* This account was submitted to MLAA by the victim, a male graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy *
Please don’t use my name or show my photo. When I was a cadet, I had a 2nd Mate come up behind me while I was standing on the bridge and tell me that he liked the smell of my cologne and that the smell made him want to bend me over the chart table and fuck me in my ass.
I felt completely powerless at that moment because I couldn’t really report it to anyone. The Captain & the other mates were also on the bridge when he said it and they didn’t care. Of course I also needed sea days to graduate and couldn’t afford to be taken off the ship by the Academy Training Representatives (ATRs).
The 2nd Mate then told me that whenever he gets drunk out in town, he hits on anything, even dudes. He even said he had a few sexual interactions with men. The way he said these things was intentionally intimidating.
I was legitimately paranoid after that because I thought he might try to break into my room in the middle of the night, especially since I knew he had access to the master key.
Thankfully there were other cadets on the ship, and I told them about it, but I told them as if it were a joke, so we would all make fun of the 2nd Mate and that helped me deal with that situation.
But it was scary.
1 Comment
I’m wondering if this is the same 2nd Mate on a Military Sealift Command ship who harassed a cadet, and NIS did nothing. The US Government is guilty of enabling predators on their own ships.