Innocent Sailor Charged with Murder

I first met Petty Officer Amy Peterson in early September of 2005. I had recently returned from a deployment in Iraq where military men and women were fighting for their lives every day on the battlefield; Amy Peterson had just found victory in the fight for her own life but on a different kind of battlefield - a military courtroom in Norfolk, Virginia. Amy, a perky little redhead topping the scales at a whopping 117 pounds with an outgoing personality and wicked sense of humor, looks a good 5-10 younger than her 28 years but has already endured several lifetimes worth of pain, heartbreak and emotional distress. The mental anguish this young woman has gone through is more than enough to convince the strongest man to curl up in the fetal position and lose all faith in the world, but somehow, Amy manages to maintain her sanity.

Amy Peterson enlisted in the United States Navy a year after graduating from high school. She scored well on the ASVAB (the military's aptitude test) and was offered a career in the intelligence field as a Cryptologist. Following basic training at Great Lakes Recruit Training Command in Illinois, Amy attended the Naval Technical Training Center for Cryptologists at Cory Station in Pensacola Florida. While at Cory Station Amy met and started dating fellow student Eddie Walker. In May of 1997, shortly before graduation from the second phase of their schooling in Arizona, Amy and Eddie, both 20, were married. Following graduation, both shipped out for their first assignment in Misawa, Japan.