THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 15, 1995 TAG: 9511150001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, chief of naval operations, says the Navy will ``take a day . . . and take a good, hard look at itself.'' The misconduct - some of it criminal - by a few prompted him to order a rotating stand down by Navy units to talk about ``good order and discipline'' and what more the Navy might do to prevent sexual assault, sexual harassment, excessive drinking and drug use.
Good move.
More than a score of Naval Academy midshipmen are being investigated for alleged illicit-drug use.
A Navy seaman admitted in court last week to abducting and raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl on Okinawa; he and two Marines are being tried in this case.
Navy Secretary John Dalton blocked a male captain's scheduled promotion to admiral because of his questionable conduct toward female subordinates.
A drunken male Navy cook allegedly sexually assaulted a female sailor sitting next to him during a commercial-airline flight while 20 other Navy personnel, despite her screams and curses, did little to stop him.
The Navy was embarrassed four years ago by unsavory Tailhook-convention shenanigans. Subsequent sexual-assault and sexual-harassment incidents have added to the sea service's discomfort.
The rape of the Japanese schoolgirl ignited a firestorm of protest against U.S. bases in Okinawa; the anger has not been banished by an official apology from the U.S. defense secretary, and the prospect of American compensation to the victim.
Admiral Boorda rightly concludes that attention must be paid. Like other branches of the armed forces, the Navy is expanding the numbers and the roles of women in its ranks. This dependence upon women will increase, not decrease; the military, no less than other governmental and private enterprises, needs them.
Like the integration of racial minorities into a once predominantly white military, the incorporation of women has required changes in attitudes, behavior and the ways some things are done.
Change is rarely comfortable and often wrenching. But change is the norm. The stand down will focus minds on the standards that the 1990s Navy expects all hands to meet. by CNB