Posted on 11/30/2003 8:25:54 PM PST by joesnuffy
Reported rape stuns Stryker unit
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait - A female Stryker brigade soldier reported she was raped, brigade officials said Saturday.
The sexual assault apparently occurred late Friday or early Saturday outside a women's shower trailer in one of the tent cities where brigade soldiers are living before they move up to Iraq.
Detectives from the Army's Criminal Investigation Division on Saturday taped off an area around a cargo container next to the shower trailer. The CID agents from Camp Arifjan, another Army post near Kuwait City, are handling the investigation.
The brigade's public affairs officer, Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, issued a two-paragraph statement:
"A 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division female soldier has allegedly been sexually assaulted at Camp Udairi. The soldier is being provided with medical care and emotional support," it said.
"The incident is under investigation. No other details will be released at this time to protect the soldier's identity, and to safeguard the investigation process."
Soldiers reacted with dismay and anger as word of the incident spread quickly through the camp. Some said whoever is responsible will be better off if the MPs catch him before the troops do.
"I guarantee you, if they find out who did it, they'll drag that guy out over the berm and that'll be it," one soldier said.
Meanwhile, female soldiers said they were exercising extra caution in the camp after dark. There are about 310 women in the brigade from Fort Lewis.
"It's sad," said Staff Sgt. Theresa Spicer, a supply sergeant with the brigade headquarters. "You can't trust your own people."
The assault follows a number of thefts and other breaches in discipline that have occurred at Camp Udairi over the last several days, much to the consternation of commanders and troops alike.
Earlier in the week, there were reports of ongoing pilfering in the motor pool, with hand microphones, antennas and other items disappearing.
The brigade commander, Col. Mike Rounds, warned he would put half the brigade's 5,000 soldiers on overnight watch if the thefts didn't cease; the message apparently had the desired effect.
On Wednesday, a Stryker brigade soldier lost an M-16 while making a call at the telephone center at the post's morale, welfare and recreation tents.
Commanders ordered the post locked down after the weapon was reported missing. It turned out that a soldier from another unit in the brigade had found the rifle but failed to report the recovery until after the whole brigade started looking for it.
In addition, all the soldiers at Camp Udairi had their personal belongings searched on Thursday after a break-in at the post exchange in which thousands of dollars in goods were stolen.
There are some 7,000 troops living at Udairi, including about 2,000 or so who are not part of the Stryker brigade and are stationed here permanently to maintain the camp. There are also several hundred civilian contract employees.
As of Saturday there were no reports that Stryker brigade soldiers had been implicated in the PX burglary or the pilferage in the motor pool.
But it's all wearing on the patience of the brigade's leaders, officers and enlisted, as they try to prepare for a long, hard year ahead in Iraq.
Members of the brigade's leadership team declined to comment on the case, citing their likely responsibility for overseeing any criminal or disciplinary proceedings that might result against any soldier or soldiers charged in the assault.
But one said privately he is saddened that he will have to report to the victim's family that he was unable to keep her safe within her own brigade.
Col. Rounds before Saturday had told his staff the incidents tarnish the brigade's good work in preparing for its mission in Iraq, which Army commanders have praised as setting a standard for all the other U.S. forces that will follow.
"The brigade's overall focus is getting ready for Iraq," said Piek, the brigade spokesman. "That does not diminish the seriousness of the alleged crime, and we're investigating it as seriously as we can.
"But it's not the kind of thing we need to be dealing with just a short time before we're to go north."
Staff writer Michael Gilbert is an embedded journalist with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the Army's first Stryker brigade. Reach him at: mjgilbert41@yahoo.com.
(Published 12:01AM, November 30th, 2003)
Do we know it was a soldier?
Where was Her Royal Heinous Sir Hillary of Pumpkin Patch at the time?
That seems to be the implication.
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No ammo permitted. Combat knife? It is not permitted.
LOL, that's entirely typical and the entire rationale behind lock-downs.
Our company lost a pair of binos once in garrison on a Friday morning. We had a lockdown. We turned the barracks upside down. Couldn't find it. Along about 10 PM that night (when everybody would normally be going out to the local pubs on Friday night) the binos miraculously turned up in a clothes dryer. I guess whoever had ganked them figured one pair of military binos weren't worth never going to the pub again.
It's interesting the way the military can make things happen within its society that would never fly in a free one.
It says outside the shower. In Bosnia, the shower was the only place we could go without our weapon. Just going for a crap- you had to take it, but for the shower it was allowed to leave it with a buddy back in the tent. The rationale being, you wouldn't want to take your weapon into the shower with you and while you were in the shower you wouldn't really be able to watch it while it was propped in the corner of the shower room. It's only a few minutes of a soldier's day and if you're within an armed and guarded camp, it's not like it's a huge security let down.
Furthermore, I don't know what the weapons status is for off duty personnel on this particular camp but it could very well be that off-duty soldiers are not walking around with magazines inserted in their weapons. In such a situation, they would have the magazines with them but not physically in the weapon. Therefore, it wouldn't be all that hard for an attacker to overwhelm someone before they could get a magazine into the weapon.
I agree. Rape in a war zone should defintely get the max penalty which is death under the UCMJ. As far as pilfering, I never snuck up to the ward room on the midwatch and made a ham sandwich while we were underway. Never.
Of course our shipmate did get caught doing that and got busted from E5 to E4 and then 2 weeks later got his promotion to E6 verified when the results came back. DOH!!! The Captain was former enlisted and had a heart and gave back his E5 chevron and so he got to take the promotion anyway.
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