The Pentagon said Friday that plans to integrate women aboard submarines would not change even after allegations that an enlisted male sailor secretly taped female officers undressing in a submarine shower for months.
“As troublesome as the allegations are, it’s not going to have nor should it have any effect on the integration of women into the submarine force, which by and large has gone exceedingly well,” said Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby on Friday.
{mosads}However, the allegations first reported by the Navy Times that up to a dozen sailors viewed secretly recorded videos of their female shipmates on the U.S.S. Wyoming undressing over a period of 10 months, have raised questions over whether women can be successfully integrated into the previously all-male submarine corps.
Female officers began serving on submarines in 2011, and female enlisted sailors are slated to begin serving aboard submarines this month.
A ballistic missile submarine usually has 15 officers and 140 enlisted, with unisex showers and bathrooms with a sign outside them to indicate which sex is using them.
Females are scheduled to begin serving on fast attack submarines, which are even smaller, next year.
Kirby said the Navy “should take credit for the energy that they put into this and the measured, deliberate pace that they have tried to go after it.”
“Because it is a big culture change in the submarine force,” he said. “This incident, these allegations are not going to slow that process down at all.”
The allegations come as all the services are expected to integrate women into previously male jobs by 2016.
They also come as the Pentagon is facing pressure from Congress to tackle the way the military justice system handles sexual assault and harassment.
Kirby said the allegations need “to be investigated before we rush to judgment about exactly what happened and who did what.”
But if proven true, it is “certainly inappropriate sexual harassment conduct.”
“[It] has no place in the United States Navy or the United States military, that kind of conduct. And it runs counter to every value that we stand for in uniform. And I think Navy leadership feels exactly the same way,” Kirby said.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is “obviously troubled by the allegations,” he added.
“It’s the secretary’s expectation that if proven true, people will be held accountable for that conduct,” he said.