1st day at my 1st duty station. 1st guy I meet is an LDO ensign. Shakes my hand & says, “You gonna be like our last female intel officer & sleep w/every squadron CO who comes through?” 1/
Met my 1st P-3c aircrew a little later. The plane commander introduces himself & says, “Are you going to be like our intel officer? She only sleeps with O4s and higher.” 2/
Hit on by 3 married colleagues, the AFOSI officer who did my CI polygraph, & too many deployed aviators to remember at that assignment. 3/
Invited into the squadron duty office for training. Was told to shut the door. When I did, I saw the spread-eagled Penthouse centerfold the guys had hung right at my eye level. She was blonde, like me. The two LTs who invited me over couldn’t stop laughing. 4/
When I planned a solo camping trip, one pilot invited himself to go with me. He wouldn’t listen when I said no. Bugged me all week. I watched the road up the volcano until dark. Barely slept that night. He didn’t show; my colleagues (also aviators) had warned him off. 5/
How many times did a doc hit on me during an exam? Too many to remember. Shit didn’t stop when I was married with two kids, either. At my next to last assignment, when I was an O4 w/15 years in, the senior chief who was our LCPO kept giving me love poems 6/
that rhymed & trying to get me to go to the pool and work out w/him. (He also did this to a pretty young ensign, who filed 2 formal complaints that only led to slaps on the wrist by the O6. Senior finally got busted when he left her yet another love poem with 7/
produce from his garden: eggplants & zucchini, I kid you not.) The scariest incident by far was when I lived alone (2nd duty station) & started getting heavy breathing & hang-up calls. Then the caller started telling me explicitly what he wanted to do to me. 8/
I finally recognized the voice even though he tried to make it lower-pitched: the senior petty officer in my section on the watch floor. One night on midwatch I told the whole team I’d just installed caller ID (new tech back then) & would report the next call to NCIS. 9/
The calls stopped. And I don’t know a woman in uniform who didn’t have a whole collection of these stories. Most MUCH worse. Being an officer & being white gave me some protection from this that was & still is not available to my sisters in arms of color. /10
One of whom was brutally murdered at Fort Hood this spring. Folks, I’m done asking nicely for the sexist, misogynistic culture in the armed forces to change. I’m so pissed off I’m ready to burn it to the fucking ground. 🔥 10/end #NoJusticeNoEnlistment #NotOneMore #NiUnaMas
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