not in the military forces paid for with my tax dollars. And not in Blackwater either for that matter, where several women were drugged and raped by private contractors under truly egregious circumstances.
Military heirarchies have a special responsibility to police internally against violent acts of misogyny among their own ranks, precisely because so much of the training is deliberately geared towards fine tuning and focusing acts of physical aggression.
Bill from Saginaw
Thanks for some common sense.
Excellent comment Bill from Saginaw.
Thank you Bill from Saginaw for your humanity.
RLH
VFP
BillofRights
This is where feminism has failed. The natural maternal nature of a mother to take care of her children is felt MOST by the children when the mother dies. I find these women who join the army when they have children to be tended entirely irresponsible. A complete lack of judgement corrupted by a need to show they are better than men.
Ok, so lets say I admit you are equal or even better than me. I am willling to do that if it means saving the horrible lost experienced by these children. OK, you beat me. A man. You won.
Was your proving that worth killing yourself or the severe trauma of your children left behind, your parting with your responsibilities on this earth?
God forbid the psychosis of feminism. This is what it really all comes down to in the end. And in case you have not noticed, we are at the end.
Those too who join and then become pregnant knowing full well that they would not be able to leave the service. They new the possibilities. They knew the consequences. And now their children are experiencing the aweful horror.
In a normal, natural family unit, the children can handle the death of a father more than the death of a mother. That is because it has been tradition since man was an ape and built into our biochemistry that women bonded more closely to the children to take of them. The father all through the ages had been gone on hunting expeditions or wars. It is the role of the mother. You can't just turn off that biochemistry of humanity or innate needs of the kids. Though I am sure there are plenty of psychotic women out there who are trying... and who will reply to this with their sick rationalizations.
God damn you and God damn what you have turned this nation into. God forbid the hell you bring on ALL our children!
The parternal instinct of the man is to provide - food, protection, etc. And the mother has her role - to stay home and care and nurture. But that is not good enough for you feminists. God forbid. And when an arrogant woman goes off to prove she is as good as a man and gets killed, it is others who suffer - it is the children who experience the worst of horrors. The mother no more than a whore of her own selfishness, pride and arrogance.
Wilderman,
You need psychiatric help, see a qualified professional immediately. Do not go to any medical care where there are evangelical quacks waiting to brainwash you further into your psychosis.
Hurry fool...before you become homicidal.
To Wilderman:
Your crude attempt at social analysis ignores the male half of the equation. Many women are put into positions of economic desperation by men who have abused, impregnated them against their will and/or abandoned them. For many of these women the military is the ONLY viable economic option to support themselves or their families and to try to improve their economic lot in life.
That said, one criticism of feminism that I have is that old school, Gloria Steinem era feminists have never acknowledged how corporate America played them so that it could take increasing economic, political and propaganda advantage of ALL American workers over the last 40 years. Once upon a time before the Steinems of the world came of age, it was understood by corporate America that the male was the breadwinner of the family and had to have a wage sufficient for one person to support an entire family. When feminists declared that they had the right to enter the workforce in similar numbers to men and earn the same wages for the same job, corporate America briefly publicly sneered and condemned them, then gradually BEGAN LOWERING WAGES RELATIVE TO THE INCREASE IN COST OF LIVING FOR BOTH SEXES. That's one major reason (along with "free trade" and over-concentration of wealth at the top) why it now takes both members of a couple working sometimes multiple jobs to try to make ends meet. Feminists handed this wage wedge against ALL workers to corporate America on a silver platter and have never acknowledged it. They continue to demand equal wages for the same work as men (which corporate America has always quietly snickered at and done as little as possible about), but feminists STILL don't demand better wages for ALL or significantly attack over-concentration of wealth or the "free trade" regime. So long as the feminist Ivy League elite make their income nut and preach "equal wages" they don't rouse themselves out of their dated torpor to look at the overall income picture.
