Videos cost Honors his command of carrier Enterprise

NORFOLK

The Navy has relieved Capt. Owen Honors as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier Enterprise for showing "exceptionally poor judgment" when he produced a series of raunchy videos and broadcast them for his crew in 2006 and 2007.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Adm. John C. Harvey Jr., the four-star head of the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, said Honors has been reassigned to an administrative job.

"After personally reviewing the videos Capt. Honors created while serving as executive officer, I have lost confidence in his ability to lead effectively," Harvey said. "He is being held accountable for the poor judgment and inappropriate actions repeatedly demonstrated in those videos."

Harvey said Capt. Dee Mewbourne, former commanding officer of the carrier Eisenhower, has taken permanent command of the Norfolk-based Enterprise. Mewbourne had been at Navy Cyber Forces.

Harvey acknowledged that this is a difficult time for the Enterprise's crew and their families. The carrier is due to deploy in support of the war in Afghanistan in roughly two weeks.

Harvey said he has "full confidence" in the ship's readiness under Mewbourne.

The investigation into the videos isn't over, Harvey added. The Navy will continue to look at all aspects of their production, he said, "to include the actions of other senior officers who knew of the videos and what they did or did not do in response."

Harvey said that Honors' performance since he took command of the Enterprise in May has been without incident. Nonetheless, Harvey said, the content of the videos "calls into question his character and undermines his credibility."

It has not yet been decided whether Honors, 49, will face additional consequences for making the movies, such as a reduction in rank, said Chris Sims, a Fleet Forces spokesman.

Sims said that no one else has been punished so far.

The videos were first made public by The Virginian-Pilot over the weekend. Since then, they've been broadcast by media outlets across the globe. They include sexual jokes, subordinates parading in drag, anti-gay slurs, and sailors pretending to masturbate, shower together and perform rectal exams.

Honors produced them during his tenure as the ship's executive officer, or XO. They were part of what he called "XO Movie Night," and they were meant to entertain the crew.

Sailors who were on board the ship at the time told the newspaper last week that the videos were Honors' idea. He starred in them, wrote the scripts and recruited subordinates to work on them, primarily while the Enterprise was deployed.

The videos were shown roughly once a week across the ship on closed-circuit television.

It's unclear why the videos recently resurfaced, although sailors who spoke to the newspaper said they remain accessible on shipboard computers. One sailor said he mailed a complaint about the videos to the Navy Inspector General last week. Others said crew members who raised concerns aboard the ship in 2006 and 2007 were brushed off.

The Pilot obtained the videos Thursday.

The Navy first called them "humorous skits," then called them "clearly unacceptable" and said there would be an investigation.

Honors is a native of Syracuse, N.Y., and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1983. He went on to fly the F-14 Tomcat and work as a test pilot before serving as XO on the Enterprise from July 2005 to September 2007.

He spent 2008 and 2009 as commander of a warship based in Italy before becoming the Enterprise's top officer last year.

While some have criticized him since the videos became public, others - especially retired and active-duty sailors - have rallied in his support.

Honors has not spoken to reporters. Neither has the Enterprise's then-commanding officer, Larry Rice, now a rear admiral at the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Rear Adm. Raymond Spicer and Vice Adm. Daniel Holloway, who commanded the Enterprise carrier strike group during Honors' time as XO, also have not spoken publicly about the matter.

The Navy has said that Honors' bosses knew about the videos. They told him in early 2007 to stop making them, the Navy has said.

It appears he continued to make them through at least July of that year.

The Navy has not said whether Honors was reprimanded at the time.

Corinne Reilly, (757) 446-2949, corinne.reilly@pilotonline.com