 Welcome. I'm here with Mick Pond Stevens to discuss Sapper and ways to encourage more sailors to take a stand and to intervene to help prevent sexual assaults. Mick Pond, thank you for being here today. Thank you, Peter. It's a good to see you again. Thank you. So what is the message that you would like to get out to sailors as we continue throughout this month? You know, the thing I'd like to share with our sailors primarily is this. You know, there's a lot of training that we have done and that we're doing and I'm confident that we will continue to do in our effort to combat sexual assault. But the one thing I think we all need to be mindful of what's most important is that we remember to treat each other with dignity and respect. You know, if we just treat each other with a dignity and respect that we and others deserve, then in many ways this problem, this significant challenge that we have with sexual assault just goes away. So let's remember to treat each other with dignity and respect. So in terms of, like, you have a young sailor out there who maybe he sees something, he knows something, but he doesn't tend to say something. Who should he talk to? How should he go about that? Well, I would say that every sailor that observes anything, whether it's sexual assault or anything that's being done that's inappropriate, has not just a responsibility but a duty to ensure that that information is passed to the right people. And there's a number of people that we can communicate that with. You can talk with your immediate supervisor, you can talk with your chief petty officer, your division officer, and all the way up. No one should turn you away if you're bringing something that's being done inappropriately to their attention. Then, of course, we have our victim advocates that are trained in this area that they can speak to and all the others that are involved in the prevention of sexual assault. So again, regardless of what it is, make sure that it's brought to someone's attention and no one should turn you away. Don't feel like if the person you want to talk to is not there, that you can't go to somebody else because doing it in a timely fashion is just as important. So one of CNOS5 initiatives is to educate sailors on alcohol abuse. How does alcohol, in your opinion, factor into sexual assault? Well, it should be something that everybody's aware of. It shouldn't be strangers to this. But when a person drinks alcohol, especially when they drink it to excess, it impairs their judgment. I've seen some of the best sailors with the best intentions that have indulged in alcohol more than they should make decisions that they otherwise would never have made. So I know people go into an environment or a situation oftentimes and they say to themselves that I'm not going to do this, right? But as soon as they have one or more drinks than they should, then that faculty, that ability to make those rational decisions just goes away. So the best thing to do is to abstain from alcohol completely if you don't have the ability to control how much you drink, right? Or to recognize that your tolerance level is, you know, one or two drinks. And then you just kind of stop at that point because once you go beyond that, you lose those faculties to make those rational judgments. Absolutely. So talking all these things in our work centers, why is it important to talk about Sapper in an open forum, you know, in a work center openly with others? So Sapper is a subject that should not be taboo, right? It's not something we should be ashamed to talk about, fearful to talk about or shy away from. The more that we talk about it, the more comfortable we come with this conversation and this discussion, the more likely we're able to head off sexual assault before it ever occurs. Because if you're open and honest about it and you're talking, you may encourage someone else to talk about it. And they, you know, they might have something to bring to the conversation that's extremely important in either preventing sexual assault or talking about something that they know that has occurred, right? So I would encourage everyone of all pay grades to feel comfortable about talking about sexual assault. And again, we shouldn't treat it as taboo. Absolutely. This is only sexual assault awareness prevention month. It's only this month looking forward. How do we continue to reduce the numbers? Right. Well, listen, maybe sexual assault awareness month is technically and officially one month out of the year. But the truth of the matter is sexual assault prevention month is every month, every day, every hour, every minute, every second of the year. So let's not feel like this is a fire and forget evolution that we're dealing with here. This is a fire for effect on target all the time, every day. So make fun of us all I have for you. Thank you for joining me. And thank you all for watching. And be sure to check out the SAP from toolkit at sapper.navy.mil, which will help you prepare for sexual assault prevention at your command.