she fell down some stairs...

[Xeom]

Link

"(LaVena's) nose was broken, teeth were loose, one eye was concave and there were abrasions over her body. The supposed M-16 hole to the head was far too small for the revolver-sized exit wound, and was on the wrong side of her skull for a right-handed woman to have pulled the trigger. Her genital area showed evidence of acid, perhaps used to destroy DNA evidence. She had white military gloves glued to her burned hands."

Since then, the Army has continued to insist that the LaVena committed suicide by pointing her rifle with her non-dominant hand at the side of her head and set herself on fire, all after she beat herself up and poured acid on her genitals (since their was no apparent investigation into whatever happened there)...

Hu rahhh
The new version of he/she fell down some stairs.
"she fell down some stairs, had consensual sex, doused her own genitalia with acid and tried to set herself on fire before shooting herself in the head"

[Blackhawk]

"she fell down some stairs, had consensual sex, doused her own genitalia with acid and tried to set herself on fire before shooting herself in the head"

I thought this stuff happened all the time?

[nonie]

I thought this stuff happened all the time?

Actually... rape and following cover-up (if they can't get the girl not to report it) isn't unheard of in the military. A few years back there was an investigation into reported rapes being covered up by high-level administration at the Air Force Academy - several people were fired over it but only after the media got wind of it. Halliburton and KBR, with help from the Army, may have covered up multiple rapes and gang rapes as well. A friend of mine was raped by a fellow soldier while in the Air Force too, and "advised" not to report it because she would be "ruining his reputation and life," and told that she's obviously made some bad decisions to have been in a situation where the rape was possible, so she didn't tell because she thought it was her fault.

This is horrible... and not that surprising :/

[seth1]

-Have you guys every watched "The General's Daughter- 1999"

When a general's daughter, an army captain in psychological operations, is found murdered, two warrant officers are brought in to investigate. The young woman was staked down with tent poles, strangled, and presumably raped. But what the investigators find is even more bizarre, relating back to her days at West Point and involving the general himself and his aide. The daughter's one confidant also ends up as an apparent suicide and is assumed to be the culprit. Cover-ups and sexual scandals rampage throughout the film.

[J Wilson]

It's stories like these which are why I'm pro death penalty. There are human beings with so little regard for other human life that they are a blight on human existance. If you have the kind of disregard for other human beings around you that you could be capable of this kind of thing, I think you need to be removed permanently. The people that covered this up and are trying to suggest she did that to herself belong in prison for the rest of their lives.

[~Faust~]

I concur. This is the military, people there get paid to be brainless animals. You can't expect soldiers to go killing on battlefield and be totally under control outside of it. I think that is a reason why women shouldn't serve the troops in the first place.

[Blue]

Truly sad.. such a pity to think that in a military environment there is no justice, makes you wonder where our warriors lost their 'honor'...

[TASmith]

having been raised in a school with a strong ROTC program, i can say I've not seen much honor in these types to begin with.

[TMG]

It's stories like these which are why I'm pro death penalty. There are human beings with so little regard for other human life that they are a blight on human existance. If you have the kind of disregard for other human beings around you that you could be capable of this kind of thing, I think you need to be removed permanently. The people that covered this up and are trying to suggest she did that to herself belong in prison for the rest of their lives.

I might be missing something but isn't that extremely hypocritical? Those who kill others have no regard for human life, so we should have no regard for their human lives and kill them as well.

[Aly Fell]

When I read this story it made me feel sick: repulsed. But this is one we know about. It’s going on everywhere in every war zone on this planet. We even know about Darfur! What is more disgusting about this is that the military try to cover it up. They don’t like being challenged. It happened here in the UK with the Deep Cut barracks where a number of soldiers committed ‘suicide’ and the military said ‘no guv, no bullying here!’ One of them had 5 bullet wounds to the chest. Coroner says suicide! Deep Cut is now to be closed and turned into a housing development.

But I take issue with the suggestion women shouldn’t serve in the military because men can’t control themselves. This is demeaning to both sexes. To be honest if you want to serve in the military, regardless of gender or sexual persuasion, then that should be up to you.

[nonie]

having been raised in a school with a strong ROTC program, i can say I've not seen much honor in these types to begin with.

Quoted for truth. Actually the few girls I've known who did ROTC were *far* more capable human beings than the guys.


I don't support death penalty but *some* form of justice needs to happen. It's just horrifying that the military culture promotes that kind of brainless, completely unethical thought.

And fuck no should women be barred from serving! Women should not have to be afraid to do anything just because of their sex! Women should not have to be afraid of men.

