Soldier's journey from child abuse victim to child welfare advocate

By Mr. Bryan Gatchell (IMCOM)May 11, 2015

Sgt. Jamaal Cromer
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

ANSBACH, Germany (May 8, 2015) -- Childhood abuse and trauma can haunt an individual long after childhood, and Sgt. Jamaal Cromer knows this better than most.

Cromer, a nursing noncommissioned officer, who works in primary care at the Katterbach Army Health Clinic, was once a victim of child abuse, but now is a vocal advocate for child welfare.

He grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with his mother, father and siblings.

"My earliest memory was when I got knocked out by my father," Cromer said. "I had to be 4 or 5 at the most. They [his parents] were arguing, and I tried to protect my mother. My father reached back, slapped me, and the next thing I knew, I woke up on the ground. I don't know how many minutes later."

This incident was part of a larger pattern of abuse that repeated throughout Cromer's childhood. Cromer said regardless of the severity of the incident, the abuse was a constant in his household. A great deal of the violence from his father, he attests, was tied to his father's drinking.

"I can't remember a single day that there wasn't some sort of either emotional or psychological abuse," he said. "He was always drunk. My mom was always arguing with him. He was either slapping up on her, hitting her, hitting us. I've seen him fighting my brother before, like he was mad. My brother was 10 or 11 years old when I saw my father punch my brother in the face, like he was a grown man. This happened on multiple occasions."

While his mother was away working a night shift, Cromer's father would put the children outside in the cold without adequate clothing when he was angry with them, according to Cromer.

Cromer's father was the main culprit responsible for the abuse, but the violence put a strain on the entire Family, even in his father's absence.

"I used to love falling asleep listening to the vacuum cleaner -- white noise," said Cromer, recounting a childhood memory. "I lied down. The next thing, I wake up. I hear crying, and I feel my face is wet. My mom is holding me. She's rocking me back and forth. My head is in her lap, and she has a knife to my throat -- a kitchen knife, I'm not sure what kind of knife -- she has a kitchen knife to my throat, and my brother and my sister -- she was maybe 2 at the most at the time, 2 and a half -- they were both crying in the corner. My older brother was holding her, and my mother was actually pressing the knife far too close to my throat.

"And I remember my brother just saying, 'Please don't do it, please don't do it,'" continued Cromer. "And my mom was a religious person at the time, and she was praying over and over again, saying she was going to kill us -- me, my brother and my sister -- and that was going to be it. She was going to kill us, and she was going to take herself out.

"She didn't want to leave us with my father because my father was an abusive individual," continued Cromer.

Cromer's mother relented. His parents divorced, but that was not the end to the abuse.

"He was the main perpetrator of those things, and once they got divorced, it became my mom being the main perpetrator," said Cromer. "That was the life of the Cromer Family growing up from as early as I can remember -- 4 -- until I joined the military at 18."

LEGACY OF VIOLENCE

Cromer has been in the Army since 2004. He has lived in Germany and in the Ansbach area for much of his military career and has married and started a Family in the Ansbach area. He says he is a much different person now from when he joined as a young man.

"When I first came into the military, I didn't used to be a self-controlled, well regulated person," said Cromer. "I was very aggressive, I was angry a lot, and if you said something that I did not like, I punched you in the face. We were going to get in some kind of confrontation, and a lot of time they did lead to physical altercations."

Among adult survivors of child abuse and neglect, there was an increase of 28 percent of criminal behavior and an increase of 30 percent of violent crime, according to a 2001 study by the U.S. Department of Justice. The likelihood of a juvenile arrest increased by 59 percent, according to the same study.

Cromer attributes his father's abusive behavior to a trauma his father endured as a young child.

"He was 5 years old when his mother was shot right in front of him by his own father," said Cromer. "Because of that early childhood trauma, he grew up to be the abusive person he was."

A study, published in 2004 in "The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry," examined risk factors of child abuse for parents who were abused as children. In the study community nurses visited 4,351 families of newborns. Of these families, 135 had a parent who self-reported a history of abuse. Within the first 13 months, 6.7 percent of families with a parent who had a history of being maltreated as a child were referred by the visiting nurses for maltreatment of their children, which is significantly higher than the .4 percent of referred families without a parent who self-reported abuse as a child.

Another critical review in a study by the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, published in 2012 in "Trauma, Abuse & Violence," found that most studies agreed with a hypothesis of cyclic intergenerational violence. There was, however, throughout the many different studies a lack of methodological controls.

Scott Harris, who serves as the Family Advocacy Program manager, agrees that child abuse victims are more likely to perpetrate child abuse as adults. In addition to that, child abuse victims are likelier to suffer other long-term problems.

"They'll grow up with lower self-esteem, maybe issues with depression," said Harris. "They're more likely to potentially be abusers as adults. It's a cycle. You grew up that way, you do it to your children, the chances of them doing it -- continuing the cycle -- is unfortunately there."

Of adults, 73 percent believe "it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking" according to a 2003 survey of perceptions of parenting.

Harris does not endorse the practice.

"Not all children will react the way that you expect," said Harris of corporal punishment. "The communication and the boundaries, the positive reinforcement, the redirection, and then consequences that don't require physical punishment whether that's being grounded or having something taken away -- there's lots of different things you can do. And when you establish these guidelines with your children, I think you can be really effective in raising children that one -- listen to you -- and two -- are growing up in a safe, non-fearful environment."

