[Dialogue] 'A Soldier's Officer'

[Harry Wainwright]

 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf> washingtonpost.com

 

'A Soldier's Officer'

by Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 2, 2007; A01

In a nondescript conference room at Walter
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Walter+Reed+Health+Care+Sys
tem?tid=informline>  Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside
listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against
her in a preliminary hearing. The charges: attempting suicide and
endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iraq?tid=informline> .

Her hands trembled as Maj. Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that
Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Walter+Reed?tid=informline>
Reed, should be court-martialed. After seven years of exemplary service, the
25-year-old Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is
tried and convicted.

Military psychiatrists at Walter Reed who examined Whiteside after she
recovered from her self-inflicted gunshot wound diagnosed her with a severe
mental disorder, possibly triggered by the stresses of a war zone. But
Whiteside's superiors considered her mental illness "an excuse" for criminal
conduct, according to documents obtained by The
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Washington+Post+Company
?tid=informline>  Washington Post.

At the hearing, Wolfe, who had already warned Whiteside's lawyer of the risk
of using a "psychobabble" defense, pressed a senior psychiatrist at Walter
Reed to justify his diagnosis.

"I'm not here to play legal games," Col. George Brandt responded angrily,
according to a recording of the hearing. "I am here out of the genuine
concern for a human being that's breaking and that is broken. She has a
severe and significant illness. Let's treat her as a human being, for
Christ's sake!"

In recent months, prodded by outrage over poor conditions at Walter Reed,
the Army has made a highly publicized effort to improve treatment of Iraq
veterans and change a culture that stigmatizes mental illness. The
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Pentagon?tid=informline
>  Pentagon has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to new research
and to care for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, and on Friday
it announced that it had opened a new center for psychological health in
Rosslyn
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Rosslyn?tid=informline> .

But outside the Pentagon, the military still largely deals with mental
health issues in an ad hoc way, often relying on the judgment of
combat-hardened commanders whose understanding of mental illness is vague or
misinformed. The stigma around psychological wounds can still be seen in the
smallest of Army policies. While family members of soldiers recovering at
Walter Reed from physical injuries are provided free lodging and a per diem
to care for their loved ones, families of psychiatric outpatients usually
have to pay their own way.

"It's a disgrace," said Tom Whiteside, a former Marine and retired federal
law enforcement officer who lost his free housing after his daughter's
physical wounds had healed enough that she could be moved to the psychiatric
ward. A charity organization, the Yellow Ribbon Fund, provides him with an
apartment near Walter Reed so he can be near his daughter.

Under military law, soldiers who attempt suicide can be prosecuted under the
theory that it affects the order and discipline of a unit and brings
discredit to the armed forces. In reality, criminal charges are extremely
rare unless there is evidence that the attempt was an effort to avoid
service or that it endangered others.

At one point, Elizabeth Whiteside almost accepted the Army's offer to resign
in lieu of court-martial. But it meant she would have to explain for the
rest of her life why she was not given an honorable discharge. Her attorney
also believed that she would have been left without the medical care and
benefits she needed.

No decision has yet been made on whether Whiteside's case will proceed to
court-martial. The commander of the U.S.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Army?tid=informline>
Army Military District of Washington, Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., who has
jurisdiction over the case, "must determine whether there is sufficient
evidence to support the charges against Lieutenant Whiteside and recommend
how to dispose of the charges," said his spokesman.

'A Soldier's Officer'

A valedictorian at James Madison High School in Vienna
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Vienna?tid=informline> , a
wrestler and varsity soccer player, Whiteside followed in her father's
footsteps by joining the military. She enlisted in the Army
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Army+Reserve?tid=infor
mline>  Reserve in 2001 and later joined ROTC
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Army+ROTC?tid=informli
ne>  while studying economics at the University
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/University+of+Virginia?tid=
informline>  of Virginia. During her time in college, Whiteside said, she
experienced periods of depression, but she graduated and was commissioned an
officer in the Army Reserve.

In 2005, she received her first assignment as an officer -- at Walter Reed.
As an executive officer of a support company, she supervised 150 soldiers
and officers, and her evaluations from that time presaged the high marks she
would receive most of her career.

