Female Soldiers

In some of the most dramatic testimony to date in the Aberdeen Proving Ground sex scandal, an Army specialist accused Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson yesterday of repeatedly raping her, calling him "a devil with angel wings."The petite 23-year-old from Wyoming said Simpson, who is 6 feet 4, forced her to have sex in late 1995 while she was a student at the Ordnance Center and School. She said she was called to the drill sergeant's office almost daily for conversation or sex during four weeks she was confined to the base because she had not passed a physical test.

Why is there not more public outrage about the reported excesses and criminal behavior at — what federal department was it, again? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Or was it the Department of the Interior? During the past decade, the agency in question (the Labor Department, perhaps?) has been unable to account for nearly $9 billion of appropriated dollars, some of it in cash. Top officials have misrepresented the department's performance and attempted to hide scandals ranging from accidental fatalities to the rapes committed by its employees.

WASHINGTON - Amid the chaos, disorder and abuse of detainees that prevailed at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, the commander of a Northern California military police company was accused of taking nude photographs of his female soldiers while they were in the shower. Capt. Leo V. Merck, 32, was referred for court-martial for allegedly taking the nude photos and downloading them onto his government-issued laptop computer last fall. He was relieved as commander of the 870th Military Police Company, an Army National Guard unit based in Pittsburg, Calif.

Today, on its 37th anniversary, Roe v. Wade is still an unfulfilled promise for the women in our military. Women soldiers serving their country overseas and in the United States face impediments to accessing reproductive health care that most civilians take for granted. While military personnel must give up some rights enjoyed by civilians, there is no compelling reason for the current policies and practices that circumscribe their reproductive rights. In November, Major Gen. Anthony Cuculo III, the commander of U.S. forces in Northern Iraq, put in place a policy that made pregnancy or impregnation an offense subject to a court-martial or jail time, citing military readiness as his justification.

WASHINGTON -- The number of female soldiers who say they are the victims of rape or other sexual misconduct at Aberdeen Proving Ground has risen to 34 -- twice the number acknowledged publicly by the Army, congressional and military sources say."The investigation to date has identified 34 victims at Aberdeen with allegations ranging from rape (13 women), indecent assault (three), and physical assault (1) to sexual harassment (5)," says a memo prepared by House of Representatives staff members for the National Security Committee and obtained by The Sun.The remaining women have said they were victims of consensual sex or fraternization, said congressional sources.

A woman serving in the U.S. Army is 50 percent more likely t be raped than a civilian, newly released military records show.From 1987 to 1991, 484 female soldiers were raped while on active duty, according to Department of the Army records released after a Freedom of Information Act request.The Army rate of 129 rape cases per 100,000 population in 1990 exceeds nationwide statistics for the same year compiled by the FBI of 80 confirmed rape cases per 100,000 women. The 1990 statistics are the latest compatible statistics available.

An Army sergeant who is being court martialed for allegedly raping and sodomizing three female recruits at an Aberdeen Proving Ground school faces new charges of raping seven other female soldiers -- along with assault, robbery and extortion charges, officials said yesterday.The 16 new counts against Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson, 31, a father of two who is married to an active-duty Army woman, involve 18 female soldiers at the Army Ordnance Center and School."I really don't have any comment on this," said Simpson's lawyer, Capt.

BLACK MAN, white woman. That combination has not become so common in America that it no longer raises an eyebrow. The history of such relationships within the life span of most adults include stories of exploitation, false accusation, recrimination and, sometimes, death. For that reason, fears that race played a role in charges by white female soldiers at Aberdeen Proving Ground that black drill instructors took sexual advantage of them cannot be ignored.Army investigators are correct in maintaining their primary mission is to determine whether sergeants facing courts-martial (a captain has pleaded guilty)

Amid growing doubts about the strength of sexual misconduct prosecutions at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Army began its biggest case to date yesterday by portraying Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson as a predator who used the "power, access and control" of his rank to force female soldiers into unwanted sex.Capt. Dave Thomas said five times in his 20-minute opening statement that what occurred between Simpson and six female soldiers whom the Army says he raped was "not consensual sex." He used frank descriptions of alleged sexual assaults, saying female soldiers feared a higher-ranking soldier one described as being "seven feet tall."

