(Stars and Stripes)
In the previous episode of Military Matters, the ex-wife of a 7th Special Forces Group soldier revealed her story of abuse at her ex-husband’s hands, and how she and her family escaped.
The second part of co-host Jack Murphy’s interview with Celina focuses on how the Army handled — or failed to handle — her case. Due to the sensitive nature of this report, Celina is identified only by her first name, and her ex-husband is not identified.
After escaping to Arizona, Celina attempted to get an order of protection against her ex-husband. However, she said it took more than a month for the order to be served, and that was only after she removed a weapons clause in the order.
“By this time the battalion attorney was their point of contact, (and) they're like, we need you to take that weapons clause off before we can serve him,” Celina said. “Otherwise we can't assist you because he's a Special Forces weapon sergeant. Otherwise … he’s just going to lose his job and then we can't help you.”
In April 2017, Celina said that the Army was “making it seem like OK, we're going to set this up for a court-martial.” But her ex-husband was never court-martialed, she said, and was later given a general honorable discharge. Celina reached out to then-Arizona Sen. John McCain in July of that year, but she said that 7th Group ignored his office as well.
Eventually, Lt. Gen. Francis Beaudette, who was commanding general of Special Forces Command at the time, sent a letter to McCain’s office. “They called everything marital issues even in the same sentence that they said that I fled for my life because of marital issues,” Celina said of the letter. (Beaudette, who is now retired, did not respond to a request for comment from Murphy. The Army Special Forces Command also did not respond to a request for comment.)
Celina said ultimately, neither the civilian court system nor the military prosecuted her ex-husband.
“It was kind of like everybody kept passing off the ball of jurisdiction, and then it was like, oh, a lot of people just had a lot of faith within the military in some way,” she said. “They're like, ‘Oh, we'll just let the military take care of their investigation, then we go from there.’ ”
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A transcript of the episode can be found here.
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