April 21, 2025 • 54 mins
🚨 Trigger Warning: This episode discusses rape and sexual assault, including institutional cover-ups. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
In this gut-punch of an episode, we dive into the dark underbelly of the U.S. military—not combat zones, but the culture of silence around sexual assault within its ranks. Survivors speak out, and we follow the trail of systemic failure that turns brave service members into victims twice over: once by their attackers, and again by the very institution sworn to protect them.
It’s raw, revealing, and infuriating—but also necessary. Because the real danger isn’t just the predators in uniform—it’s the system that lets them thrive.
In this gut-punch of an episode, we dive into the dark underbelly of the U.S. military—not combat zones, but the culture of silence around sexual assault within its ranks. Survivors speak out, and we follow the trail of systemic failure that turns brave service members into victims twice over: once by their attackers, and again by the very institution sworn to protect them.
It’s raw, revealing, and infuriating—but also necessary. Because the real danger isn’t just the predators in uniform—it’s the system that lets them thrive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey here everyone, This is alexwith It's Sensitive and I'm
here today with Lauren who spent four years in the
United States Navy, and she is here with us today
to talk about a very sensitive subject called sexual assault.
(00:31):
So before we even get into this episode, I do
want to you know, let everybody know this is a
trigger warning. We're going to talk about some specific details
and experiences related to sexual assault. So if that's a
difficult topic for you, I would suggest that you take
your time either listening to this episode, give yourself breaks
and pauses, or refrain from listening if it may be
(00:54):
too much for you. One of the big things, you know,
with the United States Navy or the military in general,
as most people join right after high school and they're
pretty young. It's been nineteen years since this situation has occurred,
and Lauren now is at a point where she wants
to talk about it and bring awareness to this topic.
(01:19):
So welcome, Lauren. I'm glad to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So real quick, do you just want to give us
some breakdown of your experience with the Navy and just
you know, not everybody's familiar with the military, Maybe just
some basics about you joining and what you did and
kind of your experience before the sexual assault. And we'll
use the term essay uh throughout the episode for those
(01:44):
of you listening to refer to sexual assault as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So I joined the Navy right after high school. I
come from a Navy family. Pretty much every person in
every male in my family, my father, my uncles, my grandfather,
my great grandfather, we're all maybe I was the first female,
(02:12):
and that's the reason I chose the Navy. But I
chose to go into the military because the career I
was aiming for. Having a military background would have really
given me an advantage in that career that I was
going for.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And so that's what I.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Did, and I joined. I went to boot camp in
Great Lakes, Illinois, Silly. I went in November through.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
January, very snowy, in wintery, very.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Snowy and winter y. It was very cold. I think
the day that I graduated boot camp it was a
negative thirty one with the wind chill. Wo.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I had never experienced that kind of cold in my life.
But so I joined. I joined the military. I went
in with the specific desire to be a military police officer,
and they offered me I took the ASVAP exam, which
(03:19):
is the test that you have to take where they determine,
you know, if you're an idiot or not, and apparently
I was not. And they offered me several different jobs
that would have not paid more because everyone's paid the same,
but I would have gotten significant bonuses and whatnot. But no,
I wanted to be an Avy police officer. That was
(03:40):
my goal. So that's what I did, and I went off.
I went to boot camp. Then I went off to
Lacklan Air Force Base in San Antonio and went through
the military's version of a police academy, which is almost
identical to most civilian police academies, is.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Lachlan Air Force too.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
It is Lachlan is an Air Force base, but the Navy,
for some reason, does their police training there. I don't
know why. But then my first duty station was Sudu Bay, Greece,
which is lovely. It was beautiful. After that, I was
(04:23):
sent to the Middle East, and this was at the
height of Operation Iraqi. Freedom were on terror the whole
I mean, it was really hot over there at that time,
so hot literally and figuratively, like dangerous hot. And it's
also just really fucking hot. So that's how I ended
(04:49):
up in Dubai, which is where my assault happened. And
if it's ok with you, I just I just want
to I just want to gloss over what happened, because
that's not even the actual assault itself, is not even
(05:15):
near the worst part of the situation. Absolutely, So I'm
just going to quickly tell you that I was out
one evening in Dubai with a group of my fellow comrades,
and I was living in an apartment with three girls.
(05:38):
We shared an apartment and one one girl had a
boyfriend who basically lived with us, and it was kind
of annoying, but whatever, you know. And each each bedroom
there's three bedrooms, but there was a very long out
(06:00):
side balcony, and each bedroom had a sliding glass door
that went out to this balcony, so you could get
to each bedroom from the hallway on the inside or
the balconies from the outside. Long story short, I got
very drunk that evening. I came home. I locked my
bedroom door because I just always locked my bedroom door.
(06:22):
I did not check my slider. My roommate's boyfriend came
to my door tried to come in, and it was locked,
so he went around to the slider and came in
my room again. I was very, very drunk.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
It was not.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Your typical violent essay. It was really just I mean
I did try and push him away, I did say stop,
I did say no. After a certain point, I just
(07:07):
went numb and let it happen, figuring that that would
probably be the easiest way to just get through it
and get over it. And then it was, uh, it
was done and over with, and that was that. I
(07:28):
wasn't hurt physically.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
But then.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The following day I was pretty upset. I mean, what
do you do and your roommate's boyfriend mix in your
room and does something like that to you when you're helpless.
I mean, I don't want to sound like I was helpless,
(08:02):
but I was just I was just very drunk, and
he was much larger than me. I am not a
I am four foot eleven. I am not a very
large person. If I were to try and fight him,
he would have overpowered me, and then I could have
gotten hurt. And my whole goal was to just not
(08:22):
get hurt, like, let's just get this over with. And
so the following day I was I had to work
and I was pretty upset, and I had a friend
who I'm using air quotes when I say friend, because
(08:43):
right now, I I think that that person took a
choice away from me. That was my choice. But I
did end up telling them what had happened, and they said,
if you don't say something, I will, And I don't
think that's right. I think it should be the victim.
I don't like to say victim, but if that ever
(09:07):
happens to you or anybody you know, it is their
decision whether they want report it or not. I think
that that's something that everybody needs to get through their head,
because truth be told, if I could go back, I
never would have reported it, and that's one of the
reasons why I want to tell this story. So I
(09:31):
was forced to report it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And just to clarify, this is the day after. You're
feeling all kinds of different feelings and conflicted, and you're
still trying to process what even happened, right, and this
air quote friend said, if you don't say something, I will,
And so you felt like your hand was forced and
(09:57):
you had to report it right then and there. That
choice was taken away from you because of how they
handled that situation.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yes, So what I did was I went to the corman.
A corman is like a navy nurse. Where we were
we were we were I was forward deployed to Dubai,
(10:28):
but we worked in another country in the in the
UAE called Jabali, and we had one corman. It was
a man, and that's the person that I reported.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It to, which is not easy for anybody because for
those of you who may be listening, the military is
very hierarchical, and if you're civilian reporting some thing, you
may be going to an officer that you maybe don't
have to deal with all the time. But in the military,
(11:05):
because of the hierarchy and how things work, a lot
of people end up knowing your business when you report something,
and you don't have a choice of who you go
to or who you talk to. You were, to your point,
forced to report to that one coreman because that's how
the heart, how the hierarchy works exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
And as you just said, I think everyone in my
command knew within hours, and I don't know how or
why or who told, because as soon as I was told,
I was sequestered. I was taken into a back office
and I was kept back there for hours and hours
(11:47):
and hours on end while we waited for an NCIS
agent to arrive. They were in Fujara, which was several
hours away, so I and in the meantime, my cell
phone kept ringing over and over and over again, and
it was my roommate, the girlfriend of my abuser, and
(12:13):
so somehow she had found out, and I was getting
text messages and phone calls just constant. So NCS finally
showed up and.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Can I pause for a clarify question, Sure, was your
roommate or her boyfriend also in the military. Yes, okay,
So this makes this at this point in time as
strictly military issue, as a part as far as how
the military sees it, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So NCIS shows up, they take my statement, and then
they take me. They don't take me home. They take
me to a different building, a different complex. The the
(13:03):
Navy had contracts with like three different complexes where they
had apartments where we lived when we were there, and
I never went back to that house. I never went
back to that room. I can't even remember who packed
up all my stuff and brought it to the new place.