This was supposed to be an ordinary day of briefings and learning their way around Aberdeen Proving Ground, but for the 59 soldiers fresh out of basic training, there was no ignoring the sexual misconduct probe sweeping the base."

When Maryland's Emily Perez died in Iraq, her West Point graduation picture -- with all the brass buttons and the plumage and her triumphant smile -- made the pages of newspapers everywhere. That picture, unlike the ones of soldiers' coffins that we are rarely permitted to see, opened a painful conversation most of us do not want to have. Who should we ask to defend us? Just our sons? Or our daughters, too? Emily Perez was a stellar student at Oxon Hill High School in Prince George's County and she went on to become the first female command sergeant in the history of West Point.

The sadness and tears were joined by energetic singing, vigorous clapping, stomping and praise. Less a somber service and more a joyous celebration of a short but vibrant life, hundreds of people filled the sanctuary of New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore to say goodbye to Army Spc. Toccara Renee Green. The 23-year-old Rosedale woman was killed Aug. 14 when explosives detonated near her convoy in Al Asad. She was the first female soldier from Maryland to die in the Iraq war, according to the Pentagon.

WASHINGTON - Sgt. Tara Jackson was riding shotgun this spring in a U.S. Army supply convoy snaking through the streets of Fallujah. A truck up ahead struck a roadside bomb and enemy small arms fire flashed, she recalled, and she trained her M-16 assault rifle toward the enemy. Emptying one clip, she said, she slammed in another and kept firing. Jackson, a 32-year-old Baltimore native and member of the Army National Guard's 1229th Transportation Company from Parkville, said she was in combat for about one minute.

WASHINGTON - An amendment that would have further restricted the role of women in the military was withdrawn late last night, and the House Armed Services Committee instead agreed to take more control of which jobs women may hold on the battlefield. Rep. John McHugh, a New York Republican, offered an amendment last week to bar females from serving in so-called Forward Support Companies. Those Army units supply maintenance and medical support to soldiers in direct combat missions. As a result, McHugh and others feared women were coming closer to combat than allowed under a Pentagon policy approved 10 years ago. Army leaders and veterans groups strongly objected to McHugh's proposal, saying it would disrupt operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where women are playing an increasingly important role.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Far more serious than the short-term consequences of some poorly armored vehicles in Iraq are the potential long-term consequences of putting female soldiers in ground combat units. Critics of placing women in combat units say the Army is manipulating language in rules governing such placement to achieve a social objective that would substantially and significantly change the way America fights wars and possibly put all soldiers -- men and women -- at greater risk. What has raised concerns is a Nov. 29 briefing by a senior Army officer responsible for Army personnel issues at the Pentagon, along with a civilian.

WASHINGTON -- They make you want to turn away, those awful pictures of naked men piled into human pyramids while smirking American soldiers give the thumbs-up sign or grin inanely into the camera. Then you look closer, not at the humiliating jumble of naked flesh but at the American soldiers, and you realize that some of them are women. What is already a shocking tale becomes even more obscene and unsettling. Clearly there has been a terrible breakdown in order and discipline at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan and Guantanamo, Cuba.

WASHINGTON -- They make you want to turn away, those awful pictures of naked men piled into human pyramids while smirking American soldiers give the thumbs-up sign or grin inanely into the camera. Then you look closer, not at the humiliating jumble of naked flesh but at the American soldiers, and you realize that some of them are women. What is already a shocking tale becomes even more obscene and unsettling. Clearly there has been a terrible breakdown in order and discipline at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan and Guantanamo, Cuba.

The Army yesterday dropped more criminal charges against Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson, further shrinking what was once a 148-count case against the Aberdeen Proving Ground drill instructor to 58 charges just days before his court-martial begins.Of the 19 counts dropped yesterday, two were rape charges that involved the same number of female soldiers. Simpson, 32, faces 19 rape allegations involving six female recruits -- down from a high of 11 women he was accused of raping when a pretrial hearing started last month.