In 2006, at Fort Hood, U.S. Army Base, Maria Valentine said that months into her training, a sergeant with a history of alleged harassment towards soldiers wrote her up after she told him she didn’t want him touching her during body mass measurements.
She said that authorities promised her that the disciplinary report would go away if she didn’t make a formal complaint. But, she would later regret her decision to not file a formal complaint after she learned that another woman accused the same sergeant of rape.
Valentine is one of five women who spoke to The Associated Press about experiencing either harassment, assault, or rape by soldiers at Fort Hood.
Following the disappearance and murder of Spc. Vanessa Guillen, other current and former solider’s took to social media to discuss their own accounts of sexual assault and harassment on base. Guillen’s family said that a solider sexually harassed her and then killed her.
“That was the environment. I live with the regret that I did not go through with the complaint,’ Valentine said, adding that, “I wasn’t surprised.”
However, Maj. Gabriela Thompson, the spokeswoman for Fort Hood, told the AP that she had no information about Valentine’s allegations.
Members of Congress launched an investigation at Fort Hood after Sgt. Elder Fernandes was found dead. Fernandes had filed reports of sexual harassment months before he was found hanging from a tree in Temple, Texas on Aug 25.
According to Army data, this year alone, 28 soldiers have died at the base, including Guillen and Fernandes. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy says that on average, Fort Hood has seen 129 violent crimes between 2015-2019. They have one of the highest violent crime rates among Army installations.
Typically, The Associated Press doesn’t publish the names of sex abuse victims, but two women spoke out about being sexually assaulted by soldiers at Fort Hood and they described the culture on base as disturbing. Other victims have come forward by sharing their experiences and using the hashtag #IAMVANESSAGUILLEN.
Among the many victims were Deborah Urquidez, who also told AP that she was raped by the same staff sgt. that Valentine said had harassed her more than a decade earlier.
In 2014, Urquidez said that her relationship with Staff Sgt. Roberto Jimenez started out as consensual but he later raped her while a friend tried to break into the room to stop him. Jimenez then stalked her for months, leaving her threatening messages. He was then tried in military court but was found not guilty.
However, Urquidez was given a temporary military protective order against him for “alleged sexual assault.”
According to documents obtained by the AP, The Department of Veterans Affairs deemed her permanently disabled after she reported the rape and trauma. “There was never justice for me,” said Urquidez. “In any other world, what more evidence do you need?” Later, Sgt. Jimenez filed for a protective order against Urquidez.
In another complaint, a civilian by the name of Kaitlyn Buxton said that her partner Brandon Espindola, who was stationed at Fort Hood, beat her numerous times and raped her in 2018 at their apartment off-base in Killeen. She claimed that on one occasion he pinned her down and started punching her in the face. Buxton said that a Fort Hood officer came to her apartment with his wife during one altercation after she called for help. She also said the chain of command saw the bruises on her body more than once.
Buxton was eventually given a protective order by the Killeen Police Dept. They charged Espindola with assault with bodily injury and assault by strangulation, but according to records, he bonded out and the case was closed.
Buxton said that military police have not done anything to take action against the case she filed in 2018. It was recently reopened this past August, but Espindola has since been discharged from the Army on unrelated matters.
“The whole process has been a constant victimization,” she said. “No matter what I do, my voice is not being heard.”
In the meantime, Espindola’s Attorney, Sean Timmons, said his client “maintains his innocence to all allegations and charges and believes they are fabricated.”
In July, the soldier who allegedly killed Guillen, committed suicide after he was confronted by the police.
A rep for the Gullien Family told the AP that Guillen told her family she was scared to file a report after a soldier of superior rank had walked in and watched her shower.
Although McCarthy said he does believe Guillen faced harassment at Fort Hood, he said officials found no evidence to support that she was sexually harassed. In the meantime, Fort Hood has been the subject of an independent command climate review, in addition to the ongoing investigation into the command response to Guillen’s disappearance and death.
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