Danny Chen was forced by comrades to crawl 100 meters on gravel
Danny Chen was forced by comrades to crawl 100 meters on gravel while being pelted with rocks in hours before he committed suicide.
Speaking through an interpreter, his mother said her 19-year-old son was called ‘dragon lady’ and derogatory phrases.
Soldiers made him give orders in Chinese while they mocked him. He was also forced to do multiple push-ups and sprints.
Private Danny Chen, who grew up in New York’s Chinatown area, was found dead in a guard tower at Combat Outpost Palace on October 3 after apparently committing suicide.
Chen’s parents met with Army officials at the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn, where Army officers released the results of their investigation.
He was separately taunted and mocked, all because he was the only Chinese-American in his unit, said Elizabeth OuYang, a spokeswoman for the family.
‘Almost immediately after he arrived, Danny was required to do exercises, which quickly, within a few days, crossed over into abuse,’ she said.
The alleged anti-Asian bullying and taunting started during basic training when fellow soldiers used a mocking accent while calling him Jackie Chen; others allegedly told him to ‘go back to China’.
On September 27, OuYang said a sergeant dragged Chen out of bed and over gravel, which left him with shoulder bruises and cuts on his back. The top two leaders of the platoon knew about this, she said, but chose not to report it.