By MATHEW D. LAPLANTE
Salt Lake Tribune
Friday, November 09, 2007
The soldiers outside her room were drunken and indignant.
"Why won't you date any of us, bitch?" Amanda Blume recalled one of the men demanded before he helped kick in her barracks door.
Inside, Blume remembered, she was surrounded, called names and pushed into a corner. Fearing for her safety, she said, she fought her way free, striking one of the men in the face on the way out.
The next week, Blume's Army commanders in Fort Sill, Okla., charged her with assault.
The exact details of what happened in the barracks on that night last March are known only to Blume and the men she has accused of attacking her. But in punishing the female soldier, Blume's male commanders followed a pattern that advocates of female service members call "epidemic" -- a pattern that nearly repeated itself again to Blume just a few months later.
Honorably discharged in early July, Blume remains proud of her military service, which began the month after she graduated from high school in 2004. As a whole, she said, the experience was positive. But it also was punctuated by moments that were alternately frightening, demeaning and unjust.
The day after Blume was attacked in her room, she was called in to see her commanding officer. "I thought he would help me, but that's not what happened," she said.
The man she'd struck had already been in to file a complaint.
"They told me they knew I had hit one of those guys and that was the only thing they could prove," Blume said.
Blume was given the opportunity to fight the charge in a military court, but she said she was told doing so could take a very long time -- and that she wouldn't be eligible for discharge until after her trial and any possible resulting sentence had run its course.
With just a few months left on her Army contract, Blume accepted the charge and her non-judicial punishment -- a letter of reprimand and three days of extra duty.
Fort Sill officials confirmed that Blume had been punished, saying that her commander, Capt. Juan Tanabe, "determined that her actions were not in self-defense, and therefore punished her accordingly."
Blume was unimpressed by the efforts made to determine the truth. "No one even came out to see the door," which was dented and bent in the attack, she said.
According to Blume, one of the others who was punished was a senior enlisted soldier who had come to her defense after she ran out of the building. He was chastised for having been fraternizing with junior soldiers, she said.
Blume was never told what happened to the soldier she punched -- a man whom she had earlier accused of stalking her and was under orders to stay away -- or to the others who were in her barracks that night.
In any case, no criminal charges were filed against her alleged assailant. Tanabe ended up handling all three punishments privately.
Blume regrets the decision not to fight back by demanding a court-martial.
"Right there, I basically gave everyone a license to do whatever they wanted to me," she said.
In June, on the final week of her service in the military, Blume reported being brutally attacked again -- this time by her sergeant, a man she considered a friend -- the same soldier who had been punished in the earlier attack for having come to her aid. While drunk, he allegedly chased her into a field and choked her into unconsciousness after she refused his order to stay at his home after a party there.
Once again, Blume's assailant was quick to report the incident first -- and with his own version of events. But because the attack occurred off base, Larnelle Lewis had to tell his story to civilian authorities.
Lawton, Okla., city prosecutors prepared a criminal complaint against Blume, but ripped up the charges after speaking to her -- and seeing the bruises on her neck.
Lewis ultimately was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault against Blume and two others who tried to help her. He pleaded no contest to the charges, acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him while not admitting any personal culpability.
On Sept. 28, Lawton, Okla., city Judge Mike Corrales suspended a sentence of up to 60 days in jail for Lewis. If the convicted soldier meets all of the conditions of a six-month probation, the charges will be dropped.
Colleen Mussolino, national commander of Women Veterans of America, says that in such cases, a big broom is coming through and a big rug is being lifted up.
"Nothing seems to change," sighed Mussolino, a Vietnam-era Army veteran who said she was assaulted by four fellow soldiers during her service. "It goes right back to this good old boys network not wanting to take care of the females. It's outrageous."
Reach Matthew LaPlante at mlaplante(at)sltrib.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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