Danielle Wilson said she had only recently turned 18 when she was sexually assaulted while on a training exercise with the Royal Australian Navy.
Mr Wilson told the Royal Commission into Veteran and Defence Suicide it was one of several assaults she reported to her superiors that went ignored.
It was the late 1980's and Ms Wilson was taking part in a fire simulation drill onboard a ship.
All trainees were directed to remove their underwear before they pulled on their safety overalls, warned the fabric might stick to their skin in the event of a fire.
She and other women noticed holes had been cut in the base of their overall pockets.
During the drill, Ms Wilson said a man reached down through her pockets and sexually assaulted her.
She couldn't tell who it was because all recruits were wearing breathing apparatus and crammed in tight in a smoke-filled room.
Shaken, she told her superior.
"He just dismissed it, it was no big deal. It's life, don't worry about it.
"I was very distressed. Someone had assaulted me."
Ms Wilson spent three years in the Australian Navy between 1987 and 1990.
It's an experience that left her suffering depression, anxiety and repeated panic attacks.
"I was very fearful. You didn't know what was going to happen on a day-to-day basis."
She told the inquiry how another colleague, who had vocally opposed women being in the Navy, attacked her unprovoked while she was working as a cook.
Ms Wilson said she questioned him about food items and was told to f*** off before being head-butted by the man.
"I fell to the ground. I didn't lose consciousness or anything. I was very dazed and I started crying, obviously grabbed my head."
She was 19 at the time.
Ms Wilson also recalled another incident where a superior screamed in her face for moving during a drill and threatened to "ruin" her "sex life" forever.
"I wanted to leave so bad," she said.
"But I had signed on for six years, and you can't just quit. It's not allowed. I had signed my life away to them."
She felt the only way out was to get pregnant, even though she hadn't planned to have a baby so early.
"My boyfriend, who became my husband, and I decided to have a baby, and that was my way out."
At the time being pregnant was a reason to be discharged.
Even then, she said she didn't feel safe.
"It was sleazy, hands would brush against your breasts. Some days there was nothing but other days it was constant," she said.
It took three decades after leaving the Defence Force to receive acknowledgement of the abuse suffered and an apology from the Navy.
The Royal Commission into Veteran and Defence Suicide also heard from the Chief of Navy Australia, Vice Admiral Michael Noonan.
"What she (Ms Wilson) described was abhorrent and should never have happened to her in our Navy, but sadly it did," he said.
"While I would aspire to have a Navy and Defence Force that's free of such behaviours I also acknowledge there are behaviours that occur time to time — still today — we are not happy with, not proud of."
The Chief of Navy said it wasn't easy listening to distressing testimonies, but it was important that veterans had a forum to be able to share them.
Commissioners Peggy Brown, James Douglas QC and Nick Kaldas have received more than 1,268 written submissions, and hundreds of applications for private sessions from veterans.
Hearings will resume in Sydney on Wednesday.
