When Doug Roulstone was commanding officer of the USS John C. Stennis, he once faced a dicey decision: Should he allow scantily clad cheerleaders aboard the aircraft carrier?
The ship was in the Persian Gulf. The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders were scheduled to entertain sailors from the Stennis during a stop in Bahrain.
“For security reasons we couldn’t go. Port calls were canceled,” said Roulstone, who now lives in Snohomish.
Before letting the famous cheer squad onto the carrier, Roulstone said he consulted with a JAG, a lawyer with the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and with the ship’s senior female officer.
“I said, ‘I think this would be OK, but you guys tell me if we should do this.’ And they came on board,” Roulstone said. “They were the nicest ladies, a class act. They went all around the ship to see every sailor who wanted to talk to them or get a picture.”
Roulstone told the cheerleader story Tuesday when asked for his thoughts about news of raunchy videos produced by Capt. Owen Honors — until Tuesday commander of the USS Enterprise. Roulstone offered the anecdote to show that the Navy video scandal is far from the norm for behavior by a ship’s top officers.
The Virginian-Pilot, of Norfolk, Va., first reported about the off-color videos that were broadcast to the carrier’s crew in 2006 and 2007.
Roulstone, who took the helm of the Stennis in 1997 and retired after 27 years in the Navy, said after hearing the news reports he watched some of the videos online.
“They didn’t seem appropriate to me,” Roulstone said. He said it’s important to remember that Honors was the ship’s executive officer when the videos were made, and that there were also an admiral and JAG officers on the ship.
“Before I would go and shoot the captain in the heart, I’d want to go back and question the commanding officer. If the XO (executive officer) presented these on the ship’s TV, the captain had to know about it,” said Roulstone, who now runs a business that makes parts for the Boeing Co.
Roulstone’s place in history makes him especially aware of issues of propriety aboard Navy ships. In 1994, he was executive officer on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower when that carrier became the first U.S. Navy combatant ship with female crew members aboard.
Retired Navy Capt. Daniel Squires wasn’t at sea as long as Roulstone, but his experience as commander of Naval Station Everett from 2001 to 2004 was part of a long career in military leadership.
Squires said Tuesday that when he first heard about the videos, he thought they must have been made to be seen by a small group of officers, “for some kind of a farewell gag or roasting.”
“Sometimes those things get a little raucous, but they’re viewed in a very controlled situation,” Squires said. “It sounds like this kind of thing was done over television for all hands. I’m aghast,” he added.
Squires, who lives in Mukilteo and works for Boeing on a project to replace the Navy’s P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, served on a ship from 1988 to 1990, before women were aboard. “Even then there were limitations on what was used and televised. I’m as surprised as anyone else,” he said.
Admitting he doesn’t watch much television, Squires said that perhaps Honors was “trying to get down to the level of what folks see on TV now, in the 19- or 20-year-old crowd.”
“The command takes on the flavor of the commanding officer,” Squires said. “If the commanding officer is a good old boy from Texas, skits and fun jokey stuff becomes about Texas. If he’s a big golfer, it’s about golf. The commanding officer does set a tone.”
Squires said he would often ask himself, “Is this appropriate?” He added “it doesn’t matter if it’s at sea.”
Roulstone’s wife, Bonnie, is a veteran of her husband’s many deployments. “You have to remember there is a lot of pressure,” she said. “Many of these groups are seeing combat, and you have to have a release valve.”
She remembers wives sending glamour shots, funny pictures and videos to their husbands, but nothing that would cause embarrassment. Bonnie Roulstone also said that a ship’s commander is “not the crew’s friend, but their boss.”
Squires hadn’t seen the videos when we talked. I had. They’re crude. They mock gay people. They show simulated masturbation and worse. I’m not surprised someone made them. I am surprised at who made them.
“No situation gives you the authority to do things that are derogatory and insulting to anyone,” Squires said. “There are a lot of ways to do humor without doing that.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Videos
Videos produced by and showcasing Capt. Owen Honors, who has lost his command of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, are on The Virginian-Pilot website. The “XO Movie Night” videos were edited by the newspaper to blur faces and bleep profanity. They do contain offensive content. To see them go to http://tinyurl.com/XOMovieNight
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