Demand justice for Guillén — one of our own
Monica Rhor says the family deserves answers and an investigation into the Fort Hood soldier’s death.
Study Vanessa Guillén’s face. In photographs that freezeframe a beautiful, bright-eyed young soldier eager to serve her country. In murals and memorials appearing in the Houston neighborhood where she grew up, her image flanked by Mexican and American flags, her shoulders sprouting angel’s wings.
Listen to her distraught mother, who spent two long months pleading for Fort Hood officials to do more to help find her daughter after the Army specialist disappeared from the post on April 22. Before her disappearance, Vanessa confided to family and friends that she was being sexually harassed.
“I begged them to help me, to shut down the base and to help me find my little girl … to turn over every stone looking for her,” Gloria Guillén told Univision’s Jorge Ramos. “They never paid attention to me. Never.”
Feel the rage and grief that spilled from her little sister the day after the family learned that Vanessa’s remains had been found in a shallow grave east of Fort Hood.
“For two months, we did not get answers. Two months,” 16year-old Lupe Guillén, her face streaked with tears, said at a press conference. “They treated my sister like a joke. My sister is not a joke. She is a human being. My sister, Vanessa Guillén, gave her life to this country, gave her life for us — and look how they treated her.”
A federal complaint from July 2 alleges that another soldier — who officials say killed himself as police closed in — bludgeoned Vanessa to death the same day she went missing and hid her body in a large box. The soldier’s girlfriend, who the Justice Department says has confessed, is charged with helping him dismember and burn her remains.
Her older sister Mayra suspected something was wrong as soon as Vanessa stopped replying to texts and voice mail messages on April 22. She immediately reported her missing to Fort Hood officials and, that same day, drove three hours from Houston to the post in Killeen.
We don’t know what warning signs may have existed in the months before Vanessa’s death that the Army may have ignored. But that’s precisely why we need an investigation.
Fort Hood officials say thousands of soldiers assisted in the search for Vanessa and another 300 were interviewed during the investigation into her disappearance. “We never quit and we never leave a fallen comrade,” Col. Ralph Overland, commander of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment and Vanessa’s regimental commander, said in a statement.
That’s not how the family sees it. Instead, they say their pleas for help were met with roadblocks and misinformation. They say Fort Hood officials didn’t take seriously their concerns about the sexual harassment and how that might be tied to Vanessa’s disappearance. They were not allowed to see reports, timelines or interviews with witnesses, according to family attorney Natalie Khawam.
That’s why the family wants a congressional investigation — because they believe the military cannot adequately investigate itself. That’s also why Khawam is pushing for a law in Vanessa’s name that would create an independent agency where members of the military could report sexual harassment and assault.
Both would be necessary steps — and could keep other soldiers from suffering as Vanessa did and prevent other families from being put through this unimaginable pain.
Vanessa’s case has called attention to a military culture that often ignores or overlooks allegations of sexual harassment and discourages service members from reporting abuse. More than 6,200 reports of sexual assaults of service members were recorded in the military last year, a 3 percent increase from 2018 figures, according to a Defense Department report.
Since Vanessa’s disappearance, Khawam says she has heard from dozens of service members who experienced sexual harassment and assault in the military. Hundreds have posted story after grim story of sexual misconduct using the social media hashtag #IamVanessaGuillén.
Vanessa’s family deserves answers. They deserve to know how she could vanish and turn up dead from a military post where soldiers should be safe. They deserve to know why she was scared to report the sexual harassment she told her friends and family about to her superiors.
We should all be joining that call for answers.
After all, Vanessa was one of our own. A Houston girl who grew up in the city’s southeast side and graduated from Cesar Chavez High School. An athlete who loved soccer, cross country track — and jumping rope with her sister Mayra. A Latina with a deep devotion to her faith who always wore a necklace with the Virgen de Guadalupe around her neck.
She had dreamed of joining the Army since she was 10 and couldn’t wait to don a uniform, Mayra told me. She enlisted while still in high school, and went off to basic training just a few days after graduation.
Mayra, who turned 22 on June 30, the same day her sister’s remains were found, is still struggling to accept that she will never see Vanessa again. As is her whole family. Her mother’s sorrow, Mayra said, is terrible to behold.
In the weeks since her disappearance, thousands of people — those who loved her and scores who never met her — have spoken out for #JusticeforVanessa.
Her name has echoed in social media campaigns. In marches and vigils in dozens of cities. In murals where visitors leave candles and crosses, bouquets of flowers and hand-lettered signs.
Nearly 90 lawmakers signed a letter from Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Tex.) calling for an independent investigation into Vanessa’s disappearance and death by the Pentagon’s inspector general, and more than 2,500 servicewomen and veterans signed a letter demanding a congressional investigation.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy on Friday announced an independent review of “the command climate and culture at Fort Hood.”
“She stood up for this country, to fight for freedom for this country,” reads a message on an American flag left at one of the Houston memorials. “‘We the people’ standing for her … since this country failed to stand for Vanessa.”
Vanessa Guillén was one of our own. Say her name — and stand for her.