"This superior officer is in the top 10 percent of Officers I have worked
with in my 16 years of military service," wrote her rater, Capt. Joel Grant.
She "must be promoted immediately, ahead of all peers."

Maj. Sandra Hersh, her senior rater, added: "She's a Soldier's Officer. . .
. She is able to get the best from Soldiers and make it look easy."

Seeing so many casualties at Walter Reed made Whiteside feel she was not
bearing her full responsibility, she said, so she volunteered for Iraq. When
she left in the fall of 2006, she carried with her a gift from her father --
the double-bladed buck knife he had used in Vietnam
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Vietnam?tid=informline> .

Whiteside was assigned as a platoon leader in the 329th Medical Company
(Ground Ambulance) at the Camp
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Camp+Cropper?tid=informline
>  Cropper detainee prison near Baghdad International Airport. The hot light
from the Abu
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Abu+Ghraib?tid=informline>
Ghraib abuse scandal still charged the atmosphere at Cropper, which housed
4,000 detainees and included high-security prisoners such as Saddam
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Saddam+Hussein?tid=informli
ne>  Hussein and Ali
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Ali+Hassan+al-Majid?tid=inf
ormline>  Hassan Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali," as well as suspected
terrorists and insurgents.

Whiteside, given the radio handle "Trauma Mama," supervised nine medics who
worked the night shift at the prison. She was in charge of dispatching
drivers, medics and support staff to transport sick and wounded Iraqis and
U.S. troops around the prison and to a small hospital inside.

"I loved our mission," Whiteside said, "because it represented the best of
America: taking care of the enemy, regardless of what they are doing to us."

The hours were brutal. Whiteside ate one meal a day, slept in two four-hour
shifts and worked seven days a week. Her superiors credited her with her
unit's success. "She has produced outstanding results in one of the most
demanding and challenging Combat Zones," her commander, Lt. Col. Darlene
McCurdy, wrote in her evaluation.

But the dynamics outside her unit were rockier. From the beginning,
Whiteside and some of her female soldiers had conflicts with one of the
company's male officers. They believed he hindered female promotions and
undercut Whiteside's authority with her soldiers, according to Army
investigative documents.

As the tensions with the officer increased, Whiteside said, she began
suffering panic attacks. She stopped sleeping, she said, and started
self-medicating with NyQuil and Benadryl
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Benadryl?tid=informline> ,
but decided against seeking help from the mental health clinic because she
feared that the Army would send her home, as it had recently done with a
colonel.

On Dec. 30, U.S.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Armed+Forces?tid=infor
mline>  military officials took Hussein from his cell at Camp Cropper for
execution. The next day, the prison erupted. Thousands of inmates rioted,
and military police used rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades and tear gas to
restore order.

Whiteside took charge in the chaos, according to written statements by
troops in her unit. She dispatched a pair of medics to each compound to
begin triage, handed out gas masks and organized her unit to smuggle the
prison's doctors out in an ambulance.

The next day, weary from the riots, Whiteside ran into the problem officer.
They had another argument.

Army investigative documents describe what happened next.

At 6:20 p.m. a soldier frantically approached Maj. Ana Luisa Ramirez, a
mental health nurse at the prison, and said Whiteside was "freaking out" and
wanted to see Ramirez. The nurse found Whiteside sitting on her bed,
mumbling and visibly upset. Ramirez left to get some medication.

Later, she spotted Whiteside in the darkened hallway with her sweatshirt
hood pulled over her head and her hands in her pockets. Ramirez asked
Whiteside to come into her room and noticed what appeared to be dried blood
on her neck and hands. When she tried to take a closer look, Ramirez said,
Whiteside pointed her sidearm, an M9 pistol, at her and "told me to move
away and she locked the door," according to a statement Ramirez gave to the
Army.

Ramirez tried to take Whiteside's gun, but Whiteside pushed her away and
expressed her hatred of the officer she thought was sabotaging her. She grew
more agitated and twice fired into the ceiling.