(13:26):
But they ended up moving me out of there, and
they flew him out of the country immediately, like within
twelve hours, he was out of the country. The reason
for that was we were in the UAE. The United
Arab Emirates and the United States did not have a
(13:52):
status of Forces agreement with the UAE. That's a SOFA.
You know how the military likes their acronyms. So there
was no SOFA with the United States and the UA,
meaning that if an American service member were to commit
a crime. In certain countries, like say Italy, if an
(14:14):
American service member commits a crime, the Italians will hand
that service member over to the military and be like, here, take.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Care of your guy. Sure.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
In the UAE, we did not have that, So if
an American service member commits a crime in the UAE,
the UAE is going to handle it.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So they removed him from the country to keep it
a military issue.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And they removed him from the country to keep him
safe from persecution because they didn't know what I was
going to do. I see, the following day, I was
told that I needed to take myself on down to
the hospital. Mind you, we are in a Muslim country
(15:04):
and I needed to take myself into down to the
hospital in a civilian hospital, a civilian hospital. Yes, okay,
I was told that I was to tell them that
I had had unprotected sex and I needed to be
tested for STDs and pregnancy. Again, I'm an American in
(15:27):
a Muslim country walking into the hospital with a male
doctor trying to tell him I had unprotected sex, I
need to be tested for STDs and pregnancy. I was mortified,
and uh, I did that. I don't know how the
(15:51):
fuck I did that. I just did it. And then
later on that that day, that evening, my my chief,
which would be like my kind of like my commanding
officer in our little unit that we had over there,
he came to my room alone. Oh Jesus, And I
(16:14):
don't know if he was intentionally trying to intimidate me,
but I just remember a lot of it is kind
of blocked out, to be honest with you, but I
remember him standing there in my doorway and just kept
(16:35):
reminding me over and over how important it was that
I keep quiet in this country about what happened to me.
That it's so important that I do not talk about
it to anyone. I do not like even mention it
to anyone. And I was never offered any type of
(17:07):
counseling or anything along those lines, even though when I
read the report, which I never even read that report
until about seventeen years after it happened.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well so just a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yes, it's currently been about nineteen years since this happened.
But I ended up requesting the report from NCIS and
I got it and I read it, and I just
that was about the time when I decided that this
(17:45):
is a story that needed to be told, because this
is what is happening to women and men in our military,
and they're being hushed, they're being told to be quiet,
they're not being taken care of properly, and it's all
(18:06):
being lied about. It's all being covered up, and the
perpetrators are being protected and the victims are being thrown
to the to the wolves.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
So absolutely, And I want to kind of rewind a
little bit. So your perpetrator was taken out of the country,
you were kind of sequestered from everybody else. Were you
then asked to return to duty at some point and
just pretend like it didn't happen. Yep, that's exactly. And
(18:38):
did you continue your service in that country?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And did that people did that guy ever come back.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
No, they they sent him to a different country. They
sent him to Bahrain, which there was a safer place
for him as far as prosecution, and uh, I never
saw him again, but I know that he was never punished.
There was never a court martial, There was never any
(19:09):
type of trial or anything like that. It was his
word against mine because we were in the country we
were in. There was no rape kit done. The only
thing I ever had done was an STD test and
a pregnancy test, which thank god, was all negative. But
(19:34):
it was his word against mine. He admitted to it,
but he said that it was consensual, and it was not.
It absolutely was not. In a weird way, I can
almost maybe kind of see from his point in view
(20:00):
where he may have thought it was consensual because, like
I said, very early into the assault, I just stopped
fighting because I it was like fight flight a freeze, yes,
And it was a freeze moment for me.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Absolutely, That's a form of protection.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And that's and I've been in therapy and I mean
that's what we've come I've come to realize that it
was it was a self preservation. It was a freeze moment.
I couldn't fight him, Like I said, he was much
larger than me. I couldn't flee. Where the fuck was
I supposed to go. I was in my own bedroom.
That's where you're supposed to be safe. Yes, uh so
(20:50):
what what bothers me the most is, you know, I
had a hope throughout the year, and I kept quiet.
I didn't tell. I don't I still to this day
don't tell. I mean a lot of people, of course,
(21:10):
my close friends and family know, but I I had
hoped that throughout the years that things were better. You
hear things are getting better, and you hear you know
that they did away with don't ask, don't tell. There
(21:33):
they're being more the military's being more open with allowing
you know, the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I had just, I guess kind of assumed that they
were improving the way they handled sexual assault. I'm sorry, essay,
I I'm sorry. I'm just going to say this. I
don't I don't like to say essay because I understand that.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You are absolutely entitled to say sexual assault. It's just
a long word to say.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I know, it's no, it's just it's just that that's
what happened to me.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It's essayed. I was sexually assaulted. An essay doesn't sound
the same as sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, absolutely so I'm very sorry if anybody is upset
by that, but I feel like essay minimizes it, and
I agree. Anyway, I.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Want to talk about a couple of things here real
quick with you. Okay, So you had said something in
the beginning when you're telling the story that you felt helpless,
but you're not necessarily a helpless and individual. And I'm
going to talk about consent for a second because you
just mentioned maybe that he perceived that as consent, and
I feel like in today's day and age, there has
(22:59):
been more conversation around consent, especially in that after the
brock Turner trials. What is consent?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
But I want to kind of I pulled something up
from planned parenthood. Consent is freely given, reversible, means you
can say no and you're stop. It's informed so that
you have the full story on both sides. It's enthusiastic,
so it's something you want. It's not something that you're
(23:30):
kind of on the edge about or I don't know.
It's something that you're freely given, and it's specific you're
saying yes to sex. And from what you just told
me none of those five things happened in that situation.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, you're right now, And I know that I didn't
give consent. I know that I would not have given
consent if I was sober. I know that I was
in no way, shape or form interested in this person.
I was actually in another relationship with someone else at
the time.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
There is there is.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
No scenario on this planet where I would have ever
given this person consent to have sex with me.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Absolutely, And I think that's important to call out because
I've when it's he said she said, or she said
she said, or he said he said, whatever gender you
are said, consent is critical to whether or not something
as a soul. And I think that's important to understand
(24:34):
because I think some times people get up in arms
because they're like, well, it could have been this, or
she was drunk and she might have said yes. But
I think it's important to touch on what consent is
is more than just saying yes. Even if for some
reason in that freeze state you said yes, which it
doesn't sound like you did, it doesn't matter because none
of that was consensual at any point in time, and
(24:57):
that makes it sexual assault. And you weren't in a
state to even give consent in that state. And it's
frustrating because you're saying that this person was just sent
somewhere else and they could potentially have done it twenty
more times in their lifetime since then.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
I know, and I hope they haven't, but I have
no idea. I never saw him or spoke to him
again in my existence.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
And I know you are dealing huh, yeah, you shouldn't
have to, but here you are dealing with the aftermath
of everything, having to take yourself to a hospital and
lie to them about what actually happened, being told to
keep your mouth shut because it's in the best interest
of what the Navy at that point. Yeah, and you're
(25:57):
a young adult right at this point, so that you
were in your your early twenties, I assume.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, I was twenty. I think I was twenty one.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So you had you had no options. You were everything
now and it's completely alone. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It really really really fucked with my head as far
as trust, because you think that that your country, your
military is going to protect you. You trust that, Yeah,
you give them your life. You sign a blank check
up anything up into your life that you're going to
(26:37):
give for your country and they can't even help you
out when you've been raped.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It's just.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I have tears in my eyes right now. It's not
tears of sadness, it's tears of rare Over the years
I've gone through, you know, a denial. I've even I've
questioned myself like maybe it wasn't and maybe it wasn't
(27:15):
sexual assault. Maybe you know, maybe I did give him
consent and I just don't remember because I was drunk.
