Backers of Fired Miramar Pilot Call Him a Scapegoat : Scandal: Clement says he was merely respecting his crew’s constitutional rights during Tomcat Follies.

Cmdr. Robert (Bunga) Clement says he had a difficult time explaining to his daughter exactly what he’d done to make the Navy permanently ground him after 17 years as a fighter pilot.

Clement, 44, was one of five officers relieved of command last month by the Navy for their role in a bawdy show at Miramar Naval Air Station that included a skit by members of his squadron containing what the Navy said were offensive sexual remarks about Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.).

The June 18 show at the Miramar Officers’ Club was part of the annual Tomcat Follies. The Navy brass, mired for the past 10 months in issuing explanations and apologies for the infamous Tailhook sex scandal in Las Vegas, suddenly found themselves offering more apologies for another embarrassing incident involving their Top Gun aviators.

In Clement’s case, critics both in and out of the Navy charge, the Navy’s disciplinary action was unwarranted.

He was the only one of the five aviators recommended for reinstatement. Since his ouster, hundreds of supporters, from an elementary school principal to women who served in the PTA with Clement, came to his defense.

“When your 9-year-old daughter sees you on the television news, between the murderer and the rapist, and asks, ‘Daddy, what did you do wrong?’ it’s difficult to explain that Daddy and his bosses have a problem,” Clement said.

Clement was on vacation when the offensive skit was planned and returned only to witness the event. As commanding officer of VF 111, a fighter squadron, Clement was required by tradition to also be spoofed, by having pies thrown in his face.

The Navy said Clement’s presence at the show was reason enough to fire him. A subsequent investigation of the incident revealed that Clement, who was not the senior officer at the show, had not broken any military regulations.

His commanding officer, Adm. Edwin R. Kohn, recommended that Clement be reinstated as commanding officer of the squadron. The recommendation was rejected by Adm. R. J. Kelly, the Pacific Fleet commander based in Hawaii.

“I feel like I was hung out to dry,” Clement said.

Kelly’s action, which some Navy officers have called hypocritical, is the subject of yet another controversy. Kelly and the other Navy brass who supported the ouster of the five Miramar aviators are only appeasing the politicians critical of the Navy’s investigation of Tailhook, Clement’s supporters said.

U.S. Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-San Diego) has called the firings a “witch hunt.” Last week, Cunningham, himself a former Top Gun pilot, charged that the Navy overreacted in disciplining the men because of embarrassment over the Tailhook sexual harassment scandal.

Michael Fickel, principal at Deer Canyon Elementary School, called the Navy’s disciplinary action against Clement “a knee-jerk reaction.” Clement was the school’s first PTA president when the school opened two years ago.

“They have not taken into account a career that to this point has gone very well. . . . Bob became a scapegoat,” Fickel said.

Clement’s two daughters, Lauren, 9, and Leslie, 7, are students at Deer Canyon. He and his wife, Judy, 41, have been married 14 years. Both of the couple’s fathers served more than 24 years in the Navy.

“Bob worked with 13 women on the PTA board, and there were never any complaints about how he treated the women on the board,” Fickel said.

Fickel’s comment was echoed by a female lieutenant commander who is a Naval Academy graduate and C-130 pilot. The commander and other active duty and reserve officers interviewed by The Times agreed to talk but requested anonymity.

They expressed fears of retribution by their superiors if they spoke for attribution.

“Clement really respected you for the kind of job you did,” the female lieutenant commander said. “He had a way of making me feel like one of the guys. I never felt like he was patronizing me. . . . It makes everyone who knows him question what’s going on when you see someone like him being attacked.”

A female officer who flies a C-2 cargo plane said she once went to Clement with a complaint about an officer in his squadron who was sexually harassing her.

“He listened to me and put a stop to it immediately. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about (Clement), but I’ve been told to keep my comments to myself. Believe me, if it wasn’t for the threat to my career, I wouldn’t hesitate to go public with my support,” she said.

Several enlisted men who served in Clement’s squadron expressed unwavering loyalty to their former skipper.

“He takes care of his people. He is the only skipper I’ve ever had who got involved with the enlisted men. If a guy wanted to sign up for a class to better his career, he (Clement) would get involved and pull strings if necessary,” one enlisted man said.

A senior enlisted man expressed the frustration of losing a skipper who was held in high regard by the ground crew, which was composed mostly of enlisted men, and not being able to do anything about it.

“About four of us guys cried when we found he was being relieved. . . . What can you do. You can write your congressman and complain, but you’ve got to get permission (from Navy superiors) to do that. I’m talking for all the guys in the squadron,” the senior chief petty officer said.

Clement’s call sign since 1985, when he was a member of the Top Gun squadron that mimicked the combat tactics of the Soviet air force, has been Bunga. The term comes from a joke Clement told so often that his squadron commander substituted his former call sign, Honcho, with Bunga.

From then on, “Death by Bunga!” became a familiar cry over Miramar’s radio transmissions whenever Clement would dive out of the sun and “put a missile” in the tailpipe of his opponent’s fighter.

Clement, a friendly man with a disarming grin, insists that his men did nothing wrong by satirizing Schroeder in a skit that many found offensive. The men were only exercising their First Amendment rights and attacking a politician who was hammering on the Navy without due cause, he said.

Schroeder, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has been a vocal critic of the Navy’s investigation into the 1991 Tailhook sex scandal. One skit at the Tomcat Follies included a banner with a message about Schroeder and oral copulation. Another skit suggested that Schroeder wanted to have a sex change operation.

The aviators “were upset with Schroeder the politician not Schroeder the woman. . . . She was the politician who was cracking down on the Navy. They felt they had a right to put (their objections) in a political humor . . . and they took a shot at Schroeder in satire.

“She is a public figure, satirized at a private party by people in civilian clothes speaking their minds. I think that’s covered by the First Amendment,” Clement said.

In ousting Clement and the four other aviators, Adms. Kelly and Kohn said they had lost confidence in the men as leaders. Clement said he exhibited leadership qualities by refusing to reprimand the aviators in his squadron for exercising their constitutional rights.

“They lost confidence in my ability to lead because I wouldn’t reprimand my officers for exercising their First Amendment rights,” he said. “I swore to defend the Constitution when I joined the Navy. The Constitution is also applicable to people in the military. My men had a right to do what they did in a private setting.”

Meanwhile, Kelly has come under fire for overturning Kohn’s recommendation that Clement be returned to command of his squadron.

Several supporters of Clement have pointed out that Kelly was captain of the carrier Enterprise in 1983 when the giant ship ran aground in San Francisco Bay.

Kelly was relieved of command but later promoted.