Tailhook

When I was in the Navy, there was a scandal that happened at the Tailhook convention. There was a lot of drunken debauchery, including a contest where females allowed men to shave their bikini lines, and allowed men to judge the efforts by running their tongues across the area.
In 1992, one of the participants in the shaving contest, a young Navy lieutenant named Paula Coughlin, said she had been sexually assaulted at the 35th Annual Tailhook Symposium in Las Vegas. It turns out that she lied for much of her testimony. She picked officers out of a photo lineup, claiming that they sexually assaulted her, but they were able to prove that they were not even AT the convention. The Navy ran with the accusations, and ruined the careers of 300 officers. Coughlin did all right for herself, cleaning up $5.4 million from the Tailhook Assn. and Hilton Hotels Corporation.
As a result of this scandal, the entire Navy was required to undergo a standown that included sexual sensitivity and harassment training. The thing is, officers were not required to attend, at least not in my command. For those of you who are not military, let me tell you why that is significant: ALL Navy pilots are officers, meaning that the people who were alleged to have done these acts were the very people who were not required to attend the training.
The Navy has always been more about protecting its image than in true justice. That is why I am not surprised by this announcement.