The Coast Guard recently got caught and openly called out by CNN in the form of a series of stories spotlighting the Coast Guard covering up a major report titled Operation Fouled Anchor on sexual assaults at the Coast Guard Academy. On the surface this is one report captures sexual assaults during a set number of years at a very small college but the true darkness it represents is much greater. It highlights a military service that has for years had a culture where sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH) has been the norm. It points to a culture that not only condoned SASH but at times protected perpetrators while punishing and/or further victimizing survivors. The repor
t has rocked a service to its core and shown a foundation rooted in power and control. Where leaders are lacking the moral courage to objectively evaluate situations and hold people accountable. The issue with SASH is just a symptom of a bigger problem plaquing the Coast Guard – the fact that personnel are not a priority despite them being the biggest asset. The report explains why the service is in a recruiting and retention crisis. This issue isn’t just about SASH, it is a matter of national security where we will no longer be the “World’s Best Coast Guard” as touted by several senior leaders until the organization is honest with itself and works toward changing the culture at its root.
The fact that there has been a problem with SASH over the years should come as no surprise to anyone within the system. The institution, since its beginning, has been instilling the primary values of power and control.
My indoctrination into the military at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in 1995, was all about power and control. The upperclassmen exerted their power over you, humiliated you, took away all your rights and degraded several minority groups including women. On day one, my hair was cut, my watch was taken away, my clothes, I was forced to shower with several other women to make shower time quicker, given just minutes to eat, forced to run several miles in dress shoes, and sing cadences that were completely inappropriate. This was all to prove a point, you have no identity, we now own you and your body. You are to not to question authority or speak out of turn. You are powerless. This message was woven into all aspects of indoctrination. We were required to sing cadences while marching with words like, “Mama and Papa were lying in bed, Papa rolled over and this is what he said, ‘Give me some. PT! Good for you. Good for me.” Here is another classic that I recall singing, “My girl's a vegetable. She lives in a hospital. And I would anything to keep that girl alive, yeah. She has no arms or legs. All she has are hooks and pegs.” One could argue that some of those practices are no longer taking place in boot camp but here is the reality, those trained with those techniques are now in positions of power, they are current Captains and Admirals. They are my classmates.
It is widely known why the military has done this type of training since its existence but is it still the best method? As recruitment numbers are down, our youth are wondering why someone would put themselves through that.
At last year’s Women’s Leadership Initiative Annual Brunch, Admiral Fagan spoke. During her speech, she emphasized that the Coast Guard needs innovation. The Coast Guard values uniformity and compliance, which is completely opposite of innovation which requires creativity and out of the box thinking.
“Although the touch may be sexual, the words seductive or intimidating, and the violation physical, when someone rapes, assaults, or harasses, the motivation stems from the perpetrator’s need for dominance and control. In heterosexual and same-sex encounters, sex is the tool used to gain power over another person.” (Sexual Assault is All About Power: How the #MeToo campaign is restoring power to victims, Psychology Today, Kristen Beesley Ph.D.). When an institution grounds it indoctrination training in power, this SASH report should come to no shock.
On the subject of SASH specifically, it isn’t just at the Coast Guard Academy problem. It is still happening, and it is happening beyond the Academy gates. It is happening in the Coast Guard, and it is still being covered up. In 2019, I lead the RAND Women's Retention Study and Holistic Analysis (WRSHA) because I was tired of leaders making their own conclusions on why women leave the Coast Guard. The most common was, “Patti, women are leaving to have babies and be with their family and there is nothing I can do about that. It is their choice.” To prove this theory wrong, as the Gender Policy Advisor, I built the case for the largest study on women in the Coast Guard in nearly 30 years. The study showed that there are many factors attributed to women leaving the Coast Guard.
