Angry Planet - What the Hell Is Going on at Fort Hood?

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

Fort Hood. One of America’s largest military bases is off the long stretch of highway between Dallas and Austin. Its Commander was set to transfer out and take over command of a division at Fort Bliss, but the Army announced on Sept. 1 that wouldn’t be happening.To anyone who’s been following the news, the reasons are pretty clear. At last count, 26 soldiers have died at Fort Hood in 2020. That’s more than have died fighting in Afghanistan this year. Some have been accidents, others suicides. Five were murdered. For Fort Hood, 2020 isn’t an outlier but part of a broader trend that’s tied up in the base’s history and culture as well as its relationship to the neighboring city of Killeen.The story is so complicated and terrible that we needed to speak with two reporters to make sense of it. First we get the big picture from Task & Purpose’s Haley Britzky. Britzky is a journalist working for Task & Purpose whose recent article there This all could have been prevented’ — Inside the disappearance and death of Vanessa Guillén is a must read on this topic.Next, we speak with Rose Thayer of Stars & Stripes to dig deeper into the story and get details and specifics. Thayer is a reporter who’s been covering the story for Stars and Stripes, a native Texan, and the former military editor for the Killeen Daily Herald.Rose Thayer recorded on 9/3/20Haley Britzky recorded on 9/16/20What happened to Vanessa GuillénHow the Army handles sexual assaultWhat the numbers really tell usWho are the investigators?What it’s like to live in Killeen? The Texas of it allOn parachute reportingHow to build a better militarySupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. And the day that Vanessa's remains were found, June 30th, he texted Cessley and said, baby, they found the pieces. He actually was on, at some point before June 30th had been placed to confinement in the barracks. Vanessa Gyanne's family attorney says it was for coronavirus-related violations, not because of this. The Army hasn't said anything about that. However, we know that he, to quote, court documents absconded from base, somehow acquired a handgun, and was about four miles from base when Sessly Aguilar worked with investigators to help locate him. local law enforcement approached him and he pulled out the weapon and shot himself dead.

One day, all of the facts in about 30 years' time will be public. When genocide has been cut out in this country, almost in infinity, and when it is near completion, people talk about intervention.

They will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Hello, welcome to Angry Planet. Fort Hood, one of America's largest military bases, is off the long stretch of highway between Dallas and Austin.

Its commander was set to transfer out and take over command of a division at Fort Bliss, but the army announced on September 1st that wouldn't be happening. To anyone who's been following the news, the reasons are pretty clear. At last count, 28 soldiers have died at Fort Hood in 2020. That's more than have died fighting in Afghanistan this year. Some have been accidents, other suicides, Besides, five were murdered. For Fort Hood, 2020 isn't an outlier, but part of a broader trend that's tied up in the basis history and culture as well as its relationship to the neighboring

city of Killeen. The story is so complicated and terrible that we needed to speak with two reporters to make sense of it. First, we get the big picture from Haley Britsky. Britsky is a journalist working for Tuscan Purpose, whose recent article there, this all could have been prevented inside the disappearance and death of Venezigian is a must read on the topic. Then we will speak with Rose Thayer of Stars and Stripes to dig deeper into the story and get the details and specifics. Thayer is a reporter who's been covering the story since the beginning. She's a native Texan and the former military editor of the Colleen Daily Herald. First up, here's Haley.

Haley, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Okay, so my attention, and I think a lot of people's attention, was kind of first drawn to this story because of the story of specialists. Vanessa Gien, you know, this past weekend, 2020, ran a big special about her and kind of about Fort Hood in general. Can you kind of tell us, and I know you spent some time with the family, can you kind of walk us through what happened and why we've kind of, this has been, why she has been the focus that has kind of taken us into this broader story about this space? Sure. So Vanessa Gienn went missing in April, on April 22nd. That was the last day that anyone

really saw her the last day that she was seen. And sort of from April 22nd to July 1st, it was kind of this surreal experience, you know, watching this investigation play out of where she was, what had happened to her. They eventually found her body on July 1st. And it's sort of just kind of kicked off this chain of events as far as, you know, it's brought so much attention

onto Fort Hood, attention that hadn't been there previously and sort of kicked off this national outcry for change, for investigations, both about Fort Hood specifically, and it's stretched into the Army's broader sexual harassment assault policies. It sort of just forced this overarching reckoning, for lack of better terms, within Army leadership, and really brought on a lot of attention from Congress as well as just the rest of the nation. What happened with Gien? Like, I understand that she had been sexually harassed. She had claimed to her family.

Had she filed anything with the Army? So she had not filed an official complaint, but she told her family that she was being sexually harassed. And they sort of revealed that while the investigation was ongoing into her disappearance. The Army has since said that they don't have any evidence of her being sexually harassed. They don't have any evidence tying her. alleged harassment to her death, but her family has been very adamant about saying that those two things are absolutely connected. And, you know, whether or not that, whether or not Vanessa actually

was harassed, sort of isn't as relevant to the conversation anymore. I mean, it has taken on this meaning broadly throughout the military when her family said that she told them she was being harassed. And it sort of kick started what a lot of people have looked at as sort of a me-to movement within the military that has just been this wave of service members, not just in the Army, but Marine Corps, Air Force, all over the place, saying, you know, kind of giving their accounts of being sexually harassed and assaulted in the military. And so it's kind of taken on the life of its own at this point. Right. There's a line from your story that really stuck out to me was one from, I believe, her sister, quote, she told my mom, I can't report

it. I've seen other girls pass through the same situation and they ignore them. They say that they're lying. They don't listen to them. Is there a sense that, and I know kind of for listeners that are service members or veterans that they may, I think they're kind of broadly aware of this stuff. But I feel like this is something that's kind of been brewing in the military for a long time, right? We've got, we had, is it Marines United was the name of the Facebook group that was past? You know, we've had these big scandals kind of every few years. pop up around the way the military treats sexual harassment. Can you kind of drill down and tell me about why do you think this is happening?

