Totally out of thread: People on this site may or may not have heard that the captain of the US Navy aircraft carrier "Enterprise", Capt. Owen P. Honors, Jr., made videos that would run along with films during the ship's movie night* when he was the Executive Officer of the ship in late 2000s. The clips are idiotically raunchy, featuring a lot of blue language and female sailors in showers, male sailors in drag, etc. I bring this up as proof that either competent people can become `flakes, or that `flakes can rise to positions of great responsability. I would love to hear from Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno on this. BTW, this guy is an Annapolis graduate.
I'm not linking to this; it's already on YouTube and a zillion other sites that allow streaming video. ____________________________________________
*American aircraft carriers have a closed-circuit TV system which mostly runs live feed of the flight deck. On movie nights the CCTV runs films, and Capt. Honors' clips were probably bumpers between films.
Snowflakes can indeed rise to positions of great responsibility. The prospect terrifies me. An example of this was the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, in Minneapolis. The bridge collapsed because it was incompetently designed, tested, and maintained, and the engineering firm responsible knew all of this, and tried to conceal it. Now you know why I won’t allow students to register for my physics class without having passed all the prerequisites with a C or better, no matter how much they whine or beg.
Competent people can indeed become `flakes. It saddens me whenever I see it. Prolonged exposure to a lax environment can cause it.
I don’t think this incident on the Enterprise is an example of this, however. A nuclear aircraft carrier cannot be a lax environment. If it were, what they do would quickly result in a nasty accident, as was demonstrated on board the USS Forrestal. I might have missed it, but so far I’ve seen no evidence of Captain Honors trying to evade his responsibility for the incident, or act as if he’s entitled to do so, two key snowflake characteristics.
Winston Churchill noted that the naval tradition is “…nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.” Raunchy behavior is very common, even at Annapolis, even though of course officially even bad language is considered “unprofessional.” That said, any officer fool enough to let his whole crew see it, much less leave video records of it, should be relieved of command, because it bespeaks poor judgment.
Now you know why I'm bewildered that some politicians don't want gays to serve in the military. Don't they know what's been going on, for quite a long time?
@Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno I agree with the poor judgement.....I called Captain Honors* a `flake because his videos had that "look at me; ain't I cool" vibe I associate with snowflakes. I agree on the sleaze; all navies have had sailors doing nasty things to each other, either through hazing or "ship's tradition" and I don't think it will ever change, even though certain navies have women on board combat vessels. I do think that with the carriers there has been a buried tradition of doing/saying nasty things on the CCTV but nobody was dumb enough to waste the Public Affairs unit's time shooting and editing video clips `till this guy came along....though we might find others within the fleet, if somebody is willing to leak them.
@Floyd from Farmville I live in an area with a lot of empty houses and shuttered shops, thus the video was perfect dark humor. There were a load of house-flippers around in the boomtime and now certain houses has stood empty for two years. Finance capital sucks.
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* There was more than one incident; he ran these clips in from 2005 to 2007, probably making them as time went on, and one of the clips has a cast of at least eight (they might be Chiefs or junior officers, I could not tell.)
My first professional career was in the navy. This included service in carrier aviation units and an assignment in a shore-based squadron in during the navy-wide response to the Tailhook episode. My last two promotions --and those of many of my peers-- were contingent written affidavits that I was *not* present at the Las Vegas Hilton during the 1991 Tailhook convention.
The now former CO of Enterprise would have been a Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander at that time...and he clearly wasn't paying attention to the aftermath.
The CO/XO leadership team on a warship have influence over their subordinates unparalleled in the civilian world. Once the ship is at sea...it's damned near absolute.
Somebody in a position of special trust and confidence can't force feed homophobic, misogynistic "humor" to the crew one minute, and in the next minute be expected to make tough decisions --sometimes punitive ones-- and keep their credibility.
The humor was sophomoric and lowbrow. Whether he --or those rallying to his support-- like it or not, a warship is not a fraternity house.
The men and women he led (and their families) deserved better. What surprises me is the highly vocal groundswell of support for him. Wonder how those voices would feel if they --or their children-- had been asked to participate in the shower scene....
