 Finding respect in the chaos, I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and I'm so glad that you've joined us here on Think Tech Hawaii. This is an important show today. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It is also Child Abuse Awareness Month. This is an important month to remember all of the things that we can do as a public, right? To reach out to survivors of assault, survivors of abuse. We can believe them. We can help them have an ear. We can help them know that they're not alone. And this show is all about that. It's all about showing survivors and people that are still victims that there is hope and healing on the other side of the abuse. And there is other people out there loving you, helping you, helping you get safe. I am here with Sasa, Sasa, I'm so worried about saying your last name, right? Say your first name, right? Oh, sorry, excuse me. George Ennis. Sasa George Ennis. Yes. Thank you so much for coming Sasa, I really appreciate it. We met at a show called the Me Too One Logs and a few shows back, Maesa Thera was on and we saw a little bit of that and how amazing what you guys have done and how brave and courageous you are to come out and share your stories. And I know you have a history of abuse that kind of goes way back to when you were young and I'm really grateful that you have come to share your story with us now and the audience is here and I know they're going to really be moved by your story. If you wouldn't mind, let's start out with a little clip from the beginning of one of your stories, that is we have a little clip, first I think we have a slide of you, there you are on stage and then the Me Too One Logs is a collection of stories, right? All true stories? Yes. Yes. Okay, and this one is the your story, right? I think the clip that I have of you is going to be the beginning of your story, right? Yes, that's right. It is the very beginning of one of my first sexual assaults. All right, if we could roll that video, that would be great. Thanks. I don't blame you, not anymore anyways. I forgave you years ago, but I forgave you for all the wrong reasons. I forgave you because I blamed myself for being out so late at night. I blamed myself for trying to be brave and stand up for myself. I blamed myself for being stupid enough to get in your car. Getting rights from strangers wasn't out of the norm for us, okay, it wasn't. We believed we could see the good in one another. I didn't want to blame myself, and for the longest time, I genuinely believed I wasn't. But when I would feel body weight on top of mine, it would make my stomach hurt. And if I wasn't in the driver's seat, I would dig my nails into the passenger side door. You changed everything that night in October. I left myself there in that empty field. I left myself there when I had to decide if it was more important to preserve my body from you or make it home alive. Welcome back. I'm sorry, that was such a powerful video that it just took me a minute to recover from it. I just can't even tell you how impressed I am with your courage. And if you would maybe even share a few more details about that. Yeah, yeah. What else have you online? For sure. Well, originally I'm from Oklahoma, that's where I was born, born and raised. So at 19 at the time, I was kind of what they call on the wrong side of the neighborhood, wrong side of the tracks. I was trying to walk home was what was happening and a man pulled over and asked me if I wanted to ride. I initially had told him no several times because I didn't feel comfortable. I just didn't think it was a good idea. Eventually I just, I gave in, you know, he just wore me down. So we, he said he was taking me home. We started going that way and we were actually coming close to the apartments that I was staying at at the time and we passed them. And I looked at him and I said, I looked at him and he goes, do you think I'm not going to take you home? And I said, no, I don't. And he pulled literally into the gas station next to it. So my apartment's here, he pulled in right next, like right next door and instead of letting me out, he turned back around onto the road and just drove around until he found an empty field. So once he found that empty field, you know, I had to make a conscious decision. What was more important to me at that time? Was it more important for me to not be sexually assaulted and fight and more than likely be killed or was it more, you know, did I want to make it home? And obviously I made the decision of I want to make it home. So I eventually convinced him to take me home. Oh, yeah. I can't imagine how horrifying that had to be for you. How long did this whole thing take? How long did he have you for? Oh, you know, a few hours. Wow. Yeah, it was, I felt like a lifetime. I bet. Yeah. I'm so sorry that happened to you. Wow. Oh my gosh. So your whole world changed in that moment. Yeah, everything shifted within that that moment of and I describe it in that monologue, too, of when I'm standing outside of his SUV, I look to my right and I can see all these lights and these stars. And I knew, like, I knew if I ran, he would kill me, but I knew he would catch me and I knew he would kill me. And so the rest of my life shifted in that moment. I became a completely different person after that, after the assault. I convinced him to let me smoke a cigarette in his car because I wanted to leave behind my DNA. I convinced. Very smart. Yeah. Wow, that's really thinking and keeping your head and your wits about you. That's amazing. I was able to do that. I was super concerned that if I didn't make it home, I wanted my family to find my body. That's all I could think about was I wanted them to have closure and I wanted him to go to jail. So I even convinced him to let me use his cell phone to call my mom to leave her a voicemail. So it was, like I said, everything changed for me in that moment. Sure. Yeah. I'm so glad you did make it home. Thank you. So it kind of changed the trajectory of your life in