And is the culture changing? What's going on? Yeah. So you're exactly right in that this isn't necessarily a new problem. And it does kind of have these explosive moments, it seems, like every year or two. That really grabs a lot of people's attention. and then that attention, you know, fades and it continues to be a problem. And as far as been, yeah, that quote from Vanessa's sister Lupe about when Vanessa told her mom she was being harassed.

It really struck me, you know, as someone, I've done a lot of stories on sexual assault and harassment. I've talked to a lot of, you know, people in the service about their experiences with this. that quote is sort of it's all encompassing of the problem I think I mean this is something I've heard from so many other women who have said either you know I don't I'm not going to report it because they'll ignore me or because I know they won't help me

or it's you know I've heard from just as many women who say I did report it and now I see why people don't you know I'm experiencing it right now and now I understand why people won't come forward with it. it really has just continued to plague the military, this issue of assault and harassment. And, you know, like I said, it sort of goes from, you know, everyone's attention is on this and Congress is furious over it when these, you know, annual reports come out of the Pentagon of the numbers of assault and harassment. And then, you know, that attention sort of starts to fade. And then, you know, but all the whole while as whether attention is on it or not,

people are still dealing with this and they're still having these problems of whether they can come forward or not. So can you walk me through what is the procedure if a service member is sexually harassed? Like how do they go about reporting it and then how is it investigated? Or at least ostensibly, what is that supposed to look like? Right. So sexual assault, sexual harassment are different in the military and that sexual assault is treated as a criminal act, whereas sexual harassment is sort of like an equal opportunity situation. It's not treated criminally in the same way that assault is. So when a service member is sexually harassed,

you can sort of file that complaint, and it can be investigated with a commander's inquiry. That's what happened in this case. After Vanessa, the investigation was still ongoing to her disappearance, and when that news came out of her family saying she was harassed, the commander of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, which is the unit that Vanessa was in, initiated this commander's inquiry into that complaint

to sort of find out to what happened there. Typically, sexual harassment is tried to, they try to go with it at the lowest possible echelon, right? They're not trying to raise it up to the top most senior commander because if they can handle it on a lower level, then that's sort of what they want to do. With sexual assault, it's much more stringent in that there are certain people who, if you tell of a sexual,

assault, they're supposed to be mandatory reporters to the authorities that this happened, which automatically kicks off an investigation. There are some people that you can tell, like a chaplain, for example, who isn't a mandatory reporter. You know, if you're not sure you want to make an official report that you were assaulted, there are some people you can tell to just kind of make that file that this did happen, but it's not going to kick off an investigation in the way that, say, telling your commander would. And talking to the service members about this, what is there, the people that have been through the process, what do they tell you about how it's handled and do they feel like they were heard or, you know, what are their critiques of this process? Yeah. So it's kind of, it's so depends case by case. You know, I mean, I, by the time people are talking to me, you know, they don't typically come to me with stories of, this all went perfectly.

and that's why I'm wanting to talk to the media, you know. So by the time I'm talking to them, it's sort of they're on their last straw with this. And they feel, you know, I hear so regularly that, you know, they aren't being taken seriously, that the process is just being slow-rolled. They're not getting the attention they should. They aren't getting the updates that they should.

You know, they feel that they should be getting regular updates on where the investigation stands and they aren't getting those. There's also been instances, of retaliation for reporting both harassment and assault. And so it really is sort of all over the place on, yes, there are these policies in place, and there is a path forward for what to do when something like this happens. But all too frequently we're seeing that those processes just aren't being followed. Yeah, and I think there's a tendency from the outside for people that are familiar with

the military to kind of look at it as this monoculture, right? When every base feels like a different city that's run by different sets of people, and the rules are going to work, it will be broadly the same, but they're all going to work a little bit different depending on where you are, right? Right. I mean, command culture is such a big thing. And that's why, you know, right now we know that they are investigating that at Fort Hood, because that's the question is like, well, what was being allowed there?

What was the command doing as this investigation was unfolding? not just for Vanessa, but, you know, for these other soldiers that have gone missing or had problems there, and just the broader program there for sexual assault and harassment prevention. Was it being followed as closely as it should? Was it being taken seriously? And, yeah, I mean, the command culture, like the climate there that the commanders instill on base can really kind of make or break how these things are being followed. So I've got quite a few, like, veteran friends, and when we're talking about this story, like, I keep the same thing keeps coming up. Everyone kind of shakes their head, and they're like, well, I'm really glad that I didn't get stationed there.

Something's wrong there and has been a long time. Or, you know, they've all got stories about Fort Hood. And it kind of has this reputation among service members. Can, is it really that different from other bases or, like, what makes it unique? And what gives it this spooky air that it seems to have? Yeah. So that's kind of what I set out to find out about that exact question because I was hearing a lot of the same thing. You know, I'm not a veteran myself.

So I wanted to hear from people who had actually been stationed there on what that was like. And yeah, I mean, I've heard a lot of the same of people just kind of shrugging and saying like, yep, sounds like Fort Hood. Like, you know, and that's kind of what I found for this story is. well. I quoted a couple of service members who had been stationed there years ago, and they both kind of told me, yeah, you know, things that happen there aren't the best. It's just another day in the life for a Fort Hood soldier to hear about something like this. But at the same time, I think a lot of people are very cognizant of the fact that Fort Hood is massive. I mean, on their website, they say it's close to 215,000 acres. Granted, it's not the largest base when it comes to,

population size of how many people are on base every day. There's about 51,000 people who come on base every day, which is about the fourth largest, an army data I saw. But it is a massive installation. And so there is sort of this attitude of, well, you know, with some base that big, you're going to have more problems than you would at a smaller installation, which isn't necessarily the case for Fort Hood. No, because we've been getting numbers out of the Army now for, like, you know, joint base Lewis McCord, some of the other large bases. Like, when you compare the numbers, is the crime rate at Fort Hood comparably higher?

