What the hell is going on over there?
I really could have gotten through the rest of my day (and my life) without reading that cite. My God. 
I don’t know that it’ll do any good, but on President-Elect Obama’s site, there is a form to fill out offering your vision of what the country can became.
I used that form to ask him to reopen the investigation and bring her killers to justice.
This controversy has been brewing for years now. It seems hard to believe that the current President hasn’t heard of it.
I’m just trying to imagine how that would go down.
“Mr. President, we’ve been getting a lot of letters about this soldier named LaVena Johnson.”
“What’s it all about?”
“Well, she was found dead on a base in Iraq, and there was a lot of evidence of physical and sexual assault, but the Army investigators ruled it a suicide. A lot of people seem to think something stinks.”
“They’re saying someone killed her to cover up a rape?”
“Yes, sir.”
" . . . Any reason to think they’re right?"
“Well, of course we don’t want to be second-guessing the Army all the time, but . . . things like this have happened. And personally, sir, having read these descriptions of the physical evidence, if this is true . . . I do wonder how they arrived at the conclusion that it was suicide.”
“Let me see (taking folder with papers in it) . . . well, I get what you mean—this does look fishy. Thanks for letting me know about this; I’ll look into it.”
Later, the President calls a general.
“General, how are things? Fine? Good. I have a matter of some concern I’d like to inquire about. I know what good work the Army Criminal Investigation Command does, very fine work as a matter of course. But a case concerning the death of a Private LaVena Johnson has been brought to my attention, and some people here are a little unsettled about it. I have the report but I want to verify some matters . . .”
And from there the word travels down the chain of command until it reaches someone who really knows something. And, depending on what that person knows, either the whole matter is fully explained and laid to rest as a misunderstanding, or the shit hits the fan and somebody winds up in prison. This is the way it’s supposed to work, not just in the government but in any very large organization with a powerful, plugged-in executive at the top. The process will be slow, because these are all busy people—it might take months, it might take a year, but three years? Surely everyone at the top recognizes how important this is, because while waste and inefficiency may be to some extent endemic in a big organization, corruption and criminality must always be rooted out.
Right?
Is there a link anywhere to the Army report? I am wondering how, if the evidence is as unambiguous as has been presented, it was ruled a suicide.
A bench turned upside down on top of her? That sounds like a bad racist joke from old South, the punch line of which was “Looks like he stole more chains than he could carry.”
I’m glad you did.
She went to the same high school as me, at the same time, so there was uproar amongst our classmates and in our community over this. Our school was big so I didn’t know her, but it’s still really fucked up. I don’t like to be tin-hatty at all but this sounds waaaaay fishy and I wish someone with power would do something about this.
That’s a shocking story. Like Shodan, I’d like to read something from the Army’s investigation – I’ve got to think that they had some reason to think it’s suicide. I Googled around a bit, but couldn’t find anything.
There’s nothing tin-hatty about someone covering up a murder.
Wrong, the president is the commander in cheif of the armed forces. You push the button on your desk that summons in the Joint Cheifs and you calmly explain to them that you find this inexcusable and horrifying in the worst possible ways and that you expect a completed report on what exactly the fuck went down regarding this and you expect it in less than a month. Now go.
Unless it was Rove again. Then just go and check on the locks on his laser containment unit and make sure he doesn’t get out anymore.
Well, there are different styles of authority, but that’s basically what I was suggesting.
This seems too disjointed, even for the Army CID. The two questions I have before seeing the report are:
- How does the CID define suicide?
- Was she raped, beaten and tortured and left with a gun and upon coming to terms with her condition, do herself in, thereby causing the actual cause of death to be suicide and the tertiary or aggravating conditions to be the rape and assault?
This is NOT condoning anything about what happened to that poor soldier. I believe that should the perpetrators be apprehended, they should be tried and upon conviction, walked from the courtroom and promptly hung by the testicles until dead.
I want, like everyone else, SOMEONE to see to the memory of this woman, and bring her assailants to justice.
That’s a good idea. There’s also a petition to get Congressman Waxman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to help out. It’s at:
As given in the link, there’s also a web site for Lavena, http://lavenajohnson.com/
Shodan, I haven’t been able to find anything regarding the Army’s report either.