 Lieutenant Rice, take one. I packed up my bags, moved across the country from California all the way to Virginia to report to my first ship, which, you know, there's nothing more exciting. I get there, and, you know, you meet the wardroom. You're so exciting, because, you know, I don't have any family out here, so this is your new family. Your ship is your family. You're ready to get totally invested in it. We were going into the dry dock, and the ship's out of the water. You know, you stand watches there. There's a lot of people you don't know coming and going, working on the ship. And at that time, the ship I was on, the cruiser, it was only, it was all male enlisted, so there was only female officers. There were about five of us in total, not that many, right? So when we were standing our watches on the quarter deck, there would be great interest. Oh, it's one of the female officers, you know. I guess it's interesting when, you know, it's kind of a commodity to see a female officer in an area we get noticed. But I would look back on some of my classes and think, like, wow, this is really weird that some of the people that see us are kind of memorizing our, you know, watch, you know, what days we have duty, you know, what, there's a lot of interest in the females on the ship. It's just kind of a weird situation, and this haunts me to this day. I remember saying something to the other girls on the ship, because it just seemed like all the, everything I'd learned in my class, all the pieces were there to put us in a situation where we could be preyed upon. It just, it just didn't feel right. And I didn't say anything to the chain of command, because nothing had actually happened. So I was like, they're just going to think I'm being silly and paranoid and stuff like that. And this was seven years ago. But then sure enough, about a week later, I got a call, it was early on a Friday morning, it was about 5 a.m. just before I would have gotten up to go to the ship. And one of my fellow officers on the ship called me and said, hey, Veronica, you need to come outside. And so I'm like, oh, this is weird, so I just, you know, have a sleep outside. And so I go outside like, hey, you know, why are you at my apartment at five in the morning? And then one day, you need to go get some clothes on, because we need to go to the hospital because one of the other female on the ship has been raped. So I guess it was her duty day, and she was doing a tour of the ship right before she was supposed to take the OD watch like they tell you to do. And it looked like someone hit her over the back of the head with something, and when she came to, you know, her clothes were kind of torn off, and it was just bad, and it was depressing. It was one of the hardest things I've ever gone through. I remember, I can't remember if it was a couple days after that incident, it was probably the next Monday, because this happened on a Friday. I was supposed to, I think I was supposed to have duty that day, and I was supposed to stand officer of the deck watch, where you're on the quarter deck, you have your little nine millimeter, and you kind of monitor people coming and going from the ship. And I remember I was just overcome. I couldn't fathom the idea of standing out there and watching people walk by, knowing that one of the guys walking by was probably the guy that did this to my friend. I was mad because, you know, there wasn't ever going to be justice because they weren't going to find the individual. So I did what I could do for her, I'd go visit her all the time and try to help her through it as much as I could, but she was always still having a lot of difficulty. It did inspire me to be something I'm always thinking about. I did recently go through the Navy's new credentialing program for SAPRA victim advocates, which I would encourage more people, volunteer at the commands to do, only because if it's something I can do to be there and help someone else out, I would be more than happy to because I just can't imagine not wanting to help someone that needs help like that, especially after seeing what my friend went through, you know, they're not thinking, they don't remember stuff, they don't comprehend things anymore, they're just trying to remember why they're waking up every day. And they really need someone to stand there and say, I'm here to support you.