Like, what do you see? It is, it is higher. Fort Hood, right, so the information the Army has been putting out has been comparing Fort Hood to Fort Bragg and to joint base Lewis McCord, which has sort of comparable populations. And Fort Hood does have a higher violent and nonviolent, has had more violent, nonviolent felonies than these other two bases. And I think what kind of solidified this idea that Fort Hood was doing worse than other

bases was when Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said last month that the numbers are really high here. They're higher in most cases, you know, for things like sexual assault and harassment and murders than for the rest of the Army. And that sort of solidified what a lot of people had already known. But hearing him say that, that was kind of a turning point of, okay, we don't just feel like it's bad at Fort Hood. It actually is. Yeah, I've been a little, maybe just because I'm cynical what I've been following the military too long. I've been a little shocked at how, I'm trying to think of the word,

forthright command that's not at Fort Hood has been about all of this. So there's an independent investigation ongoing right now, correct? Yeah. They've sidelined, as I said, kind of in the intro, they've sideline this commander. What else is happening to kind of try to set the ship a right or at least to find out what's going on? Yeah. So this independent investigation is going to be something I'm really interested to see how it turns out. The fact that it's, you know, a group of civilians down there and it's not necessarily the Army investigating itself. But at the same time, I believe it was just last week, it feels like every day feels like a month long at this point,

but I believe it was just last week when Secretary McCarthy announced that another four-star general, General Murray, who's right now the commander of Army Features Command down in Austin, that he is going to be initiating an investigation of the command at Fort Hood. And he's supposed to be looking at, you know, sort of every echelon of command from the very bottom all the way to the very top, what actions were being taken throughout the entire investigation to find Vanessa. What was done about her alleged sexual harassment?

Did anyone know about that before she went missing? Was that something that people were aware of? So there really are these big actions being taken. And I think that what that tells us is that Army leadership is very aware of the amount of attention this has gotten and that they have to produce answers at some point. I mean, Congress is also going to be initiating an investigation soon. They announced that that was happening. The Government Accountability Office is starting a review of the Army's sexual harassment and assault program.

So there are just so many moving pieces right now. And I think what we can take from that is that Army leadership realizes, you know, something has to be done about this. And they're going to have to have answers for people eventually. Do we know who the civilian investigators are? The civilian panel members include Chris Swecker. He has a solo law practice in North Carolina. He served 24 years with the FBI before he retired as the assistant director of the FBI's criminal investigative division.

There's also Jonathan Harmon, who is a trial lawyer. He's represented Fortune 500 companies. He's a graduate of West Point. There is Carrie Recy, I believe, is how you pronounce her name. Assistant General Counsel for the Department of Agriculture. She's supervised a team of 30 attorneys. There is Ms. Quetta Rodriguez, who is from Texas. She served in the Marine Corps for several years as an intelligence analyst.

And then there is Jack White. who served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals, is a graduate of West Point as well, served five years as an active duty army officer, and has broad expertise in government investigations and discrimination claims, et cetera. So it's sort of a group of people that certainly have experience under their belts. They're not just anybody, you know,

kind of taken out the street and told to look into this. It's people who clearly have experience with these kinds of things, or at least, you know, from the Army's perspective, they're considered expert panelists. And so there's sort of these people that I think the Army is hoping will be able to get in there and sort of get to the bottom of it. So you and I are both from Texas. Yes. In what ways, in what way do you think of this also as like a, it's hard for me to quantify, but like I feel I think of this as like a, like, I think of this as like a. Texas story too in a way. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Like, why do you think it is that, and maybe it's just because I'm a Texan, that it feels like something about Fort Hood and Colleen is part of like the

psychic landscape of Texas, right? And so when things happen there, it kind of reverberates throughout the state. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So I was kind of a weird question. No, no. I mean, I agree with you in the fact, I mean, I mean, I mean, I feel like as Texans, I think that happens in Texas, you're like, oh, this is a Texas story. I know I'm in that way anyway, but no, it's true. I mean, growing up, you know, I was a few hours from Colleen, but it was always just sort of in the fabric of Texas was Fort Hood, because it's just so big. And Fort Hood and Colleen sort of have this, you know, they interact and they're sort of intertwined and the way that they exist together. And so it is.

It is sort of a Texas story. And, you know, especially with Vanessa being from Texas, you know, she's from Houston, grew up there, always wanted to join the Army. Ben was stationed at Fort Hood and how exciting to be, you know, in the Army, but stationed so close to home. And so I think it definitely does have that element of just sort of, it sort of rocked the state a little bit. And we've seen from Texas legislator as well, I mean, John Cornyn, the senator in Texas,

has written a letter to McCarthy saying, you know, we have to get to the bottom of this. Like, soldier safety is number one in Texas and at Fort Hood. And so it definitely has reverberated around the state. Yeah, the soldier safety, I think, is such a big issue and such a big part of the story because Gien is just not the only, you know, she's become the focus. I think in part because so many of the, like the specific details of her disappearance

or murder are so grisly. But there are other soldiers who have died there who were murdered there. Like what are some of the other stories? Right. So two of the biggest that have kind of come out recently or but concluded recently was, you know, Private Gregory Morales was a big one. This is a soldier who went missing in August 2019, right? This is over a year ago that he went missing.

And he was sort of just brushed off, it seems. And the army declared him absent without leave or AWOL. There was no reward set for information for him. And then it wasn't until months later when his family saw that the army was offering a reward for Vanessa, that they were kind of like, why aren't you doing that for our son? You know, why aren't you trying as hard to find information about him? And then that's when the army put out a financial reward for information on him. And in June, when authorities were investigating, you know, looking for Vanessa, they just sort of stumbled upon Gregory Morales' remains.

And it was so surreal to see something like that happen, where, you know, you're seeing that they've come across remains. Of course, everyone's first thought is that they found Vanessa. and then for the Army to come out and say, oh, no, it's another soldier who went missing. I mean, that was really surreal to see that happen. And I think that's also when the Army realized they had a big problem on their hands because, I mean, in what world do you just kind of happen upon the body of another soldier? And then the other soldier that I think, you know, really encapsulated sort of the problems that we're seeing there, or exasperated, I should say, the problems we're seeing there is,

was Sergeant Elder Fernandez who went missing, you know, in August. And for me, you know, I was working on this story over Vanessa's case. And then it was like one week I was doing both. And I was writing about Vanessa and talking to her sister. And at the same time was talking to Elder Fernandez's aunt. And that was the week that his body was found. not necessarily the same situation because a medical examiner ruled that he died by suicide.

