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Day Staff Writer

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New London ― An assault during an X-ray procedure. A car ride that turned uncomfortably sexual. A gang rape carried out by shipmates.

Those stories and others were shared by a panel of past and active enlisted U.S. Coast Guard members during a congressional subcommittee hearing Thursday aimed at spotlighting the emotional and physical damage suffered by service members and their subsequent re-victimization by superiors who failed to address the crimes.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, hosted the 2 1/2-hour hearing inside Connecticut College’s Evans Hall that featured testimony from five Coast Guard enlistees, including two still on active duty.

Blumenthal said the assaults and harassment suffered by the whistleblowers, as well as the branch’s penchant for burying or downplaying such allegations, “revealed a deep moral rot” in the Coast Guard upper echelons.

“This is not a past problem and not limited to the Academy,” he asserted, referring to the U.S. Coast Academy located just a street away from the hearing. “It’s persistent and pervasive and continues to this day.”

Several of the witnesses said they encountered troubling issues soon after leaving boot camp and arriving at their first duty stations. Tina Owen, who served for 22 years before retiring in 2018 as lieutenant commander,...

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