The really annoying thing about this is that the guy was a decent aviator; if we can trust Wikipedia, he had 3,400 flight hours, 700 carrier landings, and flown 85 combat missions. Now he will be flying a desk....I understand that as an officer in the US military, you either rise or retire; it would have been best to keep him primarily as a pilot, don't ask me how. Now that I think of it, this may shoot his chances at getting a gig flying for the airlines after he leaves the Navy because he's not advancing now.
Flying for the the airlines is a gig mostly pursued by those with one or two flying tours, and getting out at a relatively junior rank. He was also predominantly a fighter guy. Although not exclusively, airlines prefer military pilots with experience in multi-position transport or reconnaissance platforms, whose flying characteristics are more like airliners. Folks with his background and seniority are far more likely to end up as executive vice presidents in firms selling things or services to the government...at salaries many times higher than what new airline pilots make. Don't lose any sleep over his career transition....he'll land on his feet. Hell, he's got a masters degree....maybe he'll join me as an adjunct.
I'm not worrying about where this guy will wind up, just that what skill he brought as a pilot and a naval officer has been urinated away. It reminds me of that CNO in the 1990s who killed himself because he wore a combat ribbon in a photograph, though he had no combat service on his record. I've noticed that some officers are killed in combat, and others destroy themselves for the stupidest reasons.
You're thinking about Admiral Jeremy Boorda and his suicide after pundit claims/discoveries (?Hackworth?) that he was not entitled to wear a "Valor" device on two of his personal awards. Before he was CNO, he was Commander, Naval Forces Europe (while I was assigned to a naval organization in Europe). Boorda was a superb leader who I met in person twice (once in Europe and once after he was CNO). Two things about him: (1) a guess: his character was such that deeper issues had to be involved in his tragic decision to take his own life (2) a conclusion: he would have never made videos like Capt Honors:-)
The pilot skills in this case aren't a big deal..at that rank, pilots are flying enough to maintain their flight pay, and much more focused on leading people, programs or organizations. The path to command of an aircraft carrier has a big preparatory lead time: aviator, nuclear power school, previous command of another deep draft vessel and a carrier XO tour..this is the bigger loss to the taxpayers.
"...and others destroy themselves for the stupidest reasons..." Yeah, this case is in that domain. Utterly preventable. And given the age and apparently widespread knowledge of these video antics, the creative genius behind them isn't the only one who should have consequences. But you haven't seen wagon-circling until you've seen navy admirals circle to protect each other:-)
I was thinking of the taxpayer money blown in this escapade but I didn't want to say it and look like the second coming of William Proxmire. I don't like the loss of skills and the musical chairs that will have to go on so that the "Enterprise" gets a new CO, Honors gets a slot pushing papers*, and wherever the new CO came from has to promote somebody to take that guy's place.
My condolences for Admiral Boorda; I had read a long piece about his life in one of the middlebrow magazines (Esquire, maybe...it was 1996) and their writer was as puzzled about his suicide as you are now. It was a decade of prominent suicides by gun: Vince Foster, Kurt Cobain, Lewis Puller, Jr. and it was shocking that Admiral Boorda would end his life then.
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* It would be far more fitting that Capt. Honors serve the punishment James Tolkan wanted to dish out to Tom Cruise in "Top Gun": flying loads of rubber dog crap out of Hong Kong.
Capt. Honors is not being relieved of his command because he made some raunchy movies. Both the commander of the ship at the time and the admiral at the time undoubtedly knew of the content, in part because he did receive complaints at the time about them.
He is being relieved of his command because the media found the movies, and the public was outraged.
Frankly, I was surprised the material was not worse, given the outrage, though I only watched a finale clip, and didn't delve into what else was around.
Whatever the material or the objection to it, the key is that the man was receiving positive feedback from someplace for 4 years while he was producing these videos. They fit into the culture of the ship (which he helped define, certainly), and were in full view of subordinates and superiors. There is no new evidence reaching anyone of power.
So, whatever your opinion of the material, it's not the real story. The real story is that no one of power cared until the media made a fuss.
"I want to shove a lockbox up your ass".
ReplyDeletePriceless.
Totally out of thread:
ReplyDeletePeople on this site may or may not have heard that the captain of the US Navy aircraft carrier "Enterprise", Capt. Owen P. Honors, Jr., made videos that would run along with films during the ship's movie night* when he was the Executive Officer of the ship in late 2000s. The clips are idiotically raunchy, featuring a lot of blue language and female sailors in showers, male sailors in drag, etc. I bring this up as proof that either competent people can become `flakes, or that `flakes can rise to positions of great responsability. I would love to hear from Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno on this. BTW, this guy is an Annapolis graduate.
