7/7: Too Young to Die, She May Yet Force Change in a Sexist, Closed-Mouth Military

July 7, 2020

The Army is against sexual harrass-
ment. It says so right here on this
 Army poster.

Everything about it was sordid except the victim.

Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old private at Texas's Fort Hood army base, disappeared on April 22 after confiding to her sisters that she faced sexual harassment at work.

Guillen did small-arms repair in the base armory where, as it turned out, her killer, Aaron David Robinson, bludgeoned her with a hammer for reasons no one will ever know.

Robinson and a girlfriend, the estranged wife of another soldier, got Guillen's body off the base in a storage trunk. They dismembered and buried it so effectively that her body turned up, on June 30, only after several searches had taken place on the location where she was found, and almost ten weeks after she disappeared.

Criticism of Ft. Hood was wide-ranging and intense throughout the search, starting with how the base handled
complaints of sexual harassment.  Then, for weeks, the investigation was closed-mouth.

Guillen's family were told only that foul play was suspected. The lack of information was so complete that in mid-June, hundreds of protesters turned out at Fort Hood's gates to object. Why was the investigation kept secret?

Perhaps above all, the information blackout caused friction between the military and the public. Has a culture of keeping quiet deepened to the point of toxicity -- to the point that it worsens abuse and other crimes?

Is the climate of silence simply a fear of bad PR on the part of military leaders?

Is it contributing to mistrust of the military among the public at large?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/07/07/vanessa-guillen-servicewomen-veterans/