Enterprise "XO Movie Night" Videos Released
In case you wanted to see all the "XO Movie Night" videos from the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) case we discussed earlier, you can find them here, helpfully divided up into "objectionable" and "non-objectionable" categories, along with links to the Command Investigation. You can also read a story about all the senior officers who will get stern letters in their permanent records here.
Update 1604 03 March: Apparently Naval Reactors didn't get a chance to review the Command Investigation before it got released, which surprises me because some of the complaints involved improper use of anti-contamination suits. Check out Appendix 5, page 3, entry for 25-Mar-06: "Appears in this video performing various activities wearing a yellow, anti-radiation suit." Really? Anti-radiation suit? And no one on the Fleet Forces Command staff who read the draft report caught that?
posted by Bubblehead at 2:51 PM
47 Comments:
A non-punitive letter of caution is essentially worthless, but what in the heck does a Secretarial letter of censure do? Seems like this investigation generated a lot of heat and light and little else.
As before, I think Honors exercised bad judgment in making these videos in the first place, and the other senior officers present (and the chaplain) failed to speak up. But, come one, the lame outcome of this investigation simply emphasizes the ridiculous approach of taking action (any action) now.
3/03/2011 3:15 PM
This comment has been removed by the author.
3/03/2011 3:26 PM
In case you are curious, Capt Honors still lists himself as the CO of Enterprise.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/o-p-honors/3/ab6/1bb
3/03/2011 3:27 PM
A Secretarial letter of censure ends the career of the individual. These guys got their pee pees hammered flat.
Non-punitive letters of caution and placing copy of the investigation and endorsement in a record ends that career too; ditto on state of their wee wees.
John Harvey went from top to bottom in this investigation and there seems to be no one - no one! - left out of accountability. This was thorough. This was hard.
Good to see standards are sound and expectations where they should be. Don't like it? You're in the wrong outfit.
3/03/2011 3:27 PM
RD. I will push I believe on censure letter, but I find it hard to believe any LOC is a technical career ender in of itself. Having dealt a few of these to both uniformed and civilian folks these are usually private and do not remain in the service record or OPF for very long. That said, I would agree these are probably career killers by the simple nature that they are being waved around in public..
3/03/2011 3:36 PM
Duck, it's always possible to fight it. I'd rather take my chances and request trial by court martial. Look at my sqeeeky clean record and all the (political) people who can get me out of trouble.
Duck, one way or another, you will pay for your crimes against me. Politically, I'll fix your ass, you damned tattletale!
Duck, what I'm saying is that this CAPT has to have some connections to keep him out of trouble. This whole crazy thing is going to get alot worse before it gets better.
Yeah, this one is going to hurt in the long run.
3/03/2011 3:43 PM
Agree with RD that the Navy went all out to appease the PC and post-DADT crowd by ending a few careers. Although the Navy really didn't have a choice with the way the budget situation is working out.
Anyway, being a submariner, I enjoyed the the "objectionable" videos (as this stuff seems pretty tame compared to what we do on the boats).
Not sure if it was a good idea to make them so easy to get to. I am sure people are already saving them and making more videos as we type.
The best thing out of this whole mess is how much safer our nation is because we punished people for making "dirty movies". Yep, this mission ranks right up there with Charlie Sheen in importance.
3/03/2011 3:43 PM
This is the first that I have heard that the XO after CAPT Honors was under investigation.
One the "one strike and you're out" method of operation, that's it for Spicer and Holloway. Too damn bad, I knew Danny Holloway in the `80s and I thought he was a decent guy.
I don't understand why those working for Honors were also smacked about. What the hell were they supposed to do, the XO was in charge, the CO and the group commanders were fine with what was going on.
Maybe CAPT Honors and the admirals warranted getting their dicks punched. But if command accountability means anything, there is something wrong with going after the junior folk for obeying orders. It's not as though Honors was ordering them to pump JP-5 into the harbor or shoot at civilians.
I smell bullshit.
3/03/2011 4:15 PM
Should we now expect to see a token female elevated to a flag post vacated by a stodgy old admiral who actually understood what the heck the military's MAIN role is.
