Army disqualifies 588 soldiers after sexual assault review

[giftedgirl77]

10. I'm a paralegal which is the one who drafts the reviews

all the evidence, drafts all the chargesheets, & is with the commander when they prefer charges. The lowest commander prefers the charges (i.e. formally accuses the soldier), the middle commander accepts that the accused has been notified or if it is a summary court martial refers it to court martial. Next it goes to the General on post to be referred to court-martial (i.e. the Soldier is formally charged & rocketing & what not can begin.

Typically we find out from the command that a soldier has done something possibly criminal prior to the attorney, depending on the severity that call could come at 2 or 3 am. It was then on me to gather up all the evidence, talk to the command see what their thoughts were about possible action, see what the soldiers previous jacket looked like, then see if what the command was looking at doing was reasonable. It would be at that point I would talk to the attorney, lay it all out & explain the options, we together would formulate a game plan & what to take back to the command.

In some instances what they want to do is completely impracticable, I explain to them why & what other options they have, sometimes they are ok with that sometimes they aren't. We've taken cases to court we knew we would lose from day one, after it was done all that could be said was we told you so.

I have done my job for a very long time & was very trusted by my attorneys, my commands, & the troops simply bc I wasn't going to let the commands to do stupid shit that would get them in trouble but I was quick to call them on dirty shit they would try to do to the soldiers as well. I took great pride in my job & it's been very hard for me to adjust to never being able to work again.