I'm not linking to this; it's already on YouTube and a zillion other sites that allow streaming video.
____________________________________________
*American aircraft carriers have a closed-circuit TV system which mostly runs live feed of the flight deck. On movie nights the CCTV runs films, and Capt. Honors' clips were probably bumpers between films.
Thank God they weren't talking about Captain Kirk.
ReplyDeleteI knew somebody was going to make a "Star Trek" joke....seriously, this might be a one-man "Tailhook"-style scandal.
ReplyDeleteis this realtormisery.com?
ReplyDeleteit was funny though!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletethe naval tradition is “…nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.”
ReplyDeleteYou say that like it's a bad thing.
Snowflakes can indeed rise to positions of great responsibility. The prospect terrifies me. An example of this was the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, in Minneapolis. The bridge collapsed because it was incompetently designed, tested, and maintained, and the engineering firm responsible knew all of this, and tried to conceal it. Now you know why I won’t allow students to register for my physics class without having passed all the prerequisites with a C or better, no matter how much they whine or beg.
ReplyDeleteCompetent people can indeed become `flakes. It saddens me whenever I see it. Prolonged exposure to a lax environment can cause it.
I don’t think this incident on the Enterprise is an example of this, however. A nuclear aircraft carrier cannot be a lax environment. If it were, what they do would quickly result in a nasty accident, as was demonstrated on board the USS Forrestal. I might have missed it, but so far I’ve seen no evidence of Captain Honors trying to evade his responsibility for the incident, or act as if he’s entitled to do so, two key snowflake characteristics.
Winston Churchill noted that the naval tradition is “…nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.” Raunchy behavior is very common, even at Annapolis, even though of course officially even bad language is considered “unprofessional.” That said, any officer fool enough to let his whole crew see it, much less leave video records of it, should be relieved of command, because it bespeaks poor judgment.
@StellafromSparksburg:
ReplyDeleteNow you know why I'm bewildered that some politicians don't want gays to serve in the military. Don't they know what's been going on, for quite a long time?
@Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno
ReplyDeleteI agree with the poor judgement.....I called Captain Honors* a `flake because his videos had that "look at me; ain't I cool" vibe I associate with snowflakes. I agree on the sleaze; all navies have had sailors doing nasty things to each other, either through hazing or "ship's tradition" and I don't think it will ever change, even though certain navies have women on board combat vessels. I do think that with the carriers there has been a buried tradition of doing/saying nasty things on the CCTV but nobody was dumb enough to waste the Public Affairs unit's time shooting and editing video clips `till this guy came along....though we might find others within the fleet, if somebody is willing to leak them.
@Floyd from Farmville
I live in an area with a lot of empty houses and shuttered shops, thus the video was perfect dark humor. There were a load of house-flippers around in the boomtime and now certain houses has stood empty for two years. Finance capital sucks.
___________________________________________
* There was more than one incident; he ran these clips in from 2005 to 2007, probably making them as time went on, and one of the clips has a cast of at least eight (they might be Chiefs or junior officers, I could not tell.)
Should be "have"....my proofreading sucks.
ReplyDeleteMy first professional career was in the navy. This included service in carrier aviation units and an assignment in a shore-based squadron in during the navy-wide response to the Tailhook episode. My last two promotions --and those of many of my peers-- were contingent written affidavits that I was *not* present at the Las Vegas Hilton during the 1991 Tailhook convention.
ReplyDeleteThe now former CO of Enterprise would have been a Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander at that time...and he clearly wasn't paying attention to the aftermath.
The CO/XO leadership team on a warship have influence over their subordinates unparalleled in the civilian world. Once the ship is at sea...it's damned near absolute.
Somebody in a position of special trust and confidence can't force feed homophobic, misogynistic "humor" to the crew one minute, and in the next minute be expected to make tough decisions --sometimes punitive ones-- and keep their credibility.
The humor was sophomoric and lowbrow. Whether he --or those rallying to his support-- like it or not, a warship is not a fraternity house.
The men and women he led (and their families) deserved better. What surprises me is the highly vocal groundswell of support for him. Wonder how those voices would feel if they --or their children-- had been asked to participate in the shower scene....