But then I'm like, no, because there's no no, I didn't.
And I've lost trust in myself in a lot of ways.
(27:36):
It's almost like a gaslighting myself.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Like you know, maybe gaslight you essentially, Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
And I've lost trust in our military. I've lost trust
in our country. I've lost trust in humanity. To this day,
I cannot there's several things that I cannot do. I
(28:06):
cannot uh be in a home with a male that
I do not know well or intimately, or like I
travel a lot for my job. Sure like we are
traveling right now. And if I wasn't here with my husband,
(28:32):
who I trust explicitly, if I were, I would have
to have a hotel room by myself or with a
very very trusted female friend. If we were at an Airbnb,
I would have to have a room with a locking door.
I have a I have a weird thing about locking doors.
(28:53):
I can't sleep without a locking door. There's just so
many little things that have evolved from this trauma that
(29:14):
are just part of my life now, and they're annoying.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
They're annoying because it's still controlling your life nineteen years
after it happened, because you were asked to suppress it
and pretend like it didn't happen, and you have had
to continue to protect yourself for the last nineteen years
and your body has taught you to do that. That's
what trauma is.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not really quite sure what
else to say other than shame on you, United States Navy,
Shame on you. And what I was getting at earlier
(30:03):
is I you know, I was hoping. I stayed quiet
for years and years, and I'm not the only one
because now I belong to a large group of men
and women who are MST survivors. MST stands for military
sexual trauma, and there are groups. There are groups online.
(30:28):
There are groups on TikTok, there are groups on Facebook
support groups, and this just is still happening, and it's
still happening the exact same way that happened to me.
And then there's things that happened, you know, like Vanessa Gean.
(30:48):
That's when Vanessa, when the Vanessa Gean situation happened in
twenty twenty. For anybody who doesn't know, she was a soldier,
an Army soldier stationed at for Hood who was sexually harassed.
And I don't know, I don't. I just think we don't.
(31:11):
We don't know if she was ever actually sexually assaulted
by this person. But she was murdered and dismembered and
set on fire and buried by her abuser, and the
Army kept a lot of that information from her family.
(31:34):
They tried to keep it hush hush, They tried to
keep that. That's why it blew up, because her family,
God blessed them. They would not stop. And now there's
a Netflix documentary which I highly highly recommend everybody watch.
I mean, and then there's the hashtag I'm Vanessa Gayan,
(31:56):
and then you know, the me too hashtag and the
hashtag believe Her. You'd think that all of these that
we were making progress towards being better. But then I'm
in these groups with these people that are and some
(32:17):
of them are, yeah, some of them are nineteen twenty
twenty one years old, and it's still fucking happening. I mean,
this is what I'm talking about, rage that this is
still fucking happening to these people that that are putting
their lives on the line, that are fighting.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
For You're absolutely right. So we did have to take
a time out. And I want to say this because
if you're listening to this, this is very emotional. I'm
sitting right across from Lauren crying with her, and this
(32:59):
is a very tough subjects. So if you're listening to
this and you need to take a time out, that's
okay too. But we'll continue because this is important.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
It's important because people need to know what's happening. People
need to know, and I don't I don't even know
what the answer is. I don't know how. How are
you going to change the military, How do you change
the government? How our government is such a fucking shit
(33:34):
show to begin with, Like how do you even get them?
There's so much more that they're concerned with right now,
Like how do we help these people besides just be
there for them, be support or or come on here
(33:59):
and tell your story so that people know, because people
need to know, especially my god, if people are sending
their daughters off into the military or their sons. Absolutely,
I mean, I'll tell you I would ever And I
(34:21):
was the most patriotic my whole life, you know, so
proud of my family, my dad, my cousins, my uncles,
my grandparents, Navy, Navy, Davy, Davy. You know, we go
to the cemetery and you see, you know, my grandfather's
grave World War two. You see my uncle's grave, Vietnam War.
(34:43):
You know, my dad he had his Vietnam Uh, you know,
medals and uh. It used to be such a source
of pride, and now the thought of my child going
into the military is a source of fucking terror.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
And that is so hard, right, go ahead, Well.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
The main takeaway is the main things that I want
to get across to people is this Number One. If
something happens to somebody, it is their choice and their
choice alone what they want to do with that, if
they want to report it or if they don't. You
(35:35):
have absolutely nobody in this world has any right to
take that decision away from that person, because that decision
was taken away from me. And I look back and
I think that if I had just said nothing, if
I had just chalked it up to a stupid mistake,
(35:56):
something stupid that happened, you know, I probably would not
have had as much trauma as I did. I mean,
I probably I would have had trauma, but I probably
just could have, you know, gotten some therapy and gotten
over it, because it's not just the sexual assault, it's
(36:20):
everything that came along with it and after it and
over the years, and uh yeah, I just And then
the second thing, is it still happening. And I think
Americans need to know that this is happening in our
(36:41):
country in our military, and our military members are being
attacked by our own people, and they're not doing anything
to stop it. They're not doing anything to prevent it.
They're not doing anything to stop it, and they're not
doing anything to help the victims after it happened. And
it's still happen. The same thing that happened to be
(37:04):
almost nineteen years ago is still happening today. And I
don't know what the answer is, but and I don't
think my little voice is going to do much, but
it's all I can do.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Every voice matters, though, I know that. I know that,
and I think that's why we need to talk about it, right,
because to find the courage to talk about this is difficult.
It's right, it's still emotional. You're still processing over twenty
(37:39):
about twenty years later, and there's so many more people
who are in the same situation trying to navigate what
to do, how to handle it, how to process it,
and whether you're a civilian or in the military, some
it's easy to sweep some of the stuff under the
(38:02):
rug and just whether it's the me Too movement, brock Turner,
military sexual assault, somebody getting literally murdered over that, which
happens unfortunately a lot, because there's usually multiple offense abusers
who are constantly sexual assaulting people, and sometimes there's single
event abusers. But if the people who are performing these
(38:24):
actions aren't being punished and are not having to stop
because nobody's forcing them to because oh, I'll just put
you somewhere else to go do it, do whatever you want. Yeah,
And meanwhile you're left to peek up the pieces and
try to navigate it.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
And you know what, oh God, like I said, I
finally a few years ago, requested the report and I
read it, and I want to say that a good
sixty five percent of what's written in that report is
(39:04):
absolute bullshit. They said I was offered counseling, I was
offered therapy. They said that I was offered all this
different stuff and that I refused. And they said I
was asked if I wanted to press charges and I
said no, which is a lie. I was never asked.
(39:27):
I was never offered any counseling. I was never offered anything.
I was basically told get back to work, and everybody
knew I was uncomfortable. Okay, So the ratio of men
to women in the military is like ten to one,
so like nine times out of ten if you're on
(39:52):
patrol or for I was on a harbor patrol, meaning
that we drove small boats and the Navy ships would
pull in and then our little boats would protect them
from you know, they any type of threat. And ninety
(40:17):
nine point ninety percent of the time I was on
a boat with a mail, which was highly uncomfortable for me,
and I'm sure it was highly uncomfortable for them because
then they're like, well, this is the girl that cried rape.
I don't want to be alone with her on a boat,
but if she says I did something to her, you know,
and it's like half the people believed me and half
(40:38):
the people didn't didn't. So I became, you know, the
girl who cried rape and just very uncomfortable situation. I
did end up.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I had a friend, close friend, a male who I'm
still very very good friends with to this day. And
I can't thank him enough because he volunteered to be
with me on the boats and I trusted him and
(41:18):
I was comfortable with him, and we ended up being
partners for a long time, like un till I ended
up leaving that that duty station. It was always him
and I together, and he believed me and he held
me when I cried. He was he was a good,
(41:41):
good friend. There's still good people out there. And I'm
not saying every one of the military's bad, because they're not.