Wilderman: You wrote "I find these women who join the army when they have children to be tended entirely irresponsible." I must have missed the part about the murdered woman having children. Nothing is said in the article that she was a mother. Take a break. Jumping to conclusions is going to wear you out.
And to toss out the "God damn you" - how dare you make judgments on people you do not know - whose situations you do not know a thing about - and how dare you think that God would damn any of us for doing what we believed we had (the right) to do: join the military if that's what's called for.
Wilderman, you are clueless. Do you not think women join the military normally because they are at a below poverty level and this is the only job they can find to feed their children, of course you wouldn't, you are without thought without humanity and without normal use of what one normally is given, a brain.
So you are goddamned and a goddamn ass and shut your goddamn thoughtless useless goddamn damned by all mouth shut the fuck up!
Peace you fuck!
BillofRights
Okay. By your logic male apes provide for female apes, and all female apes do is sit around and pop out babies. You need to do some serious nature study. I don't think male apes provide any food at all for females. All they do is defend their territory. Females feed themselves and their babies. Males do nothing but mate. Female mammals in the wild pretty much do what a single mother does. They provide for their babies and fend off predators.
In other words your argument is bunk.
The problem here is war and our preoccupation with it. The whole idea of war involves rampant killing, and plunder which is normally illegal. Sending people off war to kill and plunder and then expecting them to come back normal is ridiculous. What we need to do is take the military down and get those folks to make green energy. We need to get rid of the military industrial complex and retool them to create green goods. We need to take the next step up in evolution and stop waging war to begin with. We don't need to conquer people. We don't need to force our goods down people's throats and we don't need to force our religion off on people.
GIA, you're sexist.
I'm sure you're shocked to be accused of that.
Substitution clearly demonstrates how easily you sexist comment becomes a racist one.
"As a race - Blacks are dangerous and costly to society. We Whites have been way too lax in dealing with it."
Pretty racist, right? Now why is your statement any better?
Oh z-October ... yes, at this stage of my life I have become VERY protective of my gender (shame on me for waiting so long), and angry at and fed up with males who commit crimes against women BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN and the men who do nothing to stop it, and maintain silence when the topic is brought up. As I said - most of the men I know agree with me; I am fortunate to have good men in my life. Interesting that you assume I'm *not* a Black person. However, I cannot think of a race that has committed the crimes against another race as the male gender has committed against females (and males).
Interesting that the first accusation that popped into your head had to do with race, and again, assuming you knew what race I am. Wouldn't be a racist - would you now?
I would refer you to the article on cnn online today - "Female fighters: We won't stand for male dominance" (about the womens battalion of the Kurdistan Workers' Party), but I'm afraid just the title would inflame you.
I would refer you to the issue of Hustler magazine many years ago that had a cover photo of a woman being put through a meat grinder, but that might excite you.
Sorry you couldn't shock me.
Good woman!
Darn DogLeg, you are on a roll tonight.
keep looking!
Some shit is correct and some is...flushable.
Paul Siemering
What s bunch of mean posters here today!
This woman was not a girl Rambo killed in combat. she was studying air conditioning for the love of Goddess! She was murdered in cold blood at a base in the u.s. And this story is NOT at all about oh the poor woman victim. It's about the military cruelly stonewalling the distraught, grieving mother. And this is a huge problem. the military is in the killing business, and they are trained to be indifferent to the deaths they inflict upon those they like to refer to as "enemies". Then when something like this happens they can't handle it. to begin with ordinary human compassion has been beaten out of them, and it's hard for them to tell the difference between a dead soldier on a battlefield, and one murdered in her bed. Also, the military do not want to find one of their own guilty of criminal acts. So they are never eager to investigate a case like this, always fearful that it will reflect discredit upon them. Especially if it gets extensive press coverage. Obviously a big worry here. And the priest? Well he's a military chaplain ok? So he's learned how to be a soldier and keep quiet. What did you expect?
At this moment in our lives, we have an especially nasty military, busily murdering innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq for no reason and dimly aware someplace in their beings that this is exactly what they are doing. Who they call "insurgents" are citizens defending their countries from a hostile invasion/occupation.
