The parents of the Hispanic soldier Ana Basaldua Ruiz said they did not believe the version of the military authorities at the Fort Hood base in Texas that the 21-year-old committed suicide.
“My daughter did not commit suicide, my daughter was killed,” her mother, Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, told Telemundo News.
“Ana Fernanda was such a happy and lively girl. It was very difficult for her to realize what the reality was in the Army: there is a lot of confinement, there is a lot of psychological pressure, the physical and work pressure that they experience,” added her mother from Tacámbaro, in the Mexican state of Michoacán, where the girl was from.
The young woman’s body was found in a garage on the base, renamed Fort Cavazos. The military authorities reported that Basaldua hanged himself with a rope.
The expressions of the Mexican came after the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) concluded that this was the cause of the young woman’s death. In the final report of the death, to which the aforementioned chain had access, it reveals that Basaldua was the victim of sexual harassment in several instances.
According to the document, Basaldua, who enlisted in the Army in August 2021 when she was 18 years old, was assigned to the base in Killeen in December of that year.
Basaldua was a combat engineer with the 1st Cavalry Division.
Shortly after, she began to complain to some teammates and relatives that she was being harassed by an adviser from the team to which she belonged. The man, whose identity was not released, allegedly became jealous and annoyed at her if he saw her talking to others. He also showed up at her bedroom unannounced. The Mexican woman described the soldier as an “intense” person who made her feel “suffocated.”
After her death on March 13, 2022, the military base began investigating the harassment claims. The finding reveals an “inappropriate relationship.” The authorities decided to transfer the platoon soldier. However, the supervisor was promoted through the ranks and assigned to another brigade to get a fresh start as leader, the report detailed.
The investigation also revealed that Basaldua was physically assaulted in December 2022 by a sergeant, with whom she had a relationship. However, there is no evidence that the young woman filed an official complaint with the chain of command. In March of the same year, the soldier, whose name is not revealed in the report, admitted to investigators that “it was possible” that he once tried to suffocate her, but claimed to have done it “as a joke.” In that instance, no disciplinary actions were taken against the accused. Basaldua’s family is pushing for at least one permanent mention of the assault to be included in her file.
As in the case of the death of the Mexican soldier Vanessa Guillén in the same military compound but in April 2020 and despite the changes introduced in the procedures as a result of the case, the report confirms a permissive and toxic environment of harassment headed by by men.
A sergeant major who recruited Ana Basaldua in California in 2019 and who was interviewed by investigators said that he was in contact with the soldier and knew that she was being harassed by her colleagues at the military base. In the opinion of the sergeant, who also was not identified, it was because Basaldua was a woman in a field dominated by men. The sergeant indicated that, when recruiting Basaldua, he warned her about the realities of entering a male-dominated MOS (as a military specialist) when she was a woman.
Another soldier, a former colleague of Basaldua’s at Fort Hood and currently stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia, said that on one occasion his platoon sergeant asked him to escort the young woman to a vehicle yard because the mechanics made inappropriate comments to women and girls. they made me uncomfortable.
A former teammate from the platoon to which Basaldua was moved after complaints of sexual harassment pointed out that the sergeant who led the group favored women in the unit and noted that he always asked that his drivers be female. He also claimed to have seen a video of a woman dancing on top of the sergeant, which he found inappropriate.
The soldier had confessed to relatives about the incidents of harassment of which she was a victim.
Weeks before her death, the soldier spoke with her mother about the constant inappropriate approaches by male soldiers.
“He told me, ‘Mom, everyone wants me to sleep with them, but they’re fine assholes **,'” Ruiz Zarco explained in previous statements to the Hispanic channel.
The last time he would have spoken in depth with his daughter was March 8.
“She told me that she was very sad, that a lot of very strong things were happening, that things were not as normal as I thought, that she couldn’t tell me much, but that there was going to be a moment when we were going to be together and she I could say everything,” the woman told Telemundo News shortly after her daughter’s death.
Keep reading:
Friends of soldier Ana Basaldua Ruiz allege that two soldiers, including a sergeant, harassed the Mexican woman found dead at Fort Hood
Ana Basaldua, Hispanic soldier found dead at Fort Hood base, was sanctioned twice for misconduct