But it's the bad actors that.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
I think. What really bothers me about what you just
said is they knew exactly what they needed to do
because they put it in the fucking report. They knew
they were supposed to offer you counseling. They knew they
were supposed to offer to press charges, yet they didn't
give you that option, right, So your bodily autonomy was
taken to you by your rapist. Then your rapist went
off and did god knows what, and then you were
(42:17):
told to go back to work, and then your autonomy
to report it or get help or seek help was
taken away because you were in the military and you
had to follow orders and do what you were told.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
But I was on the other side of the fucking world,
away from my family, away from my support system, like
I had no.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
One except for one guy who chose to be there
for you. Yeah, And I think when we talk about
military rape or sexual assault or sexual harassment, I think
that's an important highlight compared to civilian is because there
were a lot of choices that were taken from you
(42:59):
that in a civilian situation that you would normally have.
You may be able to seek your support system, you
may be able to go to the sheriff's office or
coops office, and even those things are hard to do
in a civilian sexual assault. But then you add the
military on top of it. That's hierarchical and a lot
of those decisions aren't yours. You had everything taken away
(43:22):
from you at a young age in a sense from
an autonomy standpoint, and then told to go fucking save
your country. And that sounds absolutely ludicrous or fucking stupid.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
It is so ludicrous, it's like funny, It's like comic bool,
Like what.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
When you put it like that?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh because it's like,
are you fucking kidding me? I'm sorry. I have a
mouth of a sailor.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
As you should, because one thing that you've told me
repeatedly is you you still are a proud veteran. You
are proud that you served your country in the sense
that you care about the United States. You care about
the United States Navy, you care about your heritage, you
care about people, And just because somebody was sexually assaulted
(44:17):
doesn't demean and devalue who they are as a person.
I think there's plenty of people when it comes to
military sexual assault that says they hate their country. Oh,
they just trying to ruin America or just be hateful,
and that is not the case. No. And ultimately, you know,
(44:40):
the reason you're speaking up is because we're in twenty
twenty four this is still happening to young people. Young
people are still being traumatized, still aren't being supported by
the military. And I can assure you this is not
specific to the United States Navy, this part. Oh No,
in the Army, the Air Force, the Marines, every single branch.
We have absolutely obviously because you know, Vanessa Gian you know,
(45:04):
was in the Army, and we've heard plenty of stories
out of different areas and those are just the ones
that are amplified. Yeah, So for every amplified story, there's
one hundred thousand more.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah. And then you're told during a me Too movement
or I am Vanessa Gean, you you choose to speak
out and you have some sense of empowerment after that
autonomy was taken away from you, and then people shit
on you for telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yep, yep. And I'm just gonna say that, like, yeah,
you get you could, you could get on Twitter or
x or whatever the fuck it's called, and you can
hashtag me too, and then you're gonna have four or
five other people that are just like, bitch, shut up, yeah,
(45:56):
like shut your fucking mouth, get over it. It's something
that you won't understand until you until it happens to you,
and then you won't understand everyone's experience because everyone's experience
(46:20):
is different. So it's hard, actually just take all that out,
because I don't know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
It's okay, it's it's hard to find the courage to
speak up, and then the ones that are spoken, that
do speak up, do find that courage, are just thrown
to the wolves. And this is why we need to
(46:52):
talk about it more. Is because until it is normalized
that it is okay to report second assault, and until
it is normalized that there are support and resources that
are given to anybody who reports sexual assault, not just
some people. This is a problem.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
It is, Yep, it sure is.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
And I know it's uncomfortable to listen to. If you've
made it into the forty seven minutes or whatever of
this episode, this has been hard to listen to.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I'm not gonna listen to this, that's.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Okay, but for whoever.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
But I hope that anyone who does listen to it
gets a better understanding of how things work and what's happening.
And I don't know what the answer is, but maybe
if if enough people put their heads together, we could
(47:52):
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Like, Yeah, I mean you said that there's military sexual
trauma groups. Yeah, you know, there's plenty of highly paid
people in the United States and many other nations in
the world who solve problems. And it takes a lot
(48:17):
of work to solve problems, but it also takes a
lot of voices to show sometimes that it is a problem.
In your one more voice saying this is a problem,
and that's important. And if you're listening to this and
you've ever been a victim of sexual assault, you know,
when you or if you get to the point that
you can find a courage to speak your story, it
(48:40):
helps others to understand that you're not alone. Yeah, because absolutely,
until recently you didn't even I mean, you're still dealing
with trauma symptoms. It's still controlling your life. And I
know you've done a shit ton of therapy. You do
(49:00):
even get to the point that you can have this
conversation with me.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, true, but it's a work in progress. You know,
maybe it'll take another twenty years, but.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Absolutely So with that being said, I think you touched
on a couple of super important things there. I think
the autonomy to report you to decide whether you report
yourself is important because that's a decision you have to make,
(49:39):
and you have to process and you have to understand.
And I'm not suggesting that anybody not reports sexual assault,
but when that decision is taken away from you, that
makes it difficult for you to find that courage and
do what you need to do to fully move through
what you're experiencing. So, if you've ever been sexually assaulting
(50:02):
you haven't reported it, it's okay, yeah, But if you
can report it, the more reports there are, the more
light comes to some of these issues, as hard as
that is, and that takes a lot of fucking courage,
more than any asshole on fucking Twitter who shit his
(50:22):
pants behind a keyboard. True.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
True.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
The other thing is this is still very prevalent in
the military, and because the military is hierarchical and controls
a lot of service members' wives for various reasons. Some good.
You know, you have young kids who are you know,
using weapons and going out to save our country, and
you have to have a way to handle, you know,
(50:50):
operations and doing things. The military can use that same
power for good and do the right thing because you're
you're commanding off or knew what they needed to do
and chose not to. They chose not to allow you
to report it or offer that they chose not to
offer you counseling. And not that we're not saying that
(51:11):
everybody in the military is like that, but it takes
so many good actors to offset all the bad actors,
and a good actor, a good commanding officer who had
the courage to come in and offer you those services
and do the right thing, could have made a world
of difference in your experience.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yeah, you're right, but I didn't have that.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
And so even if you're not a sexual assault the victim,
you know, even if you're a civilian, even if you're
in the military, you can matter to someone because there's
also a friend who chose to step up and be
there for you despite not having the resources you need.
So maybe you think they should report it, but maybe
they choose not to. But you can still be there
(51:54):
for them. You can still be a friend, You can
still support them and help protect them and make them
feel safe in a space they don't. So, you know,
even if you're not necessarily in a sphere I can't
say that word where you've been sexually assaulted or you
understand listening is so important. Allowing people the autonomy to
(52:20):
self report or get the resources to report, or the
resources to get counseling or deal with trauma is enough.
But it takes a good actor to stand out and
say that they will help or speak out when these
things happen for the right thing to be done, because
(52:40):
there's always going to be bad actors, but enough good
actors can offset that. So be a good actor. Be
a good actor.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
That's a good note to end up.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Absolutely so, I do want to thank you Laurreen for
sharing this very emotional up. My eyes are battery right now.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
It's okay. Thank you for allowing me to share this story.
Thanks for being you, because there's not many people I
would trust with this, and I do trust.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
You, and that's a high honor to me. I'm glad
I can be the good actor for you. So go
out there, guys and normalize being a good actor, doing
the right thing, finding the courage to be a good
friend and give people resources when they need them, but
also allowing their bodily autonomy to do what they need
(53:35):
to do. Hey, everyone, it's Alex with It's sensitive. Thank
you for tuning in to this very important conversation. If
you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault.