This article has sure brought it out in folks.
I'm a nurse who graduated from high school in 1975 so going to Vietnam was never an issue but had the war still been going on, I am pretty sure I would have considered the military. Having read various nurse's biographical descriptions of serving in Vietnam, I think I was spared.
Surely people are attracted to the military for many reasons. As a nurse I would think military nurses are simply necessary whether you think the war is a good idea or a bad one. That was certainly a theme in the M*A*S*H series.
ANd surely depersonalization allows soldiers to kill. No argument there. But noble soldiers, soldiers perhaps like Dwight Eisenhower, understood that war exacted a terrible, terrible price even when it was a "good" war. (I use the term advisedly, as did I believe, Eisenhower himself.) But the perversions of this war--the warring on a false premise, the sanctioned reintroduction of torture, the verbal sleight of hand to negate the Geneva conventions, the willingness to look the other way, the undefined nature of mercenaries in this war which they argue means they are subject neither to military or civil law...all of this has revealed and promoted the "worst" aspects of war.
When you look at the nature of PTSD in military folks, surely what seems to compound it is the shame of doing things that shame you in the light of day, away from the chaos of war. I don't claim any magnificent expertise here, so I might be simply wrong. But this war seems, with its' ill defined mission and its' legal gaps, a veritable breeding ground for compound psychological misery that will be visited upon the soldiers, their families and we their nation.
In health care training one of the callous things I heard very early on was, "Oh you're a student nurse...well, shit rolls down hill." Ha, ha, ha. In the spoils of war, victimizing women and children is often what is left. The victim often becomes the bully and looks around for someone else to bully.
I guess I do understand why some folks say, "You went in to the military; what were you thinking?" But some people went in for patriotism, out of desire to go help where help was needed, because they wanted the benefits of the GI bill or whatever equivalent. Everyone, EVERYONE needs a future story. I do think that by and far women in the military should expect collegiality and loyalty from others in the military. No guarantees because there just aren't many guarantees in life.
But the culture of disrespect for others not like you has permeated the military and what we've always know to be true is seen: prejudice (racism, sexism, nationlism) is a double edged sword.
MollyJ October 6th, 2008 6:25 pm
Thanks very much for your perspective and your thoughts.
The only thing I might say is that there is no "depersonalization", its very, very personal. And PTSD in military folks is usually caused from what they have seen or had to do. There are some idiots here that believe its easy to kill another person. It is not. And its hard to live with. But there is no shame. Night or day.
There could be some difference in These wars as you note about mercenaries, this war being an agression rather than politically expanded like Viet Nam was, the illegal machinations of Bush and the Justice dept. Our soldiers aren't allowed to interfere with the mercenaries and you could be right there. And they aren't deaf and dumb, they are in daily contact with home, most of them. They know whats going on.
I'm glad you missed it.
Thomas More:
"I am glad you missed it."
Me, too. Not very courageous to say, but true.
And have you read anything by Tim O'Brien? If you haven't, you should.
Molly J.
You may not know how close you are. The problem?
This f'ing government will deny any claim, for any reason.
Lost a leg? Too bad! Get that?
But your heart is damned straight and righteous.
They say that in certain times, the trust of government drops among liberals. In certain other times, it drops among conservatives.
I think that what is remarkable about now is that it's low among people who would count themselves at either end of the spectrum.
And though slim, that gives me hope.
MollyJ
I'm with Dog Leg.
"And have you read anything by Tim O'Brien? If you haven't, you should."
No I haven't, what would you suggest? And why?
Tim O'Brien is a Vietnam vet and he writes about the vietnam era. The book: "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. He keeps us guessing by naming the protagonist Tim O'Brien but says it is a story, not auto-biographical.
Another set of excellent authors from the woman's perspective. Lynda DeVanter "HOme Before Morning" and Winnie Smith "American Daughter Gone to War".
All of them leave no doubt as to the weight of the burdens carried by warriors.
