THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 22, 1995 TAG: 9511220510
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: My Turn
SOURCE: Kerry Derochi
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
The question was inevitable.
A group of reporters had gathered in Adm. Mike Boorda's office on the E-ring of the Pentagon. They were there to look into allegations that a drunken chief had groped a female sailor while traveling on a commercial airliner.
Boorda, chief of naval operations, had summoned the reporters, following publication of a newspaper story on the incident. He announced the Navy would undergo a system-wide stand down to examine sexual harassment and other discipline problems.
``We are talking about the basics of doing what is right,'' Boorda told reporters.
The action would be swift and sure, Boorda said. The brass had learned its lesson. The brass was meeting the issue head-on.
Then, came the question.
Why, Admiral, does this keep happening to the Navy?
Boorda stopped for a moment and shrugged, as if at a loss.
``I don't want to make excuses for the Navy,'' he said, finally. ``We have 433,000 people on active duty and 100,000 reservists and there are going to be a few people that don't get the word.''
But one has to wonder.
Just when the Navy seems to have outdistanced the controversy surrounding its pilots at the 1991 Tailhook convention, the specter of sexual harassment reappears, seemingly stronger than ever.
The timing could not have been worse.
The Navy had been riding high this summer, bolstered by publicity surrounding its operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina. TV crews from around the world had flown to the flight decks of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt and broadcast images of experienced and well-trained aviators.
It was good news, the kind you can't buy in a slick advertising campaign.
But who remembers that now?
Immediately following the incident involving the Navy chief, the Atlantic Fleet announced it had disciplined two sailors for sexual harassment. One, a chief, displayed a lingerie catalog and made suggestive remarks to women. The other, a lieutenant junior grade, made unwanted sexual advances to an enlisted woman.
Hardly earth-shattering stuff. But the men did this while assigned to the Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Navy's first aircraft carrier to carry women, a carrier that had received unprecedented press attention.
So what happened? Did the spotlight of an entire country blind them? Could they not see what they were doing?
When that headline disappeared last week, it was replaced by one that was larger and far more disturbing to the Navy.
Adm. Richard C. Macke, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, told reporters the U.S. servicemen charged with the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa could have hired a prostitute for the money they spent on the car used in the abduction.
Macke, who submitted his letter of resignation, has lost his career.
But what, in the mean time, has the Navy lost?
Publicity over the string of incidents struck at least one officer at Oceana Naval Air Station as unfair to the men and women who take pride in their work and their military.
``When you sit there and read this in the paper, you get the idea that this is the way it always is, this is how all sailors are,'' said Lt. Michael Russo, a maintenance officer. ``That's not the case.
``Just keep in mind, we're striving. We're still doing what we need to do. For the majority of us we know what our job is and what are responsibilities are.''
Unfortunately for the Navy, some apparently don't.
One has to wonder.
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY by CNB