by Brian Scott-Smith CTNewsJunkie
NEW LONDON, CT – Five enlisted Coast Guard whistleblowers gave emotional testimony at a field hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at Connecticut College on Thursday in an event chaired by US Senator Richard Blumenthal.
The hearing was a continuation of the subcommittee’s investigation into a history of sexual assaults and misconduct at the US Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Academy, based in New London, dating back to the 1990s.
Thursday’s witnesses consisted of four women and one man. Three of the five are now retired from the service but two are currently on active duty.
Several federal investigations have been launched into the allegations after a 2023 CNN news story detailing how the Coast Guard had conducted its own investigation into the service’s history of sexual assault and misconduct, called “Operation Fouled Anchor,” and then buried it.
On Wednesday, Blumenthal released a 49-page report that included excerpts from the personal accounts of 80 Coast Guard whistleblowers.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal opens Thursday’s field hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in New London. Credit: Brian Scott-Smith / for CTNewsJunkie
Blumenthal referenced the report as he brought the hearing to order Thursday.
“The experiences relayed in this report underscore what this investigation has already made abundantly clear – the problem of sexual assault and harassment in the Coast Guard is still far too pervasive. Tt is persistent and ongoing,” Blumenthal said. “And it affects officers and enlisted in present service. In fact, well over half the whistleblowers who shared their experiences with the subcommittee describe instances of sexual assault or harassment that occurred while serving on recent active duty.”
The five whistleblowers at the hearing each read aloud opening statements that included details of being sexually assaulted while serving in the Coast Guard.
Retired Lt. Commander Tina Owen said she hoped Thursday would be the last time she and other victims would be retraumatized by telling their stories.
Owen recounted the first time she was sexually assaulted by a medical technician while undergoing a procedure. She said that afterward she found out that 100 other individuals had been abused by the same individual.
“Senator, I am here to tell you they were raped, they were harassed, they had inappropriate EKG’s taken of them, they were kicked, they had things thrown at them from across the room. These objects hit them in the head. They were made a public mockery,” Owen said, adding that the abuse went further.
“They found hidden cameras in the bathroom; they discovered a drunk shipmate crawling in their rack on the cutter. They all just wanted to serve their Coast Guard in a safe space. But they were violated,” she said.
Crystal Van Den Heuval, a Yeoman Petty Officer Fist Class who is still serving in the Coast Guard, told her story of a male colleague who made inappropriate comments and suggestions to her in a vehicle during a Coast Guard recruiting trip in 2022.
“While travelling back from our duty station he said he contemplated stealing my underwear from my suitcase while he was in my room with my roommate, and I was out to dinner with a friend,” Van Den Heuval said. “He then attempted to steal them over several hours from my suitcase in the back seat of my car. He stated he would have given them back but just wanted to smell them. I replied he was married and if he wanted to smell underwear, he should smell his wife’s and if he didn’t stop, I was going to leave him on the roadside for his wife to pick up.”
For the first time since the investigations began, there was testimony from a male victim, Julian Bell, who also continues to serve in the Coast Guard as a Chief Warrant Officer.
Bell recounted being sexually assaulted by three men shortly after his first deployment with the US Coast Guard Cutter Chase when he was just 19 years old.
“From day one I witnessed a toxic environment where shipmates who struggled with mental health or performance were subjected to harassment and hazing,” Bell said. “In 2004 during a harrowing incident at Navy barracks I was drugged and raped by a fellow Coast Guard shipmate and two navy sailors. After that traumatic experience I felt isolated and alone and had to continue working with that individual, unable to speak up for fear of further ostracization.”
During the two-and-a-half-hour hearing the witnesses spoke of failed or weak leadership and a culture of cover-up across the Coast Guard, as well as their inability to speak up about their experiences for fear of either retaliation from their commanding officers or colleagues or being further victimized with additional assaults.
Despite their stories, all the witnesses made clear they still hold dear the US Coast Guard and its mission, but that the perpetrators of these crimes needed to be named and that leaders both past and present need to be held accountable if the service is truly to change its culture.
You can listen to another survivor’s story below, that of Dr. Kim McLear, who retired from the Coast Guard in 2023.
McLear has said that she suffered sexual assault, bullying, racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation after communicated with Coast Guard leaders in 2014 about her personal experiences in the service. She became a whistleblower and took her story to Congress in 2015. Ten years on, McLear is still fighting for justice and says that as a Black woman who identifies as being queer, hers and similar voices are being ignored.