THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504210020
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
An April 14 headline declared ``Cruise proves women vital to Ike.'' The accompanying article quoted the task-force commander, Rear Adm. D. J. Murphy Jr., as saying, regarding women on board the Eisenhower, ``We couldn't do our jobs without them now.'' Your reporter then noted that the Navy now considers articles about women deploying in combat ships as being ``non-reportable,'' by which I assume is meant nonissues or nonnewsworthy. All these pronouncements are, I believe, presumptive at best and patently false at worst.
Webster's New World Dictionary defines ``vital'' as ``essential to the existence or continuance of something; indispensable.'' Rear Admiral Murphy clearly and explicitly states that the women are indispensable to the successful accomplishment of aircraft carrier operations. And the Navy now seems to be saying ipso facto - it is so because it is so. Case closed.
What is this rush to judgment, to borrow a phrase form O.J.'s world? Do I smell another cover-up?
In my avocation as a volunteer financial counselor, my organization occasionally sees clients whom we find have what we call TWT. TWT stands for ``trouble with the truth.''
For some years, now, the U.S. Navy, like some of my clients, has been having trouble with the truth.
Tailhook '91 is certainly the most egregious example of Navy TWT in recent memory. But other examples, such as the turret explosion on board the Iowa, flag-level R&R at Naval Station Bermuda and the recent fatal crash of Lt. Kara Hultgreen during a carrier- landing attempt, follow in near-predictable order.
The fact that the truth ever does surface - even after years - in all of these incidents attests not to the disclosure of it by the Navy itself, but to the courts, to the media, even to dissidents within the service itself who may or may not have had an agenda of their own. But it is the Navy, ultimately, which ends up with the proverbial egg on its face and, worse, with a lack of trust in it from those who serve, support, love and respect it.
Your April 14 headline could have been written before Eisenhower's cruise ever began. It probably was - somewhere in the Pentagon.
Let's give this experiment a fair shake, but recognize it for what it is - an experiment. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Depends on what the facts are.
RICHARD G. THOMSON
Captain, U.S. Navy (ret.)
Virginia Beach, April 12, 1995 by CNB