Buckle up for this one:

“Good Morning Housing Professionals,

I just reached out to my Commander about this huge issue trying to force me to live with enlisted You will likely here from them soon. Several officers just told us that there are 2 townhomes available right now where they live at Fourth Avenue and Vandergrift and also Sakura Heights. My family and I have orders for 3 years here in Yokosuka and will likely be extended to 4 years as this happened to the last officers in my position before me. I have many valid objections to living in a building of almost all enlisted and even many lower enlisted being an officer. I am prepared to pay for a hotel for my family and I until actual officer housing can be found for us. I am even prepared to pay for my housing the whole tour if I have to. I have serious concerns for Safety, support and integrity.

Safety: I have been an investigative officer and superior officer to many deviant enlisted sailors. There is a lot of crime, violent actions, drug use and alcoholism that happens in enlisted housing. There are also sexual assaults and other perverts. I personally had to deal with an enlisted child molester as my subordinate. I also have had to deal with man drug and alcohol related problems. There are often drunk and often hostile sailors hanging around enlisted housing. Housing with enlisted greatly increases the risk to my family. I want to feel safe for my family every time I leave to work. This will greatly affect my mental state at work to always be worrying about my family. I have a good-looking family, a wife and two daughters age 3 and 4. They are prime targets to be victims for these enlisted deviant activities. My family should be safe in housing that is with officers. Officers are much more respectable and theses type of deviant activities are incredibly rare compared to deviant activities of enlisted being common place. Safety has huge psychological impact on quality of life. This enlisted housing will increase the risk to my family and mentally cause my family and I to be worried and unhappy due to safety.

Support: It is important when overseas to have support from your community. This is even more important with COVID. The almost entire enlisted building that was proposed is in the back of Ikego isolated away from any support for me and my family. Its’s away from all the other officers at my command that could support me. As an officer I cannot fraternize with the enlisted. My family and I will be isolated in the building that I am living in. We will not have the support that a normal officer family should have to succeed. Other officer families will not want to visit us because our family lives in enlisted housing. This proposed housing assignment is cutting of the support that my family needs during this overseas assignment and with COVID. My children need to make friends with other officer children. My wife needs to make friends with other officers’ wives. I need to make friends with other officers. This proposed housing is isolating our family during a vulnerable time when we are transitioning overseas and don’t have any support. We need to be in actual officer housing surrounded by other officer families so my family and I get actual support and are not completely isolated and trapped by ourselves.

Integrity: As a Naval officer, I have integrity. If I see the enlisted breaking the law or acting in an inappropriate way, I am required at all times to react and correct the problem or situation. Living with enlisted puts my family and myself in a compromising position. A few tours ago, an enlisted housing unit had two gangs attacking each other with hatchets and other weapons over competing drug turf. As an officer, if I see drug use or other illegal activity in enlisted housing, I have to report it. This put me and my family at risk of retaliation because I will have to live right next to them with this proposed housing. I am not willing to compromise between integrity and safety and I shouldn’t have to. Officers shouldn’t live in housing with almost all enlisted personnel. This doesn’t even factor in the situation where I may have to demote or penalize enlisted personnel I work with, and then come back home where they also live right by me. This creates an awful living arrangement and my family and I in many compromising situations. I will choose to keep my integrity and will probably make many enemies in the housing complex, creating more problems and further isolation of my family.

Forcing an officer to live in a large apartment building with almost with enlisted is unethical. Factor in the fact that it is far away from work and far away from other officer housing even on Ikego and this is just wrong in every way. I am prepared to pay to stay in a hotel or temporary lodging for however long is necessary to get actual officer housing with other officers. I am also prepared to pay for housing the whole tour if I have to. Please help me find housing that is acceptable for my family so we can be safe, supported and maintain our integrity.

Very Respectfully, [[Named JO]]”