Two friends of soldier Ana Basaldua say she was harassed at Fort Hood by a sergeant and another soldier before her death

Two friends of the soldier Ana Fernanda Basaldua, who was found dead this Monday in Fort Hood, told Noticias Telemundo the problems of alleged

that the soldier told them to suffer since she was assigned to the Texan military base in early 2022.

They point to a sergeant, whom Basaldua, 20, reported to the commanders, they say, but to no avail: they say that she did not receive any punishment, and that she was transferred from the

.

And they also mention another soldier, a colleague of the soldier at the base.

[A Latina soldier found dead in Fort Hood who told her mother that she was being harassed: “She told me that bad things were happening”]

Noticias Telemundo has sent several inquiries to the base about the case but received no response, beyond the statement in which yesterday it confirmed the "sad" loss of Basaldua and indicated that it is "actively investigating

circumstances of his death." 

This Thursday, those responsible for the base sent another statement indicating that, "so far", there is no evidence that the death of the soldier was due to a criminal act, thus reinforcing their first versions that it could be a suicide. .

They further added that "information related to any possible harassment will be fully addressed and investigated" by the Department of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division.

"He was jealous, he told him things"

One of the people with whom Noticias Telemundo spoke, and who asked to withhold her name for fear of reprisals, said she was the best friend of the dead soldier and also serves as a military officer at the Fort Knox base in Tennessee.

She recounted that the sergeant (whose identity she did not reveal) whom she points to for her alleged harassment was helping the soldier upon arrival, orienting her in her first months at Fort Hood.

Latina soldier Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz in a photo taken out to eat with friends.

Courtesy

"As time passed," he explains, "Basa [diminutive with which he affectionately knows the dead soldier] began to make friends and all that, he was getting annoyed, he was jealous, he said things to him, and well, Basa didn't

. It seemed like that, first more because he was older, and then he was a sergeant".

According to her account, based on what the soldier confided to her, the sergeant "would unexpectedly come to her room, knock on her door, text her why she was hanging out with people, that she didn't have to hang out with anyone other than be him".

According to this testimony, Basaldua reported it to his superiors, but was not informed that a formal investigation had been carried out: "She was telling her PSG, who is her platoon sergeant, what was happening. That's when they called him him to the office and they did not take [measures...], there was an argument that remained between them".

"At first I was afraid, I didn't want problems"

The base did decide to transfer Basaldua, who was serving as a combat engineer for the 1st Cavalry Division, from second to third platoon, according to the testimony of her friend, who says she spoke with the soldier almost daily.

She further recounted that she Basaldua told her that she was afraid to report the harassment because of the possible consequences for a soldier who had just arrived on the base (she had enlisted in the Army in July 2021, and she was assigned to Fort Hood in December).

"At first she was afraid, because she didn't want to get in trouble or anything like that. But she reported it, supposedly that they were going to take away that sergeant's rank, but they didn't finish taking it off. He continued there in the same company, he The only thing they did was move Basa to a

different

A young woman born in Mexico died at the base of Ft. Hood, the same one where Vanessa Guillén was murdered

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Basaldua was found dead in a maintenance bay at the military base;

The soldiers who reported his death to his family told him that they preliminarily consider that he had committed suicide, and on Thursday, in its statement, the base said that "so far" there is no evidence to indicate that his death was due to criminal activity. .

The young woman was born and raised in the Mexican state of Michoacán.

She became a naturalized American thanks to the citizenship of her father, who lives in Long Beach, California, and moved to the United States in 2020.

Her mother lives in Michoacán with another daughter.

His case joins a long list of deaths and violent acts in Fort Hood in recent years, among which the murder of soldier Vanessa Guillén stands out in 2020, which uncovered a scandal of sexual harassment and abuse in the Armed Forces. ;

That year alone, 23 deaths were recorded at the base, with 36,500 soldiers.

