***Trigger Warning***

I was sexually assaulted through forced sodomy with the end of a broom stick aboard the USS Detroit (AOE-4) as retaliation for speaking with an NCI officer aboard the USS enterprise regarding the Shanghaiing of deck departments personnel aboard the USS Detroit (AOE-4).

It interesting how they conveniently omitted that section from my final statement the first time I wrote about my sexual assault. They omitted the part where my attackers cut the broom stick in a way that when I pulled it out of my anal cavity it made things much worse for me down there for a few weeks. They also omitted the part where I wasn’t allowed to go see the ships doctor and the only reason I didn’t die of an infection was bc the females of my department who many have previously being raped offered me over the counter medication to help me fight off the infection many had also acquired after being violently raped.

Why would you remove that? You don’t want the public to know what was happening aboard the USS Detroit (AOE-4). Well of course you can’t corroborate my story and many like mine bc the perpetrators which were SENIOR STAFF kept it within the department as they did with so many other cases. Social media woke culture has been a life changer for many survivors bc those in charge can’t no longer control the narrative.

They also omitted the part where I like others non U.S. citizens made rank repeatedly only to have our E-4 designation denied under the fallacy that we needed security clearance to perform that specific rate; just so they could keep us in the deck departments. I’m might had a language barrier but I wasn’t dumb! I knew very well that Quartermaster, Hull technician, Hospital man and later Aviation mechanic didn’t require security clearance. I even entered the armed forces as an Ocean System technician but that rate closed while in boot camp so they send me to the deck department. In the two weeks A-school after boot camp graduation, I placed first in my graduating class but instead of being rewarded with the choice of a new rate (as they offered the sailor that ranked second) they made me an E2 and send me to dirty D. .

You see the USS Detroit back then was part of the auxiliary navy which was poorly under funded unlike the combatant navy so man shortages was a huge problem. The USS Detroit advanced age made things even worse as it required many man hours to wage war against the constant invasive corrosion of the sea; so instead of taking individuals from other departments to help out, they Shanghai deck department personnel into remaining within their respective department by finding ways to deny them making rank into other departments. This created a very unhappy working environment for many frustrated men and women which filled the working atmosphere with violence, resentment and fear. Drugs and alcohol were a common occurrence while hazing & sexual harassment often led to physical assaults & rape.

The USS Detroit was on the front page of the NaVY times in the 2000 as the most unsafe ship in the East Coast Fleet. The article’s front page read in large letters “why you don’t want to serve aboard this ship”. It spoke about extensive corrosion, daily ship fires and water distillation running capacity at 60%. The NATO missile defense was inoperable and so was one of the anti missile defenses! The corrosion was so extensive, that you could punch through the steel frame accross many parts of the ship’s bulkheads. None of the ammo holds automatic extinguishers systems were operable and the high voltage electric wiring for all the winches were exposed making working condition’s extremely dangerous for the crew.

What the story doesn’t talk about (and I still have the original newspaper which I will scan it and put it up on social media one day) is the human toll this ship had on scores of impressionable men and women with dreams of a brighter future crushed by a toxic atmosphere that mirrored a floating concentration camp.

I had family members that fought against the Germans in occupied France and some of the journals my family kept of my grandparents speak of the treatment of POW’s in concentration camps. Well, the USS Detroit had the largest pool of sailors of any East Coast fleet residing at the naval brig on Norfolk at any given time! Sailors that were so burned out from the working atmosphere than 30 days drilling with marines for a refreshment boot camp was more preferable than one more day chipping and painting in a deck department.

The atmosphere aboard was so bad that sailors were simply doing drugs, getting pregnant or claiming to be a homosexual just to get out of this command. It is a miracle that many of us didn’t take our lives but the emotional scars have been left behind.