For example, half of the focus groups cited SASH as a significant issue, and that there is a lack of confidence in how leaders handle incidents. One member was quoted as saying, “I love to get underway and need it, but I don’t want to go. I’m terrified of what will be done to me. If you get raped on a port call, it’s your fault. Men drink a shit ton on those, literally get arrested for it, but I get raped, it’s on me. So I don’t want to go.” Another was quoted as saying, “We had a new non-rate report…and she was a victim of sexual assault…Before she reported to the unit, people were talking about it, and she had a reputation before she got to the unit as being a troublemaker and that [the assault] was her fault. It was disgusting…Just the fact that it was able to happen, and that people talked about it before she even reported. It followed her [across country].” The report also explains that “many women are hesitant to report incident of sexual harassment or assault because they fear retaliation, negative career impacts or alienation from the unit.” Lastly and probably the most disturbing, “Participants commented that the way the command handles sexual harassment and sexual assault has a huge impact on a woman’s experience at a unit. Women reported a lack of confidence in how sexual harassment and sexual assault incidents were handled by leadership. Many participants perceived that perpetrators are often not punished, and incidents were swept under the rug by leadership.”
The report showed that there isn’t one single issue that is impacting retention, but rather it is a “thousand cuts” that is causing women to leave the service. It is the lack of geographic stability, sexual harassment, inability to find a uniform that fits, the weight standards, etc. One or two cuts are manageable for most of these very resilient women but after some time, they add up. Following the Women’s Retention Study, many senior leaders asked for the top issues, often asking me and the team to prioritize the findings from the study. No single issue is more important than another. There are some that are easier to fix and others that aren’t.
This is the culture. What can be fixed quickly, easily and by using the least amount of resources? This is often referred to as the “low hanging fruit.” This is where the leadership decided to focus their energy.
At the conclusion of the Women’s Retention Study, Vice Commandant VADM Charlie Ray stood up the Personnel Readiness Task Force (PRTF). The “PRTF's role is to support ongoing efforts to recruit, train, and retain a Mission Ready Total Workforce that reflects the diversity and best talents of our Nation. Chartered by the Vice Commandant [VADM Charles Ray], this nine-member team first set focus on the issues and recommendations raised in the RAND Women's Retention Study and Holistic Analysis (WRSHA). Input from Coast Guard members who participated in RAND-led focus groups proved instrumental in ensuring accurate and impactful recommendations would lead to real change in the Coast Guard.” (ALCOAST 057/20 - FEB 2020 PERSONNEL READINESS TASK FORCE YEAR PROGRESS REPORT)
VADM Charles Ray was in that position during the time when the decision to not release Operation Fouled Anchor. He stood up a task force in response to a report that identified sexual assault as a significant issue impacting retention and wanted “real change” but yet, he and the Commandant, Admiral Schultz did nothing with Operation Foul Anchor.
Timeline:
March 2019 - Rand Corporation’s Study on Women’s Retention Released.
January 2020 – “Fouled Anchor” Investigation – Final Report Signed and Forwarded to Vice Commandant
February 2020 - The PRTF was stood up but sexual assault was not listed as one of the main issues the team was to address.
Had the Coast Guard been truly dedicated to improving the culture of the Coast Guard, they would have acted on information gathered during Fouled Anchor. They would have incorporated the report into the PRTF’s work. Why put up such a façade of being dedicated to correcting personnel issues and igniting change? Why pretend to care when they were really covering up bad news stories? The WRSHA had already mentioned SASH as a retention factor so it would not have been a big shock to release the findings of Fouled Anchor. If anything, it could have been spun yet another action taken to understand the depth of the problems and create a strategy to improve. The timing would have been perfect but instead, the Coast Guard had leaders who lacked the moral courage to act.
Fast forward to 2023, CNN’s report on Operation Fouled Anchor is released. And the Coast Guard once again responds by assigning an internal team to take on the crisis.
The Commandant stood up a 90-Day Accountability and Transparency Review (ATR) of current law, policy, processes, practices, resources, and Service culture relevant to eradicating sexual assault and harassment in the ranks. The ATR was made up of personnel internal to the Coast Guard. The ATR was led by Rear Admiral Miriam L. Lafferty who is a proven leader, however she possesses no other skills, experience, or expertise on the subject of sexual assault, organizational change, culture change, SASH laws and policies, victim support, psychological safety, etc. The Coast Guard has put this high-ranking officer in a position to fail. The rest of the team is made up of proven leaders but again, lack the expertise to do the type of work they were asked to do. The members of this task force are all internal to the Coast Guard. They are all a product of the same system that has been unable to “see” the issues within the system. They were raised in a system and now asked to suddenly see the system differently.
It was encouraging to see the title as accountability and transparency are two critical parts of this. However, there has been no accountability during the review since the report has been released. The review was a complete waste of resources as they uncovered nothing new and they have taken no action.
