** This anonymous U.S. Coast Guard Survivor Testimonial was originally submitted to “The Pettiest Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard” on Facebook in May of 2024 and re-published by MLAA. MLAA does not know the identity of the author and has not verified any of the claims or allegations made in this testimonial. Light formatting changes for readability, or redactions for PII may have been applied before publishing. **
Not sure if this is a story you’d want to post or not because it’s from the other side, but the CG’s handling of sexual assault claims left me forever scared.
I was a 1st class on a cutter. Had a 3rd class that was clearly a little unstable. She was having an inappropriate relationship with someone else on the boat and the command had issued them multiple cease and desist letters about their obvious relationship (relevance to come later in the story).
One day I get called to the XO’s stateroom and told that a sexual assault claim was made about me by that 3rd class. The XO wouldn’t give me any details, just that I was being flown off the boat as soon as practical. I went through a 6-month investigation of CGIS interviews and being discarded by my shipmates and command. This caused tremendous strain on my marriage and mental health which ultimately led to a divorce soon after.
While my investigation was going on, the person that the 3rd class was dating onboard got in trouble for trying to solicit threesomes for the 2 of them with other girls on the boat. During that investigation, his communicator messages (this was pre-teams) were reviewed and there were messages between the 2 of them in which they talked about how she was going to make up this story about me so she could get off the boat and they could get married and the command would leave them alone. (As soon as she made the report, she routed the memo to be moved off the boat and they were married a week later)
Once all of this came out, the conclusion was that PAC legal dropped the case and the boat disposed of it at a mast for conclusion. To this day of nearly 20 years in service, my mast was the only one I have ever seen where charges were dismissed.
Afterwards I talked with the command. The XO said he had sent PAC legal a list of charges that she should be brought up on for making a false accusation and all of the resources that went into the investigation, but their response was that they wouldn’t do that because they didn’t want to give the impression that they could believe a report could be false and she was given only a negative page 7 for her lies.
When this happened, she had been in for 3 years and I was her 4th report. From what I’ve heard over the years from others, she is now up to 13 reports. She is still in and is now a 1st class.
I just want to make sure it’s known that a predator doesn’t have to be an assaulter but can also be someone who uses the reporting system to obtain what they want despite the wreckage they cause.