Thank goodness, hers will be a merit-based promotion grounded in expertise of inoffensive tactical rhetoric and PC media, unless she is a rare, Margaret Thatcher clone.
Alternatively, when these flags resign, and that necessity will be made abundantly clear to them though it may appear voluntary, it would help Navy's supernumerary ranks to not replace them at all.
Think I'll go have a beer. How about you, RD?
3/03/2011 4:29 PM
Vig: I seem to recall you're buying...
More logs on the fire:
http://usfleetforces.blogspot.com/2011/03/uss-enterprise-cvn-65-video.html
http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/Pages/enterprise_p4.aspx
3/03/2011 4:48 PM
Holloway is still in command of Second Fleet! He didn't get shit hammered! He personally awared a Legion of Merit to CAPT Honors at the end of his XO tour, and he was the Strike Group Commander that O'Hanlon told to put an end to the videos during the COMPTUEX and JTFEX. But the videos continued throughout the deployment.
RD, in your dreams you might think your "best friend" John Harvey did some hammering, but in reality it was a slap on the wrist. Holloway is still in command and he will take a prominent position in the new FFC/C2F merged command. The only people that got hammered were already retired or about to retire. Their careers were already over.
What a joke. Additionally, they started to go after junior personnel that were ordered to take part in the videos. That is GREAT leadership there. Harvey is a boob and so is the rest of the flag leadership in the navy. Can't wait to complete my COPAY contract so I can retire!
3/03/2011 6:55 PM
Para 5 on page 39 of the report says it all. The content of the videos became worse culminating in Honors' final video. Holloway was the CSG commander, and your going to tell me he didn't know the content and never watched the XO Movie Night video during the deployment until December 2007 as the report claims. Really! The report does a great job covering for those still on active duty to slap them with a Letter of Caution. The JAGS at FFC should be ashamed. And Holloway knows he lied to the investigators. High standards of conduct my a$$!
3/03/2011 7:16 PM
The punishment is not too PC -- you are too wedded to a bygone age in which a military service made up entirely of straight white men could be assholes with impunity.
You assholes.
3/03/2011 11:28 PM
The Captain will retire without honor but will live comfortably the rest of his life and didn't kill anyone, in contrast to that Canadian AirForce Colonel who will surely rot in prison.
Darn it; hope Honors doesn't go into pornography like ol' sailor boy Flint...wink!
3/04/2011 12:01 AM
I wish anti-radiation suits had been available in the 80s; my exposure would've been even less than the 120 mRem or so I left with.
3/04/2011 12:46 AM
http://www.cpf.navy.mil/media/news/articles/2011/mar/mar3_CLWP.shtml
Another slap on the wrist...
3/04/2011 3:45 AM
The non-punitive letter of caution is nothing if it is between the giver and receiver - which is the norm. It goes nowhere and the only copies are held by the giver and receiver. If the giver at issue time or at a later time decides to make it a part of the person's record (his option), then it is just as bad as mast for an officer. I sat 3 promotion boards (2xO-4 and 1xO-5) and 2 admin boards and people with published letters of caution generally weren't discussed much and passed over real quick.
3/04/2011 5:43 AM
RD @ 0345.
You were correct in your earlier statement that a Letter of Caution for those guys was career ending.
You were incorrect in your 0345 entry. That is not a slap on the wrist - that was a hammer job. This Horton guy will now go home.
BTW, anything they did to Spicer was mute point - he is already retired.
3/04/2011 5:47 AM
"You were incorrect in your 0345 entry. That is not a slap on the wrist - that was a hammer job. This Horton guy will now go home."
Meant to be a retort to Anon at 3/03/2011 6:55 PM...
3/04/2011 7:07 AM
Will Horton retire a captain, or a RDML?
3/04/2011 7:19 AM
Whether an letter of censure or a slap on the wrist, I don't see any more stars being handed out to these guys, so yeah, it's effectively a career ender. Although one would have thought that this situation would have been resolved four years ago. Timeliness, let the punishment fit the crime, all that good stuff.
Be like the current CO of my first boat trying to take me to mast for that day I did the technicolor yawn off the Jeepney in Subic City 22 years after the fact...(whoops--wasn't supposed to say anything about that...)
