As I mentioned in my statement, there is an ongoing investigation into all aspects of the production and showing of the videos. I will review the facts and take further action where necessary, but, until the investigation is completed, it would be improper for me to comment further on the details of the situation.I intend to give ADM Harvey the benefit of the doubt - one that he has earned.
Now, I’ve always done my best to be up front with you and in return you’ve always given it to me straight – the good, the bad, and the ugly – just like I’ve asked you to do. Many of you have very strong views about this matter; I have taken the time to read your posts and emails to try to understand your views and opinions. For those of you who do not agree with the decision I made, it would be helpful to read the statement I provided to the media (below) to learn the reasons behind my actions. As I stated in my press release, we hold our Naval Officers to a very high standard of judgment, character, and professionalism and those standards will be maintained.
It would be helpful for all to remember that in situations like this, there is no perfect answer or action - just different bad ones. ADM Harvey didn't make this mess, he is just trying to clean it up.
I can count on half a hand the number of 4-Stars I would trust to do this right, ADM Harvey is one of them.
Read it all, and remember - never expect undiscovered perfect, relish the well delivered good.
UPDATE: Professor Bruce Fleming weighs in over at WaPo.
37 comments:
Continually giving Admiral Harvey the "benefit of the doubt."
I just don't see why.
(And I have known him since he was a CAPT.)
One other thing.
I'm also baffled by all of the Flags having blogs and twitter accounts and such. Doesn't really set the "I'm in command" tone in my opinion.
Sorry, can't do it. Loyalty upward is a requirement... loyalty downward... not so much.
Honors did absolutely nothing to be relieved over. The political stench of all of this, the DADT timing of it can be seen by a blind man in a minute.
Honor's record is one I would be proud to have. Throwing him under the Carrier (The Naval equivalent of throwing him under a bus) was not justified and we've lost millions of dollars worth of training and experience that could have saved lives and inflicted maximum damage upon our enemies.
I would fire Harvey for a lack of confidence before I would fire Honor. The message sent: don't count on any of us to have your back.
I wrote the "guest" post below.
KJ Hinton
Stu,
Is it an attempt by the Senior leadership as a way to keep in touch not only with thier command, but alos keep ahead of the message as it is presented to the spouses and the rest of the world. The idea that they are dinosaurs unwilling to accept new media and new tech has been haunting leadership since cellphones, crackberries, and palm pilots have entered the world. Let alone the Internet, command web pages, email, and other things of this so-called Web/Social 2.0 life.
I would rather have Flags blog openly - at least you know where they stand.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...but if I don't hear anything about the senior officers that simply counseled him, then I'm throwing the bullshit flag on this and calling it what it is: a political sacrificial goat.
If just one flag would step up; just one.
Stu,
I prefer to have my target entered before ITL. Anyway - if you review Harvey here you will find that I am his yes man.
This is my take on things - if time proves me wrong, I will be the first to say. Once again though - on this issue, Harvey is the clean-up committee.
Fair.
<span> "Anyway - if you review Harvey here you will find that I am his yes man." </span>
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That made me laugh. And I will admit, I have seen you step up and take hits when warranted. I think you will be doing that here one day with this Admiral as well. I have seen enough of him, sometimes up close, over the last ten years to conclude that he is part of ongoing problem.
Where have you gone Admiral Denfeld?
It's not working for them.
It's one thing for them to be in touch with the masses and another thing entirely to engage them as a peer. Getting the word out and being open are great, but one must maintain the proper standing in it all. The blogs and twitter approach seems gimmicky to me.
Anyone catch this from the WaPo yesterday http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010604874.html
Anyone see this from the WaPo yesterday? http://preview.tinyurl.com/2vdjbyz
<span>I loathe that you people have turned the U.S. Navy into a purile, P.C. palace. I'm sure our enemies are impressed with our ability to bow before political pressure at every turn! /sarc
Capt. Honors just became the latest victim of political/<span>...</span><span>social correct policies that never won a battle or ran a division. I see the sycophants have the flag cadre convinced over the righteousness of this. We've gone through the looking glass when such crass cowardice is lauded as courage. Frankly, it saddens me that such an officer was treated so shabbily.</span></span>
"You people?"
I talked to my son-in-law tonight. He was on the cruise with CAPT. Honors when he was XO and remembers Movie Night very well. He said that life on the Big E purely sucked. AC almost never worked like it should, everything was hot and damp and stank to high heaven of all the usual carrier crap and there was ALWAYS water hours. To top it off, the food purely sucked, since the Suppo (supposedly) believed he could feed the crew on 9 bucks a day worth of prison food.
