Navy fires one of the boys

Captain Owen Honors pays a high price for those "crass" videos:

The raunchy, ribald antics that cost Capt. Owen P. Honors his command have a long history in the U.S. Navy, where leaders have routinely tolerated such behavior in the name of maintaining morale at sea.

But the Navy fired Honors on Tuesday, two days after a series of videos he made in 2006 and 2007 surfaced on the Internet, removing him from the helm of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise just weeks before it was to head to the war in Afghanistan. Honors made the videos when he was the ship's executive officer, or second in command.

"While Capt. Honors's performance as commanding officer of the USS Enterprise has been without incident, his profound lack of good judgment and professionalism while previously serving as executive officer on Enterprise calls into question his character and completely undermines his credibility to serve effectively in command," said Adm. John C. Harvey Jr., commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

There could yet be further fallout:

Harvey will lead a broader investigation into whether other senior Navy officials knew about the four-year-old videos, which aired on the ship's closed-circuit television, and why they failed to take disciplinary action against Honors. The probe is likely to focus on whether Rear Adm. Lawrence Rice, who was captain of the ship in 2007, and his immediate commander, now-retired Rear Adm. Raymond A. Spicer, had seen the videos or received complaints about them.

Whether or not Rice knew of the videos is irrelevant: as the then commanding officer of the Enterprise he should have known what his XO was up to. Thus Rice's head too must roll.

The real problem here is not quite what it seems, however. Honors was well liked by his crew, no mean feat for a second in command, often tasked with with being an "ass-hole" in lieu of the captain – Honors managed to exercise his command responsibilities while remaining "one of the boys". In today's Navy this is unforgivable.