Saving Captain Honors

The Navy was wrong to relieve Captain Honors of his command of the USS Enterprise. But there is still time to salvage his military career.

FrumForum’s Peter Worthington isn’t the only one who is dismayed and disappointed that the Navy has relieved Captain Owen Honors of his command of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

More than 22, 000 people on Facebook, many of them current and retired military, agree with Worthington. And that number continues to grow exponentially as the American people learn exactly what happened to Honors.

So now the question is: where do we go from here? And is there a way still to salvage Honors’ military career?

I believe that there is -- even though, as Worthington notes, Honors has been “reassigned to ‘administrative duties,’ which [typically] means his career is kaput.”

The key is to focus on the future, not the past. The head of Fleet Forces Command, Admiral John Harvey, is a good and honorable man. He did what he felt he had to do: He fired Honors.

It serves little purpose to try and second guess Harvey. The admiral’s decision is rightly irreversible. The U.S.S. Enterprise will set out to sea without Captain Honors at the helm.

But as I pointed out yesterday at the Daily Caller, there is an important precedent in American military history for firing a commander and then later giving him a new command assignment.

That, in fact, is exactly what happened to the late great Gen. George S. Patton: Eisenhower fired him (or relieved him of his command), but later gave Patton command of the Third Army.

Patton, you may recall, had gotten into trouble when he slapped a soldier whom he mistakenly thought was malingering. The incident created a major hullaballoo in the press, thus forcing Eisenhower’s hand. And so, Eisenhower fired Patton -- just as Harvey has now fired Honors.

Eisenhower knew, though, that he could ill-afford to lose Patton, especially with major World War II battles looming. And so, he let a decent interval pass before giving Patton command of the Third Army.

This was one of Eisenhower’s wisest and most inspired command decisions. Patton, after all, would go on to lead the Third Army to some of its most impressive and storied victories -- in Lorraine, France, and in Germany, during the Battle of the Bulge.

Patton’s battlefield exploits, I explain in the Daily Caller,

surprised no one. He was, after all, as the New York Times then reported, ‘audacious, unorthodox and inspiring. He led his troops to great victories in North Africa, Sicily and on the Western Front… Nazi generals admitted that of all [the] American field commanders, he [Patton] was the one they most feared.’

So it is possible still to save Honors’ career. And given Honors’ apparently stellar record as a commanding officer, the Navy would do well to do just that, I think. It takes decades, after all, to produce a commanding officer like Honors.

How would such a rehabilitation come about? Simple: The Navy would follow Eisenhower’s example and let a decent interval of, say, six months pass before giving Honors a new command assignment at sea.

This decision to reappoint Honors could be made by either Fleet Forces Command or Pacific Fleet Command -- or even by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) or the Secretary of Defense.

The CNO or SecDef could simply point out that while Honors’ had shown poor judgment in light of today’s standards of decency, those standards have been changing throughout Honors’ impressive career.

Moreover, when Honors was instructed (four years ago) to stop producing his satirical videos, he did just that: He stopped. And besides: Honors already has been punished, by losing his command of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

So in short, Honors has learned his lesson; he’s paid a price; he’s a great commanding officer; and it is now time to move on: That would be the rationale for giving Honors a new seafaring command billet.

If the Navy doesn’t act to save Honors’ career, then Congress certainly can turn up the heat via congressional oversight hearings. In our republican system of government, after all, our elected civilian representatives are the ultimate “commanding officers.” Indeed, the uniformed military is always responsive to the civilian will.

Either way, it is premature to put this incident behind us and to declare that Honors’ military career is over. That normally would be the case, but this is anything but a normal or typical case. To the contrary: it is a highly unusual, high-profile case. And so, should the public and congressional will be there, anything is possible.

I wouldn’t bet on anything changing. But there’s at least an outside chance that Honors will again sail the seven seas in a Navy uniform. We will see.

John Guardiano blogs at www.ResoluteCon.Com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano.

Tweet