Sgt. Amanda "Mandy" Sheldon
Last night I was watching the news and learned about the suicide of Sgt. Amanda Sheldon, a young female soldier from Michigan. Her devastated mother was interviewed about her daughter. Her mother truly wanted to let soldiers that are having a hard time dealing with depression to know that it is okay to seek help. What happened to Amanda is a tragedy and I was touched by her mother as any mother would be. I felt a need to share this young woman’s plight with other people in the hope that more can be done for these soldiers.
At some time during her military career Amanda was given a date rape drug and raped by a superior. (I want to add here that I was watching “Oprah” tonight as she had a show about homeless female veterans and Tammy Duckworth said that one in three female soldiers are assaulted in the military.) The suspect was discharged from the Army and was convicted but Amanda’s problems didn’t stop there. She did seek counseling. Later when she was up for a promotion, military personnel wanted to know why she needed counseling. This must have made Amanda feel that the military deemed that a “weakness”. She never went in for counseling again and she suffered dearly for it.
Her mother said that Amanda was planning on leaving the military and starting a new life attending college. She had one more deployment with her unit to Afghanistan to do. Her mom said that to deploy she would have to sign up for two more years. She didn’t really want to do that. Her mom also said that she had fallen in love and was very torn between going with her unit to Afghanistan and leaving the military as either choice would eventually “let someone down”. Amanda evidently couldn’t take it and instead of going in for counseling, she took her own life.
The full story about Amanda can be read here:
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/kent_county/Soldiers-mom-speaks-out-on-suicide
Amanda’s obituary is here:
Something needs to be done to protect these women from being assaulted. I remember reading a few years back about young women in the military dying of dehydration in the desert when they were deployed in Iraq because they feared going to the bathroom in the night. There were many female soldiers being assaulted. Many would not drink fluids that they needed to stay healthy in the desert because of this fear of having to go to the latrine late at night. http://www.alternet.org/world/31584/
A female soldier is tough but sexual abuse can take every ounce of toughness out of anyone. It can destroy lives just as it seems to have destroyed the life of this beautiful, young soldier named Amanda or “Mandy” by her friends. We all know life isn’t fair but our country owes our young people a debt of gratitude for their service and a sense of honor that allows them to be safe from predators when they are serving their country. We should all be outraged because Amanda isn’t just the child of her own parents. She is your child and my child. Mandy’s death should not be in vain. We should all be contacting our representatives and pushing for more to be done so other soldiers don’t follow Mandy and take their own life because they see no other option.
I wrote my representative about this. I hope you will be moved to do the same so that something more can be done to protect these young female soldiers from sexual predators. Here is the link: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
You can also contact your senators here: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Please do something. I have written both of my senators and my representative. If we want our daughters protected from sexual predators in the military, let’s stand up and do something about it. Mandy could be my daughter and she could be your daughter. She deserved better and we as a nation should have protected her better.
