Did the Marines Leave Two Bodies on the Field?*

The Marine Corps prides itself on many things, including the stirring credo that it never leaves a body on the field. Certainly this has often been true; in the long, illustrious history of the corps, there is many a tale about men returning to the kill zone to retrieve their injured and mortally wounded compatriots, sometimes enduring life-threatening attacks as they did so. Even long after peace has arrived, men return to war theatres to look for those missing in action.

Alas, there are far too many times that certain bodies are not retrieved, and are sometimes abandoned before they have been killed. This is what may have just happened in the sad story involving the murdered pregnant Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child. After reporting that she had been raped by a fellow marine,** she apparently became a dead woman walking until shortly before she was due to testify at a December hearing regarding the alleged incident, at which point she disappeared and was subsequently killed in a bloody incident at the home of the man who allegedly raped her.

Over ten years ago, while writing my book Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, I met a woman named Tammy Watson. She had recently suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. The daughter of a sergeant major in the Marine Corps, she was raped by a Marine shortly after he had returned from the Gulf War in 1991. Marines (and their families) have another code, in addition to the one mentioned above; for the most part, they take care of their own. So rather than calling police, she went to her father - one of the highest-ranking black NCOs in the Corps at that time. He assured her that the situation would be handled. From then on, she kept a low profile, enduring harassment from some Marines that she knew whenever she ventured into town, and, she told me, even ridicule within her own family. At the time, there were fewer women in the military than there are now, and the Corps itself - the most extreme branch of the military - did not make a point of discussing sexual assault and domestic violence to the degree to which it does now. Here is part of a Gulf War marching cadence that reflected the culture:

...I wish all the ladies were bells in the tower.
If I was the hunchback I'd bang 'em on the hour.
Singin' hey boppa-ree-ba, hey bobba row...

Six weeks after Tammy Watson reported that she had been raped, the man who assaulted her raped and killed two girls in an apartment near the base. The two girls were not Marines, but they were closely associated with them: their family members had married them; they cooked for them, they babysat their children, they saw them off to war, and greeted them with hugs and kisses and more when they came home. These are the girls who live in military towns and take care of soldiers and they are among the many unknown patriots around the country.

When Tammy saw the faces of Mandi Scott and Rosalie Ortega on the front page, she collapsed. (And let me say here that it was Marines who helped break the case, providing information that led to the killer's arrest and subsequent conviction. Some were also very helpful to me in my own exploration of this story). But that was just the beginning of her ordeal. A few weeks after the double homicide, she was on a double date. She and the other woman began talking and the woman remarked that her sister had recently been killed by a Marine. "Is his name Valentine Underwood?" Tammy asked. Krisinda said yes. "I have something to tell you," Tammy said. "He raped me. I thought my father was taking care of the situation. I guess that didn't happen and I'm sorry. I should have called the cops." The last time I spoke with Tammy was in 2001, ten years after both incidents. Barely able to get through a day, she still blamed herself for the murders of Mandi and Rosie.

Like Tammy Watson, lance corporal Lauterbach was reportedly harassed after she reported that she had been raped.*** The harassment was so severe that she moved out of base housing at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and was living in the town of Jacksonville while waiting for the Corps to hear her case. But the investigation was evidently moving so slowly that a week before she disappeared she was ready to drop the case. Why the Corps didn't move more quickly is already the subject of heated debate. Reports that she appeared to have a friendship with the Marine who is accused of raping and killing her are said to have indicated that she was not in danger. But this so-called friendship was probably borne out of fear and even duty, not desire or a change of mind or heart; after all, in the Marines, there's another code - semper fi - and, for better and worse, it trumps everything.

Lance corporal Lauterbach was not in Iraq or Afghanistan when she was killed. But she was serving in a sexual and cultural war zone, as her murder indicates. In coming forward to report a rape, to speak up in a culture steeped in the belief that whatever happens, you should suck it up, she exhibited Marine qualities such as courage, fortitude, and integrity. Like the girls I came to know while writing Twentynine Palms, and dozens of other women across the country who have come into fatal contact with the US Marine Corps, she died in service to her country. I hope the Marines give her and her unborn child a proper burial, and begin to take the female casualties of a different kind of war off the field.

*with updates

**As of the afternoon of January 15th, Marine officials have stated that according to Lauterbach herself, she had two sexual encounters with Lance Corporal Cesar Laurean, her alleged killer. The first, she said, was consensual. The second, she said, was also consensual, although at some point, she asked Laurean to stop and he did. But the episode was still being looked into as a possible rape.

***See note above.

Comments

[flywheelgrinding]

What is so hard to figure out that women and war do not mix?
What is DACOWITS doing for women?
They are putting them in harm's way by pushing them into dangerous areas, be they here or over there.
Get the women out of the military.

[Shortyfuse]

A very good article and I might add a very good book. I remember the abuse that you took by just writing the book.
If anyone doubts that this will affect their everyday life, let me remind you of the amount of ex- military we have on our police forces. Congress is trying to pass help for hiring the returning military. Let me say now that I do not want them on my local police force.
We are electing a new sheriff here and one of the candidates promised to hire returning military. You can bet he will not get my vote. He pointed out that much of the police force in the nation is ex-military. I pointed out to him the rising tide of police brutality cases. They are trained to kill not negotiate or defuse.
Police cronyism is already a problem and all we need ( or don't need} is a band of brothers mentality or worse a Blackwater mentality on our police force. I do not think that the way to reintroduce the military into society is putting another gun in their hand and pointing it at protesters.
Remember that most of our governors are Republican and that they have been pushing for state rights and a weakening of Congress powers. And as a governor goes so goes that police force.
I am sure that the two cases you mentioned are just the tip of the iceburg.

[aznurse]

The day before she was reported as being murdered, her "step mother" reported to have called her bipolar and a pathological liar. I heard it on the radio while driving. I wonder how she feels now.

[oldpotsmuggler]

People need to understand this whole war thing. It ain't good. If the wrong kind of person is trained in an environment where the main message is that the winner wins and the loser dies we will inevitably create some seriously screwed up people. And yeah you may want them on your side in combat, but you may not. How many officers got fragged in Nam by guys who should have gone to the brig if they didn't want to take a chance on dieing in the field, but didn't have to go to lock up if they just acted like the killing machine they were trained to be. How would you like that inside your head for the rest of your life?

We still need to have some military. And we still need to use it some. But don't stop counting the cost at the dollars in the DOD budget and the damage caused to our soldiers by the fighters on the other side. Look at the animals we let loose back on ourselves. Look at the PTSD army out there who deserve far better from us than we've ever had any inclination to give them. Count the casualties over here as well as the causalities over there.

Most importantly, though, as a society we need to start acting like we don't want to fight anyone who looks cross wise at us instead of that we do. Scale down the size of the military, scale down the belligerence, and scale down the concept that we get what we want from the world or we take it. And base this new policy approach on the recognition that the old way has hurt ourselves in ways that need to be avoided unless there is just no other possible choice.