RAIN r AI n N operates the National Sexual Assault
(53:56):
Hotline that is confidential and offers twenty four x seven.
They can be reached by telephone at one eight hundred
six five six four six seven three or chat online
at online dot r AI n N dot org. They
also operate the DoD Safe Helpline, a service for members
(54:17):
of the US military and their families operated by RAIN
for the Department of Defense. The telephone number is eight
seven seven nine nine five five two four seven. That
and more resources for online chat are available to https
rain dot org forward slash resources. Remember you are never
(54:40):
alone and help is available.
Hey here everyone, This is alexwith It's Sensitive and I'm
here today with Lauren who spent four years in the
United States Navy, and she is here with us today
to talk about a very sensitive subject called sexual assault.
(00:31):
So before we even get into this episode, I do
want to you know, let everybody know this is a
trigger warning. We're going to talk about some specific details
and experiences related to sexual assault. So if that's a
difficult topic for you, I would suggest that you take
your time either listening to this episode, give yourself breaks
and pauses, or refrain from listening if it may be
(00:54):
too much for you. One of the big things, you know,
with the United States Navy or the military in general,
as most people join right after high school and they're
pretty young. It's been nineteen years since this situation has occurred,
and Lauren now is at a point where she wants
to talk about it and bring awareness to this topic.
(01:19):
So welcome, Lauren. I'm glad to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So real quick, do you just want to give us
some breakdown of your experience with the Navy and just
you know, not everybody's familiar with the military, Maybe just
some basics about you joining and what you did and
kind of your experience before the sexual assault. And we'll
use the term essay uh throughout the episode for those
(01:44):
of you listening to refer to sexual assault as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So I joined the Navy right after high school. I
come from a Navy family. Pretty much every person in
every male in my family, my father, my uncles, my grandfather,
my great grandfather, we're all maybe I was the first female,
(02:12):
and that's the reason I chose the Navy. But I
chose to go into the military because the career I
was aiming for. Having a military background would have really
given me an advantage in that career that I was
going for.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And so that's what I.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Did, and I joined. I went to boot camp in
Great Lakes, Illinois, Silly. I went in November through.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
January, very snowy, in wintery, very.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Snowy and winter y. It was very cold. I think
the day that I graduated boot camp it was a
negative thirty one with the wind chill. Wo.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I had never experienced that kind of cold in my life.
But so I joined. I joined the military. I went
in with the specific desire to be a military police officer,
and they offered me I took the ASVAP exam, which
(03:19):
is the test that you have to take where they determine,
you know, if you're an idiot or not, and apparently
I was not. And they offered me several different jobs
that would have not paid more because everyone's paid the same,
but I would have gotten significant bonuses and whatnot. But no,
I wanted to be an Avy police officer. That was
(03:40):
my goal. So that's what I did, and I went off.
I went to boot camp. Then I went off to
Lacklan Air Force Base in San Antonio and went through
the military's version of a police academy, which is almost
identical to most civilian police academies, is.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Lachlan Air Force too.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
It is Lachlan is an Air Force base, but the Navy,
for some reason, does their police training there. I don't
know why. But then my first duty station was Sudu Bay, Greece,
which is lovely. It was beautiful. After that, I was
(04:23):
sent to the Middle East, and this was at the
height of Operation Iraqi. Freedom were on terror the whole
I mean, it was really hot over there at that time,
so hot literally and figuratively, like dangerous hot. And it's
also just really fucking hot. So that's how I ended
(04:49):
up in Dubai, which is where my assault happened. And
if it's ok with you, I just I just want
to I just want to gloss over what happened, because
that's not even the actual assault itself, is not even
(05:15):
near the worst part of the situation. Absolutely, So I'm
just going to quickly tell you that I was out
one evening in Dubai with a group of my fellow comrades,
and I was living in an apartment with three girls.
(05:38):
We shared an apartment and one one girl had a
boyfriend who basically lived with us, and it was kind
of annoying, but whatever, you know. And each each bedroom
there's three bedrooms, but there was a very long out
(06:00):
side balcony, and each bedroom had a sliding glass door
that went out to this balcony, so you could get
to each bedroom from the hallway on the inside or
the balconies from the outside. Long story short, I got
very drunk that evening. I came home. I locked my
bedroom door because I just always locked my bedroom door.
(06:22):
I did not check my slider. My roommate's boyfriend came
to my door tried to come in, and it was locked,
so he went around to the slider and came in
my room again. I was very, very drunk.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
It was not.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Your typical violent essay. It was really just I mean
I did try and push him away, I did say stop,
I did say no. After a certain point, I just
(07:07):
went numb and let it happen, figuring that that would
probably be the easiest way to just get through it
and get over it. And then it was, uh, it
was done and over with, and that was that. I
(07:28):
wasn't hurt physically.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
But then.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The following day I was pretty upset. I mean, what
do you do and your roommate's boyfriend mix in your
room and does something like that to you when you're helpless.
I mean, I don't want to sound like I was helpless,
(08:02):
but I was just I was just very drunk, and
he was much larger than me. I am not a
I am four foot eleven. I am not a very
large person. If I were to try and fight him,
he would have overpowered me, and then I could have
gotten hurt. And my whole goal was to just not
(08:22):
get hurt, like, let's just get this over with. And
so the following day I was I had to work
and I was pretty upset, and I had a friend
who I'm using air quotes when I say friend, because
(08:43):
right now, I I think that that person took a
choice away from me. That was my choice. But I
did end up telling them what had happened, and they said,
if you don't say something, I will, And I don't
think that's right. I think it should be the victim.
I don't like to say victim, but if that ever
(09:07):
happens to you or anybody you know, it is their
decision whether they want report it or not. I think
that that's something that everybody needs to get through their head,
because truth be told, if I could go back, I
never would have reported it, and that's one of the
reasons why I want to tell this story. So I
(09:31):
was forced to report it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And just to clarify, this is the day after. You're
feeling all kinds of different feelings and conflicted, and you're
still trying to process what even happened, right, and this
air quote friend said, if you don't say something, I will,
And so you felt like your hand was forced and
(09:57):
you had to report it right then and there. That
choice was taken away from you because of how they
handled that situation.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yes, So what I did was I went to the corman.
A corman is like a navy nurse. Where we were
we were we were I was forward deployed to Dubai,
(10:28):
but we worked in another country in the in the
UAE called Jabali, and we had one corman. It was
a man, and that's the person that I reported.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It to, which is not easy for anybody because for
those of you who may be listening, the military is
very hierarchical, and if you're civilian reporting some thing, you
may be going to an officer that you maybe don't
have to deal with all the time. But in the military,
(11:05):
because of the hierarchy and how things work, a lot
of people end up knowing your business when you report something,
and you don't have a choice of who you go
to or who you talk to. You were, to your point,
forced to report to that one coreman because that's how
the heart, how the hierarchy works exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
And as you just said, I think everyone in my
command knew within hours, and I don't know how or
why or who told, because as soon as I was told,
I was sequestered. I was taken into a back office
and I was kept back there for hours and hours
(11:47):
and hours on end while we waited for an NCIS
agent to arrive. They were in Fujara, which was several
hours away, so I and in the meantime, my cell
phone kept ringing over and over and over again, and
it was my roommate, the girlfriend of my abuser, and
(12:13):
so somehow she had found out, and I was getting
text messages and phone calls just constant. So NCS finally
showed up and.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Can I pause for a clarify question, Sure, was your
roommate or her boyfriend also in the military. Yes, okay,
So this makes this at this point in time as
strictly military issue, as a part as far as how
the military sees it, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So NCIS shows up, they take my statement, and then
they take me. They don't take me home. They take
me to a different building, a different complex. The the
(13:03):
Navy had contracts with like three different complexes where they
had apartments where we lived when we were there, and
I never went back to that house. I never went
back to that room. I can't even remember who packed
up all my stuff and brought it to the new place.