But it was still just a devastating thing to happen for a soldier to go missing. His family was just distraught, came down to Texas to try to find him. And for that to happen, for him to go missing right after Vanessa and right after they found the body of Gregory Morales. I mean, any one of those three stories would have been big on their own.

But for all three of them to sort of happen, you know, so close together was really surreal. Were you able in your course of your reporting, and I know this is hard to do, were you able to talk to active duty service members at Fort Hood, even if it was just on background or off the record at all? And kind of what is their sense of what's happening? Yeah. So there was one soldier I was able to speak with on. background who's at Fort Hood right now. And they sort of had the same outlook as the

veterans that I'd talked to of sort of, yeah, this is kind of how it is here. And, you know, they, that soldier gave me the impression. Well, didn't give me an impression. They told me that, you know, the push from command while the end of this investigation was ongoing to find Vanessa seemed to be stemming from a place of we need to look like we're doing all that we can. We need to look like we're really on top of this. But, you know, in their words, they said, other than that, besides that, it was like it wasn't really even happening. And that was a really jarring thing to hear, you know, from a soldier there who, you know,

was watching this unfold on the ground and for it to just kind of come across as, we're doing what we can to look like we're doing everything. But, you know, and I'm sure that they aren't the only soldier that had that impression, you know, if they thought that, I'm sure others got that impression as well. It's the dog and pony show, right? People are looking at us now. And I do need to stress that, like, Kaleen is isolated from its surroundings. You know, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, off the highway,

and it's kind of this city and this military base, right? So I think there's a sense that when the spotlight's not on you, your commander is the person in charge, right? You're, you know, and it kind of goes up that way. And also, I again, want to stress that not all of these, like there's been more grisly stories than there should be, but there also have been accidents. I think the most recent one was a private that died during PT, right?

Just kind of collapsed early September. Yeah. There have also been a couple of, you know, at a nearby lake, like on the weekends. So, yeah, no, of course the more devastating stories are getting the most attention, but there have been plenty of just horrible accidents, you know, and things like that. What is the mood in Colleen right now and also contrast that with the mood of Gien's family? Like, I know they've been doing a lot of press right now, right? Yes.

Yeah. And today, actually, they held a press conference, I believe in B.C., talking about the I.M. Vanessa Ian build, which is what they're trying to push to sort of help streamline or to help get sexual harassment and assault prosecutions out of the military and sort of give them to this third party. as far as Vanessa's families mood they I mean of course baseline

devastated over the loss of Vanessa but also angry over what they've seen as just a total what they see is just a total failure of the army to handle this appropriately

they feel that they haven't gotten the full story that they developed this whole process they were saying they felt that the army was sort of sidelining them, not really telling them, everything they needed to tell them, sort of keeping them in the dark with some details. And now it's a lot of determination that this isn't going to have been for nothing, that some change will come out of this.

Something will happen to ensure this never happens to another family. And so that's where they are now, sort of pushing for this legislation to try to get verifiable change initiated in the Army. Yeah, do you know the details of that legislation? Like, does it just kind of remove the function of reporting of sexual harassment and assault from the military's hands? Like, what exactly do we know? Yeah, so I don't know probably as many details as I should. I know that it's supposed to move the prosecutions to a third party.

and to just kind of get it outside of the chain of command, which, of course, is a fight that's been going on for years. I mean, legislation that has been trying to do that has just sort of been languishing in Congress for years. And it's, you know, sort of unclear. I mean, the Army Secretary hasn't really answered when he's been asked, you know, what do you think about this bill? Of course, he's kind of, you know,

hemming and hawing and not wanting to give any, you know, opinion one way or the other. more of like, well, we're going to look at this and we're going to see what it has to say. I'm not sure what I, you know, where this will end up. But it certainly has a renewed push. I mean, there's always been, you know, a section of people pushing for for this to be taken out of the chain of command. And if anything, Vanessa's case has really given new breath to that movement. All right.

The big picture question then, you know, to kind of wrap this all up, it's the question that I'm sure you get from your friends. It's the one that I constantly get from friends and listeners as these stories keep cropping up. What is going on at Fort Hood and what can be done about it? That is the big question. You know, what's going on at Fort Hood right now is one of the most important things to keep in mind, I think. And this is what I've been telling friends who back home in Texas who have been watching this. We know, as we talked about, there have been about 28 total deaths at Fort Hood. That number on its own is not very abnormal for Fort Hood. It seems like it is. We'll hear 28, it sounds, you know, oh my gosh, how did we not know this?

But for Fort Hood, that really isn't as abnormal as you would think. What is abnormal is the number of murders that have happened. There have been five this year. Whereas, last year and 2018, there was zero. So that has seen a sharp increase. You know, aside from that, as for what can be done, I think your guess is as good as mine on, you know, what could actually fix this problem? What could actually put a stop to what we're seeing there?

Would that be a new leadership? would that be additional training? Would that be more oversight? I mean, I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm hoping that we'll find an answer throughout all these investigations that are being started. And as they conclude, maybe get a better idea of where this is going wrong and sort of where the disconnect is in what should be happening versus what is happening. Haley Britsky, thank you so much for coming onto the show and walking us through this. the article at Task and Purposes, this could have all been prevented inside the disappearance and death of Vanessa Gien. Thanks so much for having me.

All right, Angry Planet listeners, we're going to pause there for a break. When we come back, we will be talking with Rose Thayer of Stars and Stripes. Welcome back to the show, Angry Planet listeners. Here is Rose Thayer. Rose, thank you so much for joining us. Yep, thanks for having me. Yeah, I think in the case of Vanessa Gien, And it's just a very horrific story.

You know, she was called into work on her day off on April 22nd and then never heard from again. And so, you know, her family began asking questions, really pushing to find out what happened. And ultimately, it was discovered that a fellow soldier had murdered her with a hammer in the arms room and then hidden her body about 20 miles away from base in an isolated sort of. quiet area along the Leon River. And I think it's a shocking one that it happened on base. It's shocking for some people, you know, the way the investigation played out. Her body wasn't found. It took more than two months until her body was found.

