Navy Times: Tailhook’s whistle-blower talks sexual assault
POD advisory board member in the Navy Times:
In the fall of 1991, hundreds of naval aviators mobbed the Las Vegas Hilton for the annual Tailhook convention, a gathering of the Navy’s entire aviation community.
Stepping out on the hotel’s third floor hallway en route to squadron hospitality suites there, Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin was violently assaulted, groped by fellow officers who tried to pull off her clothes as she was forced through a gantlet of pilots and navigators. When she complained to her boss the next morning, Rear Adm. John Snyder was dismissive: “What did you expect?”
Her complaints ignored, the young helicopter pilot eventually took her story public, unleashing a firestorm that changed the military forever: Top brass lost their jobs, sexual harassment training became mandatory for all, and women were cleared to fly combat jets.
But Coughlin was branded. She got out of the Navy in 1995, she recalled, but “I still get hate mail.”
At 51, she runs a yoga studio in Florida and serves on the advisory board of Protect Our Defenders, advocating for military sexual assault victims.
“I used to think being at Tailhook was the biggest mistake of my life,” she said. “But you know what? It’s a wound that has given me so much more understanding and compassion. It’s made me a better person.”