3/04/2011 8:28 AM
The punishment is not too PC -- you are too wedded to a bygone age in which a military service made up entirely of straight white men could be assholes with impunity.
You assholes.
Thus sayeth the FAGGOT.
3/04/2011 9:24 AM
A Singapore-based admiral has been relieved for failing to put a stop to the controversial “XO Movie Night” videos aired while he commanded the carrier Enterprise.
Rear Adm. Ron Horton was fired as commander of Logistics Group, Western Pacific, by Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Patrick Walsh
Seems to me his pee pee got sliced and diced.
3/04/2011 10:02 AM
Captain Honors' offenses as XO on Enterprise took place over 2005-2007...so it's a bit too 20-20 hindsight to say that it all should have been dealt with "four years ago." In keeping with his creepy style, his offenses crept up over time.
Certainly he clearly showed no small disdain for his own crewman in his final 'XO movie night' episode, going so far as to call the surface line officers "faggots" multiple times. Sure, there's a time and place for that of guy humor...perhaps, during intra-wardroom jocular jousting...but certainly not in a broadcast to the entire crew. The in-your-face spiels on masturbation and the word 'fuck' pounded more nails in the coffin.
I don't think there's any question that Honors wouldn't have knowingly done that kind of 'skit' in front of the U.S. Congress. But in this day and age, anything on video can go in front of the folks who will sit on the other side of the green table. How did he not see that at the time?
While I'm hugely against most PC nonsense, Honors spit in the wrong faces -- his own crew and their sensibilities -- and his ultimate dis-Honor was taking some of them down with him.
The glaringly obvious issue here is/was Honor's lack of perception and perspective...the faculties that precede judgement.
It is probably worth giving more than a little thought as to how someone goes about becoming thus-afflicted. Being responsible for his own behavior, Honors in fact chose to became what he was. It'd be a shame to waste the lessons-learned that are provided by his all too obvious abuse of self.
3/04/2011 10:05 AM
@ex ssn eng - good comment!
@RD - ok...I see the sarcasm dripping now.
@anon 0719 - why shouldn't they retire as CAPT/RDML? Did they get brought up on charges? No...probably no reason to bust them. Other than this very late prosecuted piss poor professionalism, they all probably had very good careers.
3/04/2011 11:07 AM
Define irony: a group of old salts discussing the pros and cons of Navy guys (The Stupid) getting……..wait for it……..Punished for their actions. Seems simple to me the name of the blog says it all. Wave your giggle stick in too many faces and it will get slapped.
3/04/2011 12:41 PM
Speaking of slapping pee-pees:
http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/rss.jsp?rssid=615&item=+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-syndication%2Farticle%2F2011%2F03%2F04%2FAR2011030403022_mobile.xml+&cid=591&spf=1
3/04/2011 5:10 PM
Bottom line here is that this was all behind everyone until someone came forward, I hear from the new protected class, and decided to raise their rainbow flag.
At that point it got political and ADM Harvey got stuck with the bag. Instead of manning up he caved to the Diversity crowd and here we are. Maybe the ADM got a bad deal be being where he was but he also could have issued his own dose of STFU this has been handled already.
I guess we need a real war so real leaders can get back in charge. What we have now sucks. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that).
3/04/2011 7:51 PM
huh, huh, huh, huh, he said bottom and behind and stuck and sucks, huh, huh, huh, huh
3/04/2011 10:38 PM
I will bookmark this page and have my friends check up here often. I am quite sure they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else.
3/05/2011 12:10 AM
Personally, I wouldn't call an XO who makes multiple, ship-wide videos about jerking off a "real leader"...but to each his own, I suppose.
Honors was a monkey-spankin', disrespectful airedale bug in search of a windshield. He found one. End of story.
3/05/2011 8:06 AM
Make that "...bug of an airdale..."
Just reads better. I also know plenty of airdales worthy of high respect. Honors isn't one of them.
3/05/2011 8:16 AM
I applaud the consistent enforcement however, I agree with one of the earlier anon comments that the punishment of junior personnel at this level is uncalled for. The navy just can't seem to keep out of the news lately, check out this report from CNN on nukes having a "sleepover". As we kick off DADT training this week I’m sure we will hear more on this.