[The 6 errors in the Vanessa Guillén case: what went wrong in Fort Hood]

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The shadow of death by Vanessa Guillén

Her friend, whom she met in August 2021 before they both undertook military training at Fort Leonard, Missouri, told Noticias Telemundo that after the murder of soldier Vanessa Guillén, who had also denounced harassment, at Fort Hood in 2020 , Basaldua did not want to go to that base: "None of that seemed right to him, but even so, they are orders that he had to follow."

“We kept talking all the time,” he recounted, “not only through regular messages, but also through Snapchat, Instagram, because we told each other everything.

She was my best friend.

She told me everything that happened to her and I told her everything about me too.

Latina soldier Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz in a photo shared by a friend.

Courtesy

Basaldua's platoon transfer occurred after an incident in which the sergeant who allegedly harassed her yelled "very ugly" in front of other soldiers for no reason, according to her account.

"She was saying things to him in front of other people," she explained, "and that's really when they took action. About two months later they changed her."

After the transfer of the soldier, the sergeant moved to a military school for non-commissioned officers (NCO) within the base, according to his account, but the harassment did not stop: "She told me that she did not know what else to do. Because she already I had told them, she had already told her sergeant, she had also told the

, that's supposed to be why they made the complete change. But even so, she was still going through it."

The last time Basaldua spoke to him about this matter was in August of last year: he told him that his superiors had offered to put his complaints in writing.

But he says he doesn't know if he finally did it.

The sergeant, according to her friend, was transferred to another base after August, "but it was by regular orders," she points out, and not because he was punished by the commanders.

This and the rest of the statements made by Basaldua's friend could not be independently confirmed by Noticias Telemundo.

The Fort Hood base has also not responded to questions about this and other aspects.

"He was abusive, he had hanged her"

Her friend also recounts another episode of alleged violence against Basaldua, which is corroborated by another of her friends, a soldier from Fort Hood who also spoke with Noticias Telemundo and asked that his identity remain secret for fear of reprisals.

Basaldua told her friend in February, weeks before she died, that a soldier on the base she was meeting had tried to suffocate her: "I knew it was abusive because he had choked her and everything, and she had told him at the time of that he didn't think so, but he just mocked and laughed at it as if it were a game".

She tried to get away from the man, but "he kept bothering her," says her friend, "she kept sending him messages, but Basa didn't want to talk about that anymore."

His other friend told Noticias Telemundo that Basaldua spoke to him in January about the attack: "[He] told me: 'Someone hanged me.' not well".

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This friend saw the soldier for the last time on Friday, March 3, in a store on the military base, where she told him that she had problems.

"He told me that some things were not going very well in the company and I told him: 'Hey, don't be afraid, if you need a place to go out I have a house. And if nobody wants to understand you, tell me and I can do [something] to communicate with people who investigate harassment

[...] But it was kind of scary because each company is different and it's very toxic at times how they treat people, especially women and younger people" .

A trip to California that never happened

Both friends, military men who shared training with Basaldua at the Fort Leonard Wood Military Academy in Missouri, said they find it hard to believe their friend took her own life.

Basaldua told his friend that he would not renew his contract with the Army when it expired in August and that he planned to move to Long Beach, California, where his father lives, who confirmed to Telemundo News the young woman's intentions to leave the Army.

“He wanted to end his time here well and leave it behind and start life,” his friend recounted, “I told him: 'If you need something, call me, call me, call me.

You are not alone here."

["Let them rot in jail": Vanessa Guillén's mother demands the truth after announcing the punishment of the military at Fort Hood]

The friend explained that the two had planned to meet up in California in April: “I know she was going through things, but she was going to California with me next month.

She told me that she had bought her flight for March 31 to go to California.

"She was happy that we were going to see each other," he added, "and she was finally going to California."

In messages from Basaldua that her friend shared with Telemundo News, the young woman talks about her travel plans;

she was going to request a leave of absence from the military base between March 31 and April 15.

On March 13, she was found dead on the base.

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