Thread by @halbritz

NEW: Weeks ago, I set out to answer the question, “What’s going on at Fort Hood?”

That question evolved again and again, and has resulted in what I hope gives another window into who Vanessa Guillén was, what happened to her & what it means for the Army.
taskandpurpose.com/news/inside-th…

A little about Vanessa: She had a contagious smile, everyone loved her. She was planning to go to college, maybe Texas A&M, get married, and someday become a mom.

Her sister Lupe told me: “You know how they say no one’s perfect? Vanessa, she was...the definition of perfection."

Near the end of last year, though, her family could tell something was wrong.

She had bags under her eyes, her hair looked thin, she'd lost weight. She wasn't smiling anymore. Her mom kept pushing her to tell her what was wrong, and she eventually did.

She told her mom she was being sexually harassed, Lupe said.

“She told my mom, ‘I can’t report it, I’ve seen other girls pass through the same situation and they ignore them. They say that they’re lying. They don’t listen to them.’”

While her mom urged her to “rip up her [Army] contract in front of them and come back home," Lupe said, Vanessa assured her that she would take care of it herself.

Months later, on the weekend of April 19, it seemed like maybe she'd turned a corner. Lupe said that Vanessa seemed to be her normal happy self again when she left to go back to Fort Hood.

That was the last time she saw her sister. Three days later, Vanessa was gone.

The Army's investigation command has since been criticized for appearing to not move fast enough in their search.

They don't agree; a CID spokesman said they conducted over 300 interviews, tracked down 250 tips, and put in "over 14,600 investigative man-hours."

And Fort Hood's leadership has been criticized for failing to communicate.

Vanessa's family and her family's attorney have said repeatedly that they felt they weren't getting the full story, that leaders were "evasive."

A soldier currently at Fort Hood told me that while authorities searched for Vanessa, the “big push from command channels” was to make sure the “reward posters were…posted everywhere, so we looked good.”

“But besides that, honestly, it was like it wasn’t even happening.”

Since Vanessa's death, several investigations have been announced into Fort Hood, its leadership, the Army's sexual harassment prevention program, and more.

This story is far from over.

Vanessa's family only hopes that at the end of the day, they'll see change.

Lupe said that when Vanessa joined the Army, she told her family she wasn't afraid of going into combat because if she died there, "she died for a reason."

“The reason was ... to serve the country that gave my parents opportunities, that gave Vanessa opportunities," Lupe said.

But "she was murdered on base, and there hasn’t been change," Lupe said, adding that Vanessa's death "could have been prevented if the change" they're now seeking had only come earlier.

“My sister could have been here, right next to me.”
taskandpurpose.com/news/inside-th…