The armed forces are saturated with a misogynistic culture both at the officers & enlisted ranks.

The culture is essentially sexist towards females & you will never be seen by your skills but as a piece of meat for the personal gratification of the entitled male majority.

Do yourself a favor & don’t enlist if you are a female but don’t assume you are safe if you are a male either; as sexual violence is rampant in the armed forces and it happens to both genders in alarming rates.

It is a guaranteed career filled with sexual harassment and assault, where victim retaliation is the norm; from denied career advancement to death threats. You will be forced out of the service or wrongfully incarcerated just to shut you up.

Serial rapists exist in the armed forces & they R often much harder to bring to justice bc the organization you represent would rather save face from negative press than to seek real justice. They will lie to your family regarding your demise & usually the only time that truth is found is when an independent autopsy is performed.

That is what you are embarking into if you choose this path. It is not just sexual harassment or assault but working, eating, living & essentially sleeping with your tormentor(s).

– Sexual Assault male survivor, USS Detroit (AOE-4), Dec/18/2000; 21st birthday.

I was tormented after my attack to ensure I didn’t speak up!

1st by threatening my life by telling me that they would tie me up to an anchor chain in the middle of a night watch & throw me overboard to make it look like a suicide.

Then by targeting my evaluations scores so that I wouldn’t be eligible to further my career & at the same time isolating me from everyone who began questioning my poor character (PTSD).

Ultimately by threatening to have me discharged dishonorably; so that I wouldn’t be eligible to obtain my US citizenship and likely lead to being deported from the country.

I wasn’t the only one …

There were other incidents aboard this command including the sexual molestation & assault of female officers (rumors); but one incident stuck out the most & it involved three enlisted personnel.

The senior enlisted was a “lifer” with the rank of senior chief (E8) in his 30’s and the other two juniors were first term enlisted with the rank of Pretty officers (E4) in their 20’s.

These two were inseparable from the moment they arrived and later got married with the wife departing the vessel when she became pregnant. The senior chief had been infatuated with her since day one and he had a perversive reputation for targeting the “fresh meat” that arrived aboard. His inability to complete his “conquest” made him bitter & toxic towards the husband; which we all tried to protect from the chief’s bipolar mood swings (coffee & alcohol) as much as we could.

When it came time for the wife to give birth, the chief changed the duty roster at the last minute so that the husband couldn’t get off the ship to see his wife give birth for the first time. Now what sort of toxic, decadent sociopath does something like that to another human being you might as yourself?

There R individuals in the armed forces including (merchant marines) that have “a giant chip on their shoulders”. They enjoy physiologically dominating the lives of others for their own twisted personal gratification. They R not an asset but a liability & as long as they R protected by the chain of command; they will be nothing more but a gastroesophageal reflux disease in any command structure.

The husband was later dishonorably discharged as he wouldn’t disclosed how he got off the ship; while ammunition was being unloaded (multi department group effort) but he did get to see his wife give birth to their 1st child.