that moment. Right. So next, you ended up leaving Oklahoma, right? And going into the Navy. Yes. Talk about changing your stars. That's a big change. Yeah, yeah. And it's not exactly a woman-friendly environment, right? No, not at all. And I was a gas turbine mechanic. So I worked, like, in engine rooms with the boys, you know. Oh my gosh, wait, wait, we have a picture of you in the engine room with the boys. That's quite a feat. Yeah. Oh my. It's one of my favorite pictures. So how long were you in the Navy for? I was in for four years. Four years. Yeah, four years. Active duty, did a deployment. We actually sailed the ship from the mainland down here. That's how I ended up here. So yeah, I was there for a while, a lot of time at sea. So tell us about some of the things that happened while you were at sea in this sort of, you're the only woman, basically, on an all-male ship. Right. Well, there was other women in different departments, yeah. But at one time, I was the only female within the engineering department. Oh, OK. So you had. That's fine. I just don't want to. No, no, no, correct me if I said something wrong. Absolutely. I definitely want them to have their respect because they went through it too. It's actually very common for women to go through the things that I went through, which goes into an even better segue to what happened was sexual harassment was kind of rampant in a sense of it was OK. And if you complained about it, you were going to be punished for complaining. So it's all your fault. Well, like, is it Senator or Representative, Senator McSally, right? Yeah, Senator McSally. Senator McSally just came out, which was a pretty bold, brave move. Extremely. Which helps other people and that have been victims in the military. Yes, it's a it's a huge thing because I mean, the things that I some of the things that I went through were small on a larger scale, not saying that the events are small, but on the larger scale of what I went through, they were smaller, such as just continuously being sexually harassed, you know, just people talking about my body, talking about the way that I walked, focusing, you know, just on things that didn't matter in retrospect of my job. Right. But it also went to higher events or escalation events. I was sexually assaulted twice while I was in. Oh, wow. And that was that in itself was a nightmare. Trying to handle that was a nightmare. Sure, because you're still stuck there with these same people on this same boat. Yes. Oh, my gosh. And was it just other sailors or was it commanders or your officers? My incidents were just with other sailors. They were higher ranking than me, not to the sense of being a commander or anything, but that's not to say that it doesn't happen with these higher ranking officials because it does. Actually, someone was sharing a story with me earlier, saying that it had happened to a friend of theirs by a higher higher ranking commander. So it's so common. And that's unfortunate because when I came forward after I was assaulted the first time, thankfully, in that situation, I was not raped. It was just, you know, what would be defined as a misdemeanor. But it was just an just an assault, you know, just an assault, just an assault. Yeah, somehow it seems to me that these things should not be misdemeanors anymore. Right, they need to be full on criminal charges. And then maybe we'll make some headway in stopping them. Exactly. At least phone them down. If guys are going to think, well, I'll get as a slap on the wrist, who cares? Yeah. And that's the thing. Well, especially in the military is you do get a slap on the wrist. So when I came forward and I told what had happened to me that this was a something that I had claimed about previously was my barracks room door did not shut. You had to physically like slam the door shut whereas it was supposed to be like a hotel room door, you know, where it just clicks and locks. Well, I'm in my early 20s. We were out drinking. I come back with an ex-boyfriend of mine. The door isn't shut. We're not thinking about the door being shut. And I'm not concerned. I feel like someone's with me. I should be safe. And I woke up and it was a friend of mine who was just touching me and appropriately had his mouth on inappropriate like body parts with his hand in between my leg. And I just shoved him to the ground and I panicked. And I didn't know what to do. And so I finally went and did the medical thing just to try to get a few days off. That in itself was a nightmare trying to get my command to even let me take time off even just for a week because I worked with this person within our same department. He was an engineer as well. Oh, no. We work together daily. We saw each other all the time and they didn't want to let me have the time off. And so when I was trying to explain what happened, their response was, he's a good sailor. Do you really want to ruin his career? Oh my. And how many times has another victim heard that phrase of he's a good God you don't want to ruin his career? Excuse me? Yeah. Good people don't do those kinds of things. So he's not a good sailor. Exactly. And that is the disregard that's kind of shown. So when it came to my second assault, which I unfortunately don't remember because I would believe that I was drugged and the story that I tell is not something that I should be proud of. But I was a female engineer. I could drink with the men that was part of surviving. Sure. Yeah. And that atmosphere was you had to be one of the boys. And so when I went to this individual's house to stay the night, I had one drink and I was like, oh, I don't really, maybe one more. That's it. I wanted to go to the gym or something the next day. Not even a third of a way through the second drink. I was busy. I was feeling sick. Oh yeah. You got drugged. And I was like, I'm going to go lay down. And so I went and I laid down and I don't remember anything else. I wake up the next morning, he's in the bed with me and he's telling me what happened the night