Some people thought that might have taken longer than it should have. And those are some of the questions that have come up since then. Her family also says that she was sexually harassed on base and that the soldier who killed her was the harasser. And the Army still has not found evidence to back those claims up that they've given out publicly. But it raised a lot of questions about, you know, the Army's sexual harassment and sexual assault program and how effective it is and how soldiers engage with it if they trust, trust it and trust the system. Can we talk about some of the other stories then? like what 29 is 29 a lot in the grand scheme of things? Fort Hood is one of the large spaces.

Is it comparable to like, you know, Lewis McCord? What, you know, can you kind of put it in that context for us? Yeah, I can. So 29 this year is not, 29 deaths at Fort Hood this year is not a really shocking number. The number of deaths vary over the. the past five years, you know, if you look at 2019, 39 soldiers died at Fort Hood. I think what's shocking to people is the manner in which soldiers have died at Fort Hood this year because there's been five who have died by homicide. And in the previous four years, there was only two. So it's

more than double. And I think that is what's really raised the alarm for some people. So I guess there's just no way, there's no better way to say it than like, what's going on there? Why is this happening? I know that's a big question. But I will say that like I have a lot of veteran friends and when I talk to them about this story or they talk to me about it, a lot of them just kind of shake their head. And they say like there's something in the water down there. A lot of them have had bad experiences at Fort Hood. They say it has a bad energy, for lack of a better way to phrase it.

What's going on? What's the culture there like? You know, I think for years, there's been a lot of anecdotes about Fort Hood being, you know, not a good place to be stationed, not a top choice for most soldiers. You know, you're not getting the best soldiers arriving there because they probably wanted to be somewhere else. So I think that when you hear those things, you know, it's always been anecdotes and you can't really say like, oh, Fort Hood is a bad place because so-and-so said it and then this other person said it too. But when the Secretary of the Army put out these numbers that for the, for four years at Fort Hood had the highest instances of violent felonies than any other base, it sort of quantified those anecdotes that people had been telling for years. But as far as, you know, the culture there, I think as far as the culture goes at Fort Hood, there are some really good people that serve there that want to do good things in the Army.

So I hate to just, you know, write it off as it's a bad place and there's something bad in the water. But there does seem to be something going on. And I think that Vanessa Guyon's murder has really drawn attention to that. and not just within the Army or the military community, but within the public at large, you know, civilians. And with that sort of awareness, it could create a change to make Fort Hood a place that soldiers want to be stationed. What's the military population at Fort Hood? It's active duties 36,500.

Okay. What's the population of Colleen? Population of Killeen is approaching 150,000. And to put that in perspective with other bases, Fort Bragg has about 10,000 more soldiers than Fort Hood, and then Joint Base Lewis McCourt has about 10,000 less. Okay. And their crime rates are not, are they comparable? It's interesting. So when you look at the raw numbers, Fort Hood has more crimes committed by soldiers.

But Joint Base Lewis and the court actually has a very slightly higher crime rate. rate per thousand soldiers. But as far as raw numbers go and as far as incidents go, Fort Hood has the highest numbers. Let's talk about the commander then, the one that's just been sidelined. How long was he in charge? And how much of this do you think may be up to like the fish rotting from the head kind of situation? So, you know, Fort Hood has been on this really heavy opt-tempo of

deployments. The headquarters unit three corps is no exception. I think every other year for the past six years, three core has deployed. And so right now the headquarters is deployed and the three star general that's in command of three corps and Fort Hood is, is downrange. So major general Scott Eflant was serving as the base commander and sort of like a I guess a rear detachment, if you can call it that at the core level. And he has overseen, you know, the handling of the search efforts for Vanessa Guyenne, as well as, you know, he's in charge of the day-to-day operations of combat units at the base. And so just this week it was announced that instead of going to Fort Bliss,

where he was scheduled to take command of the First Armored Division in that base in West Texas, he's going to stay at Fort Hood until this and all these investments. investigations into Vanessa's disappearance and death are complete. The role he is stepping into, they're saying, is the deputy commander for support. However, I would be surprised if there wasn't already a deputy commander for support downrange for three corps. So I don't know how that will be managed when they return. So is that considered, because the way I've seen it kind of characterized by the media is that he's been,

they're making it look like a punishment or that he's been sidelined. You're making it sound like that's not quite accurate. Army leadership isn't very clear that it's not a punishment and it's not a firing. It was simply to get a two-star on the ground at Fort Bliss faster. You know, depending on what these investigations come back with, we could be looking at a firing later on. And what is the nature of these investigations? Because there's independent investigators coming in or have just a wrong. arrived like in the last few days, right?

By my count, there's about five investigations ongoing that are related to Vanessa's death and disappearance. The larger ones are this Fort Hood Independent Review Committee. It's made up of five civilians. Four of them have military service, all as officers. The fifth civilian on the committee was an FBI investigator and is now an attorney. they arrived in Killeen on Sunday, and they'll spend about two weeks on the ground.

And they're tasked with looking at the command, climate, and culture of Fort Hood and the surrounding community to determine if it meets the Army values and creates a safe place for soldiers to live and work. Another really high-profile review or investigation that was just announced is what many people who have served in the Army would know as a 15-6, which is a command inquiry. And that's going to be led by General John Murray, who's actually the commander of Army Futures Command, down at,

which is located down in Austin, Texas. And he's scheduled to go to Fort Hood for his in-person review later this month once the independent review committee leaves. He specifically is supposed to look at every level of Vanessa's chain of command to determine if everyone did, what they were supposed to do and if there was any wrongdoing in handling of any aspect of her case. Can we dig a little bit deeper into because it is such a grisly story

and I just want to get the details of it correct and like kind of the way it played out after they found out what had happened to the body, I think, is really important. So can you kind of walk us through that beat by beat? I know it's a little, it is grotesque, I will tell listeners before we get into it. So anything we know about Vanessa's death is from federal court documents related to the arrest of a woman named Cessly Aguilar. And she is the girlfriend of specialist Aaron Robinson, who is who we believe to have killed Vanessa.

in those documents Cessley told federal agents that her boyfriend Specialist Robinson murdered Vanessa with a hammer in the arms room and then

hid her body in a plastic tough box and then later that day on April 22nd he went and he moved the tough box from wherever he stashed it near the arms room to his car and he picked up Cessley and they drove out to the Leon River where they attempted to burn and dismember her body.

