Comments on: Stop me if you've heard this one...

Stop me if you've heard this one...

toma — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:54:13 -0800

19 year old Pfc. LaVena Johnson's dead body was found in her tent, near Balad, Iraq. Her face was beaten, nose broken, teeth loosened, and she'd been shot through the left side of her head. A trail of blood was found nearby, and the tent appeared to be partly burned. The Army ruled it a suicide. Bloggers were doubtful. The Johnson family asked that the remains be disinterred and a better investigation launched. Meanwhile, the internet pushes back.

By: toma

toma — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:59:30 -0800

I posted this on another site: You can throw in your two cents as well, start here: http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3052660 Choose 'Suggestions for new content" and fire away. Here's mine.. I am writing to you in hope that you will finally cover the scandalous death of PFC. LaVena Johnson while stationed in Iraq. Her beaten body was found in her tent near Balad with a bullet hole in the left side of her head. While the family was at first casually notified that it appeared to be a homicide, officials later ruled that it was a suicide, ignoring obvious contrary evidence including her battered face, a blood trail, the dubious theory that an M-16 was the weapon, and the apparent attempt to burn the tent down (probably to destroy evidence of the crime). This was a tragedy, but now it's a scandal given the Army's seeming lack of brains or character. The sad parallels with Pat Tillman's death are eerie: young and patriotic Americans, from families of Veterans, in good health and in good standing with the service, needlessly dying, apparently killed by their own, with the events covered up by a clumsy military machine. Please shed light on this terrible crime, her family is owed so much better. The considerable powers vested in ABC news by way of our public airwaves and its long record of substantive journalism could turn the tide of misfortune the family's had to endure. I think we can all agree that Pfc. Johnson deserves far better than the obviously at least incompetent treatment she's received after her death. Thank You, [me]

By: zardoz

zardoz — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:45:56 -0800

I hadn't heard about this at all. Circumstances are indeed fishy.

By: chlorus

chlorus — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:29:16 -0800

A, a bruised, battered body the product of another suicide eh? Sounds a lot like the death of Kenney Trentadue.

By: Avenger

Avenger — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:46:30 -0800

Her face was beaten, nose broken, teeth loosened, and she'd been shot through the left side of her head. A trail of blood was found nearby, and the tent appeared to be partly burned. The Army ruled it a suicide. I'm surprised that they didn't claim Pfc. Johnson valiantly fell while defending her tent from a team of 600 al-Qaeda ninja-terrorists. I agree that it does sound extremely fishy, and furthermore I don't think I'll ever be able to believe the Army about soldier's deaths after the Tillman fiasco. If the people at the top are manipulating accounts of soldier's deaths to bolster support for the war, then there really isn't any reason why we shouldn't assume the worst whenever the Army says "Oh, Private so-n-so choked on a pretzel. He certainly wasn't beaten to death by his bunkmates for being gay! No siree!"

By: fourcheesemac

fourcheesemac — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:55:09 -0800

Yeah, suicide by beating the shit out of your own face. Right.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:01:16 -0800

Man, her and Danny Casolaro.

By: Gnostic Novelist

Gnostic Novelist — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:04:53 -0800

The worst forensics team imaginable. I guess D students need jobs too.

By: flashboy

flashboy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:05:24 -0800

While we're listing innovative military "suicides", it would be remiss to ignore Pte. Geoff Gray, who was on duty at the Deepcut Barracks in Surrey when he took his life by shooting himself in the head. Twice.

By: chunking express

chunking express — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:11:00 -0800

The army likes to lie. It's how you keep morale up. That said, this story of a suicide by beating yourself till you are pretty bloody, and then shooting yourself in the head is not that great a lie.

By: Avenger

Avenger — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:12:58 -0800

actually, it's an awesome lie if you can get 30% of the American people to believe it.

By: chunking express

chunking express — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:18:01 -0800

Hardly: 30% of Americans will believe anything. Anything at all.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:19:12 -0800

actually, it's an awesome lie if you can get 30% of the American people to believe it.

A Big Lie, in fact.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:20:23 -0800

God damn, the Army is fucked up. This is so disgusting. "The investigation is closed" indeed. This is really ugly.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:06:58 -0800

By: andywolf

andywolf — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:09:40 -0800

i wonder what was going through her mind right at the end.

By: justkevin

justkevin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:15:06 -0800

Given the facts I wouldn't say that suicide was impossible-- the bruising and broken nose could have been caused by the trauma of the gun shot, the fire could have started accidentally, the blood trail could have been caused by a sloppy early investigator to the scene, she physically could have shot herself in that way, and signs of depression aren't always obvious. It just seems really improbable. Almost as improbable as someone looking at these facts and saying, "Looks like suicide." I'd be curious to hear the investigators' logic supporting the suicide hypothesis.

