Written by Stephanie Sadler
Thursday, 13 November 2008 00:00
The murder of Private First Class LaVena Johnson remains one of the most disturbing stories of injustice in recent years. In the week Veterans Day is commemorated in the United States, Stephanie Sadler takes a closer look at LaVena's case.
November 11 was Veterans Day in the United States, a day to honour and respect those who risked their lives for American freedom, and those who died for it. As in many other cemeteries where veterans are buried, endless rows of white gravestones line the grass of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. Among them, with the simple black outline of a cross and an American flag waving at its side, there is one that reads: LaVena Lynn Johnson, PFC US Army.
LaVena, an honours student from Missouri, died on 27 July, 2005 - just ten weeks after she was deployed to Balad, Iraq, as a weapons supply manager for the 129 Corp Support Battalion. She was just 19-years-old when a shift supervisor from a nearby military cafeteria heard a bang and found her mutilated body inside a contractor’s tent. Though many remembered her bravery on Veterans Day, her death has not been given the respect and honour that this day commands.
A broken nose, loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals which were presumably to eliminate DNA evidence of rape, a dislocated shoulder, abrasions on her body, a long burn from her shoulder to thigh, torn vaginal area and a bullet wound through her head, LaVena was lying on the stony earth with gashes on the sides of her mouth, her hair tangled in the dirt, a bench turned upside down on top of her.
“Suicide,” the US Army Criminal Investigation Command claimed, despite nine months of investigation. Case closed.
“For the military to maintain that a 19-year-old woman that has been attacked, assaulted and set on fire committed suicide is absurd,” LaVena’s father, Dr. John Johnson, said, adding that the military’s synopsis concluding that her death was suicide conflicts with their own evidence.
Even in her 19 years, LaVena accomplished much and led a full, inspiring life. She was the type of person driven to success. Her first honour came as “Baby of the Year” at Walnut Park Church where, at the age of four, she began to sing in the choir. From first grade, LaVena made the honour role each year at Keeven Elementary School and took up the violin in fourth grade which she played in several school concerts. In fifth grade, she completed a science project that competed all the way to state level.
Her family was of utmost importance. Just before she died, she was arranging plans with her parents to return home for Christmas. Every year, she and her sister would decorate the tree and then the entire house for the festive season. On special occasions, the girls would play their instruments for the family and every Saturday morning, LaVena enjoyed cooking a huge breakfast for everyone.
In junior high school and high school, the dedicated student won many awards, participated in community service projects to make a difference and was named to the Hawks Sigma Cum Laude Club. Her peers remember her fondly.
Though she dreamed of attending college her entire life to pursue her goals, after her high school graduation, LaVena followed the allure of the US Army because she knew her parents had to put her siblings through university as well. Though her family supported this decision, they were apprehensive about her safety. At basic training, she was often presented as a role model to both male and female students for her mental toughness and, after her death, she was presented with a number of military awards.
Dr. Johnson and the rest of LaVena’s family have been joined by a hoard of supporters, activists against sexual assault in the military, bloggers and friends to persuade authorities to re-open this case and judge the evidence as murder rather than suicide. For the past three years, they have sent letters and Freedom of Information Act requests to Congress in an effort to conduct independent research on the true cause of LaVena’s death.
“The emotion that’s driving me right now is anger that my daughter would go in the army to serve her country and she gets murdered,” Dr. Johnson said in an August interview with
National Public Radio (NPR). “I mean brutalised. And they turn on her.”
His wife, when asked by the New Zealand Herald if she felt the US military was covering up her daughter’s story, said, “Absolutely. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
And it wouldn’t be the first time a servicewoman was raped and murdered, her death passed off as “non-combatant, self-inflicted”. Retired Army Col. Ann Wright, interviewed alongside
Dr. Johnson on NPR, works to raise awareness of sexual assault in the military and she believes that occasionally the Army willingly turns a blind eye. Since 2002, some 60,000 women veterans have reported some form of sexual assault and close to 20% of women seen at Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities have reported being victims of sexual violence.
“The numbers are low. If you look at
Veterans Administration statistics, one in three women coming into the VA for treatment now are saying they have been sexually assaulted while in the military,” Col. Wright said. “The unreported [cases] are probably at least twice as many.”
Though LaVena was an African-American, her father doesn’t think it had much to do with race; it had everything to do with gender. Very often, similar cases of violence against women in the military are blurred over by the mainstream media. Whether LaVena’s case will ever be re-opened, it is impossible to tell right now, but the interest is still heavy, especially in the blogosphere.
In the latest developments, 50,000 signatures were added to a ColorOfChange.org petition for a hearing into LaVena’s death. A letter has also been signed by a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) pressing the House Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee to study her case and others similar.
Though years have passed, LaVena’s case is still important to many people because it represents not only her own death, but a trend of violence against other women in the military as well that must be stopped. Amnesty International (AI) ran an article in their magazine addressing the issue. The writer included a quote from a letter written by two State Representatives to the House Armed Services Committee: "Recent reports have revealed a disturbing trend of sexual assault and abuse of women within the US military. The problem is exacerbated when these attacks seem to be ignored by some within the military leadership, and when the perpetrators often go unpunished, sometimes at the discretion of their commanding officers."
This is a long shot from the spirit of Veterans Day and certainly an insult to the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the American freedoms of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Rest in peace, LaVena, and let them remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
Learn more about LaVena’s case, sexual assault and gender-based violence in the military or get involved by signing petitions and contributing to the conversation by visiting:
http://lavenajohnson.com/
or http://www.colorofchange.org/lavena/
Tuesday 09 February 2010