before. Oh my. And at that point, you know, I'm just like, okay, okay, like what do you do? Yeah. You know, GHB is such a scary thing because it is tasteless, it is odorless. All it takes is a little bit of powder in your drink. And within an hour or so, you are out cold and you remember nothing. Now, this is one of the things I don't understand is how you guys get off somebody who's laying there like a big limp. How could that possibly be alluring in any way? And it's got to be so twisted in a guy's head. And some of the guys that do this are like good looking guys. They just must be like ruined inside somehow that they think that's sexy somehow, that that's all an okay thing. And then it takes sex from being sex to being just a control free power graph. Yes. And then it's no longer even sex anyway, it's just all about control and power. And that's all it's ever been with any sex assault is power and control. And within my first assault, I saw that so much because he loved the ability to not let me go that he had complete control over the situation, right, was what he wanted. And that's what he got. And it seemed just after each incident was that's what they wanted was control because the other two, all of them, all three of my assailants, I had said no, I had turned them down multiple times. Even with my kidnapper, he had asked me and I had said no. And then with my the other two, we were friends when I the other one I was dating, but I had still said no. And that was what was done in return to me continuously saying no. Wow. I know that you have some friends, some pictures of some friends also. Yes. Maybe we could see some of those. There you go. There's that group. And these are all your buddies. Oh yes. I love them so much. So you know, it's that camaraderie is so wonderful and so powerful. And then when one of them, you know, betrays that camaraderie, I think it's so important for the military to start standing up and saying no more. Right. It's like when is that going to happen? We know that Me Too movement has started that movement in the world and it needs to go into the military also. And I think it's so important that when you come from a military family, right? I do. I do. So we have a picture of you and your dad too, I think, right? Yes. Yes. There you go. Dad's such a great picture. You look so proud. And he looks so proud of you. Oh yeah. Now he's Navy also. No, he was Army. Army. I was going to say that doesn't look like a Navy uniform. No. No. He was so proud. He surprised me. He wasn't even supposed to show up to my boot camp graduation. He was overseas in Afghanistan. Oh, wow. So when he showed up, yeah. Oh, what a wonderful surprise it had to be for him to come. It was. So that's why that picture. I'm just like, I'm so happy. Yeah. I'm so happy in that one. Oh, that's so cool. I love that. So now that must have been before any of the assaults even happened, right? Yes. That was boot camp. Yeah. Did your parents and your family know about what happened to you when you were 19? Yes. I went to court and had him prosecuted. So went through the whole judicial system with my kidnapper when I was 19. He was sentenced to 20 years. He gets out here in a few, unfortunately. Oh, bomber. Yeah. Huge bomber makes you kind of wonder why you went through it. But I try to think of all the people that I hopefully save within that 20 years. You know in that 20 years. Man, you saved a lot of people by being brave and courageous like you are now. Oh, goodness. Okay, we've got to take a little break. I hope everyone out there will stay with us because we've got more and it even gets better. And I don't mean more juicy stories or anything like that. We're not about rating victimization here, but we've got some really good hope and hero because to me, you're like a hero. Thank you. That's a really important story. So stay with us, please. Aloha. I'm Gwen Harris, the host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of the supporters to keep ongoing. We'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechhawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Aloha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that, you know, may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because security matters. Aloha. Welcome back to Finding Respect in the Chaos on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and I am here with Sasha Jordettis. No. George Addis. George Addis. Oh, gosh. I don't know why I have such a hard time with your last name. It's a hard name. I'm not the only one who has that problem. No, not at all. Yeah, not at all. I wish we'd feel a little bit better. Your story is so powerful and I'm so grateful that you've come to share it. And I love the way you move from all of these things that have happened to you and you come back and you decide you're going to go to school, right? And while you are pursuing a bachelor's in criminal justice and psychology. Yes, ma'am. And did you do those at the same time? Yes, ma'am. Wow, concurrently. Yeah. I can't even imagine. Oh, my gosh. Okay. And so while you were in school, you went to Peru for a healing ceremony. Okay. That's what they called it. It was nine days that I went to Peru. There was ayahuasca ceremonies. Ayahuasca. That was the word I was looking for. Thank you. The traditional plant medicine in Peru, the tribes have used it for the beginning of time. It's supposed to be extremely beneficial for people with PTSD. And it's been proven these sort of more natural drugs have been proven to be a decrease in PTSD symptoms for a lot of veterans. The MAPS organization does a lot of it. Right. My experience was, it was amazing. It came at a really important moment in my life when I showed up to Peru. My mother had actually passed the same day. