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The Soul Repair Center offers free monthly webinars of use to religious leaders and professional caregivers supporting veterans and their families.

Sexual Assault in Military Academies

January 28, 2025

1:00 p.m. CST

This webinar features the experience of a distinguished graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, Melissa McCafferty, who experienced sexual assault in the academy and chose to seek justice and accountability from those who assaulted her. Her story echoes the accounts found in the annual SAPR reports up to 2022-2023. Since that time the reports on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Academies (https://www.sapr.mil) have not been included in the annual SAPRO reports. Melissa’s account of her determined effort to seek justice is an important “window” into a troubling reality and now records of such violence are not easily accessible to the public.

Register at https://voa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o6-tYQMjSSSc78pEgkIhaw 

Lieutenant Melissa K. McCafferty USN (ret.) is a 2011 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy (B.S. with high honors) and was named a Truman Scholar. In 2016 she served as a Truman Governance Fellow, received the American Legion Auxiliary’s Service Women of the Year Award, and also holds the Coast Guard Commendation Medal and Achievement Medal, the Armed Forces Service Medal, and numerous other recognitions including the Dorothy P. Stratton Leadership Award—the Coast Guard’s highest award for women in leadership.

McCafferty has served in multiple locations: a response cutter in the Atlantic interdicting vessels transporting illicit narcotics; the Commandant’s Advisory Group with tasks such as aligning strategic initiatives to policy and analyzing emerging trends; and as Deputy Director of Operations for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. She retired from the Coast Guard in 2019. She then served as Deputy for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Level Exercise coordinating state, federal, local, and tribal community teams in prevention, mitigation, protection, response, recovery efforts. She also served in the US State Dept. Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.   

She holds an M.S degree in applied Economics from Johns Hopkins and J.D. from Georgetown Law School in 2023. She is currently an associate at a D.C. law firm.

Register at https://voa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o6-tYQMjSSSc78pEgkIhaw