In another time, another place, before the word "Tailhook" became part of the American vocabulary, I attended a professional gathering that became known throughout the land as the Tailhook Convention of 1991. I was dismayed at the way the event was reported subsequently and more than appalled at the official and unofficial reactions to various activities, real and alleged, attributed to some of those who attended the convention.
There is no question that naval officers committed some serious offenses. Certainly more than enough to justify a high level of investigative and prosecutorial zeal by authorities of various jurisdictions. It is also true that the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" got lost somewhere in the investigative shuffle, and the furor developed a life of its own. Even today, Tailhook references continue in stories about naval officers or Defense Department officials.
Twelve months later, I wrote an article to put into perspective what may have led to unacceptable behavior by commissioned officers of the Navy. I did not expect a rational view of the affair to make a difference, and I was right: It didn't. [See "Tailhook 1991 and Other Perplexities," Proceedings September 1992, pages 36-40.]
The word "tailhook" often is presented to the public in its more complete form: "Tailhook-where-dozens-of-- women-were-sexually-assaulted-by-- drunken-naval-aviators." A minor irony in a situation replete with ironies is that many Americans know the word, but still don't know what a real tailhook looks like.
Following the 1991 convention, the Navy Department discontinued official support of the Tailhook Association; unofficial contact with the organization also was discouraged. After eight years of corrective actions taken, of punishments levied, of unforeseen ramifications, and of unintended consequences, a time of resolution and reconciliation may be at hand. The prospect may best be expressed by the second paragraph of an August 1999 letter from Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig to the President of the Tailhook Association:
As you well know, the shameful events at the Tailhook Convention of 1991 led to the withdrawal of our support of the Tailhook Association. Over the past eight years, however, the Association has taken a number of constructive steps that warrant a review of its status. These include adopting resolutions condemning harassment and honoring the 'services and sacrifices of all those who are . . . a part of carrier-based aviation.' To determine whether official support is now warranted, I need to assess the extent to which the Association lives by these principles and has the potential to reflect in its membership the character and profile of today's . . . and the future's . . Naval aviation community.
The Secretary made it clear that he wants more than informal, word-of-- mouth reports coupled with the absence of bad publicity to assure him that all is well in Tailhook-land. He dispatched Carolyn Becraft, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, Vice Admiral Michael Bowman, Commander, Naval Air Force, Pacific Fleet, and Lieutenant General John Rhodes, who commands the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, to observe the 1999 convention and report back.
Did we pass the test? Who knows? Least of all this observer. I was on the Hilton Hotel's third floor terrace on that now infamous Saturday night in 1991 at the same time some undesirable activities were going on in an inside hallway, probably only a couple of dozen feet away. After visiting several of the squadron suites . . . glass-sliding doors open to all visitors, lots of in-and-out traffic . . . and after observing the large, quiet crowd of mostly Navy and Marine pilots on the terrace itself, I remarked to my companion, one Diz Laird, longtime Tailhook Association officer and more longtime member of the Fighter Aces Association, something to the effect that: "These guys are not only in better shape than we were, they don't appear to drink as much." After I got home, I repeated the remark to my wife. After the uglier aspects of the affair hit the press, she fixed me with a steely stare and asked: "And just what convention did you attend?"
All this demonstrably lousy prognosticator can offer with regard to Tailhook '99 is observations. My preliminary grade is: "OK, three wire!"
"Naval aviators clean up their act" read the headline for an article on the front page (above the fold) of the second section of the Reno Gazette-Journal of Saturday, 21 August 1999, two days into this year's convention. The article, essentially a supportive interview with Captain Lonny McClung, Tailhook president, was friendly. Only a start, perhaps, but better than most alternatives. An article in a paper serving the small market Reno-Sparks area is unlikely to reach a large audience or to change many minds. It is nonetheless refreshing to see in print facts relating to Tailhook from the viewpoint of the other side: for supporters of the Tailhook Association, call it "our side." Some of those facts may bear repeating.
At the time of Tailhook '91, association membership was about 16,000, distributed about equally among active and retired officers and interested civilians, including a significant contractor constituency. After Tailhook '91 and the Navy's severance edict, membership dropped below 9,000. It is now about 10.500 and climbing. After the association was almost literally thrown off the base at Naval Air Station Miramar, California, and concurrently found itself facing a number of legal actions, its survival was in serious doubt. Fearing retribution by the Defense Department. contractor members bailed out in droves. Survive the association did, however, thanks in large part to loyalist retirees from both the military and civilian communities.
