I hope Navy Capt. Owen Honors, who produced profanity- and-slur-laden videos while second in command of the USS Enterprise, isn't being relieved of command of the ship for the wrong reason -- a reaction to public pressure based on our goody-two-shoes culture. But he is in trouble and might deserve to be:
Navy spokesman Cmdr. Chris Sims said the videos, which were shown to the crew of the Enterprise while on deployment supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, are "inappropriate."
Honors is shown cursing along with other members of his staff in an attempt to demonstrate humor, according to the videos.
It's not so much the contents of the videos that's inapporpriate, it's that a senior officer made them. I know there is a certain school of good-cop/bad-cop authority. The good senior officer gives the troops someone to confide in and feel good about, which gives the commander a freer hand to be the bad cop. It sounds a little like this was an attempt at that, but it went too far. A military officer cannot keep the respect from his subordinates that he needs to lead if he is also trying to be the class clown.
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Our media really does not understand it. We have Saturday Night Live and Mad TV that poke fun at EVERYONE period and these are aired over the air. We even have cable TV that has programs that are far worse than what was on the closed TV of the Enterprise.
No nudity was done, they poked fun, made suggestive action/words/etc.
What was is it like in onboard the Fox at sea?
if you had the 4 to 8 watch, you were awakened at 3:30 am to take the watch at 3:45 am. You were relieved to eat at 7:30 am and you mustered for quarters at 8:00 am. You worked eight hours had 20 minutes if lucky for lunch. You relieved the watch at 3:45 pm and were relieved from watch at 7:45 am. If the ship was refueling, you were up at 12:00 am to 2:00 am. On Sunday you had rooty-tooty holiday meaning if nothing was broken, down or needed maintenance, you only had to stand your 2 four hour watches.
Mail call was a minimum of once a week and you could go three weeks without mail. The movies might change once a week. There were about 455 men on board. The berthing compartment held 60 men. Your personal space was a volume that was 6 feet by 2 feet by 20 inches. If you were lucky you had a locker at your head and at your feet which kept you from getting clunked when the rack next to you was raised or lowered. If you were really lucky, you had a top rack which meant that those getting into and out of their racks did not climb past you. We did not have a shipboard TV station, we had the ships PA system.
A large ship like an aircraft carrier has a lot more amenties, fitness room, different mess decks, more mail calls and more variety of movies.
Anyone who might be offended by Captain Honors could simply walk away and watch a different "station." In reality this is nothing different than when a ship crosses the international date line or the equator. I guess if the news of these events ever made it to national TV, every Admiral, Captain, enlisted person would be drummed out of the navy.
From what I saw, it was funny and a bit less crude than when I was in the Navy. Political Correctness has gone overboard taking our nations defense with it.
The Captain of the Fox, single would have enlisted sailors over to his house - serve lots of beer, burgers, dogs, chips, etc. A great party. He did this for each division under his command. I noticed the captain was only sipping his beer and watching the men under his command interact, letting loose so to speak. He looked at me and he knew I was watching him and he winked. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was releasing his crews stress, listening to their talk and gauging their cohesiveness. How would a captian with over 5,000 do the same thing?
Some questions for those who have never served.
Why does the military shave heads at boot camp?
Why does the military break individuality at boot camp?