And then they buried it in three shallow graves. And then a few nights later, they came back, tried to further destroy her body and reburied it again. And what happened when the military found out is they found out who she's been arrested, obviously. So over the course of this two-month investigation, she's cooperating to some degree. What happened to Robinson? Thank you for bringing that part up. So Robinson has identified a few days after Vanessa went missing that he was the last person to see her alive. The text message on her phone, the last one sent work to him because her job was a small arms repairer,

so it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for her to go to his arms. room and his company to work on a weapon. So that was the last place she was seen. He told investigators initially that she came by, she got some paperwork and was going to take it to the motor pool. She never made it to the motor pool. He told investigators that that night he stayed home. He said he was at his off-base residence with Cecily.

And that was that. about 30 days later, they decided to do a forensic review of his cell phone. And when they did that, they found all of these text messages and calls to Cessly that were late at night, which is odd if he was with her at their house. however they didn't interview cecily until much later and then once they did um they sort of used her to to get a confession out of robinson and the day the day that venezas remains were found june 30th um he texted cecily and said baby they found the pieces uh she then called him let me backtrack. He actually was on, at some point before June 30th had been placed to confinement in the barracks.

Vanessa Guyens family attorney says it was for coronavirus-related violations, not because of this. The Army hasn't said anything about that. However, we know that he, to quote, court documents absconded from base, somehow acquired a handgun. and was about four miles from base when Cessley Aguilar worked with investigators to help locate him. Local law enforcement approached him and he pulled out the weapon and shot himself dead. It feels like there's a lot of missing. Eva, it feels like there's still a lot of missing pieces here in all of this.

Is there, who was leading the investigation? Like when something like this happens, when it's a military involved missing person that turns into a murder, or investigation. Like, who leads the investigation at Fort Hood? I mean, it's Army Criminal Investigation Command is what it's called. And I just want to say, you know, it's unfortunate the way this played out. We'll probably never know a lot of these details.

And it, you know, it's really frustrating, I'm sure, for so many people, for so many different reasons, you know, for her family, because they won't know what happened to their loved one. but for the Army, you know, it's hard to know what exactly went wrong for something like this to take place within a unit. But yes, Army Criminal Investigation Command, which is also known as CID, is led the investigation on this from the start. Their investigation is still ongoing. You know, we haven't gotten any answers from them as to what they uncovered or their timeline of events. the only reason we know when they got Robinson's phone records is because of

those federal court documents related to Cessly Aguilar's arrest. And if I want to, I know we're doing some grisly stuff here, but I want to talk about one more specific case. The one that happened kind of right after her

was in the news, soldier goes missing, and they find him he had hanged himself, correct? Yeah, that's Sergeant Elder Fernandez. He, from what I understand in reading about his case, I haven't, haven't written about it myself, but I have spoken to his family's attorney, which is also the same as the Guyin family attorney. Her name is Natalie Quam. He had, Sergeant Fernandez had filed a abusive sexual contact complaint with his unit within the first cavalry division. and those we now know that his allegations were found unsubstantiated, which is the term they used, it couldn't be corroborated.

So he, I think on August 11th, submitted himself to the hospital. He was having suicidal ideations. He was not feeling well. According to the attorney, he was being bullied in his unit because he had been moved from where he had the sexual harassment into another, unit. And in that unit, everyone knew why he had been moved. And so he felt, according to the attorney, he felt bullied. He felt, you know, humiliated. He checked himself into the hospital. On August 17th, he was released from the hospital. A staff sergeant drove him to a residence

in Colleen that he said he wanted to be driven to, according to the army. And they left him on the porch smoking a cigarette. And that was the last time anyone had seen him. After a week long, search, yeah, his body was found in Temple, which is about 30 miles away. And autopsy show that he hanged himself. So one of the underlying themes that I see here is how the military deals with sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. And again, this is something that we've kind of seen in the news, not just at Fort Hood, but seems to be like a military culture problem.

Do you think that's accurate? And is that kind of the sense that you get from people when you talk about these stories is that obviously it's not in every single case, right? It's not a factor in every single one of these cases. But it does crop up. It does seem to be part of a lot, like some of the stories. Do you think that that's a factor? It is coming up. It is becoming a theme, an unfortunate theme.

And, you know, after Vanessa went missing or during that time, people were searching for her, there became a hashtag on social media that was really popular. And it was hashtag I am Vanessa Gian. And it was just, I mean, hundreds of service members, men, women coming forward and saying, this happened to me. I didn't tell anyone or this happened to me. And I told my chain of command and nothing happened. I got in trouble. I got moved. And it really exposed this, I mean, really horrific side of what victims face.

And it's not something that's really been put out there in a public way like that that I personally have seen as a military reporter. And so it made the Army really take a look at this. And I do believe that it's being taken seriously. I do think that the chain of command, you know, higher army leadership, at the Pentagon level is trying to figure out how do we make this better? How do we make soldiers trust the system? Just yesterday I went to Fort Hood for a change of, it's not only a change of command,

but a ceremony to mark Major General John Richardson's new role as the acting commander at Fort Hood. And the Force Com commander was there, General Garrett. And he said, you know, reporting has gotten better, but it's very clear that soldiers still don't trust the sexual harassment and assault system, and we have to do better. And there's also to dig into the past like five years or so at Fort Hood, there's been multiple prostitution rings that have operated out of Fort Hood as well. you're looking at me like that's not quite how you would characterize what happened. It's not quite how I would characterize what happened. Periodically, the county officials there and the city officials will do a sting operation.

