Phil Barron sent me the following:
I’ve been blogging for a while about a young soldier from the St. Louis
area named LaVena Johnson who died in Iraq in 2005. The Army claims
suicide; the family strongly refutes the claim and points to evidence
of foul play. I’ve been blogging about this since she died, and am
trying to help out the family with a web-based petition to the two
Armed Services Committees to get them to compel the Army to reopen its
investigation of the young lady’s death. Twelve hundred people have
signed on thus far.
>> Petition: Help find the truth about the death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson
>> Pfc. LaVena Johnson blog
Please go help out.
I signed the petition with this comment:
What is it with the Army and their reluctance to investigate?
Nice rework of your site.
Wasn’t there an attempt to burn her body?
Kinda hard for someone after they are dead.
Kinda hard for someone after they are dead.
I’m probably going to be sorry I asked, but what does that mean?
I think George means that it’s hard to commit suicide and then attempt to burn your own body.
I hope that’s what he means.
Like a modern day version of “the boy who cried wolf,” you can’t separate this from politics. The left has criticized the armed forces and the administration for so long, they have no credibility when it comes to legitimate complaints.
That’s why Tillman’s story was a long time coming, and why the truth behind PFC Johnson’s death will be a long time coming.
Have any MilBlogs picked up on this story yet?
Wait…so the obfuscation around Tillman and Johnson’s death is the fault of “the left,” because of the times the left has been critical of the military?
So if “the left” were to promise to never say anything bad about the military ever again, the military would suddenly become a model of transparency?
SpiderJ: I didn’t say either of those things. I said the left has no credibility anymore. What the future significance of that might be, I can’t say.
I was suggesting that it would be helpful to get some (usually conservative) milblogs behind this.
If the left were to stop saying bad things about the military? Are you kidding, or what?
Check out the initial comments (without factual support) at DailyKos, for an example of what I’m talking about.
I’m sure something terrible happened, but I fear it may never come to light.
You do realize that it’s within the rights of an American citizen to criticize the military, as the military is not an infallible institution even when its missions and commanders are operating under the noblest of intentions. And you also realize that the military, while containing a majority of conservative thinkers, also contains a number of liberals who made a choice to serve their country in this fashion.
Although I’m sure Karl Rove thinks those servicemen and women are only in Iraq and Afghanistan to offer therapy and understanding.
Yeah, SpiderJ, whatever…
I’m just saying, Frank…if you want to support the troops, you need to support them all, not just the ones with your politics.
And if you want to get to the truth of this matter, you need to quiet down idiots like the Kos Kids.
Just so I have this straight…
The conservative bloggers are going to take a stand to demand that the truth about these deaths be heard. This is good and patriotic because conservatives almost never speak out against the military.
Liberals cannot demand that the truth be heard about these deaths because they have criticized the military in the past, which makes them treacherous scum.
SpiderJ: Put a lid on it. Since the left is notorious for the hatred of the military, this cry for an investigation can easily misconstrued as another way to protest the war.
Can’t deal with the reality? Too bad.
Getting (mostly conservative) Milblogs involved would remove the political edge from the campaign.
Can’t deal with that reality?
Too bad.
The hostility isn’t necessary, Frank. I for one do not “hate” the military.
The only reason that reality exists is because certain political elements have decided to make sweeping statements such as “the left” “hates” the military, thereby making it impossible for any liberals who do not “hate” the military to make a case without coming under fire from those who swallowed the rhetoric.
The message is more important than the messenger. “The left” is not wholly responsible for the environment that seems to feel otherwise.
Frank is too busy shouting at imagined liberal phantoms to be reasoned with. Seeing as how I am a proud lefty and associate with lots of other proud lefties, you’d think there would be a lot of military hatin’ goin’ on, but guess what? There isn’t. My father and uncle both served in the military, too.
Frank is the one with no credibility, but he’s too dense to see it.
Raijin: So are you and SpiderJ saying that the ill feelings that most liberals have toward the military is a fiction, a concoction of the right?
Are you kidding? You guys may have yourselves convinced of that, but I know better.
The Democrats and liberals in Congress have had their eye on paring the Defense budget since the Cold War (coincidence? I think not.) Clinton decimated the military during his 8 year “golden age”. He professed his hatred for the military in writing, did he not?
Why don’t you admit that liberals don’t like the military. And why tell me your father or uncle was in the military. Were you?