My son-in-law being the enlisted aviation mech that he is, didn't like the boat or boat sailors. I won't tell the word in open company; take it from me that it isn't complimentary. That being said, the Ugly Chief sure as hell loved those skits on Movie Night. Even though the movies weren't all that, the skit had everyone laughing for a little while on the Boat and they'd even talk over the better lines. When I asked the Ugly Chief if things were "slack" on Enterprise, he gave me a funny look and said, "Things ran pretty good seeing how most of it was old as shit and NO ONE slacked on the boat crew.
Take that for what it's worth, from a sailor who remembers Movie Night and what it meant for a few minutes of pure laughter. Thanks, CAPT. Honor. I personally think you did the best you could with what you got, and you sure made my son-in-law happy once a week.
Well, I've known ADM Harvey since he was a CAPT. I trust him.
CAPT H actions confirm that he should not have been trusted with the command of ENTERPRISE. That's not how I believe senior officers should behave. If you can't figure that out, then our Navy is in much shallower water than I would have expected. Out.
Big E was a nasty, stinky old girl when I was on her over a decade ago. I can only imagine.
Did I stutter, sir?
READ THE FLEMING ARTICLE!
Fleming pretty much nails it, placing the videos in perspective, for anyone willing to take an honest look, in context at what the fuss is about.
However, the media firestorm and condemnation of CAPT Honors, and by implication, the entire Navy, was ignorant of or rejected the exculpatory nature of the context. That became the "crisis" which ADM Harvey was required to respond to. He did what he thought was right, even though I think he should have atempted to put the events in context and basically told the whining media to STFU. Of course that may have done nothing but raise the ante so that mere crucifixion of a ship CO would not satiate the blood lust of the media and gay mob, and made Harvey its next victim.
So, did he fire Honors out of conviction it was the right thing to do, or out of self preservation, or in the best long term interest of the Navy? Views may differ on the motivation, but we probably need to accept the fact that the high tech lynching of CAPT Honors may staunch the criticism of the Navy.
We are worse off for this destruction of a proven top performing officer (yeah, maybe not Academy Award level for his acting ability...). However, with so many other degradations to our Navy by its senior leadership, this is almost insignificant in the long run. With ship numbers plummeting, replacement hulls sucking in design and construction and cost over runs, and manning warped by bad decisions on women in subs, repeal of DADT, and fixation on the Diverstiy zampolits instead of warriors, we are doomed anyway.
I read ADM Harvey's blog and comments. I spent half my time trying not to puke as the Black Shoes were sucking up to the Admiral in the comments section. I made a comment but I am sure it won't get posted as I referenced the Flag Officer Protective Association.
I don't always agree with Fleming but I think he nailed this time. Unfortunately, as he said " a spit in the ocean".
The Navy is in shoal water. How this plays out may effectively kill it or at least render it impotent. And the scary part is the Flags don't recognize the danger to the service but only to themselves.
OS,
I would expect you agree that his reporting seniors for the last 5 -6 years should not be trusted with command as well? Or those CO's on board who did nothing? The CAG? Or how about the post command O-6s and O-5's on the staff? The ship's Department Heads?
While we are at it, let's check all the CO's past for any indiscretion since they first raised thier hand for the oath of office. I mean everyone has a skeleton or two in the closet.
"it saddens me that such an officer was treated so shabbily."
I guess you missed the post -Tailhook '91 investigations?
Maybe they should get out and walk around and leade from the front, not behind some computer screen!
No. I was even involved in the study group in D.C. that followed it up. My point is, that any officer on active duty that doesn't see, and fight, what is going on here is not worthy of my trust.
You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
Shipmate! I would also say that it isn't just the officers to blame for this fight, but also the CPO mess. I grew up being taught that the CPO's in the Division were to teach a JO how to be a leader, how and when to charge at windmills, where and when in the middle of a DivO/DH/Bubbas meeting throw thier BS flag when someone comes out with a good idea fairy pops up. Now a days, it seems in most of my experience in the last 12 yrs that the CPO mess is more worried about getting those stars on thier anchors or advancing to CWO/LDO, they aren't happy to have made it to CPO. I would argue with the MCPON's of the past few years, I would argue with the Force/Fleet MCPOs as well.
That is just my view as an AT1
Yeah, there are some $20 haircuts in the mess today. But, we are discussing decisions made by officers that came in around 1980. I reject your contention that those CPOs had any impact on today's flag officers.
Couldn't agree with you more SAP.
Where was the Goat Locker?