And I think just by the nature of the population at that area, you know, 10 people are arrested. It's not surprising three of them serve in the military or whatever the numbers are in those instances. So it doesn't surprise me when those things happen, but I wouldn't say that they are a condition of Fort Hood specifically. I mean, I think where I live in Austin, Texas, if we did some sort of sting operation for child prostitution, we would probably get a similar amount of arrests. Right.

However, there was one instance that when I worked at the Colleen Daily Herald, And this, I apologize, I don't know the year. This would have been at least six or seven years ago. I think it was about 2015-ish, or at least that's when it stopped, or when he, when they arrested him. Yes. And I, is his name McQueen? Yes. Yes.

So he was actually a sharp representative for his unit. And I think he was actually in three core. And you tell us what, what a sharp representative is? Sharp representative is the sexual harassment and assault response prevention program, Sharp. And this is the person within the unit who is going to conduct training on what is sexual harassment, what is sexual assault, what do you do if you see it? What if you do if you experience it? How do you protect, you know, the people around you if you see it happening? How do you intervene?

It's also the person you could go to if you were experiencing, if you felt you were a victim of sexual harassment or assault. you could go to this person and report it to them. If you wanted to go to them, you could also go to the Sharp Office that's on base or the chaplain or somewhere else. But this person is designated for doing that within the unit. So that was his job. And he, it seemed, was also recruiting junior enlisted soldiers into this prostitution ring that he was attempting to run out of, I think, out of his house in Colleen. And unfortunately, he was praying upon soldiers that he knew they were in a financial hardship and prayed upon them and took advantage of them. From what I understand, though, it was caught and dealt with before it, you know, became large or serious or, you know, caused really horrific harm to someone.

You know, when you read something like that, it does degrade the integrity of the SHARP program. You know, it is one isolated incident. But when you read that, you sort of, yes, if I was in the Army, it would give me pause of whether or not I would want to go to that representative in my unit. Yeah, it speaks to what you were talking about earlier, that there is this kind of sense from soldiers that, like, why would I report this if the guy that is the sharp, or the guy that was here five years ago, the sharp representative is running, you know, running prostitutes out of his house. like that's, I don't know. Can we talk about Kaleen itself? So I think that like that's kind of an important part of this story. And I think that like it really is like a context that has to be understood to really understand like what it's like in a place like Fort Hood.

And when we talk about Texas, like you and I are both from Texas, we talk about a city that's got the size of 150,000. but I think it's hard for people that aren't from the state to understand. Like when you're looking at a city that's that size, but it's Kaleen, you can still feel like you're in the middle of nowhere and that the town is very small and that there's not a lot going on, even with the population that size, right? Yeah, yeah.

If I could just sort of describe, you know, what I think of when I think of Kaleen is it's very sort of spread out, because of, I think because the army is there, there's a lot of family housing, a lot of single family homes, and they're just sort of spread out and all the neighborhoods have the same look, the same feel.

They all feel like they were built in the last 20 years, so their trees are very small. And that's mostly, I would say, on the south and west side of Kaleen, when you get into the north part of Kaleen, it's the older part. And what I would consider the stretch, that looks like Army Post USA.

You know, it's what this, this strip that you see outside of every gate of a military installation. I even saw it when I went to Korea. It's similar where it's just this stretch of barbershops, tattoo parlors, you know, back in the day, sewing shops, you know, before, before units, uniforms were all Velcro. And then, you know, Chinese restaurants, Korean restaurants, and restaurants just dotted all the way down.

And they are there to cater to soldiers and their needs and their quick lunch breaks. You know, and then there's also trip clubs thrown in there because soldiers, you know, we all know what outside army bases look like. Right. And then, of course, overhead, you've got Chinooks flying around all the time. You can see, you know, training going on. It's not uncommon to hear tank sounds. It's not uncommon to see Helm V's or anything like that driving on the highways.

And when you go to the grocery store, people are in uniform all the time. The Army just feels like it's completely consumed that area. And it's a good drive to get to another town larger than Kaleen. Waco is about 30 to 40 minutes away. The city of Austin is about an hour south. So it does feel a bit isolating because you're not far, but you're just far enough that it feels separate. And I think also because most people who live in Killeen are not from Texas, it doesn't really feel like the rest of Texas. It also has a large veteran population.

And yes, everything there has a bit of like a patriotic feel to it. And what's the, like, what's the relationship? relationship. It feels like it's the way you describe it, it sounds like a town that lives essentially to service this military community. Is that accurate? Yes, I would say that that's very accurate. So how does that affect the mood of the town and how is all of this tragedy affected the mood of the town? Like what are people saying? How are they reacting to it? Business owners and Colleen really support the military. You know, that's that's their clientele. matter what business you're in. So they, you know, they're wholeheartedly, how can we help? I've

spoken to the mayor there. I've spoken to a woman who serves as the civilian aid to the secretary of the army. I've spoken to a man whose job it is is to keep that relationship strong. So the economic impacts of cleaning Fort Hood remain. And they all say, you know, what can we do to help. How can we, how can we help the Army solve this problem that they're experiencing? I think there's also a good bit of how can we make this go away. Because they're... That's a very Texas, that's a very, I'm sorry, that's a very like Texas reaction is to kind of like, let's not talk about the thing that, the bad thing that's happening on the other side of town.

Let's make it, let's make it history and move on and make sure we don't tell the next generation. I feel is very indicative of a lot of the places I lived in Texas. And this is a community, too, that is really used to the national spotlight, sort of turning on them and saying, oh, my God, look at these horrible things happening here. You know, all the way back to, was it the early 90s, the Luby's shooting took place in Kaleen? Yep. And 2009. Nadal Hassan did what he did at Fort Hood.

2014, another soldier committed a shooting on base. So they're used to people swooping in and saying like, oh, my God, what's happening here? And so it's not new to them. And they're protective of their town. There's people that have lived there their entire lives. And I don't blame them. I'm from a small town in Texas. And I, too, get defensive when people swoop in to say things about it.

