No honor whatsoever

Well, it would appear the circus is now over.

The former executive officer of the carrier Enterprise can remain on active duty despite a finding that his job performance aboard the carrier fell short of standards, a Navy board of inquiry decided Wednesday.

Capt. Owen Honors was brought to the board of inquiry for co-producing dozens of controversial and sometimes bawdy video vignettes shown aboard the ship in 2006 and 2007.

The three-admiral board unanimously agreed Honors committed misconduct, failed to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership required of an officer in his grade and failed to conform to prescribed standards of military deportment. But it also voted 3-0 that Honors “be retained in the naval service.”

Phib and Lex seem to think that this is a fair way to end this matter. I totally disagree. This outcome was totally predictable and just the concluding act to what is clearly the hypocrisy of the current generation of naval leadership. Harvey got to have his cake and eat it too. He cashiered a naval officer and also got to send the subliminal message that innovation and morale building of any kind is to be suppressed.  The precedent has been set-and the ability of a subordinate to execute vengeful reprisals has been confirmed. Confirmed too-is that fact that blame will always be assessed at the lowest possible level, throwing our shipmates to the wolves, while making sure the cabal of the flag ranks is protected.

Let me say it straight out. “Fuck you Harvey”. This was non issue, turned into a major issue-and the fact that it occurred four+ years after the fact, when the Navy had clearly moved this officer down the track is something that is worthy of utter contempt. I asked the question before, and I will ask you again: if what he did was wrong, then the knowing acceptance of it by the chain of command is equally wrong.

This is a generation of leadership that does not tolerate dissent and expresses consent through silence.

 Read into the absence of any Flag Officer speaking on this issue however you wish, but I believe the above applies. Even when it comes to the “Open and Independent Forum” Flag officers of this generation have been trained not to speak out of turn.

 It is the aspect of the Honors report that went unsaid – no one wants to acknowledge that the culture problem where silence means consent and dissent is not tolerated is a reflection of Flag Officers of the current generation. 5000 people on an aircraft carrier must then be an anomaly and isolated case.

Did this event require this level of public spectacle? No. Could it have been dealt with in a more reasonable matter? Yes. Phib says that no one has the right to question the officers who rendered the judgment, he knows them. Well so do I-and don’t kid yourself, they knew their marching orders when they walked into the room. They acted in the manner directed to them by the “company”. Being company men themselves, they accepted the moral compromises that come with that a long time ago.

This kind of overkill, on what is essentially an isolated issue, when real negligence on behalf of our personnel and procurement leadership is overlooked, sends a signal too.  And when the Navy turns a blind eye to real negligent conduct by any one of its now numerous protected classes will prove very destructive indeed.

I said it before and I will say it again. I’m not surprised at the way it all turned out-but I am more than a little angry and at the same time sad. 

 As far as I am concerned,  it is the natural result of the trend that many of us warned would happen when squadrons and ships were made mixed gender-namely, that unlike what the women said they wanted, “to just be treated like the men”, the real agenda was to change and destroy the culture of the Naval Aviation and ruin everything that made it fun. And it would appear they have succeeded.

There are people who say I am defending unprofessional conduct. I firmly reject that contention-now and in the future. But don’t kid yourself this is deeper task, nothing less than legislating conformity to a humorless and quite frankly, “watch your back” type of day to day environment that is not good for anyone.  The a work hard,  play hard environment of Naval Aviation is dead. And it’ s not coming back. 

Good job assholes!