3/05/2011 9:29 AM
Here's the link that apparently the previous poster didn't get to take...
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/05/sailor.sleepover/index.html
I've been expecting the next social engineering flap in the Navy after ending DADT would be gay advocacy groups protesting the Navy's draconian anti-fraternization policies, as they find out to their dismay that ending DADT won't be as liberating as it is in their fantasies. This may not meet the fraternization criteria, but it's easy to see how the NNPTC command is looking at the issue, given the issues with the long training pipeline, and the number of females in it side by side with their male counterparts. It'll be interesting to see how this issue overall plays out over the next several years, particularly under the current administration.
3/05/2011 1:44 PM
now I know why they said viz 1MC (on CVN) "Taps, taps, lights out. All hands turn in to yhour own bunks"
Sorry, after many drunk lib ports, senior guy got the bunk and we grabbed flor space or lawn chairs as available.
Cuddling isn't cute
3/05/2011 8:10 PM
Does anyone really give a shit anymore?
We have five perfectly good officers being roasted career-wise.
I don't feel that CAPT Honors should be killed for this. He cared about his sailors and he was making an attempt to get them to laugh and smile on occasion. What the fuck is wrong with that? I'll say it once more...I'd have no problem with serving under such an officer with a kick-ass imagination and who doesn't have a difficulty with keeping his men happy and productive.
Now did Honors thumb his nose at authority with the vidoes in question?...yes he did. But does he really deserve to be killed for it? God I hate the PC crowd!!!!!
3/07/2011 12:49 AM
Reality bites...so it pays not to put your body parts in between its teeth.
What's the name of this blog again?
Oh, yeah...that's right.
3/07/2011 9:47 AM
Mark/MM1(SS)--nice observation, maybe Joel will be brave enough to whip out the shitty stick and make a separate post for us to kick that little grenade around.
That being said, if you were going through the pipeline when NFAS/NPS were in Orlando and couldn't get laid either on any given Friday night or by the college hotties in Daytona, hand in your man card.
Finally, I can't imagine the bunks in NNPTC in Charleston were any larger than your standard BEQ racks, so that being said, anytime you try to get two people into a bunk it's gonna look MIGHTY suspicious.
ETA: Word verification for my above post was "spooning". I wish I could make that up.
3/07/2011 10:11 AM
You're right of what you are writing.
Excellent post.
3/08/2011 2:38 AM
I remember back on Ustafish and the Aux Fwd clipboard having porn pics taped on there. They changed the pictures every midwatch. Needless to say the COW, DOOW and OOD wanted to "review" the logs every hour!! What's wrong with having a little fun underway to beak up the monotony. No harm no foul.
3/08/2011 10:39 AM
There's nothing wrong with porn...? Mind posting some pics of your daughter or sister?
Maybe we should ask Charlie Sheen about porn. There's a real "winner."
3/08/2011 1:05 PM
That's only because we don't have tiger blood, anon.
3/08/2011 1:34 PM
Where was the CMC at during this period? How come no blowback on him?
3/08/2011 1:39 PM
The CMC is on the wrong side of the CoC.
He might have been able to save the day by telling the then-XO that he was being a dickhead, but you'd be hard pressed to hold him accountable for not having done so. The XO is just flat-out not his responsibility.
3/08/2011 9:42 PM
As far as the blow-back from the videos... horribly mishandled.
Not sufficiently sure of USN culture, or the atmosphere on the ship to really make a call on the material itself: however, giving out anything more than a slap on the wrist for this is ridiculous.
Y'know, let the good Capt finish his tour with Enterprise, then give him whatever passes for a "shaft" tour. Non-resume-enhancing Pentagon duty, command of something deep-draught and non-glamourous, whatever. Then let him get on with his career.
3/09/2011 1:05 PM
@islandwanderer: thank you for admitting that you have no idea what you're talking about, but that really wasn't as necessary as it was obvious.
Honors has been shit-canned from Enterprise. That's past-tense. Done deal. Finito.
Whatever's next for him, it isn't command of USS Enterprise.
3/09/2011 5:30 PM
@ Blecch
Phrased that poorly. Aware of what has transpired, and disgusted at that fact.
3/10/2011 4:36 PM
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