'When you first arrive, everyone is so nice to you. You're the new recruit. I remember the CO CMO [Commanding Officer of the Commodore's Messenger Organization] asking me to make her coffee or a supper or something. So I went off to the galley and came back and handed it to her. And she turned around and yelled at me, about the food or the way I had made the coffee," she says. "She yelled at me so sharply, and it was my first wake-up call to what the Sea Org was really like. And I was just, 'yes, sir, what can I do to fix it, sir.' She had me go back four times to fix whatever the problem was. She was just terrible. She told me she had to do that prepare me for working with the top executives. Oh my God. That was the first thing that woke me up to what it was going to be like."

Before she could become a CMO host and work with guests, Ramana says she first spent six months working in the Treasury department. But soon enough, she was moved up to be the Deputy Commanding Officer for CMO Internal.

I asked her what her duties were. "Watching all the staff. Monitoring their training, and their ethics. So you're predominately investigating internal matters. Dishing out punishments to CMOs who weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing," she says. When the CO left the ship for periods, Ramana stepped in to run the CMO of the entire ship.

She was 16.'





















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