Military Retaliation: Why nothing changes

(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Devin Boyer)

OpEd by: Melissa Godoy

From housing to sexual trauma to medical malpractice; service members aren’t able to appeal injustice in certain situations. This may be shocking news, so let’s talk about what is stopping them. Military retaliation.

SSG Sandy Marquis from Fort Hood filed a SHARP complaint in Oct 2018. Her nightmare began a month later when she found herself being investigated for erroneous allegations that were recently dropped. Within the past few weeks, her command issued a GOMOR but was later dropped.

“Military families who reported poor on-base living conditions often felt they faced retaliation for doing so, an Army inspector general report released Thursday found.” -The News Tribune Sept 2019

In the case of SSG Miguel Colonvazquez stationed in Fort Hood, Texas. In 2016, he and eight other service members drowned when they tried to cross a flash flood in a military vehicle. SSgt Colonvazquez’s widow stated that she spoke to the three survivors of this deadly accident.

The survivors stated that it was not her late husband’s fault. They stated that it was their leadership that demanded the SSG to cross the flash flood. The three survivors also said they were silenced by command, and were not interviewed for the investigation.

SSG Colonvazquez’s widow also stated that there were signs all over the barracks telling the unit to not speak to anyone about the accident that drowned nine of their team members. They werent allowed to talk about what happened. They were not given a chance to grieve for their loss.

“Joshua Roh, now a 3rd class boatswain’s mate serving in New Hampshire, filed a motion Oct. 1 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., saying that his rights were violated by his Coast Guard chain of command when they failed to support him after the alleged assault and later sought to discredit him.” -Military.com Oct 2021

Military Retaliation

I’ve had service members message me about retaliation for complaining about their barracks. Someone allegedly emailed a news source about the deteriorating barracks conditions. The service member claimed that leadership went from room to room, trying to find the room featured in the article.

I have heard of and seen different types of retaliation from quite a few service members that leaves me with this conclusion, “don’t complain about anything or you will get in trouble.”

This retaliation is the reason why there are no improvements with housing, food, medical care, mental health and leadership.

Next question: How do we fix this?

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