There’s a smell in the air, the stench of cheap lies and expensive cover-ups, the kind of bureaucratic rot that festers in the sun-blasted halls of power where men in medals and pressed uniforms wash their hands of another casualty. Another soldier chewed up and spit out, left to rot in a desert of indifference.
And here we are, still pissed off.
Allison Bailey. Sergeant First Class. Seventeen years of service. Dead at 33. A casualty not of war but of the war machine itself—the kind that promises loyalty and brotherhood until you become an inconvenience.
The facts are bleak, but the pattern is familiar: A woman in uniform reports a sexual assault. The system turns on her. They call her a liar. They call her difficult. They dig through her past, poke at her mistakes, and paint her as the problem.
They strip her of dignity, rank, and resources, and when she drinks herself to death in a spiral of untreated trauma, they sigh and say, “What a tragedy,” while sweeping the debris under the rug.
And then there’s Major General Ondra Berry, retired in October 2024, former commander of the Nevada National Guard, once a Reno cop with allegations of hot tub escapades with underage girls floating in his past like a dead fish in a stagnant pond. The media sidesteps it, of course.
The same way they sidestep the Nevada National Guard’s well-oiled retaliation machine. In the same way, they sidestep the number of women like Bailey who, after coming forward, find themselves buried under the weight of accusations, investigations, and career-ending bullshit.
Bailey said she was drugged and raped by a subordinate in 2020. The Guard’s response? Assign her to evaluate the same bastard. She asked for a transfer. Instead, they turned the microscope on her, digging up every possible complaint, every whisper of insubordination, every note of perceived misconduct.
They assembled an army of “witnesses” against her—fifteen soldiers suddenly coming forward to say she was a bully, drank too much, and had “inappropriate” relationships. The Guard’s internal investigation labeled her “an extremely intelligent manipulator of persons.” And what a neat little trick that is—when a man gets accused of sexual assault, he’s misunderstood. But when a woman fights back, she’s a manipulator.
Bailey’s discharge happened in January 2023. No medical retirement. No benefits, no safety net, no insurance. Just a notice in the mail and a one-way ticket to oblivion. She had been broken down, branded as a disgrace, and left to fend for herself.
Two months later, she was dead.
Her two sons found her on the floor in pain, refusing medical attention because she had no insurance. She died on March 4, 2023, just another statistic in the long, gruesome ledger of military sexual trauma and systemic neglect.
And now, as her mother files a wrongful death lawsuit, the Nevada National Guard stands by their decision, hiding behind bureaucratic jargon and the hollow rhetoric of “tough situations” and “tragic circumstances.” Captain Emerson Marcus, their spokesman, recites the usual lines—Bailey had “a year to rehabilitate her career.” The accusations were credible. Due process followed. She didn’t testify. She didn’t defend herself.
But let’s call it what it is. It wasn’t justice. It was a crucifixion.
They knew what they were doing. When the National Guard Bureau found in September 2021 that Bailey’s sexual assault happened in the line of duty, the Nevada National Guard ignored it. They focused instead on their report—the one written by Major Michelle Tucay, a woman conveniently friendly with Bailey’s accused rapist—declaring that Bailey was a menace, a manipulator, a drunk. They dragged her name through the dirt, docked her pay, demoted her, and shoved her toward the exit.
She appealed. Nobody listened.
And so the cycle repeats. The Nevada National Guard will defend its decision, wrap itself in the flag, and insist that Bailey was an anomaly—just another soldier who “couldn’t handle it.” They’ll deny, deflect, and distract. Meanwhile, the ranks will close in around the next woman who dares to report an assault, whispering the same threats, making the same promises, ensuring that the next Allison Bailey learns her lesson: Speak up, and we will destroy you.
The lawsuit won’t bring Bailey back. But maybe, just maybe, it will rip the mask off the machine long enough for people to see the truth because this isn’t just a ‘tough situation’–it’s a goddamn disgrace.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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