(13:26):
But they ended up moving me out of there, and
they flew him out of the country immediately, like within
twelve hours, he was out of the country. The reason
for that was we were in the UAE. The United
Arab Emirates and the United States did not have a
(13:52):
status of Forces agreement with the UAE. That's a SOFA.
You know how the military likes their acronyms. So there
was no SOFA with the United States and the UA,
meaning that if an American service member were to commit
a crime. In certain countries, like say Italy, if an
(14:14):
American service member commits a crime, the Italians will hand
that service member over to the military and be like, here, take.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Care of your guy. Sure.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
In the UAE, we did not have that, So if
an American service member commits a crime in the UAE,
the UAE is going to handle it.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So they removed him from the country to keep it
a military issue.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And they removed him from the country to keep him
safe from persecution because they didn't know what I was
going to do. I see, the following day, I was
told that I needed to take myself on down to
the hospital. Mind you, we are in a Muslim country
(15:04):
and I needed to take myself into down to the
hospital in a civilian hospital, a civilian hospital. Yes, okay,
I was told that I was to tell them that
I had had unprotected sex and I needed to be
tested for STDs and pregnancy. Again, I'm an American in
(15:27):
a Muslim country walking into the hospital with a male
doctor trying to tell him I had unprotected sex, I
need to be tested for STDs and pregnancy. I was mortified,
and uh, I did that. I don't know how the
(15:51):
fuck I did that. I just did it. And then
later on that that day, that evening, my my chief,
which would be like my kind of like my commanding
officer in our little unit that we had over there,
he came to my room alone. Oh Jesus, And I
(16:14):
don't know if he was intentionally trying to intimidate me,
but I just remember a lot of it is kind
of blocked out, to be honest with you, but I
remember him standing there in my doorway and just kept
(16:35):
reminding me over and over how important it was that
I keep quiet in this country about what happened to me.
That it's so important that I do not talk about
it to anyone. I do not like even mention it
to anyone. And I was never offered any type of
(17:07):
counseling or anything along those lines, even though when I
read the report, which I never even read that report
until about seventeen years after it happened.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well so just a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yes, it's currently been about nineteen years since this happened.
But I ended up requesting the report from NCIS and
I got it and I read it, and I just
that was about the time when I decided that this
(17:45):
is a story that needed to be told, because this
is what is happening to women and men in our military,
and they're being hushed, they're being told to be quiet,
they're not being taken care of properly, and it's all
(18:06):
being lied about. It's all being covered up, and the
perpetrators are being protected and the victims are being thrown
to the to the wolves.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
So absolutely, And I want to kind of rewind a
little bit. So your perpetrator was taken out of the country,
you were kind of sequestered from everybody else. Were you
then asked to return to duty at some point and
just pretend like it didn't happen. Yep, that's exactly. And
(18:38):
did you continue your service in that country?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And did that people did that guy ever come back.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
No, they they sent him to a different country. They
sent him to Bahrain, which there was a safer place
for him as far as prosecution, and uh, I never
saw him again, but I know that he was never punished.
There was never a court martial, There was never any
(19:09):
type of trial or anything like that. It was his
word against mine because we were in the country we
were in. There was no rape kit done. The only
thing I ever had done was an STD test and
a pregnancy test, which thank god, was all negative. But
(19:34):
it was his word against mine. He admitted to it,
but he said that it was consensual, and it was not.
It absolutely was not. In a weird way, I can
almost maybe kind of see from his point in view
(20:00):
where he may have thought it was consensual because, like
I said, very early into the assault, I just stopped
fighting because I it was like fight flight a freeze, yes,
And it was a freeze moment for me.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Absolutely, That's a form of protection.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And that's and I've been in therapy and I mean
that's what we've come I've come to realize that it
was it was a self preservation. It was a freeze moment.
I couldn't fight him, Like I said, he was much
larger than me. I couldn't flee. Where the fuck was
I supposed to go. I was in my own bedroom.
That's where you're supposed to be safe. Yes, uh so
(20:50):
what what bothers me the most is, you know, I
had a hope throughout the year, and I kept quiet.
I didn't tell. I don't I still to this day
don't tell. I mean a lot of people, of course,
(21:10):
my close friends and family know, but I I had
hoped that throughout the years that things were better. You
hear things are getting better, and you hear you know
that they did away with don't ask, don't tell. There
(21:33):
they're being more the military's being more open with allowing
you know, the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I had just, I guess kind of assumed that they
were improving the way they handled sexual assault. I'm sorry, essay,
I I'm sorry. I'm just going to say this. I
don't I don't like to say essay because I understand that.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You are absolutely entitled to say sexual assault. It's just
a long word to say.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I know, it's no, it's just it's just that that's
what happened to me.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It's essayed. I was sexually assaulted. An essay doesn't sound
the same as sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, absolutely so I'm very sorry if anybody is upset
by that, but I feel like essay minimizes it, and
I agree. Anyway, I.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Want to talk about a couple of things here real
quick with you. Okay, So you had said something in
the beginning when you're telling the story that you felt helpless,
but you're not necessarily a helpless and individual. And I'm
going to talk about consent for a second because you
just mentioned maybe that he perceived that as consent, and
I feel like in today's day and age, there has
(22:59):
been more conversation around consent, especially in that after the
brock Turner trials. What is consent?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
But I want to kind of I pulled something up
from planned parenthood. Consent is freely given, reversible, means you
can say no and you're stop. It's informed so that
you have the full story on both sides. It's enthusiastic,
so it's something you want. It's not something that you're
(23:30):
kind of on the edge about or I don't know.
It's something that you're freely given, and it's specific you're
saying yes to sex. And from what you just told
me none of those five things happened in that situation.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, you're right now, And I know that I didn't
give consent. I know that I would not have given
consent if I was sober. I know that I was
in no way, shape or form interested in this person.
I was actually in another relationship with someone else at
the time.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
There is there is.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
No scenario on this planet where I would have ever
given this person consent to have sex with me.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Absolutely, And I think that's important to call out because
I've when it's he said she said, or she said
she said, or he said he said, whatever gender you
are said, consent is critical to whether or not something
as a soul. And I think that's important to understand
(24:34):
because I think some times people get up in arms
because they're like, well, it could have been this, or
she was drunk and she might have said yes. But
I think it's important to touch on what consent is
is more than just saying yes. Even if for some
reason in that freeze state you said yes, which it
doesn't sound like you did, it doesn't matter because none
of that was consensual at any point in time, and
(24:57):
that makes it sexual assault. And you weren't in a
state to even give consent in that state. And it's
frustrating because you're saying that this person was just sent
somewhere else and they could potentially have done it twenty
more times in their lifetime since then.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
I know, and I hope they haven't, but I have
no idea. I never saw him or spoke to him
again in my existence.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
And I know you are dealing huh, yeah, you shouldn't
have to, but here you are dealing with the aftermath
of everything, having to take yourself to a hospital and
lie to them about what actually happened, being told to
keep your mouth shut because it's in the best interest
of what the Navy at that point. Yeah, and you're
(25:57):
a young adult right at this point, so that you
were in your your early twenties, I assume.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, I was twenty. I think I was twenty one.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So you had you had no options. You were everything
now and it's completely alone. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It really really really fucked with my head as far
as trust, because you think that that your country, your
military is going to protect you. You trust that, Yeah,
you give them your life. You sign a blank check
up anything up into your life that you're going to
(26:37):
give for your country and they can't even help you
out when you've been raped.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It's just.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I have tears in my eyes right now. It's not
tears of sadness, it's tears of rare Over the years
I've gone through, you know, a denial. I've even I've
questioned myself like maybe it wasn't and maybe it wasn't
(27:15):
sexual assault. Maybe you know, maybe I did give him
consent and I just don't remember because I was drunk.
But then I'm like, no, because there's no no, I didn't.
And I've lost trust in myself in a lot of ways.
