I served in the United States Navy from 1998 to 2004. I was a nuclear electronics technician aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. This placed me in an unusual situation because it was a pre-commissioning unit, which meant that I was there from the earliest stages of construction. So this also meant that most of the ship worked regular, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and we were able to go home at night; it was really great for us.
As a member of the Reactor Department, we were divided into four groups that worked rotating shift work, and this provided twenty-four hours of security and testing, and we worked jointly with the shipyard in these matters.
On one of these off-ships when there was a minimal crew on board, there was a young woman who was working in her divisional office. She had a direct superior come in and after speaking he dropped his pants and exposed himself to her. Fortunately, she recognized that this was not an off-color joke or the usual barrage of playful flirting but more of a flagrant violation. She took the proper method and reported this up her chain of command, and when this reached the senior enlisted commander in my department he took it and tried to initiate a cover-up. There were many reasons for this: because he hadn’t actually hurt her, perhaps they could agree on a compromise, and because maybe from his perspective he didn’t consider it a hostile environment. He was also two years away from retirement and her speaking out could have ruined his career at such a key moment for him.
She did not agree to this and went above her chain of command. When this account finally reached the upper chains of command and the two men had to explain themselves, the man who exposed himself was finally put into procedure for court-martial, and he was dishonorably discharged.
The darker side of this story was that the man who initiated the cover-up was given only a reprimand. He was trying to do what was “best for the department” and that was to keep us quiet and so only receiving a reprimand was the only action that was taken against him. This scene shows how members of the navy who try to play games of male dominance receive all but a free pass.