Shannon runs the non profit Shield of Sisters and shared her experience of serving in the Navy on this week’s episode of the Women of the Military podcast. Shannon’s dad, an Army veteran, gave her two options, go to college or join the military. She decided to join the military. She picked the Navy because they were the only recruiter available when she went to the recruiters offices.
Shield of Sisters – helping with MST
She picked the career field of Cryptology and while bootcamp was a wake up. And her training for cryptology was more like going to college, the thing she was trying to avoid. The military also provided her the structure she needed to do well in her courses with the end goal of being a Cryptologist.
Serving in the Navy
She was stationed at Norfolk and worked in a submarine office. At the time women were not allowed to be on submarines meaning the limited number of women in the Navy was even smaller where she worked. And the leadership who had been on submarines was surprised to see women working in the military. This led to sexual harassment and she also experienced being raped. She reported the rape but because of different things it never moved forward and she ignored the personal trauma for a long time before finally getting help. From working on her trauma she started her non-profit Shield of Sisters. That works to help women who have experience Military Sexual Trauma in the military.
Leaving the Military
She decided to leave the military because she was up for orders. The military had decided to send her to Korea within months of her son being born. With the choice to leave behind her one month old son for a year and go to Korea or get out she choose to leave the military. Her husband was in the military and that led her to shift from service member to spouse. Causing her to put her career on the back burner to follow him as they moved around the country.
Shield of Sisters
Today she leads Shield of Sisters. Shield of Sisters hosts retreats for lady service members/veterans and lady family members that have survived military sexual trauma. Through these retreats the ladies will be guided through life reverse engineering and given the choice to change their story and vision for their future.