My father was in the military, as were four of my uncles, my grandfather, and my father’s cousin. So?
fd: Dude, you really should go back to your Jonah Goldberg articles and let the grownups have the floor when talking about serious stuff like this. I’m not going to bother getting into a pissing match with you about Bill Clinton’s “golden years” mainly because, #1, it’s not germane to the topic and #2 since Bubba for the most part kept us out of needless wars and didn’t leave us vulnerable to terrorism on a massive scale, there wasn’t any fucking point to pour almost a half a trillion a year into the defense budget.
But the point that I want to bring home to you is that LaVena Johnson didn’t and couldn’t commit suicide, an inescapable fact from which you have nonetheless, somehow, managed to escape with a miraculous mental Houdini-esque dexterity.
Unless you want to continue believing that the right-handed LaVena shot herself in the left temple with a 40″-long M16 and then:
Set her own body and tent on fire, got rid of the bullet and her military debit card that she’d used two hours earlier, broke her own nose, busted her lip, loosened two of her front teeth, dislocated her shoulder, then walked outside to leave a blood trail leading from her tent where she then, her busy day at an end, buttonholed back and died in an upright sitting position.
I hope that you had the decency and consideration to have yourself chemically castrated then had yourself physically castrated just to make sure.
LaVena Johnson (In Memorial)
Just when you think you’ve heard it all,
Another name is slammed into a brick wall,
LaVena Johnson an Army Private First Class,
Is she the first? Certainly this PFC isn’t the last.
Is it any wonder Osama Bin Laden can’t be found?
With a criminal loose in our camp running around,
Destroying evidence, burning bodies, again & again,
Calling themselves soldiers, claiming they are men.
What a shame when the real enemy is on the same side,
Behind the color of camaraderie these cowards hide,
Punched in the face, loose teeth, she was only 5 feet 1,
The Army claims its suicide, that’s all, over and done.
How many before shooting themselves bust their own lip,
Severe enough to the point it needs more than one stitch,
Surprisingly they didn’t say she tried to saw herself in half,
Which lie would be easier to swallow? You do the math.
So, how did that chemical burn get on her private parts?
Oh yeah, maybe a tattoo, some kind of new wave art,
Why would someone waste time getting rid of DNA?
Just maybe without detection they’re free to get away.
The U.S. Army actually tried lying, hooray for her dad,
He gave that crap the smell test and oh did it smell bad,
7/19/05 her dead body found in a contractor’s tent, HBR,
Broken nose, black eye, shot in the head and body scars.
Military personnel or civilians aren’t we on the same side?
Who is the American Government protecting, why that lie?
Had to be someone with pull to get her alone, you’d think,
I don’t have to be standing next to skunk to know it stinks.
Where’s Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the infamous NAACP?
She could not have been more violated, do you not agree?
A 19-year-old honor student should be shown more respect,
But, this is how she’s being treated. Hey! What the heck?
Can’t call it racial because all women are treated the same,
Even academies and bases in the states there is this claim,
We are truly near the end of days soon God will work it out,
Vengeance will certainly be more than a punch in the mouth.
The Uniform Code Of Military Justice aka the U.C.M.J.,
But, where is this promise for LaVena, her assailant got away,
Judging by the condition of her remains, she put up a fight,
Now John and Linda Johnson are paving the road to right.
Funny thing though, seems they have a roadblock in Iraq,
It’s from the U.S. Army, who supposedly has their back,
The saying, “with friends like these who needs enemies?”
Guess the Army thinks first the perpetrator said, “please?”
Here’s a little something to me that is simply down right scary,
The hole in her head was from a pistol, which she did not carry,
Oh yeah, if you think that’s something how does this fact sound?
The fatal bullet that went through her head was never even found.
If there ever was this kind of incompetence in World War II,
Adolph Hitler or his off spring would be telling us what to do,
Oops, I don’t mean us because there’d be no Blacks or Jews,
And only if the Furor liked Mexican food maybe a Hispanic or 2.
Whomever, wherever, whatever, an injustice did occur,
We can’t make it right for others without justice for her,
Hey, White House, the most powerful office in the world,
Do you have the gonads to speak out for this Johnson girl?
A petition was signed that is over twelve thousand strong,
The Army closed the case anyway saying nothing’s wrong,
Nothing like U.S. Intelligence, it’s the reason for the attack,
If they hadn’t been storing WMD’s we wouldn’t be in Iraq.
Poems By Luke Easter