In many ways the military is ahead of the curve on civil rights issues. It was integrated before the rest of America and now LGBT Americans will get to be full members of the U.S. military. In many ways though, the military is also behind the times. Women can still not fully serve (they are denied certain roles) and rape is a big problem that the military has not been dealing with.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how some people think that everyone enjoys their crude humor. Do you remember how GOP
gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino would forward racist and sexually graphic emails to a huge distribution list? The Virginian-Pilot has uncovered a series of videos that a Navy commander would show to crews on a ship.
In one scene, two female Navy sailors stand in a shower stall aboard the aircraft carrier, pretending to wash each other. They joke about how they should get six minutes under the water instead of the mandated three.
In other skits, sailors parade in drag, use anti-gay slurs, and simulate masturbation and a rectal exam. Another scene implies that an officer is having sex in his stateroom with a donkey.
They’re all part of a series of short movies produced aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Enterprise in 2006 and 2007 and broadcast to its nearly 6,000 sailors and Marines. The man who masterminded and starred in them is Capt. Owen Honors – now the commander of the carrier, which is weeks away from deploying. The videos, obtained by The Virginian-Pilot this week, were shot and edited with government
equipment, many of them while the Enterprise was deployed supporting the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan.
Of course, people complained at the time but they were ignored.
A female sailor who was assigned to the Enterprise at the time said she and a number of other women on board were offended by the videos. She said some crew members complained about them, and in fact, Honors acknowledged it on camera. In one movie, he says, “Over the years I’ve gotten several complaints about inappropriate materials in these videos, never to me personally but, gutlessly, through other channels.”
The things that bother me is that taxpayer money was used to make these videos and that sailors were forced to watch them. If you want to be 50-year-old frat boy on your own $, more power to you. Perhaps if the GOP was really concerned about wasteful spending they might look into things like this. Somehow I doubt they will.
The video is below. If you watch, you’ll see that Cpt. Honors absolutely knows that these videos are inappropriate but does them anyway. He seems proud of it.