Well, after reading all of the details, I find some sympathy for her. She was not trying to escape a dangerous assignment, but what she (and apparently other naval personnel) consider to be a misuse of her training to fill a warm body spot. And apparently she didn’t intend to refuse to go, but was only trying to cut through the system and find someone she could discuss it with.
That said, my own experience many years ago in the military was that stupid assignments and seeming misuse of people is normal. You just have to put up with it and make the best of it. All too often, the only people who knew what they were doing were the old sergeants. You had to hope that junior officers would take their advice. As for orders cut from above, they seldom made much sense.
That’s how the cookie crumbles.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus