The Navy relieved Capt. Owen Honors of command of the USS Enterprise on Tuesday afternoon. That ended a PR problem, and all but ends his career, but is triggering deeper concerns among Navy officers that are going to persist long after cable TV has moved on to something else, if it hasn’t already.
Capt. Owen Honors / Navy photo
Here’s the issue in a nutshell, as spelled out by CDR Salamander, a well-read but anonymous blogger who served more than 20 years as a Navy officer. In a column on the independent U.S. Naval Institute’s website, he says that Honors’ superiors had three choices in dealing with the media firestorm that the raunchy videos triggered. They could say they didn’t know about them beforehand, say they knew about them and didn’t care, or say they knew about them and told him not to do it any more.
Initially, the Navy chose that third option, telling the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot — before the ship hit the fan:
“The videos created onboard USS Enterprise in 2006-2007 were not created with the intent to offend anyone,” the statement said. “The videos were intended to be humorous skits focusing the crew’s attention on specific issues such as port visits, traffic safety, water conservation, ship cleanliness, etc.” The statement said that when leaders with the carrier strike group became aware of the inappropriate content in early 2007, production of the videos ended.
At least two admirals commanding Honors knew of the videos, levied some degree of counseling — “Stop this before it ends up on TV!” or somesuch — and let Honors’ career continue its ascent. “Again – just to be clear – nothing on these videos were unknown to the STRIKE GROUP Commander (embarked ENTERPRISE) or the Commanding Officer,” CDR Salamander notes. “I make a declarative statement such as that because I have been deployed on Carriers and I can also declare that water is wet.”
But once the videos went viral, response No. 3 — that the Navy was aware of the videos and had already dealt with the issue — no longer seemed viable. Or as CDR Salamander puts it:
…we have malice and betrayal by an officer’s Chain of Command. It is the height of moral corruption to tell someone what they are doing is OK one day, and then the next –- to protect yourself — act as if it were horrible. It is just as morally corrupt to reprimand a person, provide corrective action, accept remediation – and then at a later date punish him again for the same act only harder; submit that person to double jeopardy for your own self-preservation.
It happened at the notorious Tailhook convention 20 years ago this September, when senior officers punished younger ones for antics and assaults that had been tolerated in Navy circles until they became public. It’s happening again.