(AP) — A former Marine says she’s speaking publicly about her rape because victims are suffering the same retaliation that she encountered when she reported her sexual assault 14 years ago.

Stacey Thompson went public with her story Thursday in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

She says she paid heavily for reporting that her sergeant had drugged her and sexually assaulted her in his barracks in 1999 at a Marine base in Japan.

Thompson says her perpetrator was allowed to leave the Marine Corps, while she was kicked out with an other-than-honorable discharge for being drugged.

A Pentagon report released earlier this month found 62 percent of sexual assault victims in the military who reported being attacked say they faced some kind of retaliation afterward.