Sutherland Brokers & Associates Internet Fraud Grand Forks, Nevada

"  After review, she stated that I had to make the first four monthly payments ($870) up front via western union to the private investor in Canada. "

  The top three red flags are in that sentence.  Advance payments on a loan would be illegal, which tells you that this is not a legitimate lender.   Requiring payment through an untraceable cash transfer is only done by scammers.  Legitmate businesses do not use W.U. personal transfer.  It is meant for sending money to people that you know personally.     The last red flag is that you're sending this untraceable cash out of the country.   This is done so that if you decide to involve law enforcement, they will  not have jurisdiction in the country where the money was received (meaning the scammers have nothing to worry about).

"  At this point, I knew it was all a scam and requested a refund. "

  Unfortunately, when someone steals your money, it is unlikely that they'll give it back because you request it.

"  I haven't heard anything back from this company. "

  This is not a company.   It's a group of scammers who conned you into sending them cash using a made up (or stolen) company name.   Now that they have it, you will not hear back from them (unless they think they can con you into sending more cash). 

"  These people are taking advantage of the military and it needs to stop.  "

   Not exactly.   These people will take advantage of anyone who is gullible enough to send untraceable cash for the promise of a loan.   They do not discriminate.

   This particular scam shows up on this site (under different names) probably 2 or 3 times a day.  It's so common that the FTC has devoted a web page to it :

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/telemarketing/tel16.shtm