| | Recovering at Walter Reed
Whiteside was still unconscious when she arrived at Walter Reed a few days later. The bullet had ripped through one of her lungs, her liver, her spleen and several other organs. Her parents and siblings kept a round-the-clock bedside vigil, and her condition gradually improved. Within two weeks an Army criminal investigator showed up in her hospital room, but a doctor shooed him away.
After a month, Whiteside was moved to Ward 54, the hospital's lockdown psychiatric unit, where she was diagnosed with a severe major depressive disorder and a personality disorder. According to a statement by an Army psychiatrist, she was suffering from a disassociation with reality.
Tom Whiteside visited his daughter every afternoon, bringing pizza or Chinese takeout. He often noticed from the sign-in sheet that he was the only visitor on the ward. The psych patients formed a close bond and shared an overriding fear: that the Army would drum them out with no benefits.
One soldier Whiteside befriended was a 20-year-old private named Sammantha Owen-Ewing. Intelligent and funny, Owen-Ewing was training to be a nurse when she suffered mental problems and was admitted to Ward 54. She was still receiving psychiatric care at Walter Reed when the Army abruptly discharged her. According to her husband, she was dropped off at a nearby hotel with a plane ticket.
While on Ward 54, Whiteside received a package from her crew in Iraq. Inside was a silver charm, inscribed with the crew members' names and the message: "Know that you are always loved by us. Never be forgotten and dearly missed. Your Trauma Team." The crew also wore "Trauma Mama" bracelets in solidarity.
After being released from Ward 54, Whiteside joined the outpatient ranks just as the Army was scrambling to overhaul its system for treating wounded soldiers and President Bush ordered a commission to study military care for Iraq veterans.
At Walter Reed, the Army brought in combat-experienced officers to replace the recovering patients whom it had asked to manage the lives of the 700 outpatients on post. The new Warrior Transition Brigade and its more experienced leaders were supposed to manage more adeptly the tension between soldiering and patient recovery.
It was Whiteside's commanders in this unit, a captain and a colonel, who drew up criminal charges against her in April. The accusations included assault on a superior commissioned officer, aggravated assault, kidnapping, reckless endangerment, wrongful discharge of a firearm, communication of a threat and two attempts of intentional self-injury without intent to avoid service.
The Army ordered Whiteside to undergo a sanity board evaluation to determine her state of mind at the time of the shooting.
Tom Whiteside said the criminal charges threatened to unglue his daughter's already tenuous grip on recovery. "If they are doing this to her, what are they doing to those young PFCs without parents by their side?" he asked.
By early August, Elizabeth Whiteside sought an alternative to court-martial. She requested permission to resign, a measure the military often accepts.
Rowe, commander of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, which has jurisdiction over her case, would decide whether to grant her request.
He reviewed recommendations from Whiteside's two commanders at Walter Reed and the facility's commander, Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, a physician. Whiteside's immediate commander at the hospital, a captain, recommended that she be given an "other than honorable" discharge, according to a document obtained by The Post. The captain wrote that her "defense that she suffers from a mental disease excusing her actions is just that . . . an excuse; an excuse to distract from choices and decisions made by 1LT Whiteside."
Col. Terrence J. McKenrick, commander of the Warrior Transition Brigade, agreed: "Although the sanity board determined that at the time of the misconduct she had a severe mental disease or defect, she knowingly assaulted and threatened others and injured herself."
Schoomaker, now the Army's surgeon general, dissented. "This officer has a demonstrably severe depression which manifested itself . . . as a psychotic, self-destructive episode. . . . Resignation in lieu of court-martial eliminates all of the benefits of medical support this officer deserves after 7 years of credible and honorable service."
Rowe overruled Schoomaker. He agreed to accept Whiteside's resignation with a "general under honorable conditions" discharge that would still deprive her of most benefits, according to her pro bono civilian attorney, Matthew J. MacLean.
But then, from her battalion commander in Iraq, Whiteside learned that an investigation there had concluded that there was "insufficient evidence for any criminal action to be taken against" her. Furthermore, it had found a hostile command climate and recommended that the officer who had been her nemesis be removed from his position and "given a letter of reprimand for gender bias in assignments and use of intimidation, manipulation and hostility towards soldiers."
With this news, Whiteside asked that her letter of resignation be withdrawn. She would fight the charges.
In an e-mail exchange, the prosecutor, Wolfe, told MacLean that even if Whiteside won in court she would probably end up stigmatized and in a mental institution, just like John Hinckley, the man who shot President Ronald Reagan.
Wolfe suggested that the military court might not buy the mental illness defense. "Who doesn't find psycho-babble unclear . . . how many people out there believe that insanity should never be a defense, that it is just, as he said, an 'excuse.' "
Awaiting a Decision
Whiteside lived with other outpatient soldiers in a building on the grounds of Walter Reed. She kept her quarters neat and orderly. As her preliminary hearing approached, she often went to bed at 8 p.m. to sleep away her impending reality. She attended morning formation and medical appointments. On weekends she hung out with her clique from Ward 54, "my little posse of crazy soldiers," as Whiteside called them.
She still had the innate ability to motivate soldiers. To pass time one recent Sunday, Whiteside drove a small group of outpatients to go bowling at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. "You can do better," she told a young private who was a terrible bowler. "We'll pool our energy together and get a strike."
Whiteside also offered encouragement over the phone to her friend Sammantha Owen-Ewing, the soldier she befriended on Ward 54 who had been abruptly dismissed from the Army. Sammantha was waiting to see if she could receive her care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Whiteside feared the same fate.
At the hearing, the testimony focused on Whiteside's state of mind at the time of her shooting. The hearing officer would have seven days to make a recommendation on whether to dismiss the charges, offer a lesser punishment or go to court-martial. The final decision will be Rowe's.
A psychiatrist who performed Whiteside's sanity board evaluation testified that he found the lieutenant insane at the time of the shooting. One of the doctors said that Whiteside had a "severe mental disease or affect" and that she "did not appreciate the nature and quality of her actions." Brandt, chief of Behavioral Health Services in Walter Reed's Department of Psychiatry, testified that Whiteside was "grappling with holding on to her sanity," adding: "She was right on the edge, and she fell off."
Wolfe made his argument for a court-martial. "These are very serious charges," he said. "The more serious the crime, the higher level it must be disposed of. . . . The government's position is it should be a court-martial."
When the hearing ended, Whiteside walked outside into the cold. Her phone buzzed with a text message from the husband of her friend Sammantha, asking Whiteside to call right away.
Sammantha had hung herself the night before.
On Friday, Whiteside and her father flew to Utah for the funeral. Yesterday, after a service at a small Mormon church, Sammantha Owen-Ewing was buried.
Grief-stricken by the death of her friend and bitter at the Army, Whiteside awaits the Army's decision this week.
"I can fight them," she said, "because I'm alive."
Staff researcher Julie Tate and photographer Michel du Cille contributed to this report.
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