Steven died about 2:00 AM on August 7, 1993 in a car accident in Springfield, Tennessee.  Steven was in the Army stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.  He was a passenger in a car driven by another soldier and they were on their way back to base after spending the night in Clarksville, Tennessee.  When we were first notified about Steven's death we were told that the driver of the car had fallen asleep and because of this the car left the road and hit a guardrail.  The guardrail went through the passenger door causing fatal internal injuries to Steven.  We were told that there was the possibility that the driver had been drinking.   They also said that that there was a van of Army Medics on the highway that had witnessed the accident and stopped to help.  The Army assured us that the Criminal Investigation Division at Fort Campbell as well as the Department of Safety in Tennessee were investigating the accident and Steven's death.  I don't know why but I remember thinking that I hoped that this was just a car accident and that it happened the way that they said it did.  Maybe it was my motherly instinct or just the fact that we have just settled Matthew's case and I didn't have the energy to take on another battle.  It was a few weeks after Steven died when I knew that I would have to muster all the energy I could because I knew without a doubt that there was  another battle to be fought.   Once again I had not only lost another son but I knew that I would have to fight to find out the truth about what really happened to Steven that night.

The first thing that caused a little bell to go off in my head was when my Casualty Assistance Officer called me about 6 weeks after Steven's death to tell me that the investigation was completed and that they felt that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the driver.  I was told that although they thought that drinking was involved and the state trooper had marked on the accident report that the driver had been drinking,  his blood alcohol test taken by the State of Tennessee had come back negative, therefore, the case was closed.  Needless to say I was very upset and asked him if there was anything that I could do.  He told me that he would go over to JAG to find out if they could help me and he would get back to me later that day.  I was very surprised when I didn't hear back from him that day as he always would call when he said he would.   The following morning I called to speak with him and was told that he had been suddenly transferred.  It is very rare that Casualty Assistance Officers get transferred so suddenly especially when they are in the process of helping a family.

The next day my husband made a phone call to Fort Campbell with the hope of getting some information.  He was told by Steven's captain that he didn't know anything but would try to find out and he would call back later that day.  I guess I don't have to tell you that it is 9 years later and I still haven't heard from him.  I later found out that the State of Tennessee did not start their investigation until 16 days after the accident.  I wondered how they could investigate a car accident after the car had been removed and the guardrail had been replaced.  I know that car accidents are investigated differently in each state but to wait 16 days when a death was involved just didn't make any sense to me.

Not knowing what else to do I hired  a private investigator in Tennessee.  After explaining to him the the problems that I was having he told me that he would go to the place where the car had been towed and after taking pictures of the car he would then go and take pictures of the road  where the accident had occurred.  He then said that he would go to the base and talk to some of the soldiers to see if they had any information about the accident.   He told  me that he would need a week to 10 days to accomplish this and that he would mail me the pictures and the report.   When I didn't hear from him or receive anything in the mail  I called him and he told me that the first set of pictures he took didn't come out and he would have to retake them.  I thought that this was very odd as a big part of his work as a private investigator was to take pictures.  In a lot of instances he would only have one chance so he would be certainly would need to use a trustworthy camera.  How could all of the pictures taken not come out?   Another two weeks went by and when I didn't hear from him  I called him a second time to find out where the pictures were.  He was very evasive on the phone and did he best to try and talk his way of sending me the pictures telling me that they were very graphic and I would be upset if  I saw them.  I told him that I could not be any more upset than what I was and that I wanted the pictures.  He finally agreed to send them to me.  I then asked him if he was able to find out any information from the base.  Although he was the one who initially said he would go on base now he acted as if he didn't know what I was talking about.  I repeated to him what he had told me about speaking to the soldiers and he told me that I must have misunderstood as he never said that.   I knew that I was very upset and at times not thinking straight but I also knew that I did not misunderstand he.  Although I didn't know it at the time this was the first of many misunderstandings that I would have. 

Again not knowing what to do someone suggested to me that I contact MADD.  I was put in touch with a wonderful woman who worked there.   She was able to put me in touch with an attorney who helped me get the medical records of the person who was driving the car that Steven was in.  What I found out was that originally life flight was called for Steven but by the time they arrived he had already died.  Because they were already there they took the driver of the car even though he was not seriously hurt.  They were told by the driver that he had 9 beers that night and their records show "positive alcohol on board."  All of the tests that they took were printed off within 24 hours of his arrival at the hospital, except for his blood test for alcohol.  That test was printed off days later.  I have been told by people in the medical profession that it didn't seem right for this test to be printed off so many days after all the other tests.  I couldn't understand how someone who had 9 beers could have a negative blood alcohol level.  He may have been within the legal limit but he still would have to have an alcohol level.  The woman from MADD told me that I should write a letter to the agent that conducted the test for the State of Tennessee and ask him what negative meant.  Did it mean that he had no alcohol in his system or did it mean that he did have alcohol present but was within the legal limit?  After the agent received my letter he called to tell me that negative meant that there was absolutely no alcohol present.  I asked him how someone could have a negative blood alcohol after drinking 9 beers.  His reply was that they couldn't.  I asked if he could put in writing that negative meant absolutely no alcohol.  He told me that he would.  After about two weeks when I didn't receive the letter from him I wrote him again.  Once again he called me and told me that I must have misunderstood him because he never said that he would put anything in writing.   I admit that I am not the most intelligent person and of course I was devastated by Steven's death but how was it that I was misunderstanding every conversation that I had concerning Steven's death.

