Navy panel: Officer in video case should stay in Navy

NORFOLK

Fired aircraft carrier skipper Owen P. Honors can stay in the Navy even though he committed misconduct when he broadcast a series of raunchy videos to his crew, a panel of admirals decided Wednesday.

Capt. Honors was relieved of command of the Norfolk-based carrier Enterprise in January after several of the videos were leaked to newspapers. This week he appeared before a panel of three admirals assigned the task of determining whether he should be allowed to remain in the service.

The admirals unanimously agreed that Honors' actions constituted misconduct and substandard performance. But his discharge isn't warranted, they said. They didn't elaborate on their findings, which came after a day and a half of testimony and arguments inside a courtroom at Norfolk Naval Station.

Speaking to reporters after the proceedings, Honors' civilian lawyer, Charles Gittins, said Honors was satisfied with the outcome. "O.P. is pleased," he said. "He's not happy about the finding of misconduct, but retention is huge."

The videos included profanity, sailors acting out sexually suggestive scenes, anti-gay slurs, and jokes about finding prostitutes in foreign ports. Honors orchestrated and starred in them during his tenure as executive officer between 2005 and 2007. They were shown across the ship on closed-circuit TV, usually before Saturday night movies while the ship was deployed.

After the videos became public last winter and Honors was relieved of command, he and three other former top Enterprise officers were issued letters of censure by the secretary of the Navy.

In his closing statement, Gittins argued that Honors wouldn't be facing dismissal if not for political motivations. He compared the controversy over the videos to the 1991 Tailhook scandal, saying both cases involved indiscretions blown out of proportion by the media.

He argued that sailors aboard the Enterprise knew the videos were jokes and said it was an insult to suggest they weren't mature enough to handle adult humor. "They don't need to be coddled," he said.

He read from statements made to Navy investigators in which former crew members called Honors an exemplary officer. He said that in making the videos, Honors was simply trying to communicate training messages to his crew and boost their morale. It was done "in good faith," he said, and it worked.

"Misconduct?" he said. "That's crap."

The military lawyer for the government, Cmdr. Mike Luken, told the admirals he wasn't asking for a less-than-honorable discharge for Honors; that designation should be reserved for those who truly deserve it, he said.

But he argued that Honors' behavior was enough to justify his forced retirement.

"Were the videos popular?" he asked. "Yes, they were. Absolutely. But just because something's popular, does that make it right?"

Luken said that to truly treat his sailors as adults, Honors should have communicated with them as such - with the decorum expected of a naval officer.

Sex jokes, slurs and bathroom humor aside, Luken said, Honors' most egregious videos were those that criticized a female department head on the ship, as well as those that ridiculed crew members who complained that the videos were inappropriate.

He argued that the videos compromised Honors' authority, created a hostile work environment, and constituted sexual harassment.

Nearly a dozen witnesses testified on Honors' behalf. Several said that while he showed poor judgment in making and showing the videos, his actions shouldn't mean the end of an otherwise distinguished 28-year career as a naval aviator.

Speaking after the admirals' decision, Gittins said he thinks the real take-away from the case is that the Navy prefers safe, conservative leaders who don't push the envelope or try out-of-the-box methods. "The surface warfare community - they just don't do that."

As for what's next for Honors, Gittins said he believes he may soon be leaving the Navy despite Wednesday's decision. He said Honors is under consideration for early retirement by an unrelated Navy board that's working on thinning the service's ranks.

Honors hopes he won't be selected, Gittins said, "but a guy with a letter of censure in his file is an easy guy to pick."

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