(27:36):
It's almost like a gaslighting myself.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Like you know, maybe gaslight you essentially, Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
And I've lost trust in our military. I've lost trust
in our country. I've lost trust in humanity. To this day,
I cannot there's several things that I cannot do. I
(28:06):
cannot uh be in a home with a male that
I do not know well or intimately, or like I
travel a lot for my job. Sure like we are
traveling right now. And if I wasn't here with my husband,
(28:32):
who I trust explicitly, if I were, I would have
to have a hotel room by myself or with a
very very trusted female friend. If we were at an Airbnb,
I would have to have a room with a locking door.
I have a I have a weird thing about locking doors.
(28:53):
I can't sleep without a locking door. There's just so
many little things that have evolved from this trauma that
(29:14):
are just part of my life now, and they're annoying.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
They're annoying because it's still controlling your life nineteen years
after it happened, because you were asked to suppress it
and pretend like it didn't happen, and you have had
to continue to protect yourself for the last nineteen years
and your body has taught you to do that. That's
what trauma is.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not really quite sure what
else to say other than shame on you, United States Navy,
Shame on you. And what I was getting at earlier
(30:03):
is I you know, I was hoping. I stayed quiet
for years and years, and I'm not the only one
because now I belong to a large group of men
and women who are MST survivors. MST stands for military
sexual trauma, and there are groups. There are groups online.
(30:28):
There are groups on TikTok, there are groups on Facebook
support groups, and this just is still happening, and it's
still happening the exact same way that happened to me.
And then there's things that happened, you know, like Vanessa Gean.
(30:48):
That's when Vanessa, when the Vanessa Gean situation happened in
twenty twenty. For anybody who doesn't know, she was a soldier,
an Army soldier stationed at for Hood who was sexually harassed.
And I don't know, I don't. I just think we don't.
(31:11):
We don't know if she was ever actually sexually assaulted
by this person. But she was murdered and dismembered and
set on fire and buried by her abuser, and the
Army kept a lot of that information from her family.
(31:34):
They tried to keep it hush hush, They tried to
keep that. That's why it blew up, because her family,
God blessed them. They would not stop. And now there's
a Netflix documentary which I highly highly recommend everybody watch.
I mean, and then there's the hashtag I'm Vanessa Gayan,
(31:56):
and then you know, the me too hashtag and the
hashtag believe Her. You'd think that all of these that
we were making progress towards being better. But then I'm
in these groups with these people that are and some
(32:17):
of them are, yeah, some of them are nineteen twenty
twenty one years old, and it's still fucking happening. I mean,
this is what I'm talking about, rage that this is
still fucking happening to these people that that are putting
their lives on the line, that are fighting.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
For You're absolutely right. So we did have to take
a time out. And I want to say this because
if you're listening to this, this is very emotional. I'm
sitting right across from Lauren crying with her, and this
(32:59):
is a very tough subjects. So if you're listening to
this and you need to take a time out, that's
okay too. But we'll continue because this is important.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
It's important because people need to know what's happening. People
need to know, and I don't I don't even know
what the answer is. I don't know how. How are
you going to change the military, How do you change
the government? How our government is such a fucking shit
(33:34):
show to begin with, Like how do you even get them?
There's so much more that they're concerned with right now,
Like how do we help these people besides just be
there for them, be support or or come on here
(33:59):
and tell your story so that people know, because people
need to know, especially my god, if people are sending
their daughters off into the military or their sons. Absolutely,
I mean, I'll tell you I would ever And I
(34:21):
was the most patriotic my whole life, you know, so
proud of my family, my dad, my cousins, my uncles,
my grandparents, Navy, Navy, Davy, Davy. You know, we go
to the cemetery and you see, you know, my grandfather's
grave World War two. You see my uncle's grave, Vietnam War.
(34:43):
You know, my dad he had his Vietnam Uh, you know,
medals and uh. It used to be such a source
of pride, and now the thought of my child going
into the military is a source of fucking terror.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
And that is so hard, right, go ahead, Well.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
The main takeaway is the main things that I want
to get across to people is this Number One. If
something happens to somebody, it is their choice and their
choice alone what they want to do with that, if
they want to report it or if they don't. You
(35:35):
have absolutely nobody in this world has any right to
take that decision away from that person, because that decision
was taken away from me. And I look back and
I think that if I had just said nothing, if
I had just chalked it up to a stupid mistake,
(35:56):
something stupid that happened, you know, I probably would not
have had as much trauma as I did. I mean,
I probably I would have had trauma, but I probably
just could have, you know, gotten some therapy and gotten
over it, because it's not just the sexual assault, it's
(36:20):
everything that came along with it and after it and
over the years, and uh yeah, I just And then
the second thing, is it still happening. And I think
Americans need to know that this is happening in our
(36:41):
country in our military, and our military members are being
attacked by our own people, and they're not doing anything
to stop it. They're not doing anything to prevent it.
They're not doing anything to stop it, and they're not
doing anything to help the victims after it happened. And
it's still happen. The same thing that happened to be
(37:04):
almost nineteen years ago is still happening today. And I
don't know what the answer is, but and I don't
think my little voice is going to do much, but
it's all I can do.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Every voice matters, though, I know that. I know that,
and I think that's why we need to talk about it, right,
because to find the courage to talk about this is difficult.
It's right, it's still emotional. You're still processing over twenty
(37:39):
about twenty years later, and there's so many more people
who are in the same situation trying to navigate what
to do, how to handle it, how to process it,
and whether you're a civilian or in the military, some
it's easy to sweep some of the stuff under the
(38:02):
rug and just whether it's the me Too movement, brock Turner,
military sexual assault, somebody getting literally murdered over that, which
happens unfortunately a lot, because there's usually multiple offense abusers
who are constantly sexual assaulting people, and sometimes there's single
event abusers. But if the people who are performing these
(38:24):
actions aren't being punished and are not having to stop
because nobody's forcing them to because oh, I'll just put
you somewhere else to go do it, do whatever you want. Yeah,
And meanwhile you're left to peek up the pieces and
try to navigate it.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
And you know what, oh God, like I said, I
finally a few years ago, requested the report and I
read it, and I want to say that a good
sixty five percent of what's written in that report is
(39:04):
absolute bullshit. They said I was offered counseling, I was
offered therapy. They said that I was offered all this
different stuff and that I refused. And they said I
was asked if I wanted to press charges and I
said no, which is a lie. I was never asked.
(39:27):
I was never offered any counseling. I was never offered anything.
I was basically told get back to work, and everybody
knew I was uncomfortable. Okay, So the ratio of men
to women in the military is like ten to one,
so like nine times out of ten if you're on
(39:52):
patrol or for I was on a harbor patrol, meaning
that we drove small boats and the Navy ships would
pull in and then our little boats would protect them
from you know, they any type of threat. And ninety
(40:17):
nine point ninety percent of the time I was on
a boat with a mail, which was highly uncomfortable for me,
and I'm sure it was highly uncomfortable for them because
then they're like, well, this is the girl that cried rape.
I don't want to be alone with her on a boat,
but if she says I did something to her, you know,
and it's like half the people believed me and half
(40:38):
the people didn't didn't. So I became, you know, the
girl who cried rape and just very uncomfortable situation. I
did end up.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I had a friend, close friend, a male who I'm
still very very good friends with to this day. And
I can't thank him enough because he volunteered to be
with me on the boats and I trusted him and
(41:18):
I was comfortable with him, and we ended up being
partners for a long time, like un till I ended
up leaving that that duty station. It was always him
and I together, and he believed me and he held
me when I cried. He was he was a good,
(41:41):
good friend. There's still good people out there. And I'm
not saying every one of the military's bad, because they're not.