Nurses in the hallway began yelling, and Whiteside shouted that she wanted
to kill them, the report said. She opened the door and saw armed soldiers in
battle gear coming her way. Slamming the door, she discharged the weapon
once into her stomach.

Whiteside says she has little recollection of the events of that night. "I
remember bits and pieces," she said. She declined to comment on whether she
was trying to kill herself.

The medics who responded to the shooting scene were Whiteside's own crew.

Recovering at Walter Reed

Whiteside was still unconscious when she arrived at Walter Reed a few days
later. The bullet had ripped through one of her lungs, her liver, her spleen
and several other organs. Her parents and siblings kept a round-the-clock
bedside vigil, and her condition gradually improved. Within two weeks an
Army criminal investigator showed up in her hospital room, but a doctor
shooed him away.

After a month, Whiteside was moved to Ward 54, the hospital's lockdown
psychiatric unit, where she was diagnosed with a severe major depressive
disorder and a personality disorder. According to a statement by an Army
psychiatrist, she was suffering from a disassociation with reality.

Tom Whiteside visited his daughter every afternoon, bringing pizza or
Chinese takeout. He often noticed from the sign-in sheet that he was the
only visitor on the ward. The psych patients formed a close bond and shared
an overriding fear: that the Army would drum them out with no benefits.

One soldier Whiteside befriended was a 20-year-old private named Sammantha
Owen-Ewing. Intelligent and funny, Owen-Ewing was training to be a nurse
when she suffered mental problems and was admitted to Ward 54. She was still
receiving psychiatric care at Walter Reed when the Army abruptly discharged
her. According to her husband, she was dropped off at a nearby hotel with a
plane ticket.

While on Ward 54, Whiteside received a package from her crew in Iraq. Inside
was a silver charm, inscribed with the crew members' names and the message:
"Know that you are always loved by us. Never be forgotten and dearly missed.
Your Trauma Team." The crew also wore "Trauma Mama" bracelets in solidarity.

After being released from Ward 54, Whiteside joined the outpatient ranks
just as the Army was scrambling to overhaul its system for treating wounded
soldiers and President
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+W.+Bush?tid=informli
ne>  Bush ordered a commission to study military care for Iraq veterans.

At Walter Reed, the Army brought in combat-experienced officers to replace
the recovering patients whom it had asked to manage the lives of the 700
outpatients on post. The new Warrior Transition Brigade and its more
experienced leaders were supposed to manage more adeptly the tension between
soldiering and patient recovery.

It was Whiteside's commanders in this unit, a captain and a colonel, who
drew up criminal charges against her in April. The accusations included
assault on a superior commissioned officer, aggravated assault, kidnapping,
reckless endangerment, wrongful discharge of a firearm, communication of a
threat and two attempts of intentional self-injury without intent to avoid
service.

The Army ordered Whiteside to undergo a sanity board evaluation to determine
her state of mind at the time of the shooting.

Tom Whiteside said the criminal charges threatened to unglue his daughter's
already tenuous grip on recovery. "If they are doing this to her, what are
they doing to those young PFCs without parents by their side?" he asked.

By early August, Elizabeth Whiteside sought an alternative to court-martial.
She requested permission to resign, a measure the military often accepts.

Rowe, commander of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, which has
jurisdiction over her case, would decide whether to grant her request.

He reviewed recommendations from Whiteside's two commanders at Walter Reed
and the facility's commander, Maj. Gen. Eric
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Eric+B.+Schoomaker?tid=info
rmline>  B. Schoomaker, a physician. Whiteside's immediate commander at the
hospital, a captain, recommended that she be given an "other than honorable"
discharge, according to a document obtained by The Post. The captain wrote
that her "defense that she suffers from a mental disease excusing her
actions is just that . . . an excuse; an excuse to distract from choices and
decisions made by 1LT Whiteside."

Col. Terrence J. McKenrick, commander of the Warrior Transition Brigade,
agreed: "Although the sanity board determined that at the time of the
misconduct she had a severe mental disease or defect, she knowingly
assaulted and threatened others and injured herself."

