WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy will
investigate "inappropriate" videos produced on the nuclear
aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which among other scenes show
simulated masturbation and women showering together.
A report on the videos came over the weekend in the
Virginian-Pilot newspaper, which serves Norfolk where the
carrier is based. The newspaper also made video excerpts
available on its website (http://pilotonline.com/).
The excerpts show female sailors pretending to wash one
another in a shower on the carrier and in other scenes "sailors
parade in drag, use anti-gay slurs, and simulate masturbation
and a rectal exam," the newspaper said on its site.
Shown in a number of the excerpts is Owen Honors, then the
executive officer on the Enterprise and now a Navy captain and
its commander, the Virginian-Pilot said.
Honors "masterminded" the 2006-2007 production of the
videos, which were shown aboard the ship, the newspaper said.
The videos "are clearly inappropriate," Navy Commander
Chris Sims of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command said in a statement
responding to the report.
Production of such videos was not acceptable when they were
made and is "not acceptable in today's Navy. The Navy does not
endorse or condone these kinds of actions," Sims said.
"U.S. Fleet Forces Command has initiated an investigation
into the circumstances surrounding the production of these
videos," the statement said.
A Navy spokesman declined to speculate on Sunday as to the
possible outcome and effects of the investigation.
(Reporting by Jerry Norton; Editing by Peter Bohan and Eric
Walsh)
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