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Yeah. And it was one of those moments where I didn't know if I was going to stay or go. And I just remembered how my mom had always let me be me. You know, she always supported me. Good job, mom. Yeah. She was always like, she's the wild one. Just let her get it out of her system. Right. And so I stayed and had amazing ceremonies that opened up what I wanted to do when I came back, how I was, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to advocate for sexual assault, but I wasn't sure how or where or what tactic to go about it. And being there made me realize how important community was. Right. Just how the people that I met there, I loved them to death, like their family we may never talk again, but they were there through that time. And it made me realize how important it was for me to come back and start building a community. So you stayed on, you got your bachelor's in psychology and criminal justice. Yes. That wasn't enough for you. No. You needed to do more. Yes. So tell us about where all that healing stuff led you and what it sort of snowballed into and what you're doing now because it's very important. Yeah. That kind of that want those nine days improved just snowballed into this huge, huge life change for me eventually. So right now I'm currently pursuing my master's in social work with a veteran concentration. Explain what a veteran's concentration means. It just means that we study more on how veterans are once they process out how we interact with one another, interact with civilians. The best way that we can help veterans as social workers. Right. Veterans come from a very different thing that a very small amount of people will only go through. You know, you're spending this time with your people 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365. And then when your time's over, they just boot you out. And yeah, there's a huge adjustment period that is so hard to go through and it leaves a lot of veterans. That's where a lot of the veteran suicides come from. Right. Not to mention if you've been in combat, you've got all this PTSD stuff. So even if you haven't been in combat, you still have this whole, I'm lost. Where do I go now? You're sort of alone, right? Yes. Like a lot of survivors feel alone. Yes, very. And that's why it's so important for people like you that are brave and courageous to come out and share your story so people know that they are not alone. Thank you. Thank you. And that's been a huge motivator for me too. When I came back, I started to get more involved in the Me Too monologues. So that was a huge thing for me. It was to be like, I'm in it to win it this time. Like I'm out there and you're going to hear my story. Good for you. So that was one of them. I actually started a podcast to discuss veteran issues. Thanks. So it's called House of Whisky Tango Foxtrot. We actually... Say that again because I want everybody to make sure they hear that so they can go and find it. It is House of Whisky Tango Foxtrot. We actually released an episode today talking about military sexual trauma. Oh, wow. Yeah, these two things for me coincide. Today is a great day for me. I'm loving it. It's perfect. I'm here changing the world. Good girl. The best ways that I can. So that was a huge thing. And then working, ultimately, I want to go to law school. That is my final thing. I promise I'll be done with school after that. That's what I keep telling myself. Because I actually want to make big changes to policy. I want to change the way military sexual training is done in the military. What's it like now? What's the kind of training did people get now? It's a joke. You sit, like for us, we would sit on the Mestex for an hour, once a year, to watch a video. And then maybe talk briefly with personnel that we work with day to day. They're just advocates that take over the spot. Like they're sappers. And they take over that spot for that advocate on our ship or at your command. But you're still reporting to people that you know, that are at the same command. And the training right now is just not being done the way that it should be. Because there's very minimal research done on how training needs to be done, as well as the effects of sexual assault after, it's hard. It's really hard to get people to want to change their minds. But it needs to be done. The training that needs to be done should be over, like, a college course. Five weeks, one day a week. And then it goes from something you're just being told, to something that's very real. And there's a better comprehension of it. Sure. And maybe even change the focus so it's not just, how do the victims survive this stuff? But how do we stop the men from doing it to begin with? But they learn this more respectful behavior. And I'm a firm believer in training them young. Right? But you don't have to worry about retraining them when they get older. But if we could start, you know, instigating programs in grammar schools and high schools. And there are some, especially here in Hawaii, there are some. We've got the Respect Campaign. And we've got a couple other campaigns that are so important because they go out and they're teaching young people how to be more respectful. Girls, too, how to respect their own bodies. How to set limits in safer, more mature ways. And I think that's what it's going to take. Because until we train the next generation, I think it's kind of too late to retrain the generation that's already out there. I mean, I might be wrong. We can hope. Yeah, you can hope. But it's not likely. And we can do our best to work hard for it. Right? Right. And that's what you're doing. And I'm, you know, I know we have less than a minute. And I wish I had some, I don't know, some word that would really express my gratitude to you and how much I admire you for having the courage to come out and talk to us, the audience, to let them know they're not alone and that there's somebody out there who's going to change the world. So, keep going, girl. Thank you. You're awesome. Thank you for being there. And I want to thank everybody for tuning in today. This is Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Sinclair on Think Tech Hawaii. Don't forget to come back again.