But it's the bad actors that.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
I think. What really bothers me about what you just
said is they knew exactly what they needed to do
because they put it in the fucking report. They knew
they were supposed to offer you counseling. They knew they
were supposed to offer to press charges, yet they didn't
give you that option, right, So your bodily autonomy was
taken to you by your rapist. Then your rapist went
off and did god knows what, and then you were
(42:17):
told to go back to work, and then your autonomy
to report it or get help or seek help was
taken away because you were in the military and you
had to follow orders and do what you were told.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
But I was on the other side of the fucking world,
away from my family, away from my support system, like
I had no.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
One except for one guy who chose to be there
for you. Yeah, And I think when we talk about
military rape or sexual assault or sexual harassment, I think
that's an important highlight compared to civilian is because there
were a lot of choices that were taken from you
(42:59):
that in a civilian situation that you would normally have.
You may be able to seek your support system, you
may be able to go to the sheriff's office or
coops office, and even those things are hard to do
in a civilian sexual assault. But then you add the
military on top of it. That's hierarchical and a lot
of those decisions aren't yours. You had everything taken away
(43:22):
from you at a young age in a sense from
an autonomy standpoint, and then told to go fucking save
your country. And that sounds absolutely ludicrous or fucking stupid.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
It is so ludicrous, it's like funny, It's like comic bool,
Like what.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
When you put it like that?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh because it's like,
are you fucking kidding me? I'm sorry. I have a
mouth of a sailor.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
As you should, because one thing that you've told me
repeatedly is you you still are a proud veteran. You
are proud that you served your country in the sense
that you care about the United States. You care about
the United States Navy, you care about your heritage, you
care about people, And just because somebody was sexually assaulted
(44:17):
doesn't demean and devalue who they are as a person.
I think there's plenty of people when it comes to
military sexual assault that says they hate their country. Oh,
they just trying to ruin America or just be hateful,
and that is not the case. No. And ultimately, you know,
(44:40):
the reason you're speaking up is because we're in twenty
twenty four this is still happening to young people. Young
people are still being traumatized, still aren't being supported by
the military. And I can assure you this is not
specific to the United States Navy, this part. Oh No,
in the Army, the Air Force, the Marines, every single branch.
We have absolutely obviously because you know, Vanessa Gian you know,
(45:04):
was in the Army, and we've heard plenty of stories
out of different areas and those are just the ones
that are amplified. Yeah, So for every amplified story, there's
one hundred thousand more.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah. And then you're told during a me Too movement
or I am Vanessa Gean, you you choose to speak
out and you have some sense of empowerment after that
autonomy was taken away from you, and then people shit
on you for telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yep, yep. And I'm just gonna say that, like, yeah,
you get you could, you could get on Twitter or
x or whatever the fuck it's called, and you can
hashtag me too, and then you're gonna have four or
five other people that are just like, bitch, shut up, yeah,
(45:56):
like shut your fucking mouth, get over it. It's something
that you won't understand until you until it happens to you,
and then you won't understand everyone's experience because everyone's experience
(46:20):
is different. So it's hard, actually just take all that out,
because I don't know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
It's okay, it's it's hard to find the courage to
speak up, and then the ones that are spoken, that
do speak up, do find that courage, are just thrown
to the wolves. And this is why we need to
(46:52):
talk about it more. Is because until it is normalized
that it is okay to report second assault, and until
it is normalized that there are support and resources that
are given to anybody who reports sexual assault, not just
some people. This is a problem.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
It is, Yep, it sure is.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
And I know it's uncomfortable to listen to. If you've
made it into the forty seven minutes or whatever of
this episode, this has been hard to listen to.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I'm not gonna listen to this, that's.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Okay, but for whoever.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
But I hope that anyone who does listen to it
gets a better understanding of how things work and what's happening.
And I don't know what the answer is, but maybe
if if enough people put their heads together, we could
(47:52):
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Like, Yeah, I mean you said that there's military sexual
trauma groups. Yeah, you know, there's plenty of highly paid
people in the United States and many other nations in
the world who solve problems. And it takes a lot
(48:17):
of work to solve problems, but it also takes a
lot of voices to show sometimes that it is a problem.
In your one more voice saying this is a problem,
and that's important. And if you're listening to this and
you've ever been a victim of sexual assault, you know,
when you or if you get to the point that
you can find a courage to speak your story, it
(48:40):
helps others to understand that you're not alone. Yeah, because absolutely,
until recently you didn't even I mean, you're still dealing
with trauma symptoms. It's still controlling your life. And I
know you've done a shit ton of therapy. You do
(49:00):
even get to the point that you can have this
conversation with me.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, true, but it's a work in progress. You know,
maybe it'll take another twenty years, but.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Absolutely So with that being said, I think you touched
on a couple of super important things there. I think
the autonomy to report you to decide whether you report
yourself is important because that's a decision you have to make,
(49:39):
and you have to process and you have to understand.
And I'm not suggesting that anybody not reports sexual assault,
but when that decision is taken away from you, that
makes it difficult for you to find that courage and
do what you need to do to fully move through
what you're experiencing. So, if you've ever been sexually assaulting
(50:02):
you haven't reported it, it's okay, yeah, But if you
can report it, the more reports there are, the more
light comes to some of these issues, as hard as
that is, and that takes a lot of fucking courage,
more than any asshole on fucking Twitter who shit his
(50:22):
pants behind a keyboard. True.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
True.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
The other thing is this is still very prevalent in
the military, and because the military is hierarchical and controls
a lot of service members' wives for various reasons. Some good.
You know, you have young kids who are you know,
using weapons and going out to save our country, and
you have to have a way to handle, you know,
(50:50):
operations and doing things. The military can use that same
power for good and do the right thing because you're
you're commanding off or knew what they needed to do
and chose not to. They chose not to allow you
to report it or offer that they chose not to
offer you counseling. And not that we're not saying that
(51:11):
everybody in the military is like that, but it takes
so many good actors to offset all the bad actors,
and a good actor, a good commanding officer who had
the courage to come in and offer you those services
and do the right thing, could have made a world
of difference in your experience.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yeah, you're right, but I didn't have that.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
And so even if you're not a sexual assault the victim,
you know, even if you're a civilian, even if you're
in the military, you can matter to someone because there's
also a friend who chose to step up and be
there for you despite not having the resources you need.
So maybe you think they should report it, but maybe
they choose not to. But you can still be there
(51:54):
for them. You can still be a friend, You can
still support them and help protect them and make them
feel safe in a space they don't. So, you know,
even if you're not necessarily in a sphere I can't
say that word where you've been sexually assaulted or you
understand listening is so important. Allowing people the autonomy to
(52:20):
self report or get the resources to report, or the
resources to get counseling or deal with trauma is enough.
But it takes a good actor to stand out and
say that they will help or speak out when these
things happen for the right thing to be done, because
(52:40):
there's always going to be bad actors, but enough good
actors can offset that. So be a good actor. Be
a good actor.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
That's a good note to end up.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Absolutely so, I do want to thank you Laurreen for
sharing this very emotional up. My eyes are battery right now.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
It's okay. Thank you for allowing me to share this story.
Thanks for being you, because there's not many people I
would trust with this, and I do trust.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
You, and that's a high honor to me. I'm glad
I can be the good actor for you. So go
out there, guys and normalize being a good actor, doing
the right thing, finding the courage to be a good
friend and give people resources when they need them, but
also allowing their bodily autonomy to do what they need
(53:35):
to do. Hey, everyone, it's Alex with It's sensitive. Thank
you for tuning in to this very important conversation. If
you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault.
RAIN r AI n N operates the National Sexual Assault
(53:56):
Hotline that is confidential and offers twenty four x seven.
They can be reached by telephone at one eight hundred
six five six four six seven three or chat online
at online dot r AI n N dot org. They
also operate the DoD Safe Helpline, a service for members
(54:17):
of the US military and their families operated by RAIN
for the Department of Defense. The telephone number is eight
seven seven nine nine five five two four seven. That
and more resources for online chat are available to https
rain dot org forward slash resources. Remember you are never
(54:40):
alone and help is available.
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