Not expecting men to control themselves is what allows this kind of thing. Aren't they supposed to be learning discipline in the military anyway?

If the culture doesn't provide safety and justice it's the culture that needs to change. Maybe create a rape task force with immunity and independence from superior officers at each base or something.

[s.ketch]

I'm curious to know how many men are raped also. Of course male on male rape would be covered up 100x more than male on female, by both attacker and victim. People are sick fucks, you just cant do anything without someone fucking everything up.

[J Wilson]

Warning: Veering off topic and controversial

I might be missing something but isn't that extremely hypocritical? Those who kill others have no regard for human life, so we should have no regard for their human lives and kill them as well.

Good question, and it's one I've asked myself in the past. Why isn't life in prison good enough? Is it just hypocritical?

Here's my thoughts: Even in prison, these individuals are in contact with other human beings. They are housed with people who have done lesser crimes, their jailors, medical technicians, and so on. I believe that people have an effect on those around them. Sometimes it's for the better, other times it's for the worse. People who have proven themselves to be SO fucked up that they are capable of acts like those are like an infection. All it is capable of doing is making healthy tissue around it sicker. Why give it the chance to do so? Is there a slim chance they could change and be better people? Sure, but it certainly seems that chances are better they will inflict their infection on someone else. Maybe THEY won't ever see the light of day again, but they'll come into contact with someone who will. I think we can all agree that people have a major impact on those around them. It's the main arguement for "It's not his fault, look at how he was raised."

I'm not for liberal use of the death penalty. I think it should be reserved for some seriously disturbing cases. Sometimes you don't try to salvage a badly damaged body part because the damage is so bad that leaving it compromises the whole body. Sometimes amputation is the answer. I think of the death penalty as amputation. We are removing something so damaged it can only bring everything else down with it. Better to remove it before it spreads or gets worse.

A couple of years ago there was a news story of a convicted child molester who was put on parole. After a couple of years of struggling to repress his urges he went to another state, found a family in a remote area, killed all of the adults and teens with a hammer (about 4 people I think) and kidnapped 2 young kids to keep as sex toys. One of them was used up and died before the other was finally rescued. In my opinion, someone THAT screwed up doesn't deserve a chance to change. Maybe he could, who knows, but after commiting a crime like that can we honestly say he somehow deserves a chance? Even in prison where he'll never see another child ever again, he's there with other human beings, that even if he can't directly harm, he harms by just being there. Misery spreads misery. A life in prison at best gives him a second chance he doesn't deserve, and at worst he spreads even more human misery in a chain of events that no one can fully comprehend. Better, in my opinion, to amputate him. It's not punishment or revenge. It's not to save money on the prison system or to pose as an example to deter someone else. All of those have been successfully disproved by those who are anti execution, and I agree with them.

[Steph Laberis]

I remember that there was a video going around the internet of a US soldier hurling a puppy off of a cliff and laughing as it screamed. Of course it spread like herpes around youtube and the soldier was reprimanded (believe he was removed from the corps) to be made an example of. Of course it's terrible that an act of cruelty was brought forth on an animal that could not possibly defend itself (usually soldiers are told to kill sick animals or strays that they find but this was obviously excessive) but it pales in comparison to what happened to LaVena. The puppy incident would never have been publicized had the soldier not been high enough on himself enough to record it, so it's all the more infuriating to see that such crimes against another human go unreported, unpunished... I do not have any close friends or family in the army so I would never know about things like this otherwise. It's fucking terrible.

[smugbug]

I haven't gone to the link here, but I am aware of this. Keep in mind a couple of things:

*The military LIED to the family, calling the woman's death a "suicide".
*Her blood (evidence of being dragged), led to a tent belonging to contractors. In other words, a hint that yet again, contractors are involved in an rape.

WTF is going on over there?

[Blackhawk]

Actually... rape and following cover-up (if they can't get the girl not to report it) isn't unheard of in the military. A few years back there was an investigation into reported rapes being covered up by high-level administration at the Air Force Academy - several people were fired over it but only after the media got wind of it. Halliburton and KBR, with help from the Army, may have covered up multiple rapes and gang rapes as well. A friend of mine was raped by a fellow soldier while in the Air Force too, and "advised" not to report it because she would be "ruining his reputation and life," and told that she's obviously made some bad decisions to have been in a situation where the rape was possible, so she didn't tell because she thought it was her fault.

This is horrible... and not that surprising :/

It is horrible.

I wasn't trying to make light of it, I'm not too familiar with rape in the military environment, the description of it seemed so ridiculous that my natural sarcasm came oozing out seeing that people actually were in a position to investigate it and they believed all that injury was self-inflicted.