by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 25, 2023) — In a series of articles beginning early this year and in particular, an August 8, 2023 report, CNN exposed the U.S. Coast Guard’s attempts to conceal its investigation into reported sexual assaults about which, once exposed, members of Congress began to ask questions.
“The then-leader of the US Coast Guard covered up an explosive investigation four years ago into rapes and sexual assaults at the agency’s academy despite prior plans by top officials to come clean about the inquiry, a CNN investigation found,” the August 8 article begins. “Commandant Karl L. Schultz took charge of the agency in June of 2018 as the secret investigation, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, was concluding. The inquiry revealed a dark history of sexual misconduct at the prestigious academy, substantiating dozens of rapes and assaults from the late 1980s to 2006.”
On Thursday, September 14, CNN reported the U.S. Senate launched “a formal inquiry” into “Operation Fouled Anchor” as a result of its exposure of the Coast Guard’s attempts to “cover up” claims of sexual assault “and other serious misconduct” within its ranks.
CNN’s reporting of the issue, which the US military as a whole seldom discusses publicly, prompted former U.S. Army Captain, Reverend Dr. Gary Mason, II to contact The Post & Email given his experience in dealing with sexual assault and other types of trauma sustained by military victims both while he was wearing the Army uniform and after his separation from service in 2015.
Specifically, Mason served as a spiritual advisor to an Army soldier and captain, now deceased, who was the victim of a brutal sexual assault at Fort Lee, VA, while on active duty, where Mason first met him. The captain’s assault and subsequent traumatic brain injury occurred after he had reported serious misconduct on the part of his spouse and a member of his command to higher military authorities.
The soldier’s story was told in a series of 2016 articles, concluding in his medical discharge early the following year.
Following Mason’s discharge from the Army after 15 years of service, he pursued a “Doctor of Military Ministry” in which he concluded, via his dissertation, that “unconditional love” was the only panacea for the anguish he endured, which eventually forced him to take an unwarranted medical discharge after suffering years of threats, discrimination, unwarranted psychological testing and isolation after writing his chain of command with concerns about the mental health of a group of fellow soldiers-in-arms ensnared in a situation beyond their control.
The Post & Email told Mason’s story in approximately 49 installments which became the contents of his book, “Persecuted to Love: A Soldier’s Story.” A preview of his doctoral dissertation can be accessed here.
Although having planned to serve indefinitely as a military chaplain, Mason’s life has taken a different route as he and wife Shahnaaz have established a non-profit organization, “Thriving on the Homefront,” with the purpose of assisting veteran survivors of military trauma, including sexual assault.
In 2013, as a resident of Maryland at the time, Mason asked Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) to open a congressional inquiry into the treatment he received from the Army which led to his premature discharge. Cardin’s office never responded, Mason said, despite his “multiple” contacts with the senator’s office as well as with representatives from the offices of U.S. Senators Mazie Hirono and the late Daniel Inouye dating to the time Mason was stationed in Hawaii.
On August 31, 2020, Mason notified Cardin’s office of the soldier’s untimely passing with a reminder that this young captain had been a victim of military sexual assault, this time receiving “an unusually rapid response.”
Mason wrote to Cardin, in part:
While assigned there, I realized that another African-American Captain assigned to Fort Lee was also undergoing the same type of retribution, retaliation and harassment from the same base commander as I. While supporting one another at Walter Reed, I found out that he in fact was being forced out because he reported that his general officer in Korea was having an affair with his wife. When he reported the incident to the chain of command, he also was forced into the mental health program and illegally forced to take psychological exams as well. He was then threatened by our commanding officers and chain of command at Fort Lee to keep his mouth closed about his affairs.
Once he reported the situation, he was then raped by 4 contractors that worked for our commanding general at Fort Lee in 2013. He informed me about this incident in his hospital room while assigned to Walter Reed. He was then visited by the battalion commander of the ALU at Fort Lee who advised him to keep quiet and that they would offer him 100% disability for his silence on the matters.
I was informed by my colleague to keep quiet or they would do the same to me.
His service to the soldier at Walter Reed, Mason recalled, was as a “non-medical attendant” with the purpose of providing spiritual insight, encouragement and emotional support. “I was contracted and being paid,” Mason said, but after a time, the chain of command from the Wounded Warrior Brigade put a stop to it. “They cut it off, removed me and his power of attorney from making decisions about medication and the like,” Mason said in his recent interview with The Post & Email.
The “cover-up” of the soldier’s trauma, Mason said, included that “the soldier’s nurse case manager knew what was going on and was refusing to put the military sexual trauma in his medical records.”
He continued:
There were a lot of patients at Walter Reed who were suffering military sexual trauma, but a lot of them felt while they were in the system at Walter Reed they did not want to be ostracized or were still trying to salvage their career. They were hoping they could get beyond it in the military. But the military did not want them to stay; they wanted to discharge them medically and to continue covering up the crimes of sexual assault.
Once I was no longer inside of the military, my wife and I started a non-profit organization, “Thriving on the Homefront,” where we decided we were going to step in and advocate for those struggling with racism, military sexual trauma; assist those who were struggling with suicide, post-traumatic stress, and building marriages, helping them to heal if they had been sufferers or survivors of any of these types of military trauma.
We’ve done a lot. Of course, it’s gone unheard because the media doesn’t want to report that so many service members are suffering from these types of military trauma and conditions.
I wrote my senator, Tim Scott, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and I sent the police reports about the soldier and the fact that he had mysteriously ended up dead in the river and that the case was never fully investigated. I also mentioned that there was an interview done by the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiner’s Office – they called — and they interviewed the soldier’s POA and me for about an hour, and they asked me to report on all the sexual assault and trauma at Walter Reed and the soldier’s situation. I still have the complete 48-minute interview.
In my communications with Sen. Scott, I said, “It’s been over two years and I’ve been trying to reach the secretary of defense to get a time to sit down and talk about these kinds of issues, because I think I can help,” and he could also help me with my issues. Twice the office of the secretary of defense received my letters, but there’s been no response at all about my concerns. The only thing Scott would offer was, “You can always go to the Board of Military Corrections and correct anything in your records.” But this is about a greater theme to help solve, expose, remove, and help heal those who have suffered from military trauma.
A lot of times, survivors of sexual trauma have a desire to want to fight. To stay in the military, they kind-of have to agree to not bring that up. That goes along with the whole forced cognitive dissonance thing.
At one point, I tried to reach out to the Trump administration. This current president I haven’t reached out to because I don’t think he’s capable. My wife Shahnaaz reached out to Joe Biden’s office when he was vice president with a military justice bill she wrote; what she wanted was to have Congress have civilian oversight and adjudication with a body of attorneys with no connection to the military assigned to review reports of rape, racism, discrimination, assault. She offered that before President Biden came into office, but we never got any response.
To be continued.
SOUNDS LIKE: THE FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE.