A Case of Sexual Assault in the Navy
He would have gotten away with it in the civilian world
“I don’t know anyone else I can talk to. Petty Officer Second Class Smith assaulted me. He pushed me against the bulkhead, forced me to kiss him, and grabbed my breast.”
Petty Officer Third Class Daniels was short and slight, kept a proper uniform appearance, and was of Hispanic descent. I’d known her for at least a couple years. She’d been my co-worker down in Reactor Department on board USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) before I was transferred to work with the Master-at-Arms force in Security. She’d always been hardworking, exercised sound judgment, honest, and was a qualified reactor watchstander, no small feat for a female back in the days when having women on board ships was still a relatively new policy for the Navy. And the moment she said it, I believed her.
I also knew that she was also facing centuries of Navy tradition; not the traditions of flags and salutes and honor, but of men seeing women not as equals, but as commodities and targets of sexual conquest. The old trope of “the drunken sailor with a girl in every port” wasn’t just a saying, but a way of life for far too many, and one that — as far as I can tell — is thankfully not nearly as prevalent as it once was.
