Fort Hood’s rebranding to Fort Cavazos hasn’t fixed the massive Army post’s deadly culture.
Over the last month, four soldiers assigned to the nearly 215,000-acre complex outside Killeen have died. At least three are suspected suicides.
More than 35,000 soldiers work at Fort Cavazos, the nation’s largest active-duty armor post, and these deaths are among the newest entries on the list of 101 soldiers who have died on- or off-post since 2000. At least 44 of those deaths were suicides.
Making this even more disturbing is Fort Cavazos leadership’s opacity about its losses. Post officials only recently acknowledged the August deaths, and they didn’t identify the dead until Wednesday, Sept. 6 — days or weeks after their demise. Even then, the information was incomplete and missing basic information such as hometowns.
Fort Cavazos is at the forefront of society’s battle against military suicides, but its ongoing lack of transparency against the backdrop of its troubled past is a red flag, suggesting much work remains in being open and transparent about a clear crisis.
Post officials revealed that Sgt. Jama F. Dolan, 26, died Aug. 11, Alfredo A. Martinez. 30, died Aug. 26, and both Spcs. Xavier W. Johnson, 24, and Rowdy W. Liverman, 20, died Aug. 15.
The long delays in acknowledging the deaths fly against the norms of releasing information on military casualties.
For years, the military’s policy has been not to release information until 24 hours after next-of-kin notification. This was meant to protect families from finding out from anyone other than a military representative that their loved one had died.
During the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the military’s casualty notification process, sadly, became an efficient system. Public release of the information usually came within days of deaths that occurred thousands of miles away.
Americans frequently hear of overseas deaths before those that occur on a nearby base.
And since the chaotic U.S. departure from Kabul, military leaders have become quieter about deaths not related to combat or training.
On March 13, two Fort Cavazos soldiers were found dead. The Army acknowledged the on-post death of 20-year-old Army Spc. Ana Basaldua Ruiz, of Long Beach, Calif., but it did not disclose the death of 28-year-old Spc. Katerina Weikel, which occurred outside the installation.
Both deaths were thought to be suicides. The Army officially acknowledged Ruiz’s death as a suicide in a report recently released to the Express-News.
In July, the Texas Military Department waited more than a week before identifying a soldier assigned to Operation Lone Star who died while traveling to the mission.
In August, Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City, Okla., was in the headlines for the deaths of 17 workers since January. The base said 11 of those deaths were from illness or accidents, but six remain under investigation and some of those are suspected suicides.
Here, Joint Base San Antonio installations remain tight-lipped about deaths of its military and civilian employees.
Some military officials say installations aren’t required to disclose off-base deaths. Additionally, the Defense Department has strict rules about disclosing information about suicides.
We recognize the risks of being too candid about self-harm, but such discretion must be balanced against the timely public release of information about service members. It is in the public’s interest to understand the depth of the suicide crisis at these installations.
By not acknowledging these deaths, the Pentagon risks perpetuating the problems that resulted in the deaths of 492 people across the armed forces last year. In 2021, the Defense Department reported 519 self-inflicted deaths, down from the record high of 580 in 2020.
This trend would suggest progress, but one life lost is one too many, and the military’s opacity is troubling. DOD still has much work to do in the fight against suicide in the armed forces, and taxpayers deserve to know when military members die, regardless of the cause or circumstances.
San Antonio Express-News