A 2010 study enforces Harris' assertion of the inefficacy of corporal punishment. In an article in the journal "Pediatrics," corporal punishment had, in the long term, the opposite effect of what was intended. Children who underwent even minor forms of corporal punishment were at increased risk of aggressive behavior.

The consequences of child abuse are not limited to future behavior problems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started a study of adverse childhood experiences, the ACE study, which tracked child victims of maltreatment. These adverse childhood experiences had strong correlations with psychiatric disorders including depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and suicide attempts. Adult survivors of child abuse and neglect are also more likely to suffer heart, lung, and liver diseases and can develop hypertension, obesity and more.

"You can't say just because somebody endures something doesn't mean that they're going to grow up to be an abuser," said Harris. "Different things will impact their journey, but a negative experience could foster a negative impact."

There are other behavioral issues to which child victims of abuse are prone to, including smoking, alcoholism, high-risk sexual behaviors and adult drug abuse, according to the CDC.

As a teenager, Cromer used drugs to cope with his problems.

"They got me through life OK, but I didn't learn anything," said Cromer. "I just learned to run from things."

DIFFERENT FUTURES

Childhood trauma influences behavior; its influence is not fate.

Cromer, who suffered anger and drug abuse issues, received help in the Army.

"I've been in mental health institutions in-patient before," he said. "For two weeks once before when I was here. I'm not ashamed of these things because they made me a much stronger, more resilient man."

Cromer sees the Army as having improved his life in larger ways too.

"Being here, in the military especially, I've seen the world," said Cromer. "I've done so many types of jobs. I've met countless people. I've had good and bad leaders, but overall I've had great ones, and I'm fortunate for that.

"Military service as a whole has given me a sense of identity that I never had growing up," he continued. "That's why I do hold close to my heart being in the military."

He credits the Ansbach community for the positive changes in his life as well:

"It has definitely changed my life quite a bit being over here -- seeing a different way of life that is completely opposite of the way I grew up. This is a relatively safe place, which is not the case where I grew up."

Cromer met his wife here. They are raising children here. When discussing how to discipline their children, Cromer initially believed that corporal punishment was acceptable. His wife convinced him otherwise.

"I'm a firm believer that especially when they're young children, there's no such thing as a bad child," said Cromer. "I wish more people understood that what you do to your child will affect them for the rest of their life good or bad. We take credit when our children behave well, so we as parents must take credit when our children behave poorly."

Both Cromer and Harris offer different options for parents, for children and for the community as a whole.

"Resilient children and resilient Families are absolutely what we're trying to foster in this community," said Harris. "No child deserves to live in their home in fear. No child deserves to be punished in a way that causes an extreme negative impact on them. There are better ways."

"It's in our best interest as a community -- and it takes that to raise children," said Cromer. "It starts in the home, but that's not where it ends."

Both Harris and Cromer encourage intervention on behalf of children, who often do not have the power to intervene on their own behalf. Community members who see evidence of child abuse in public can call the military police. Harris recommends that Soldiers engage their chain of command to resolve suspected trouble as well. They can also call the Family Advocacy Program (see "USAG Ansbach Family Advocacy Program at Army Community Service" in the "Related Links" section on this page).

Within the Family, there are also avenues of seeking help. Besides calling the Family Advocacy Program, Family members can call a 24/7 domestic violence hotline at 0160-661-5638 (or visit "USAG Ansbach Emergency Numbers" in the "Related Links" section).

Those Family members who believe themselves to be a risk to their children have options, according to Harris. They can call Family Advocacy as well, but if they need help outside of Family Advocacy's operational hours, they can call the on-duty chaplain, whose number is also at the "USAG Ansbach Emergency Numbers" page.

"Within the Army you have to be aware that there are a lot of stressors, and there are a lot of reactions to those stressors," said Harris. "And people have choices, and some people based on how they grew up -- or the environment they came from -- may not see a better way or another way. That's what Family Advocacy is here for, to show them another way that they can work to engage in positive discipline techniques and maybe work to mitigate how they grew up and turn it into something that is positive for their own children.

"We just want to be sure we're getting to these Families in advance so we can offer assistance," continued Harris. "We recognize problems in the Families; we assist Families in adjusting and making corrections. Stressors due to deployment or normal familial stress, financial stress, the reactions to those things can be difficult. We want to be sure that we provide Families with a place that they can go to find the opportunity to make adjustments, make corrections."

Cromer sees parenting as a constant struggle for self-improvement, a struggle for which the Army provides the tools to improve.

"I care about my children and the type of people they are going to be, and I want them to help society in any way they choose -- to be productive citizens. And I don't want them to struggle, and I don't want them to go through the same things I went through."

Related Links:

Team Ansbach: USAG Ansbach's official blog site

USAG Ansbach's official home page

USAG Ansbach Family Advocacy Program at Army Community Service

USAG Ansbach Emergency Numbers

Franconian News: USAG Ansbach's official news page

USAG Ansbach official Twitter feed

USAG Ansbach's official Facebook page

USAG Ansbach's official Flickr page

USAG Ansbach's official YouTube channel