Exclusive: Tailhook Victim Speaks Out on Capt. Owen Honors Scandal

Paula Puopolo, the whistle-blower who exposed the Tailhook scandal that shook the Navy hierarchy to its core, says it's "disappointing" that Capt. Owen Honors was promoted despite his proclivity for broadcasting raunchy videos.

"Stupidity, apparently, still runs rampant in Navy leadership," Puopolo said today in an exclusive interview with Surge Desk.

"It's very disappointing. There are people above and below Honors who no doubt thought he was a barbarian, and yet he was promoted to a position of leadership," she said.

Puopolo has remarried and changed her name from Coughlin since a jury awarded her a multimillion-dollar payment from Hilton Hotels, the chain that hosted the infamous 1991 Tailhook convention in Las Vegas, where dozens of women were forced to run "The Gauntlet" where they were sexually molested by out-of-control airmen.

A former Navy lieutenant, Puopolo now works as a yoga instructor just outside Jacksonville, Fla., and has watched the Honors saga unfold with an all-too-eerie sense of familiarity.

"Here's this 'Top Gun' character, running around thinking it's fine to behave like that, believing it's OK to disparage women and gays," Puopolo said.

"It degrades the workplace," she said. "Every young sailor and aviator had their workplace turned into a place for misbehavior. It's sad."

Honors was relieved of his command of the USS Enterprise today after the Virginian-Pilot newspaper revealed he had produced and starred in lewd videos shown to thousands of crew members on the aircraft carrier in 2006 and 2007, when he was second-in-command. The videos featured obscene comments, simulated masturbation, gay slurs and racy shower scenes.

Sponsored Links

While Puopolo's case led to the eventual firing of the secretary of the Navy, as well as assurances of an overall cultural change in the armed services, she says the parallels between what she endured and the Honors matter are clear.

"It's still the secret handshake," Puopolo said. "The brass are going to claim they didn't know about the videos, but of course some of them did."

While Puopolo applauds the Navy for relieving Honors of his command, she questions how the Navy seems slow to address a culture that allows such conduct in the first place.

"There's still a systemic attitude in Navy leadership that says it's all right to disparage women and gays," Puopolo said, "and that hasn't changed all that much."

Follow Surge Desk on Twitter.