Up to this point I was putting off going to Tennessee.  I knew that at some point I would have to go but mentally I was not ready to do so.  About 15 months after Steven's death my husband and I knew that we would have to go.  The military was not giving us any answers and there were so many missing pieces to this puzzle I thought by going to Tennessee that maybe, just maybe I would finally get some answers.  One of the people that we met with was the EMT that answered the call the night of the accident.  He told me that he remembered the accident as if it had happened yesterday.  He proved that as he was telling me the events of that night.   He told me that when he got to the scene there were the Army Medics who were trying to help Steven.  He also told me that there were beer cans inside and outside of the car.  When he was talking to the driver of the car he said that he smelled alcohol on his breath.  As I sat there listening to him talking the one thing that kept going through my mind was that this man had no reason to lie to me.  He only confirmed what I already knew that the driver had been drinking that night.  But because he blood alcohol test came back negative there wasn't anything that I could do about it.  The driver would go unpunished.  I was told by the military that the driver's punishment was that he had to enroll in an alcohol program.  A small price to pay for a life.  I wondered why if everyone kept telling me that he had consumed no alcohol that night why did he have to enroll in a program.   I had all of these pieces to this puzzle and there weren't two that fit together.

The first attorney that I hired in Tennessee called me one day and accused me of lying to him and then told me that he never told me that he would represent me.  We had signed an attorney fee agreement and yet, now he was telling me we never had an agreement.  The investigator for the Department of Safety called me after I sent her numerous letters.   She wanted me to know that in Tennessee it is not against the law to fall asleep while you are driving, therefore, there was nothing that they could do and the case was closed.  When I questioned why it took them so long to investigate she told me that she was on vacation when the accident happened.  I thought that this was very odd ~ did they only have one investigator?

It soon became obvious that the military was putting up roadblocks every step of the way.   I couldn't understand why they were going to such extremes to cover up a car accident.  When I would receive papers that I had requested through Freedom of Information most of the wording was blacked out and they they would cite an exemption for the pages that they didn't send.  They would tell you that you could appeal but how do you appeal for the missing pages when you have no idea what they are.  In the case notes that we received it showed that were investigations ordered by the General, yet when we requested the written reports we were told that they could not find any paperwork for this investigations.  In my mind no paperwork meant there was no investigation.   When I questioned the general about this he told me that it was a mistake, he never ordered any investigation.   For the few investigations that they said they did do there was no paperwork because they claim that these investigations were verbal, here was something else that just didn't make sense.

We later found out that the morning after the accident in one of the Army's reports it was written that the driver of the car was not a suspect.  Even before his blood alcohol results were back they had already determined that he was not a suspect, this leads me to believe that they never had any intention of investigating.  I received conflicting statements from 4 Army Medics who supposedly saw the car on the side of the road and stopped to offer their help.  The Medical Examiner was never notified of my son's death and when I questioned him about it he told me that this was the first time that he wasn't notified about a death on the highway.  It seemed that as soon as my son was brought to the hospital the Army sent someone there to claim his body.  They obviously put a lot of pressure on the doctor in the emergency room because he was the one who signed the death certificate and legally he did not have that right.   Although my son died early Saturday morning his body was not brought back home until Wednesday night.  When I finally started to think straight I wondered why there was the need to keep his body for so long.

When I kept writing letters to the state they told me that they had one of their auto accident reconstructionist investigate the accident.  When I requested a copy of the report they told me that it was a verbal investigation and they had nothing in writing that they could send me.  I don't know how everyone conducts investigations and nothing is put in writing.  They must all have great memories!   I hired my own  auto accident reconstructionist and after reviewing the pictures of the car and the road he told me that there was evidence that the driver had been awake.  This is what he said he thought had happened:  There was no doubt that the driver either fell asleep or passed out from drinking.  The car left the road and ended up on the grass on the side of the highway.  The difference in the road would have woken up the driver.  When he realized that the car had left the road his first instinct was to get back on the road.  In trying to get back on to the road he over compensated and first turned the wheel very fast to the right and then very fast to the left which put the car into a tailspin.  The car did not stop spinning until it hit the guardrail.  The skid marks on the road are called grubbing marks and the driver would have had to be awake in order to do this. 