Schoomaker, now the Army's surgeon general, dissented. "This officer has a
demonstrably severe depression which manifested itself . . . as a psychotic,
self-destructive episode. . . . Resignation in lieu of court-martial
eliminates all of the benefits of medical support this officer deserves
after 7 years of credible and honorable service."

Rowe overruled Schoomaker. He agreed to accept Whiteside's resignation with
a "general under honorable conditions" discharge that would still deprive
her of most benefits, according to her pro bono civilian attorney, Matthew
J. MacLean.

But then, from her battalion commander in Iraq, Whiteside learned that an
investigation there had concluded that there was "insufficient evidence for
any criminal action to be taken against" her. Furthermore, it had found a
hostile command climate and recommended that the officer who had been her
nemesis be removed from his position and "given a letter of reprimand for
gender bias in assignments and use of intimidation, manipulation and
hostility towards soldiers."

With this news, Whiteside asked that her letter of resignation be withdrawn.
She would fight the charges.

In an e-mail exchange, the prosecutor, Wolfe, told MacLean that even if
Whiteside won in court she would probably end up stigmatized and in a mental
institution, just like John
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/John+Hinckley?tid=informlin
e>  Hinckley, the man who shot President Ronald
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Ronald+Reagan?tid=informlin
e>  Reagan.

Wolfe suggested that the military court might not buy the mental illness
defense. "Who doesn't find psycho-babble unclear . . . how many people out
there believe that insanity should never be a defense, that it is just, as
he said, an 'excuse.' "

Awaiting a Decision

Whiteside lived with other outpatient soldiers in a building on the grounds
of Walter Reed. She kept her quarters neat and orderly. As her preliminary
hearing approached, she often went to bed at 8 p.m. to sleep away her
impending reality. She attended morning formation and medical appointments.
On weekends she hung out with her clique from Ward 54, "my little posse of
crazy soldiers," as Whiteside called them.

She still had the innate ability to motivate soldiers. To pass time one
recent Sunday, Whiteside drove a small group of outpatients to go bowling at
the National
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Naval+Medical+Cent
er?tid=informline>  Naval Medical Center in Bethesda
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bethesda?tid=informline> .
"You can do better," she told a young private who was a terrible bowler.
"We'll pool our energy together and get a strike."

Whiteside also offered encouragement over the phone to her friend Sammantha
Owen-Ewing, the soldier she befriended on Ward 54 who had been abruptly
dismissed from the Army. Sammantha was waiting to see if she could receive
her care from the Department
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Department+of+Veterans
+Affairs?tid=informline>  of Veterans Affairs.

Whiteside feared the same fate.

At the hearing, the testimony focused on Whiteside's state of mind at the
time of her shooting. The hearing officer would have seven days to make a
recommendation on whether to dismiss the charges, offer a lesser punishment
or go to court-martial. The final decision will be Rowe's.

A psychiatrist who performed Whiteside's sanity board evaluation testified
that he found the lieutenant insane at the time of the shooting. One of the
doctors said that Whiteside had a "severe mental disease or affect" and that
she "did not appreciate the nature and quality of her actions." Brandt,
chief of Behavioral Health Services in Walter Reed's Department of
Psychiatry, testified that Whiteside was "grappling with holding on to her
sanity," adding: "She was right on the edge, and she fell off."

Wolfe made his argument for a court-martial. "These are very serious
charges," he said. "The more serious the crime, the higher level it must be
disposed of. . . . The government's position is it should be a
court-martial."

When the hearing ended, Whiteside walked outside into the cold. Her phone
buzzed with a text message from the husband of her friend Sammantha, asking
Whiteside to call right away.

Sammantha had hung herself the night before.

On Friday, Whiteside and her father flew to Utah
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Utah?tid=informline>  for
the funeral. Yesterday, after a service at a small Mormon church, Sammantha
Owen-Ewing was buried.

Grief-stricken by the death of her friend and bitter at the Army, Whiteside
awaits the Army's decision this week.

"I can fight them," she said, "because I'm alive."

Staff researcher Julie Tate and photographer Michel du Cille contributed to
this report.

C 2007 The Washington Post Company

 

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