There was no convention the following year. In 1993 and 1994, however, the association rallied and held conventions in San Diego; the 1995 convention moved to the Nugget hotel-casino in Reno, where it has since been held annually.
Most of the attendees at the '91 post-Desert Storm gathering had come and gone and left without being aware of anything untoward; like me, they went home to learn about it from the media. The critical abuses: sexual harassment, general offenses against good order and discipline, and the probable violation of laws against indecent exposure were for the most part confined to a single night. They were of relatively short duration and involved a relatively small number of people. Except for the subsequent debacle, the media frenzy, and an unhappy variety of unforeseen consequences, the convention was a roaring success. Some exception—right up there with, "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
Part of what the organizers accomplished in 1999 was because of renewed industry participation. The organizers could not recreate the celebratory aura of a war recently won, but they did well with what they had.
There were 25 exhibits in a main room with an overflow of perhaps a dozen more in an adjacent room. There were Navy and Navy-related exhibitors, such as the Skyhawk Association and the Forrestal (CV-59) aircraft carrier museum, but the most impressive and elaborate were those of the primary contractors and sub-contractors for the ongoing Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) competition.
What's the big deal with contractor participation? Why should anyone care? The same might be asked of the Tailhook Association. Why should anyone bother, least of all the Secretary of the Navy? The first paragraph of Secretary Danzig's letter contains a partial answer:
Private professional organizations provide valuable support to the United States Navy and Marine Corps. They promote professional dialogue, esprit de corps, and public education about the Department of the Navy's important role in our national defense. In turn, the Department of the Navy provides these organizations with various kinds of support.
Other private professional organizations in the context of the Secretary's words include the Naval Institute, Navy League, Association of Naval Aviation, and the Fleet Reserve Association. The Tailhook Association is different in that it was formed by naval officers as an informal celebration of a unique aspect of their profession: they take off from ships at sea before they can enter combat; after combat, each aviator must find that singular ship and land safely aboard. There are no greenie points awarded for the degree of difficulty in getting to the battle or for special problems in getting back to the floating base and landing safely. The payoff resides in being better than the other guy once one gets to the fight. Historically, the core of the association has been active-duty naval aviators and air crews. Also, the segment of the private sector that manufactures carrier aircraft, power plants, avionics, propellers, etc. has been actively represented.
Dating from World War II, it has been customary for contractor service representatives to accompany new equipment, developmental equipment, or simply equipment deployed in large numbers. In the carrier Navy, this includes airframe manufacturers' representatives assigned to carrier air wings, in ones and twos afloat and ashore. The relationship is a close one. Most of the writer's operational experience was in Grumman airplanes, and our Grumman service representative became an ex-officio member of the squadron—almost family. When we deployed, he deployed. If a ship, squadron, or base got shot at, so did he.
The manufacturer's rep provided specialized knowledge of his company's airplanes, invaluable for squadron maintenance. He provided timely information of incipient or chronic problems to the manufacturer, providing a parallel channel to the official Navy's. The result was a marvelous synergism, beneficial to the Navy and to industry. It still is. System and sub-system manufacturer's reps for products such as engines, avionics, or major components (propellers, in my early days at sea) did the same thing except that because of their fewer numbers they toured their territories like circuit riders.
With the sophistication of today's weapon systems, it is unlikely that relations between a carrier air wing and service representatives are materially different.
Support from colleagues in industry today is real and valid. In joining us in support of carrier aviation, they are sincere. They also are in business, a very competitive business today as evidenced by the small number of surviving airframe contractors. The unscrupulous, venal contractor who preys on the U. S. military for fiscal gain at the expense of national interest and individuals' careers is a figure of fiction. Yesterday's fiction. Competition for an airplane contract today is a one-strike ball game. It has been for most of the post-Korean War period. One missed swing and you are out.
The Boeings and Lockheed-Martins who showcase proposals and share views at a Tailhook convention know better than to expect that junior and middle-grade aviators have any influence on the selection process. Those junior- and middle-grade officers do, however, represent the user, the pilots and naval flight officers who will fight the new airplane against an enemy. They know what is combat useful and what is not. That represents feedback that contractors need in order to refine proposals, to enhance their competitive chances, and ultimately to provide a superior product to the U. S. military. That is a good thing: a synergism not different from that described above. Everybody benefits.
