Congress must investigate crimes against women soldiers!!

On July 19, 2005, 19-year-old Private First Class LaVena Johnson, stationed in Iraq, stuck an M-16 rifle in her mouth and pulled the trigger. At least that’s what an Army medical examiner told her family.

The House Armed Services Committee announced Tuesday that the committee is looking into her death but said no decision has been made regarding a formal investigation.

Her father, John, a psychologist and motivational speaker, said, “She had a bullet entrance wound in the left side of her head, but LaVena was right-handed.” The bullet was never found and the young soldier looked as if she had been badly beaten.

Her mother, Linda, who spoke with her on the phone two days before she died, said, “She was her bubbly self. This wasn’t someone thinking of killing herself.”

Her father argues that the death investigation photos indicate that Johnson was “raped and murdered and that her body was dumped in a contractor’s tent and set afire”.

A spokeswoman for the House committee said she does not know when the committee will decide whether to open a formal investigation into Johnson’s death. 8 women soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas (six from the Fourth Infantry Division and two from the 1st Armored Cavalry Division) have died of “non-combat related injuries” on the same base, Camp Taji, and three were raped before their deaths. Two were raped immediately before their deaths and another raped prior to arriving in Iraq. Two military women have died of suspicious “non-combat related injuries” on Balad base, and one was raped before she died. Four deaths have been classified as “suicides.”

WOW! SOLDIERS ARE HURTING THEM SELF TO KEEP FROM GOING BACK TO IRAQ!

Cases of self-harm are a "rising trend" that military doctors are watching closely, says Col. Kathy Platoni, an Army Reserve psychologist who has worked with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. "There are some soldiers who will do almost anything not to go back," she says. Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army's top psychologist, agrees that we could see an uptick in intentional injuries as more U.S. soldiers serve long, repeated combat tours, "but we just don't have good, hard data on it." Intentional- injury cases are hard to identify, and even harder to prosecute. Fewer than 21 soldiers have been punitively discharged for self-harm since 2003, according to the military. What's worrying, however, is that American troops committed suicide at the highest rate on record in 2007—and the factors behind self-injury are similar: combat stress and strained relationships. "It's often the families that don't want soldiers to return to war," says Ritchie.