Friday, April 8, 2011

Marine Story

Original Article: http://texasvoices.org/marine-story/
 
On March 22, 2011, in Stories, by tvadmin 
 
 
My son Cody was one of eleven young US Marines who were arrested and prosecuted for relationships with a 13 year old girl who lied about her age. Eleven young men who have lost their military careers. Eleven young men who made a mistake, one by one. Each circumstance different, yet each circumstance so very similar.

Cody met Sarah at a park-like area by the Colorado River in Arizona, an area where many of the younger military personnel gather after floating down the river. They talked for awhile and she later acquired his phone number from another young marine and called him. Sarah told him she was 18 and on another occasion, she told him she was 17 and would be celebrating her 18th birthday the following month.

Late one night, Cody received a call from this Sarah. She was crying and said that her father had “thrown her out of the house” and “she was walking in the dark”. What Cody did not know was that Sarah was only 13 years old. He immediately left the base to pick her up as he did not want her to be walking alone at night.

Sarah’s father called the police and reported her as a runaway. A description of Cody’s truck was given to the local police department by a friend of Sarah’s who felt that Sarah was likely to call Cody to pick her up. Shortly thereafter, Cody was stopped by the police due to the description of the vehicle he was driving .

As Cody pulled to the side of the road, wandering why he was being stopped by the police, Sarah revealed her true age.

Cody endured hours of interrogation and admitted to having consensual sex with Sarah.

Sarah admitted to lying about her age. She also admitted to having similar relationships with several other young marines.

Cody was taken to jail.

Sarah was allowed to return home.

Cody was not Sarah’s first sexual encounter, nor her last. Clearly, had Sarah committed a robbery or a murder, she would have been punished for her actions. Clearly, this young lady is in need of counseling and intense supervision as the road she is traveling is a destructive one, not only for her but for the young men who are infatuated by a girl who appears to be, and says she is, much older than her true age.

Sarah’s Facebook and MySpace pages display provocative photos which would be deemed inappropriate by most standards. The pages also list her age as 18. Hopefully, she will move on with her life in a more productive and sensible way. Unfortunately, it will not be as easy for eleven young men to move on with their lives. They have lost the honor of fighting for our country, many are serving time in the military prison, and they will forever wear the scarlet letter of “sex offender”.

Sarah? She is now living on a different military base with her family. May God help the next eleven young marines.

at

1 comment:

  1. JUSTICE FOR ALLApril 8, 2011 at 3:51 PM

    These men have been manipulated by a predator in this girl. This is the girls fault not the young men whose lives are now destroyed. If anyone needs help it is this girl. I hope one day her parents will see her for what she is before it is to late for her and she is hurt against her will. I pray that these young men like all other young men in these situations and others get a fair shake in society but yet again it is going to be a long uphill battle. The girls need to stop getting away with lying. They need to be prosecuted and let the men go.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

One To See Change Past Posts

One to See Change Blog List

"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
* * * *
“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
* * * *
“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”