Frat boy Navy captain gets relieved

[Aaron]

I have a suspicion that someone was pissed at the guy and did it when it would hurt him. Can't say I blame them if they did, the US military will have to start looking at how folks behave in the next few years with DADT gone. More welcoming environment and all that.

[Akhlut]

The Neo-Nazi thread reminded me of something pertinent and important: gangs and hate groups like the Aryan Brotherhood are joining the military in relatively large numbers these days (source, source, source). Thus, even if Honors didn't use any racial slurs, is it still a wise idea to allow for an environment that, if not encourages, at least does not challenge the sort of language and ideas used by such groups? That is to say, pretty much all gangs and hate groups are complete and utter homophobes and do not hestitate to call homosexuals "fags" and treat them inhumanely; so, given the increase in gang/hate group activity in the military, it is wise to eliminate such use of language in order to help make the military more unfriendly toward such groups.

Also, just to clarify so I don't have to argue it later: no, I'm not suggesting that is the sole thing needed to dissuade gangs/hate groups in the military, or that ceasing to use slurs will magically make things better overnight.

This post was discarded prematurely. It has been re-introduced into the main thread. - SCRawl

[SCRawl]

Okay, I think I've seen enough here.

I was the mod who required Metahive to defend his position. Looking again, I can't see how it's seriously defensible, without more evidence of a kind we're not likely to be given. I am therefore going to rule that Metahive's position (and that of anyone else who wants to take that same position) is going to be downgraded to an opinion, which will require no defence, but similarly will be given no weight.

Anyone who doesn't like this ruling can appeal to another mod from this thread, or go over my head to an admin if you like, without fear of repercussion from me.

Furthermore, I'm going to HoS the aforementioned defence. I know that I mandated it, and I would again, but nothing good is coming of it.

Locked temporarily while the thread was split...please continue.

[Metahive]

I wish to discuss about the demand of some people here to go after Honors' former CO. In the videos Honors claims that he's making these videos behind both the captain's and the admirality's back (the evidence for this is in the split off part in the HOS). The question is now, was he ordered to include this disclaimer, was his CO and the admirality enforcing their own private DADT with regards to Honors' videos or is he telling the truth and that was really just his own private pet project? In any case, willingly or unwillingly, by putting this in he set himself up as a fall guy and gave his superiors a reason for plausible deniability should the need arise.

[Akhlut]

I wish to discuss about the demand of some people here to go after Honors' former CO. In the videos Honors claims that he's making these videos behind both the captain's and the admirality's back (the evidence for this is in the split off part in the HOS). The question is now, was he ordered to include this disclaimer, was his CO and the admirality enforcing their own private DADT with regards to Honors' videos or is he telling the truth and that was really just his own private pet project? In any case, willingly or unwillingly, by putting this in he set himself up as a fall guy and gave his superiors a reason for plausible deniability should the need arise.

From everything I've heard from the ex-military in this thread, that's not an excuse; a CO is always responsible for what happens on his ship, no matter where or what. If they (his superiors) didn't know about this, then it's still their fault because it was their job to know about everything on the ship.

[Mr. Coffee]

I wish to discuss about the demand of some people here to go after Honors' former CO. In the videos Honors claims that he's making these videos behind both the captain's and the admirality's back (the evidence for this is in the split off part in the HOS). The question is now, was he ordered to include this disclaimer, was his CO and the admirality enforcing their own private DADT with regards to Honors' videos or is he telling the truth and that was really just his own private pet project? In any case, willingly or unwillingly, by putting this in he set himself up as a fall guy and gave his superiors a reason for plausible deniability should the need arise.

I've got two lines of thought on Honor's former CO.

1. He's the Captain of the ship and this was something his executive officer was doing. There shouldn't be anything this major going on onboard his ship that he doesn't know about, much less something involving his XO making a fairly tasteless comedy show. So he knew and either didn't say anything or actually gave the nod for his XO to go ahead with it, which means it happened on his watch and he should've put a stop to it before the XO could broadcast it.

2. Somehow this guy is the most clueless motherfucker in the entire US Navy and doesn't know when his XO is using the ships TV system to show tasteless videos. In this case he's a negligent fuckwit and never should have gotten promoted to Admiral.

[Metahive]

The thing is, can you actually conceal a shipwide video broadcast? Did Honors circulate the videos under the hand or was he displaying them on board TV? I find this disclaimer highly suspicious I must say. Why would you need to make a motivational video without the captain knowing it? It's not making fun of the captain or in any way undermining his authority or that of the command staff, it also doesn't contain anything traitorous or subversive, so why did it have to be a secret?

