"The Love Bo-oat"
The cover story on this week's Navy Times talks about the hanky-panky that was uncovered on the new destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG-93); 13 Sailors have apparently been accused of fraternization, adultery, and other unauthorized exchange of bodily fluids. For those who can't get to the Navy Times story, some articles with basic information can be found here, here and here. The cases about which we are able to read the most involve officer/enlisted fraternization; in the most recently-tried case, the officer involved had recently married the petty officer in question.
Two of the stories disagree about how the Navy had managed to work around an spousal immunity from testifying in the case of the newly-married couple -- this one says that "[Chappell's] wife, Yarbrough -- who had been convicted at a special court-martial Aug. 2 for two specifications of unauthorized absence, disrespect to a superior petty officer and two instances of fraternization -- agreed to testify against him as part of her plea agreement."; the other, more believably, says: "As part of the pre-trial agreement, her confinement was limited to 90 days, and Yarbrough agreed to testify against the other party in the earlier fraternization case". (She was accused of two counts of fraternization, with both her new husband and a supervisor at a previous command.)
When I was on the USS John C. Stennis, I was always amused at the various orders the command would give "outlawing" sexual intimacy between crew members. Let's be honest, threat of punishment is not going to overcome 18 year old hormones, in many cases. There were a few people sent home from the Stennis because of inability to keep their zippers zipped, but as a percentage of the crew, the number of people caught was fairly low.
On submarines, we don't really have this specific problem, due to lack of one gender aboard. Of course, there's the odd case where guys can't keep their hands off some other Sailor's wife, but all in all, the problem is not nearly as bad in the Sub Force... yet.
Going deep...
Update 0058 22 Nov: And because it always makes Sailors giggle to hear this: "Penetration, however slight, shall be sufficient to complete the offense."
Update 0715 22 Nov: CDR Salamander has much, much more, including a discussion of possible racial undertones in the punishment.
posted by Bubblehead at 12:05 AM
3 Comments:
This amazes me. These are adults who engaged in, hopefully, consensual relations, just as one of our ex-presidents did. If it wasn’t consensual then that is something that needs to be dealt with. If it was consensual, just give them bad conduct discharges and kick them out. Doing the jail time will not do anybody any good, poses a hardship on any kids involved, and costs the taxpayers a bunch of money. Many of the taxpayers would be scratching their heads any way about why these things would go to court.
Sex drive will overcome, or ignore, the possible punishment. In the head-hunting days of the late 1980’s and early 90’s, I saw a lot of good sailors get kicked out for suggested improprieties where the sailor was “guilty unless he could prove himself innocent”. Several times I saw where the sailor got kicked out because it was his word against hers and the command always erred on her’s to avoid the publicity.
I agree that the sub force has less of a problem on the boats. The major problem came when the boat sailor went to the tender or shore command and didn’t adjust their actions to the mixed gender situations. On the tender, I was accused of harassment because I had the female grooming standards posted above my desk and not the male’s. I knew what the male standards were but this was the first time that I was in charge of females. That was easy enough to take care of. I posted the males along side the females and told the one who complained to get her fingernails in speck.
That Damn Good Looking Aganger From Iowa
11/21/2005 2:14 PM
Uhh, seen it in submarines, too, although the affected parties couldn't exactly try to get married to escape fraternization charges...
11/21/2005 7:30 PM
Chap -- please tell me it wasn't between officer and enlisted; they would be just too wrong.
11/24/2005 8:49 AM
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