THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503180229
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 132 lines
With the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower returning to Norfolk, there are signs of rough sailing during its historic six-month cruise: Crew members are being removed on the grounds of pregnancy and romance.
The Eisenhower last year became the Navy's first carrier with women as permanent crew members; 415 now serve among the 4,967 people aboard.
Some signs of the difficult adjustment:
A man and a woman were taken off the ship for having sex on board some time during the last two days, the Navy acknowledged. The encounter was discovered because the man videotaped it and showed it to others.
Fourteen women in the crew have become pregnant since the cruise began in October and were sent home, other sources said.
An Eisenhower crew member who was dismissed from the Navy Wednesday said she was sentenced to three days on bread and water in a Navy brig because she fell in love with another crew member, in violation of the ship's no-dating policy. She also claims discrimination: The man, now her fiance, has not been punished.
There are indications from other crew members that the ship's no-dating policy has gotten other couples in trouble, resulting in added duty, demotions and fines.
Such administrative actions are usually taken by the ship's captain at a non-judicial hearing called a captain's mast. He can order added duty, confinement to the ship's brig, forfeiture of pay, demotion or all four.
``But the one thing here is that the Navy will not tolerate any sexual misconduct,'' said said Cmdr. Kevin Wensing, a spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet Naval Air Force, headquartered in Norfolk.
In the videotape, a man and woman - both married to other people - had consensual sex in an isolated space aboard the ship.
``The misconduct was discovered and reported when the male sailor involved attempted to show a video of the event,'' said Wensing. ``He had his own camera.''
A third individual, a chief warrant officer, watched the video but failed to take proper action by reporting it.
He was held accountable for failure to take proper action once he learned of the incident, Wensing said.
The misconduct was discovered and reported when a fourth enlisted member - a first class petty officer - saw a portion of the video, recognized it as inappropriate and reported it, said Wensing.
The Eisenhower's commanding officer, Capt. Mark Gemmill, ordered the young woman, a seaman recruit, and the man, a seaman, removed from the ship after convicting them of adultery and willfully disobeying a lawful order.
He also assigned them to 45 days of confinement, 45 days of added duty, reduced them to the lowest rank and fined each a total of $854. The action was taken within hours of the command learning about the incident, Wensing said.
The chief warrant officer who failed to report the incident was restricted to the ship for 30 days.
None of the individuals was identified.
In disclosing the number of pregnancies, a Navy official said 38 crew members on The Ike have reported they were pregnant since the crew first went aboard in Norfolk last April.
Of those, 24 became pregnant before the ship left for its Mediterranean cruise and the remaining 14 reported their pregnancies after the cruise began in October.
By comparison, 17 women were reassigned for other medical reasons and eight more for non-medical reasons, either disciplinary or administrative.
There have been 171 men reassigned for medical reasons since April and 221 reassigned for non-medical reasons.
In the case of the woman sentenced to the brig, Navy officials denied she was disciplined for dating. They said her offense was repeatedly reporting for work late. She blamed the tardiness on anemia but said the official charge masks the real reason behind her dismissal.
A 19-year-old seaman recruit, the woman was discharged under ``less than honorable'' conditions Wednesday.
She asked that she not be identified but the Navy confirmed portions of her story.
The sailor said the government spent a considerable sum to punish her, buying her a vacation as it tried to get her from the Eisenhower to a Navy brig in Rota, Spain.
The brig aboard the Eisenhower cannot house women because it does not provide separate spaces for men and women, the Navy acknowledged.
The sailor said she was flown ashore by military transports to Sigonella, an Italian island, then to Naples on the Italian mainland, then to Germany, and finally to Rota, where she entered the brig.
Other than her time in the lock-up, she was on liberty status. She and her two escorts shopped and dined in Spain and Italy for five days, receiving a per diem travel allowance.
``Once I did my three days of bread and water, I was free to go. We went out to eat, to the shopping malls in Italy and we stayed in hotels,'' she said. ``It had to be a huge expense.''
She said other women have been disciplined for violating the no-dating rules, resulting in added duty and, in some cases, demotion. Some have been found with their boyfriends kissing in closets and other hideaways aboard ship, she said.
All of her infractions stemmed from violations of the Eisenhower's no-dating policy, she said.
That policy, announced by the ship more than a year ago, prohibits any crew members from dating one another, regardless of rank or chain of command.
The woman said the actual charges involved unauthorized absences from her work - totaling five hours on four occasions between September and December - but she was taken before the ship's captain because of her relationship with a 24-year-old second class petty officer.
``We met in September when we (the ship) went to Haiti, and then started dating,'' said the woman, who has been assigned to the Eisenhower since July.
She was counseled about the no-dating policy several times and official entries were made in her personnel record, she said. Soon after, her superiors clamped down on her missed assignments in an effort, she said, to get her booted out of the Navy.
She maintains that she and her fiance always behaved appropriately on ship.
``The only thing we ever did was sit around and talk,'' she said. ``We never touched each other on the ship. We were even afraid to stand close to one another.''
Their relationship was reported to superiors after they were spotted holding hands during a port visit in Cannes.
KEYWORDS: WOMEN IN THE MILITARY NAVY USS EISENHOWER WOMEN ON SHIPS
MISCONDUCT PREGNANCY PUNISHMENT by CNB