GIA
I don't know what "race' you are and never claimed to, read my post.
"However, I cannot think of a race that has committed the crimes against another race as the male gender has committed against females (and males)."
Of course not, because you have to lump together every person of that race who has committed a crime with every other person of that race who has not committed a crime. To do so, you would have to be a racist.
For some reason you don't find it sexist to lump together 3 billion males into a single derogatory category, such as when you write, "as a gender - males are dangerous and costly to society."
You statements,
"I would refer you to the article on cnn online today - "Female fighters: We won't stand for male dominance" (about the womens battalion of the Kurdistan Workers' Party), but I'm afraid just the title would inflame you.
I would refer you to the issue of Hustler magazine many years ago that had a cover photo of a woman being put through a meat grinder, but that might excite you."
- are insulting non-sequiturs. Should I suggest you go back to reading the S.C.U.M. manifesto?
Some biologists in the 1980s commented that the human race was one vast breeding experiment run by women who overwhelmingly control who they mate with (including cuckolds) and at what frequency. I don't know if its possible for the data to be in on that entire theory, but most men who've been married for over two years will acknowledge the female control over mating frequency;)
It is possible that science could shortly make the presence of living male humans unnecessary for the purposes of procreation. All they need to do is solve the problem of cellular deterioration and increasing genetic mutation that arises from successive generations of clones. Aspects of stem cell research might even help enable that.
So, assuming that was possible, and men were no longer necessary to society for breeding purposes, then it would be possible to objectively compare the male and female sexes in terms of overall cost and aggression. Females, so long as they could limit their collective birth rate, would win hands down.
But I suspect that women like to keep men around to screw in light bulbs, do yardwork, work on the car and stimulate them in other ways--mentally and physically. The battle of the sexes keeps life from being too boring, that's for sure. Without each other we'd probably lapse into a collective vegetative state and cease to exist more rapidly than even our present species trajectory will vanquish us.
You know I'm always reluctant to open these threads as they appear to be magnets for misogyny and misandry, and they each give the other a reason to exist, which only serves the elites and their goal of fracturing the human family.
"As a gender - males are dangerous and costly to society. We women have been way too lax in dealing with it."
So what do you suggest GIA? A fight to the finish? A gendercide? Conservatives say that blacks are costly too, the Nazis said the same of Jews, we could go on and on about "troublesome" groups.
Identity politics rears its ugly head again. It's not getting us anywhere. Misandry won't end misogyny. The left can't afford to be a haven for people that have a beef with a certain segment of the population or two or three. It may be reactionary, but it doesn't make it right.
Then on the flip side we have Wilderman...
"God forbid the psychosis of feminism. This is what it really all comes down to in the end. And in case you have not noticed, we are at the end."
Why is feminism a psychosis? A woman that wants equal rights is insane?
"Those too who join and then become pregnant knowing full well that they would not be able to leave the service. They new the possibilities. They knew the consequences. And now their children are experiencing the aweful horror."
So they deserve to get raped and killed? What about the 18 year old farm boy who joins because it's the only way for him to afford a college education. I guess he deserves to step on a landmine.
I don't even know why I bother posting here anymore. There are just too many angry, bitter, cynical people here who are more into "otherism" than they are into finding solutions to the world's problems.
I swear when true reform and peace comes along you people won't know what the hell to do with yourselves.
I am male. I have had women abuse and wrong me in a number of ways.
Do I hate all women? No. I'm not even sure I hate the women that wronged me.
Go onto a right-wing forum and look up a thread pertaining to a heinous black on white crime or some such thing and read the digusting, hateful comments within it. Then take a look at yourselves.
Hate the elites, don't hate each other.
You know what? I fucking hate the guys that raped and killed these women. But I'm not going to allow myself to be painted by the same broad brush. Take individuals as they come.
Dismantle the military. Pull them out of every nation they're occupying and use them to rebuild our infrastructure. As of now all they are is fodder for the elites. And they're cannabilizing each other.