US Army Private Lavena Johnson was a former violin-playing honor student. In 2005, while stationed at Joint Base Balad in Iraq, she proudly told her family the US military was doing good things. Yet at 19, claims the Department of Defense, Lavena put the barrel of her M16 in her mouth and ended a bright life. The military says she was distraught over break-up emails from a new boyfriend of two months who lived in Kentucky. US Army Spc. Morganne McBeth was a medic for the 82nd Airborne who lived to jump out of C-130 Hercules aircraft. But after the 19-year-old also mysteriously died in Iraq during the summer of 2010, the military initially told her family "she stabbed herself".
To put it mildly, the military's official version of their deaths, doesn't quite cut it on the believability scale, says US Army veteran Susan Avila-Smith, director of the Military Sexual Trauma advocacy group VETWOW (Veteran Woman Organizing Women). Avila-Smith is an expert on sexual assault and in the post 9/11 landscape, Military Sexual Trauma or MST is increasing, especially on bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sadly, there are 18 patriotic families or more like the Johnsons and McBeths who are seeking clear answers about their daughters' "non-combat related deaths", this according to US Army Ret. Col. Ann Wright. Families who say the US military has turned a cold shoulder to their need for closure. A US military that has discouraged them from uncovering the truth. A military that in some cases has secretly and callously taken the body parts of daughters, such as brains and hearts. A military that has never been more dependent on women warriors, but not doing enough to end sexual assaults and other harassment.
Susan Avila-Smith implores the US military, "Just tell the truth."