I reject your contention that those CPOs had any impact on today's flag officers.
no...But the Big E's MCPO could've had Honors' six....
So, you think LANTFLEET was interested in what the Goat Locker thought after this hit CNN?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
MCPO Airdale,
I don't think LANTFLEET is going to be interested in the CPO Mess. Rather I would think that the CPO Mess should have pulled Captain Honor aside after the first couple of these films and been his Jimmny Cricket. They should have pulled him aside when the first few comments from the enlisted folks started to wonder about the XO's intelligence and basically said "Sir, great idea but; you should tone it down. The crew is loosing respect for ya. Oh and think about what might happen if these get loose in the public?" They whould have been looking out for him and helping him to lead. Again, if they weren't more interested in only worrying about themselves and worrying about leading thier ship; then there is a chance this might not have happened. Or would have been one of those over beer sea stories.
I don't think I am looking at this like many other people are...
1 - If some E-nothngs maked those videos on their own, and the media never caught wind of it, they'd have all been gone weeks after filming the first one. No context in the world would have saved them, and certainly not the Chief's Mess. No way, no how.
2 - This has less to do with the videos themselves than it does the fact that the Navy allowed the story to be driven by Pundits who know NOTHING about the Navy. Why did it take a civilian to write what the good Professor did? Thank God we have civilians like that for the (in the?) Navy!! The World's finest Navy got it's clock cleaned by those who could care less about it, otherwise. Either we need to radically change how a uniformed member can talk to the Nation, or we need to take the good Professor and put him in charge of the whole of the PAO community. This won't be the last incident like this, this will become the norm, I hope, I reapeat, I HOPE all those in Anacostia are pouring over every iota of coverage from the various news outlets (every news agency I saw on my side of the pond covered it too--BBC, CNN Europe), to learn how to not get bamboozeled like this again.
There is a civilian-military divide, just as there always has been. But, this incident makes me think it's our fault for it.
<span>I don't think I am looking at this like many other people are...
1 - If some E-nothngs made those videos on their own, even if the media never caught wind of it, they'd have all been gone weeks after filming the first one. No context in the world would have saved them, and certainly not the Chief's Mess. No way, no how.
2 - This has less to do with the videos themselves than it does the fact that the Navy allowed the story to be driven by Pundits who know NOTHING about the Navy. Why did it take a civilian to write what the good Professor did? Thank God we have civilians like that for the (in the?) Navy!! The World's finest Navy got it's clock cleaned by those who could care less about it, otherwise. Either we need to radically change how a uniformed member can talk to the Nation, or we need to take the good Professor and put him in charge of the whole of the PAO community. This won't be the last incident like this, this will become the norm, I hope, I reapeat, I HOPE all those in Anacostia are pouring over every iota of coverage from the various news outlets (every news agency I saw on my side of the pond covered it too--BBC, CNN Europe), to learn how to not get bamboozeled like this again.
There is a civilian-military divide, just as there always has been. But, this incident makes me think it's our fault for it.</span>
I read Fleming's article and it's decent.
My two cts.; the only right thing to do is Fire Harvey, Mullen and Roughead, and, possibly, bomb the Virginian Pilot.
Remember CDR, how I was (and am) repealing DADT? You allow openly gay people to serve in the military, you get the whole shebang. It's not that you can say, well, I'll just pick this thing. No; it don't work like that. You get them in, and BINGO, a super qualified man like Honors is sent home. I suppose a man's got to have a LOT, I mean a TON of qualifications to be a carrier captain huh? A nation that sends individuals like that home for a truly SCHTOOPID - S C H T O O P I D - issue like this is not only going down a slippery path, it's SKIING down a slippery path.
It's a disgrace, it's a disgrace, it's a fucking DISGRACE, and a HEAVY PRICE will have to be paid.
Meanwhile, while fuckwad PC cohorts are thumping themselves on the chest for bringing in what they perceive as "decency" into a world they neither understand nor appreciate, China is developing ballistic anti shipping missiles, cranking its fleet up and NOT with Zumwalt phantasmagorias, and intends to construct a few more than 186 units of its own stealth fighter. *BUT* the fools have got their priorities straight.
I get the public not understanding the Captain Honors videos, with or without context.
What surprises me, however, is the discrepancy between line and staff officers on this subject. Virtually all of the former Navy officers to whom I've spoken that NEVER served at sea were very suprised by the videos. On the other hand, few of the former Navy officers to whom I've spoken that actually have one or more sea-duty tours were suprised at all. I didn't think there was that big a gulf between the haves and the have nots, but I find myself forced to reeavaluate that position.
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