Steve Crowston

We received a note Monday night from Steve Crowston, the Navy ensign from East Texas whose allegations of anti-gay harassment against his military superiors remain under investigation by the Inspector General’s Office. But Crowston wasn’t writing to give us an update on his case, which we wrote about back in September. Instead, he wanted to point out some apparent links between his allegations and the lewd video controversy involving Capt. Owen Honors, who earlier today was permanently relieved of his command. Crowston says members of his squadron — who are accused of hazing him with call signs including “Romo’s bitch,” “Gay Boy,” “Fagmeister” and “Cowgirl” — were on board the USS Enterprise when Honors showed the lewd videos. He also says his former commanding officer came up the ranks in the aviation community with Honors. “The Navy has a serious problem on its hands with the aviation community …” Crowston says. Here’s his e-mail:

My former squadron VFA-136 is assigned to the USS ENTERPRISE.  When the aircraft carrier gets ready for deployment and deploys, pilots from VFA-136 are on board the ship. The pilots from VFA-136 would have been on board during the time frame of these videos shot by Captain Honors who was then the XO of the aircraft carrier.

Captain Honors and my former CO from VFA-136 (Commander Liam Bruen) are both F-14 Tomcat pilots who came up the ranks in the aviation community together. Can you tell the CO of my squadron and the CO of the ENTERPRISE act similar as evidenced by their inappropriate behavior! The Navy has a serious problem on its hands with the aviation community, as evidenced by my case with Commander Bruen as CO and Commander Christopher now as the CO of VFA-136 and now Captain Honors, who was then the XO when these videos were shot. Unbelievable!