[General Zod]

I wish to discuss about the demand of some people here to go after Honors' former CO. In the videos Honors claims that he's making these videos behind both the captain's and the admirality's back (the evidence for this is in the split off part in the HOS). The question is now, was he ordered to include this disclaimer, was his CO and the admirality enforcing their own private DADT with regards to Honors' videos or is he telling the truth and that was really just his own private pet project? In any case, willingly or unwillingly, by putting this in he set himself up as a fall guy and gave his superiors a reason for plausible deniability should the need arise.

I've got two lines of thought on Honor's former CO.

1. He's the Captain of the ship and this was something his executive officer was doing. There shouldn't be anything this major going on onboard his ship that he doesn't know about, much less something involving his XO making a fairly tasteless comedy show. So he knew and either didn't say anything or actually gave the nod for his XO to go ahead with it, which means it happened on his watch and he should've put a stop to it before the XO could broadcast it.

2. Somehow this guy is the most clueless motherfucker in the entire US Navy and doesn't know when his XO is using the ships TV system to show tasteless videos. In this case he's a negligent fuckwit and never should have gotten promoted to Admiral.

When the Enterprise got a new admiral in 2007 Honors got told to knock it off and quit producing them at that point. If the new admiral found out about them that quickly it's almost guaranteed his Captain at the time knew about it.

[Mr. Coffee]

The thing is, can you actually conceal a shipwide video broadcast? Did Honors circulate the videos under the hand or was he displaying them on board TV? I find this disclaimer highly suspicious I must say. Why would you need to make a motivational video without the captain knowing it? It's not making fun of the captain or in any way undermining his authority or that of the command staff, it also doesn't contain anything traitorous or subversive, so why did it have to be a secret?

That's the point. How could he hide this from the CO and the Admiral aboard using the ship's TV system? So either the former-CO and admiral are playing CYA or they're irresponsible fucks too, and in either case they should get shit on every bit as hard as Honor's is getting shat on.

[RogueIce]

The thing is, can you actually conceal a shipwide video broadcast? Did Honors circulate the videos under the hand or was he displaying them on board TV?

Doubtful. After all, somebody had a recording of it, otherwise how did The Virginia Pilot ever get their hands on it to post on the Internet? And yeah, pretty sure they were broadcast shipwide and fairly well known.

I find this disclaimer highly suspicious I must say.

TBH I think the disclaimer was less serious and more for the attempt at 'shock humor' or whatever that he was going for. Saying, "The CO and Admiral know nothing" makes it a bit more...racy...I suppose. And even if he produced it without telling the CO and Admiral what was in it, they still could (I would say should) know what was aired in the end. And anyway, as Zod posted later:

When the Enterprise got a new admiral in 2007 Honors got told to knock it off and quit producing them at that point. If the new admiral found out about them that quickly it's almost guaranteed his Captain at the time knew about it.

The new Admiral clearly knew, and as Zod says if the Admiral knew, the Captain would definately have known.

This then brings up the issue of his relief four years later (and you can say it's just an admin move, but the cold truth is that being relieved of command for cause is most definately a punishment, regardless of if it is carried out with the stroke of a pen or directed by a court-martial) and why. If the new Admiral told him to knock off the videos back then, why was no other punishment taken? As mentioned before, if he had some kind of official reprimand (especially from his own CO or God-forbid an Admiral, particularly on his XO tour) it's highly unlikely he would be given the command in the first place, which indicates strongly that no punishment was given at the time. So why punish him now?

And yeah, that's where my 'ex post facto' comment came from earlier; when he did the videos, they weren't considered "bad enough" for him to be officially disciplined at the time. But four years later, they are indeed considered "bad enough" for discipline and he's being punished (relief for cause is a punishment, and would be for any military service, feel free to ask around on that). And that doesn't really touch on the question of why the Navy initially defended him but then reversed course. Other than "oh crap we have bad PR, better scapegoat this guy".

Now, if the Navy surprises me and goes after his former CO then fine. But if they don't, well...that's pretty BS.

To sum up: Honors does (IMO) deserve punishment for his poor judgement. That kind of "locker room humor" isn't really a good idea for such a senior officer. But he's not the only one who deserves it, and if he is the only one punished it's a pretty obvious case of Hang The Junior Guy Out To Dry which I think is equally damaging (if not moreso) than the videos themselves.

[Mr. Coffee]

To sum up: Honors does (IMO) deserve punishment for his poor judgement. That kind of "locker room humor" isn't really a good idea for such a senior officer. But he's not the only one who deserves it, and if he is the only one punished it's a pretty obvious case of Hang The Junior Guy Out To Dry which I think is equally damaging (if not moreso) than the videos themselves.

To me if Honors is the only one punished ver this it'll be even worse for morale across the entire Navy then whatever effect his vidoes had on just the USS Enterprise. It'll completely reinforce the atmosphere of CYA and let every junior officer, or at least everyone junior to an Admiral, know that if shit happens that your fault, their fault,nobodies fault, the junior guy is the one that will get thrown under the bus. There goes initiative and creativity, because god fucking forbid that you're the guy that did something that, while effective, might make the senior officers look bad.