By: a robot made out of meat

a robot made out of meat — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:20:27 -0800

flashboy, it's not as uncommon as you'd think. Do EMS long enough, and you'll run into people who shoot themselves in the head and don't hit anything immediately fatal. A subset of those will shoot themselves again. There's also a non-trivial chance that a gun will simply fire two rounds from the recoil and spasm.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:30:37 -0800

Saying that those stationed in Iraq are prone to suicide is a way to keep morale up? They need a better marketing team.

By: bbuda

bbuda — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:43:27 -0800

Going off on a tangent, but there's a wonderful quote on the "Big Lie" Wikipedia page that Flunkie linked. This is from "a report prepared during [World War II] by the United States Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler's psychological profile":

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

By: gsh

gsh — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:46:11 -0800

Wasn't this a movie with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson?

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:48:45 -0800

Wasn't this a movie with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson? Dick Cheney doesn't give a good goddamn what you think you're entitled to.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:51:20 -0800

You can't handle the truth! *expends spittle in an unladylike fashion*

By: Webbster

Webbster — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:53:18 -0800

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:19:35 -0800

*expends spittle in an unladylike fashion* between this and the fpp description, i'm gettin' pretty wet over here

By: Artful Codger

Artful Codger — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:32:09 -0800

The worst forensics team imaginable. I guess D students need jobs too. D students would have just followed the book, and would have reached the obvious conclusion that it was a homicide. No, it takes an A+ ambitious type, one of the best and the brightest, to successfully lie about something like this, to create enough FUD for such a lie to make it so far, and to successfully stonewall any real inquiry. My big question is...why?

By: quin

quin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:21:46 -0800

andywolf : i wonder what was going through her mind right at the end. *considers the setup...* Nah, too easy.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:24:41 -0800

No truth-handler you! Bah! I deride your truth-handling abilities!

By: phaedon

phaedon — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:29:41 -0800

As an individual, this story makes me extremely sad. As a part of a group, I don't know what the hell is going on in this country anymore, and I don't know what I can do to help this girl in her memory.

By: andywolf

andywolf — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:30:17 -0800

ah, come on quin. goddamnit, i lob a good one out there and no one hit's it outta the park?

By: quin

quin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:47:30 -0800

An Army representative initially told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of "died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries," but initially added that it was not a suicide. smackfu : What does that even mean? I suppose it could mean that she drove her Humvee into a wall, or fell off of a roof or something. I'm bothered by the fact that they changed it to a suicide. I mean, the fact that they are pretty clearly covering something up is bad enough, but to then to say, 'Oh, it wasn't an accident, she committed a mortal sin." Don't get me wrong, personally, I don't believe that suicide is anything other than taking one's own life, but there are a lot of religions where this is pretty close to the worst thing you can do. I really hope this all comes out, because this kind of shit has got to stop. It's bad enough that we still have people over there, but if they are now killing each other? It's gone too far.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:37:18 -0800

See also: female cadet officer at Sandhurst in critical condition, allegedly chucked out of a window. a robot made out of meat writes 'Do EMS long enough, and you'll run into people who shoot themselves in the head and don't hit anything immediately fatal. A subset of those will shoot themselves again. There's also a non-trivial chance that a gun will simply fire two rounds from the recoil and spasm.' I don't doubt you, but in the context of Deep Cut, where Private Sean Benton also committed 'suicide' by firing five shots into his own chest, four of them from a distance, it looks a bit more fishy. (Two other soldiers died there too. Probably suicides, but the army destroying their uniforms and other forensic evidence does make one wonder what the fuck was going on at the barracks...)

By: alby

alby — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:42:23 -0800

Anyone else creeped out when they hovered over "the remains" and got a link to YouTube?

By: etaoin

etaoin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:15:31 -0800

An Army representative initially told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of "died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries," but initially added that it was not a suicide. What does that even mean? It's a catchall phrase that covers accidental shootings but can include suicides if not specifically ruled out.

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:22:19 -0800

My big question is...why? I think the obvious conclusion would be rape. It's less bad for the Army to say that a soldier committed suicide ("despite our best screening procedures, the occasional unbalanced individual slips through and is unable to handle the stresses of war. It's a tragic situation. Did we mention she's a woman? Stress affects them worse than men. Perhaps we should revisit having women in operational theatres...") than to say that a soldier was raped. Obviously I don't know. But it's a plausible explanation, I think.

By: SweetJesus

SweetJesus — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:03:12 -0800

Jesus, Is there anything you guys can't second guess from afar?

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:14:19 -0800

SweetJesus, if one accepts the premise that this wasn't actually a suicide, one must therefore look at plausible reasons for why the Army would call it such. I made a point of saying that I don't know what happened.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:53:49 -0800

Jesus, Is there anything... Eponysterical!