
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994                   TAG: 9402190007
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A16   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TAILHOOK CLOSES UNSATISFACTORILY

THE SCANDAL that illuminated a dark side to the military's vaunted macho male bonding - namely, the degradation of females - surely must be over now. The Navy's top officer, Admiral Frank Kelso, has resigned, citing continuing fallout from Tailhook.

That infamous three-day debauch back in 1991 forced one secretary of the Navy to resign, caused three admirals to lose their jobs, and left 30 others reeling from the administration of a stinging slap on the wrist.

Oh yes, and forced a female Navy pilot who reported the goings-on to resign, not because of any official disciplinary action but because of the unofficial kind, meted out subversively by peers.

Those goofy, fun-loving, drunken guys who actually accosted and allegedly assaulted women in the halls of the Vegas hotel are pretty much home free. Twenty-eight received administrative penalties, but no one was court-martialed. Tsk-tsk.

This from a military so recently aghast at possible moral turpitude in the ranks, should gays (of all people) be openly admitted.

Of course these conventioneers were victims, in a manner of speaking, of rulebook revisions. In earlier years, few questioned the chummy degradation of women.

Individual rights and the rules of evidence, moreover, cannot be abandoned to satisfy public demands for retribution. No one wants to see the wrong people punished for the sins of others. And, somehow, nobody saw nothin' in the raucous confusion of that night.

Keeping a lookout for unsuspecting women and (possibly) disapproving superior officers while at the same time trying to organize a decent gantlet is just mighty distracting, apparently.

So as the boys rest secure behind the closed ranks of their colleagues, Kelso ships out. He has been both criticized for leadership that tolerated the Tailhook culture and praised for efforts to change that culture since Tailhook turned from an insiders' open secret to a national scandal.

Whatever he knew or didn't know of Tailhook, Kelso deserves a measure of praise for those efforts. But one wonders how much they have changed Navy life. If they had, perhaps the woman who publicized Tailhook, Lt. Paula Coughlin, would not have felt compelled this month to resign.

by CNB