The really annoying thing about this is that the guy was a decent aviator; if we can trust Wikipedia, he had 3,400 flight hours, 700 carrier landings, and flown 85 combat missions. Now he will be flying a desk....I understand that as an officer in the US military, you either rise or retire; it would have been best to keep him primarily as a pilot, don't ask me how. Now that I think of it, this may shoot his chances at getting a gig flying for the airlines after he leaves the Navy because he's not advancing now.
ReplyDeleteFlying for the the airlines is a gig mostly pursued by those with one or two flying tours, and getting out at a relatively junior rank. He was also predominantly a fighter guy. Although not exclusively, airlines prefer military pilots with experience in multi-position transport or reconnaissance platforms, whose flying characteristics are more like airliners. Folks with his background and seniority are far more likely to end up as executive vice presidents in firms selling things or services to the government...at salaries many times higher than what new airline pilots make. Don't lose any sleep over his career transition....he'll land on his feet. Hell, he's got a masters degree....maybe he'll join me as an adjunct.
ReplyDeleteI'm not worrying about where this guy will wind up, just that what skill he brought as a pilot and a naval officer has been urinated away. It reminds me of that CNO in the 1990s who killed himself because he wore a combat ribbon in a photograph, though he had no combat service on his record. I've noticed that some officers are killed in combat, and others destroy themselves for the stupidest reasons.
ReplyDeleteYou're thinking about Admiral Jeremy Boorda and his suicide after pundit claims/discoveries (?Hackworth?) that he was not entitled to wear a "Valor" device on two of his personal awards. Before he was CNO, he was Commander, Naval Forces Europe (while I was assigned to a naval organization in Europe). Boorda was a superb leader who I met in person twice (once in Europe and once after he was CNO). Two things about him:
ReplyDelete(1) a guess: his character was such that deeper issues had to be involved in his tragic decision to take his own life
(2) a conclusion: he would have never made videos like Capt Honors:-)
The pilot skills in this case aren't a big deal..at that rank, pilots are flying enough to maintain their flight pay, and much more focused on leading people, programs or organizations. The path to command of an aircraft carrier has a big preparatory lead time: aviator, nuclear power school, previous command of another deep draft vessel and a carrier XO tour..this is the bigger loss to the taxpayers.
"...and others destroy themselves for the stupidest reasons..."
Yeah, this case is in that domain. Utterly preventable. And given the age and apparently widespread knowledge of these video antics, the creative genius behind them isn't the only one who should have consequences. But you haven't seen wagon-circling until you've seen navy admirals circle to protect each other:-)
I was thinking of the taxpayer money blown in this escapade but I didn't want to say it and look like the second coming of William Proxmire. I don't like the loss of skills and the musical chairs that will have to go on so that the "Enterprise" gets a new CO, Honors gets a slot pushing papers*, and wherever the new CO came from has to promote somebody to take that guy's place.
ReplyDeleteMy condolences for Admiral Boorda; I had read a long piece about his life in one of the middlebrow magazines (Esquire, maybe...it was 1996) and their writer was as puzzled about his suicide as you are now. It was a decade of prominent suicides by gun: Vince Foster, Kurt Cobain, Lewis Puller, Jr. and it was shocking that Admiral Boorda would end his life then.
__________________________________________
* It would be far more fitting that Capt. Honors serve the punishment James Tolkan wanted to dish out to Tom Cruise in "Top Gun": flying loads of rubber dog crap out of Hong Kong.
Capt. Honors is not being relieved of his command because he made some raunchy movies. Both the commander of the ship at the time and the admiral at the time undoubtedly knew of the content, in part because he did receive complaints at the time about them.
ReplyDeleteHe is being relieved of his command because the media found the movies, and the public was outraged.
Frankly, I was surprised the material was not worse, given the outrage, though I only watched a finale clip, and didn't delve into what else was around.
Whatever the material or the objection to it, the key is that the man was receiving positive feedback from someplace for 4 years while he was producing these videos. They fit into the culture of the ship (which he helped define, certainly), and were in full view of subordinates and superiors. There is no new evidence reaching anyone of power.
So, whatever your opinion of the material, it's not the real story. The real story is that no one of power cared until the media made a fuss.
Do with that what you will.