After news broke that allegations of a sailor secretly recording three female officers showering aboard a nuclear missile ballistic missile submarine had surfaced, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee in a statement released Dec. 5, called the news of alleged misconduct aboard the USS Wyoming “unwelcome and unacceptable,” and added it was a setback for the nuclear enterprise. "With an investigation pending, I hope the silence from Navy Leadership and the decision to deploy the boat with the command team in place is not a sign that the Navy is being quick to dismiss the gravity of this incident,” McKeon stated. “I expect the [Chief of Naval Operations] and [Navy] Secretary [Ray] Mabus to take a hard look at the command climate on the USS Wyoming and take action if warranted.”
Navy Times published the original
article the same day that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the results of a review that detailed DoD’s progress in how it addresses sexual assault, adding that sexual assault in the military had dropped 25 percent between 2012 and 2013, and that in 90 percent of reviewed cases, commanders took action to prevent an assault when they saw the risk of one happening. The submarine where the alleged recording took place is home ported in Kings Bay, Ga. Officials are investigating a 24-year-old male second class petty officer, who is accused of making and distributing the videos, which are believed to have been recorded for more than a year, according to the article. The second class petty officer is assigned to Trident Training Facility, according to the article. Women first started training for submarine duty in 2011. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating.
