Found Deceased TX - Sgt. Elder Fernandes, 23, Fort Hood, 17 August 2020

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What in the world?
Harassed and hazed. Transferred to protect him from reprisals from superiors. It seems like this was common knowledge.

How could he trust those in mental health facility if he had fear of reprisals?
Rationally, the people at the mental health facility would not be against him. But, if he had to be transferred based on fear of reprisals, he had to think his career was over by being hospitalized. The last thing that a victim of assault needs is a lack of unfettered contact with family. Bluntly and from a more paranoid perspective, the military institution that made it possible for him to be abused then held him captive in the facility. If he balked he would not get out and be medically discharged from the military.

Poor guy, he must have been terrified and despondent.

I still wonder what the conversation was in between the facility and where he was dropped off at. I am concerned that there may have been some red flags...


From the Washington Post:
A friend of Fernandes told Khawam that the soldier was being harassed and hazed within the unit. Brautigam, the 1st Cavalry Division spokesman, said Fernandes was transferred to another unit to avoid reprisals from superiors.

“These men and women go through a lot,” Khawam said. “I’m not talking about war here. It’s toxic command.”

Army officials said the search for Fernandes was a “top priority” of the 1st Cavalry Division, with soldiers searching for him on and off Fort Hood and with Killeen police also investigating.

But the family said the Army took too long to get the public involved. A news release was published four days after Fernandes was last seen.

“The Army goes online, posting they helped since day one,” Isabel Fernandes said. “It’s all bull—t.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...26/elder-fernandes-missing-soldier-fort-hood/
 
kaen said:
What in the world?
Harassed and hazed. Transferred to protect him from reprisals from superiors. It seems like this was common knowledge.

How could he trust those in mental health facility if he had fear of reprisals?
Rationally, the people at the mental health facility would not be against him. But, if he had to be transferred based on fear of reprisals, he had to think his career was over by being hospitalized. The last thing that a victim of assault needs is a lack of unfettered contact with family. Bluntly and from a more paranoid perspective, the military institution that made it possible for him to be abused then held him captive in the facility. If he balked he would not get out and be medically discharged from the military.

Poor guy, he must have been terrified and despondent.

I still wonder what the conversation was in between the facility and where he was dropped off at. I am concerned that there may have been some red flags...


From the Washington Post:
A friend of Fernandes told Khawam that the soldier was being harassed and hazed within the unit. Brautigam, the 1st Cavalry Division spokesman, said Fernandes was transferred to another unit to avoid reprisals from superiors.

“These men and women go through a lot,” Khawam said. “I’m not talking about war here. It’s toxic command.”

Army officials said the search for Fernandes was a “top priority” of the 1st Cavalry Division, with soldiers searching for him on and off Fort Hood and with Killeen police also investigating.

But the family said the Army took too long to get the public involved. A news release was published four days after Fernandes was last seen.

“The Army goes online, posting they helped since day one,” Isabel Fernandes said. “It’s all bull—t.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...26/elder-fernandes-missing-soldier-fort-hood/
Click to expand...
Absolutely horrible! “It’s a toxic command” is very telling. Something is not right. MOO
 
cvaldez1975 said:
Family: Soldier believed dead was happy until recently

RIP Sgt. Fernandes
Click to expand...
Isabel Fernandes said her nephew was happy in the Army and had just renewed his contract until 2024. But she said things changed when, according to the accounts they have gathered from multiple people close to Elder Fernandes, he filed a sexual-assault claim against a superior on May 11. She said the family has also learned he was bullied, harassed and hazed when he was moved to a new unit following the assault.

U.S. Army officials confirmed in a statement that Elder Fernandes reported an incident of “abusive sexual contact” and that investigation is ongoing. He was transferred to a different unit within the brigade and officials said they are unaware of reports of bullying or hazing.

According to Isabel Fernandes, the family was told by Army officials that a different superior signed her nephew's hospital release. The superior dropped him off outside of a house belonging to a former roommate of Elder Fernandes.

But Fernandes never made it to the friend's door.
 
kelsie said:
Isabel Fernandes said her nephew was happy in the Army and had just renewed his contract until 2024. But she said things changed when, according to the accounts they have gathered from multiple people close to Elder Fernandes, he filed a sexual-assault claim against a superior on May 11. She said the family has also learned he was bullied, harassed and hazed when he was moved to a new unit following the assault.

U.S. Army officials confirmed in a statement that Elder Fernandes reported an incident of “abusive sexual contact” and that investigation is ongoing. He was transferred to a different unit within the brigade and officials said they are unaware of reports of bullying or hazing.

According to Isabel Fernandes, the family was told by Army officials that a different superior signed her nephew's hospital release. The superior dropped him off outside of a house belonging to a former roommate of Elder Fernandes.

But Fernandes never made it to the friend's door.
Click to expand...

