"The videos were intended to be humorous skits focusing the crew's attention on specific issues such as port visits, traffic safety, water conservation, ship cleanliness, etc.," the Navy said in a statement to the newspaper.The original article, including video, from the Virginian-Pilot is here.
Navy Cmdr. Chris Sims said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the videos "were not acceptable then and are not acceptable in today's Navy."...
...Next comes a sequence of what appear to be outtakes in which Honors and others curse. Honors observes that comedians who performed on the ship always got laughs when they used "the f-bomb." After that, Honors and others are shown making hand motions that mimic masturbation.
Honors segues to the next segment by saying, "Finally let's get to my favorite topic ... chicks in the shower." Next are shown clips of pairs of women and a pair of men pretending to shower together. No nudity is shown, but the men's and women's bare shoulders imply they are nude. It's not immediately known why the videos are surfacing now. The Virginian-Pilot quoted anonymous crew members who said they raised concerns aboard the ship about the videos when they aired, but they were brushed off.
What do you think? Too offensive? Or a reasonable attempt to entertain and inform the crew of a warship in a war zone?
Update 0538 05 Jan: As expected, CAPT Honors was fired. Here's the statement from Fleet Forces Command, along with a story from Navy Times that includes links to some additional videos. At least the statement from ADM Harvey says the witchhunt will continue only for "senior officers" who knew of the videos, although I could imagine the PC police demanding all officers on the Enterprise who watched them be retrained/punished.
We've always known that what we may or may not do in the Navy while deployed could eventually get out to the public at large and cause a big stink. I actually thought it would happen during the last Presidential election, when I expected the Obama campaign to bring out people providing "testimony" about what Sen. McCain may or may not have done on liberty while deployed in SE Asia. I think the only reason it didn't was that the election wasn't that close.