The Coast Guard needs to change through a holistic approach which calls for accountability but requires funding and moral courage, probably the hardest hurdles.
A Holistic Approach.
The Coast Guard needs to approach this systemically and not stay hyper focused on the SASH aspect of it. SASH is a result of a dysfunctional system. The report and the incidents of SASH are symptoms of a greater problem slowly killing the Coast Guard, contributing to recruiting and retention problems. By looking at this holistically and making change, the culture will shift, and other problems will be resolved as well. To do this, the Coast Guard needs to dedicate time, money, resources, and dedicate the entire Coast Guard to change. If people aren’t onboard, they need to leave, and leaders need to have the moral courage to make that happen. Being a small military service, this may mean senior leaders will need to fire their friends or hold people they historically saw as “good guys” accountable for the first time. The toxic leaders need to be expelled and held accountable. It is critical to maintaining a ready force. This applies to all policies and not just SASH. Those senior leaders not within weight standards need to be separated, those breaking fraternization rules need to be separated, those not following protocols need to be separated.
As part of that holistic change, hire some experts who understand systems theory, culture change, psychological safety, SASH, and training experts. These experts aren’t likely the same person. It is critical to gather a diverse team of experts to investigate all aspects of the system. Dig into the policies, procedures, methods for training, UCMJ, process for investigating, leadership development, culture at units, accountability, and budget (how the CG spends its money is telling at what they value).
Training needs revised in a very big way. It should start with the entry points at Cape May, NJ and USCG Academy.
In our changing world, we need innovators not necessarily people to just obey. Training needs to be directly tied to mission readiness and effectiveness. Tearing a person down by exerting power is not an effective method to create a mission ready force. Instead, it is building a culture where those senior to you can exert their power over you no matter what. It creates a culture that your voice doesn’t matter. The justification for breaking new recruits down is often to make them stronger, work together as a team, etc. These methods have since been disproved in many different areas such as sports and business. However, there are ways to do this without demonstrating abuse of power. Putting teams through teambuilding exercises that are scary (climbing the rigging and unfurling the sails on the Coast Guard BARQUE EAGLE for example).
The Commandant in her recent letter to force regarding Operation Fouled Anchor stated, “We align our actions to our core values of Honor, Respect, and Devotion to Duty. And our Ethos guides us to protect, defend, and save others. Our strong Service culture drives our operational success.” This is simply not true. The service does not understand what those core values are because they have not been consistently modeled or taught. And if culture drives operational success, then any actions, trainings, policies, and procedures that do not directly contribute to operational success need to be eliminated. How does breaking down a person during indoctrination link to operation success? It leads to compliance and uniformity, hurting innovation.
Nearly all focus groups in the WRSHA cited the negative impact leaders can have on a work environment and noted by many as the #1 reason to leave the service. Simply put – hold leaders accountable. Stop justifying their behavior. Moral courage is needed more than ever.
Stop sucking from volunteers internal to the Coast Guard. Stop standing up task forces that are internal to the Coast Guard that are unable to see the system objectively. Having been a part of the system for many years, it is impossible to see the system for what it is when you are in it. Additionally, stop pretending that there is transparency in the organization. If it were, we wouldn’t be in this situation. For the members of the 90-day review team, good job on playing it safe. It was in your best interest to play the game, identify “low hanging fruit,” and not make too many waves. They played the game and was very strategic about their findings for they didn’t offend any senior leaders, identify illegal actions, and therefore shouldn’t experience the backlash.
Finally, Stop relying on external organizations such as the Women’s Leadership Initiative, an organization made up entirely of good-hearted volunteers to save the day. The Coast Guard hi-jacked their Healing Event and made it about them. This was very disappointing. If you are truly invested in making things better, prove it by investing in the right people to fix the problem. Pay them. Appreciate them. Listen to them. Take positive action.
The world is watching. Our allies and enemies are watching. Coasties are watching. Parents of high school kids are watching. Confidence is lost. Trust is lost.
How will you respond?
How this is handled will be the true test of moral courage.
How willing are you to unfoul this anchor?
The Coast Guard has hit rock bottom, you can only go up from here.
#powerandcontrol #sexualassault #sexualharassment #military #womensinclusion #militarysexualassault #fouledanchor #UScoastguard #Coastguard
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