This is heartbreaking, and I swear a few weeks ago I started to anticipate that Fort Hood is going to be trending every few weeks now. I think there is a serial or systematic component to this. Young people of all backgrounds join out of a desire to serve and to create a solid life for themselves. They deserve better from us - We The People who pay them and their superiors. We should expect those superiors to take care of them. They deserve equal treatment and equal opportunity to succeed. They deserve dignified treatment. And their families deserve transparency when their lives are threatened or taken.

These are our American children, of all colors, working hard to defend us.
 
These soldiers signed up, willing to do what it takes and die for us and country.
Now he gets his career ruined for reporting an assault? He should have been commended.
Reprisals?

HE was moved? Isolated him, made him a pariah.
They got to deploy?

So corrupt.
 
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My cousin was stationed at Fort Hood about ten years ago. She was repeatedly harassed and then raped by three soldiers from the base. She had the courage to report it, had bruises and scratches and torn clothes to prove it but was quickly deemed mentally unstable and discharged. Nothing happened to the men who raped her, they all went on to have careers in the military.
 
Clair Louise said:
I don't agree with you. Hiding it does what?
Click to expand...
Hiding it doesn’t help, but that is exactly what many victims want to happen. NoSi is speaking of the perspective of the victim. They want to hide, they think they may have been responsible in some convoluted way. Having the information become public could be very dangerous for the victim’s mental stability at this time.
 
evilwise said:
Another one? <modsnip>. I am beginning to notice a pattern in these victims of being very much the antithesis of "gung ho" soldier types. Fort Hood really needs to get a handle on this before it starts reflecting poorly even higher up the ladder than base command.
Click to expand...

I am furious. No confounded excuse for this!

Fort Hood badly needs to get their act together. NOW.
 
Moonbeam456 said:
My cousin was stationed at Fort Hood about ten years ago. She was repeatedly harassed and then raped by three soldiers from the base. She had the courage to report it, had bruises and scratches and torn clothes to prove it but was quickly deemed mentally unstable and discharged. Nothing happened to the men who raped her, they all went on to have careers in the military.
Click to expand...

I'm so very, very sorry this happened to your cousin.
 
Moonbeam456 said:
My cousin was stationed at Fort Hood about ten years ago. She was repeatedly harassed and then raped by three soldiers from the base. She had the courage to report it, had bruises and scratches and torn clothes to prove it but was quickly deemed mentally unstable and discharged. Nothing happened to the men who raped her, they all went on to have careers in the military.
Click to expand...
Oh my goodness. I am so, so, sorry. I hope that she is healing a bit more every day. Hard to do when there is no justice, but sadly that's the case for so many survivors.
 
Boxer said:
These soldiers signed up, willing to do what it takes and die for us and country.
Now he gets his career ruined for reporting an assault? He should have been commended.
Reprisals?

HE was moved? Isolated him, made him a pariah.
They got to deploy?

So corrupt.
Click to expand...
See the issue can be that in the military, things like squad cohesion and the chain of command can be seen as literally everything. If a soldier is seen as too much of an independent thinker a superior might think it's a good idea to demonstrate that he can make that soldier do what he's ordered to do even if there's no obvious reason for it, even if it constitutes sexual assault. There's the idea that in a combat situation a soldier may not understand the reason for the order they're receiving but lives depend on them following it - and other soldiers are expected to pull together as a unit against soldiers that are seen as not operating as a part of that unit even if it means handing him a noose and dropping him off in the middle of nowhere or disposing of his dismembered remains in the ocean after pressuring him into riding on the running boards of a Jeep at 50 mph down a bumpy beach.

The thing is that these soldiers are not destined for combat. The military needs more mechanics, IT techs, mathematicians, electricians and other nerds than it needs killing machines but that isn't the culture
 
Moonbeam456 said:
My cousin was stationed at Fort Hood about ten years ago. She was repeatedly harassed and then raped by three soldiers from the base. She had the courage to report it, had bruises and scratches and torn clothes to prove it but was quickly deemed mentally unstable and discharged. Nothing happened to the men who raped her, they all went on to have careers in the military.
Click to expand...

I wanted to honor your post and hated to "like" it. These are issues that must be faced in the military because stories such as this make it so that survivors do not come forward and/or self-harm.

I am so sorry for your cousin and her experience. I hope she has a great support system and knows that even though she didn't get justice that she is believed by many in this world.
 
oviedo said:
Frankly I’m going to need a reconstruction to believe this is a true unassisted suicide - this doesn’t sound right at all
Imo
Click to expand...

We had the young man in FL who killed himself while on the phone with his girl friend (she was ultimately held to account although served very little time). I think it is very possible that he was shamed, counseled and had his peers/superiors in his head to the point of being vulnerable to suggestion that his life was not worth living. The young woman psychologically assisted her boyfriend's suicide. I think that this soldier may have had psychological pressure as well.

A saving grace here is that his family will probably speak out and demand information so we will ultimately know who picked him up at the facility, when he was dropped off, where he was dropped off, and the conversation. I fear that there will be limited justice but I hope for some for this young man.
 
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