But I do believe them when they say that they want to help the army. And if there was some way that I think part of that is because if they help the army, they're helping themselves. Right, because, like, again, the, the, the economic engine of that town is Fort Hood. Right. Yes. And just to give people an idea, Fort Hood last year generated $29.8 billion into the Texas economy. And most of that is going into Colleen, Copper's Cove, Parker Heights, Temple, Belton, Gatesville, all these tiny towns around it.

do you think it's so obviously there's been a lot of what I would call like a parachute reporting out of Fort Hood and Colleen in the last couple months which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you specifically because I knew it wouldn't be parachute reporting is there a sense of resentment from people and like how is your how do you think your relationship is different to the city the base and the story than other reporters might be. I like that term parachute reporting. And I watched it happen when I was, I actually covered the court

marshal of Nadal Hassan. And so that was like parachute reporting at its best. You know, because I think no matter where you go, if CNN shows up with a camera crew and they start asking soldiers, how do you feel about Colleen? How do you feel about Fort Hood? You're going to hear one that goes, that's okay. And then you're going to hear another one that's, says everything that they hate about it.

And so it's really difficult, in my opinion, to get an accurate picture of what a community is like if you're showing up at a time of crisis and saying, tell me why you think this is happening. Tell me what you don't like about living here. You're going to find it. It's very easy. However, I've been there long enough, and I've been in and out of that community long enough that I've, you know, attended a number of events, a number of, you know, the best and the

worst of what you could see there. And it sort of gives you a better picture of what is, what life is actually like day to day living there. And it is a place, I just, something I always tell people is Colleen is like any other town where if you show up and you want to find trouble to get into, it's very easy to find. It's probably easier to find in Colleen maybe than other places. But if you show up and you're looking for a strong community,

you will find that too. I still have some of my very best friends still live there and I met them while I was an army wife there. Then what, so do you think then is, kind of to circle back around at the beginning of the conversation, do you think that there's any, obviously there are problems, but do you think that it's any worse than anywhere else in the military right now? Or do you think it's just that there's this one really horrifying crime that has cast,

that has kind of brought the spotlight? That is a really, really good question. And it's a question I am still asking right now. I think what we need to find out from the Army is, you know, what are the death rates like? at other bases. How are soldiers dying there? Is it all accidents? Is there, are there incidents of homicide? Are there suicides? What are those levels and how does Fort Hood line up with that? Because at the end of the day, we really need to remember that all this scrutiny is about trying to

save soldiers' lives. It's protecting service members who are signing up to protect our nation, and we're letting them down in some way. So I've been told that I'm going to get some sort of information about the deaths of soldiers at other installations or across the Army. I'm not holding my breath for it, but I am told that it's coming. This is one of the things I think is important to emphasize here too is like how strange it can be to report on the American military is it's not like you have to ask questions in a very specific way.

And there's a formality to the process that you have to go through. And it can take months to get some basic information. Can you kind of talk about that and like how that process works? So I know that I don't, you know, I think there's this romanticism in people's minds. They're like, you just, you know, you go up to the commander and you say, I need to know X, X, Y, and Z information. That's not how it works at all, right? No, it's not. It's not at all.

To give you an example, I called the city of Colleen, and I said, I want to talk to the mayor about what's happening at Fort Hood. And then they gave me this mayor's cell phone number, and I called him, right? It's that easy to reach the top, top guy at Colleen. However, I submitted questions to a public affairs office for Fort Hood, probably a month ago now asking to get some questions answered about very similar topics. I asked about them yesterday and they're still being reviewed. So it's the leadership is very insulated from public scrutiny. I understand their time is very important. I understand that they have a lot on their plates.

But I do think, you know, in situations like this, it's important they make themselves available. And they are to an extent probably far more than I've seen in other instances. I mean, just last night I got to go to a press conference with the Commander of Forcecom and the new Fort Hood commander to ask them about these things. We weren't allowed to ask about ongoing or open investigations or specific cases, but we were allowed to ask questions in general about what's happening. What do you think, because you've got a unique perspective, I think, because you're a Texan, you were an army wife, you've been in or around military culture for a long time. I think you understand it. what do you think needs to change here, not just at Fort Hood, but maybe in the Army writ large?

What are the things that culturally need to happen that can help Stiney some of this stuff? This is going to sound really like cheesy or something like that, but I think we just need to care about each other. I mean, at the end of the day, if commanders and other soldiers truly care, about the people around them and they're watching out for them and they really do have their back as they would in combat, I think we would be in a much better place. I mean, if you look at Sergeant Fernandez, he just got released after a week in the hospital and they left him on his front porch smoking a cigarette. I don't know how you would leave your friends that I would have, if it was my friend, my coworker, I would have gone inside. I would have made sure someone knew where they were.

out of future their cell phone was charged. They had access to get food, something, just caring. That's all it is. Why do you think that Why do you think that there's a lack of caring? I mean, obviously the proof is at the pudding to a certain extent, but like what did you,

what have you seen in the way? Is because of the kind of like the macho military culture thing that you have to be strong and like, you know, you've got you take care of each other in combat, but out of combat, you're trying to push each other to be stronger and have some sort of self-reliance? Like, what do you think that, why do you think that there isn't that, like, why do you think they're not taking care of each other? I wish, I wish I could answer that question. I think if I could, the Army might, you know, hire me to help. But they said it, the force comm commander said it last night in the Fort Hood

commander said it as well is we're going to take time out of training to just sit down and talk to each other. And General Garrett from forcecom, you know, he said this has really been a focus of his since George Floyd died earlier this over Memorial Day weekend in May, is sitting down with each other and understanding our diversity, understanding where you come from, where I come from and how our differences can strengthen our relationship and strengthen our unit. And it sounds really cheesy and hokey to hear that coming from the army, like, oh, we all just need to sit down and talk and get to know each other. But it's so true.

You know, you trust people and you care about people more when you know who they are, when you know who their wife is, their husband is, what their children like to do. It just, yeah, I don't know if I can curse on this radio. show or podcast, but just giving a shit. Showing that you giving a shit can go a long way with someone, especially someone who is hurting. Rose Thayer, thank you so much for coming on to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me. That's it for this week, Angry Planet listeners.

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