The State of Tennessee was still claiming that the skid marks that were shown on the accident report were not from the car that Steven was in but from another car.  The road where the accident happened is straight with no obstacles in the way.  Although I asked how many cars skid off the road on that area of highway I guess I don't have to tell you that I never received an answer.   Once the car leaves the road you are on a different terrain and that alone is enough to wake you up if you are indeed sleeping.   In one of my conversations with the general from Fort Campbell I asked him how anyone would be able to sleep through the car leaving the road, the car being in a tailspin and and the car hitting the guardrail  his response was, "that the only way it would make any sense was that the driver would have to be in a drunken stupor."   A captain from JAG told me that if the driver of the car was driving on base and had an accident and damaged a piece of their equipment that there is no doubt in his mind that he would have been court marshaled."  My response to that statement was that they placed more value on their equipment then they did on my son's life.  His response was,  "that wasn't what I said."  Well, the way that I see it that was exactly what he said.

When the general saw that I wasn't going away he appointed a captain from JAG to help me with whatever questions or problems that I had.  It became obvious early on that he was not there to help me but to try and control me.   It seemed that once again my grief was getting in the way and once again I was misunderstanding everything that was said to me.  They didn't want to put anything in writing because if they did they couldn't say that I misunderstood everything that they said.  On many occasions he told me that unfortunately Steven fell through the cracks.  I told him that just was not acceptable now nor would it ever be.  He told me that everyone at Fort Campbell was so upset that Steven died that they just weren't able to do their job in investigating his death.  I know that I am not the smartest person walking this earth, but please do not insult my intelligence.   After many conversations with him he realized that I wasn't going away and became very arrogant and nasty.  Needless to say that was the end of that relationship.

I knew that they were covering up something but I didn't know what.  If they weren't then how could they allow the driver of the car to stand in front of a criminal investigator at Fort Campbell and admit to illegally buying beer with a fake ID and also illegally drinking in his room?  The driver also admitted to borrowing a car from another solder which is against their Fort Campbell rules.  He also relayed to them that he continued to drive even though he knew he was not competent to drive.  Under the rules of the Code of Military Justice  if you know that you are not fit to drive and continue to do so and something happens, it is a punishable act.  Yet, they allowed him to walk away without even a slap on the wrist.  The only way that all of this would make sense would be if the driver was not the one responsible for the accident.  Although I can't prove it I believe that someone else was responsible for the accident and it is this person that they are protecting.  It may be someone high up in the chain of command.  Of course they would have to protect the driver of the car because he was not the one responsible for Steven's death.  They knew that as long as his blood alcohol test from the state came back negative legally there was nothing that they could do or I could do to him.  I have learned that the military can do whatever they want and are not answerable to anyone but themselves.  The military was able to fix the driver's blood test from the state and also from the hospital.  That would explain why the the BAC from the hospital was printed off so many days later and the agent from the state who performed the BAC test would not put anything in writing.  This is also why the Medical Examiner was never notified and my son was taken out of the hospital within a short time after being brought there.  If what I thought was true then everything would make sense.

When the driver of the car gave his deposition he blames everything on Steven.  First he claims that Steven was sleeping and then he said Steven was awake.  He claims that he wanted to pull over to the side of the road because he was tired but Steven told him not to.  Even if that was the case which I know it wasn't didn't he have enough sense to say I cannot drive anymore and I am stopping the car?  At the time that the deposition was taken the driver could have been honest as there was nothing that anyone could do to him if he admitted that he had been drinking.  To blame Steven for the accident when he was no longer here to give his side of the story is unforgivable.  I really believe that he was told what to say by the chain of command at Fort Campbell.  As smart as they think they are when they are tying to cover up a death they always leave too many loose ends which brings many questions to the minds of the families.

As long as Steven was alive he was of use to them, once he was dead they could care less about him or those that were left behind.  My son was willing to risk his life for this country if he had to and yet the Army felt that his life wasn't worth a proper investigation.  What a terrible injustice they have done to Steven's memory and it is unforgivable what they have done to his family.

I'm sorry to say that in the 10 years since Steven died I still do not know what happened that night.  The military is under the impression that when my son signed his name on the dotted line that I also signed my name giving up all my rights as his mother.  They seem to feel that I do not deserve to know the answers.  They have done everything in their power to discredit me.  I have been labeled as a liar, a grief stricken mother and at times have referred to me as being  crazy.  I still don't know what happened after writing more than 250 letters and spending more than  $40,000.  When we buried Steven, we also buried the truth about what happened that night.   Right now I don't have any options left but if I see an opportunity somewhere down the line I will take it.   The only people that have any power over the military is Congress and whatever is brought to their attention it falls on deaf ears.  It is quite obvious that they are all sleeping in the same bed.  At times I feel as if I failed Steven and then at times I know that I did all that I could.  I may never know in this lifetime what happened but I know that when Steven and I meet again he will have the answers that I so desperately need.

PFC STEVEN JOSEPH AMATO

SPEC 4 GUY KEITH MADDASION