The United States won two world wars because of the performance of the U. S. armed forces in concert with the performance and output of U. S. industry. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy, who had served in the United States before World War II, understood that; he knew that a short war was the only war Japan could win. A recurring comment by defeated German Wehrmacht soldiers in Europe reflected amazement at the quality and sheer quantity of stuff Americans brought with them to fight the war.
On Saturday morning at this year's convention. the two prime contractors for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), Boeing and Lockheed Martin, described their proposals. Boeing also delivered an optimistic status report on the F/A-18E/F. Raytheon TI presented its family of stand-off weapons, both air to air and air to ground. Newport News Shipbuilding discussed near-term projections and long-range concepts for new aircraft carriers. This year's convention theme was "Naval Aviation in Space," and NASA offered a status report on space systems with emphasis on repercussions for the next generation of astronauts. The principal speaker at the Saturday night banquet was Mercury-Gemini-Apollo astronaut Captain Wally Schirra, U.S. Navy, (Retired).
Traditionally, the final—and best-attended—event of a Tailhook Symposium is a panel discussion with senior active-duty naval officers. That means admirals in slacks and sports shorts, signifying no-holds-barred nature of questions to come. Tailhook '99 followed the tradition with a difference. In this probationary year, the panel was split almost evenly among carrier skippers and air wing commanders: the high end of the operational types. No one on the panel was senior enough to influence changes in policy, and the result was that the easy-to-ask-hard-to-answer questions that make flag officers wish they were someplace else—like the one on the possibility of female aviators flying from carriers did at the '91 convention—did not get asked. The mood seemed to be: "CAG knows the problems. He's trying to change what needs changing. Why ask what he can't answer?" Same for the carrier skippers. Maybe next year the flag panel will return?
Prepared statements from the panel addressed the usual suspects: long deployments, short turn-arounds, increasing commitments with diminishing assets, shortages of people in critical ratings, shortages of spares and operating funds, short deployments for weapons training and carrier refreshers that chew up large chunks of shore-- based inter-deployment time, resulting in yet more time away from family.
Based on that short list, it is difficult to process the optimism of the panel. A distillation of major complaints might go like this: (1) The principal cause of people leaving the Navy/Marine Corps is long and frequent separation from family. (2) Parts shortages, limitations on operating funds, and limited aircraft availability (having the right number of actual, flyable airplanes) are restricting flight and training time to the point that basic airmanship and combat readiness suffer.
The panel nonetheless was high on the performance of the men and women manning the carriers and air wings.
One of the highlight of Tailhook '99 was the informal mixer on Friday night with flight jackets and flight suits encouraged. I confess I felt self-conscious wearing a leather flight jacket with the outside temperature in excess of 90. Had 1 not worn my piece of out-of-date flight gear, however, I would have been conspicuous.
The convention dates had been rescheduled to coincide with Carrier Air Wing-7's training deployment to nearby Naval Air Station Fallon. With permission granted by the Navy Department, the question was: How many active aviators would attend? "Nearby" is relative. It is not exactly next door to Sparks/Reno.
Initially, I saw mostly retired folks—not exactly a Gathering of Old Men, but not many young faces. I saw lots of wives, too, since the Association has lately been encouraging members to bring their spouses. Many attendees were of the Vietnam era and earlier, a time of fancy, tailor-made flight suits. A surprising number still fit. Calendar years were roughly identifiable by color and tailoring details. When was the last time you saw a yellow and black flight suit? With bell bottoms?
In time, the first of a virtual sea of green flight suits arrived. The room came to life. Green flight suits could seen in animated conversations with faded khaki flight jackets and gaudy flight suits—and with Bowman, Becraft, and Rhodes. Contractor and Navy exhibits got plenty of attention. The favorites were Boeing's flight simulator, Kesmai Corporation's Air Warrior 3 video game, and Lockheed Martin's JSF vertical-launch model—complete with sound effects.
Perhaps it was nothing more than a fresh start—but it was a good one.
Captain Linnekin, a naval aviator, wrote Eighty Knots to Mach 2: Forty-Five Years in the Cockpit, published by the Naval Institute Press.