[Aaron]

I think you'll find that the majority of the military already knows that. Fucking the junior most guy you can find is a long and glorious tradition amongst those with bars.

[Flagg]

AP

Retirement on hold while Navy probes lewd videos

By PAULINE JELINEK
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Navy is preventing a former commander of the USS Enterprise from retiring from the service until officials can finish an investigation into the showing of lewd videos on the ship.

It is the second known personnel action taken in the case in which videos with anti-gay slurs, profanity and suggestive shower scenes were shown to the crew in 2006 and 2007.

Officials indefinitely deferred the planned Feb. 1 retirement of Rear Adm. Lawrence Rice, top officer on the ship during part of that time, and assigned him to Fleet Forces Command, which is handling the probe, Rear Adm. Dennis Moynihan, a Navy spokesman, said Thursday. Rice had been working at Joint Forces Command and had been scheduled to transition to retirement.

The move follows last week's decision to relieve Capt. Owen Honors of his command of the Enterprise and transfer him to an administrative job. Honors produced, starred in and showed the video on ship "movie nights" as a morale booster while he was second-in-command on the carrier. He later returned to the ship as commander.

The probe is looking into actions by Honors and also into who among his superiors knew of the videos and what they did about them at the time. Rice commanded the Enterprise from December 2004 to May 2007; Rear Adm. Ron Horton commanded the ship from mid-May 2007 to May 2010. Horton is still on active duty and so remains available to cooperate with the investigation.

It was unclear when the videos were aired. Officials said they were trying to determine who among the senior Navy leadership knew about the videos when they were shown repeatedly to thousands of crew members aboard the nation's oldest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

So can all of the "waaa, poor Captain Honors is being singled out, go after his superiors!!!" wanking stop now?

[Aaron]

Good, this is exactly what should happen. Maybe the US military is starting to learn after all.

[Lonestar]

So can all of the "waaa, poor Captain Honors is being singled out, go after his superiors!!!" wanking stop now?

Nope, I don't see the Admiral that was embarked being mentioned either.

[Ritterin Sophia]

So can all of the "waaa, poor Captain Honors is being singled out, go after his superiors!!!" wanking stop now?

What the fuck are you bitching about? Do you just have a stick permanently lodged in your fucking ass or something? I can't figure out exactly what it is you're complaining about. This is the first time we've heard of Rice being punished for his involvement (IE his lack of action in resolving the issue to begin with), thus it's hardly unfair or unreasonable to ask why he wasn't being punished as well. There's literally nothing in there saying that if Rice isn't punished then Honors shouldn't be. The only thing that's been said is that Honors should be punished and that in addition to that so should the guy who allowed these videos to be made in the first place. And what in the flying fucking does 'wanking' in the context of complaining about the perceived lack of action on the part of DoD to punish Rice as well even mean?

Was your entire line of thought: Oh no, the military guys agree with me! Quick find something to complain about even though it's not even a matter of contention between us to begin with. I'll just turn it into one anyhow.

[Flagg]

So can all of the "waaa, poor Captain Honors is being singled out, go after his superiors!!!" wanking stop now?

What the fuck are you bitching about? Do you just have a stick permanently lodged in your fucking ass or something? I can't figure out exactly what it is you're complaining about. This is the first time we've heard of Rice being punished for his involvement (IE his lack of action in resolving the issue to begin with), thus it's hardly unfair or unreasonable to ask why he wasn't being punished as well. There's literally nothing in there saying that if Rice isn't punished then Honors shouldn't be. The only thing that's been said is that Honors should be punished and that in addition to that so should the guy who allowed these videos to be made in the first place. And what in the flying fucking does 'wanking' in the context of complaining about the perceived lack of action on the part of DoD to punish Rice as well even mean?

Was your entire line of thought: Oh no, the military guys agree with me! Quick find something to complain about even though it's not even a matter of contention between us to begin with. I'll just turn it into one anyhow.

Bullshit, there are people in this thread saying Honors shouldn't be punished at all and used the assumption that the former Enterprise commander wasn't being punished as a red herring. So go fuck thyself.

[Todeswind]

Bullshit, there are people in this thread saying Honors shouldn't be punished at all and used the assumption that the former Enterprise commander wasn't being punished as a red herring. So go fuck thyself.

It is not unreasonable to expect a legal standard of culpability to be applied equally to people of equal responsibility. Stating that we're surprised that Honors is being stripped of command for this is not the same as saying we don't expect punishment.

It's largely unprecedented considering the general acceptance of the specific words he's under fire for that are themselves a common part of the US military lexicon. If they're setting a standard for the new post DADT military then it would have been unreasonable to strip Honors of his command without investigating the rest of the command staff at the time.

Expecting equal treatment under the law for the same crime isn't whinging it's due process.