Happenstance Guns Down Miramar Officer’s Career : Military: He was caught up in Tailhook fallout when he stopped by club for a drink during Tomcat Follies.

On June 18, Capt. Richard F. Braden decided at the last minute to stop for a drink at the Miramar Naval Air Station Officers’ Club and was instead swept up in the wake of the Tailhook sex scandal.

One month later, a stunned Braden was told that his otherwise stellar 24-year Navy career was irreparably harmed by his afternoon visit to the club. The flag rank (admiral’s position) that he had worked so hard for was now hopelessly out of reach, he said in a recent interview.

Braden, 45, was one of five officers stripped of command last month for either being present at or participating in the Tomcat Follies. The follies, a bawdy show put on each year by Top Gun fighter pilots at the Miramar club, included a skit that Navy officials said was offensive to Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.).

Some of the officers who were disciplined have charged that they are victims of a witch hunt by the Navy brass. The officers and their supporters, including Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-San Diego), said the Navy is using them as scapegoats to appease politicians who are critical of the Navy’s role in the Tailhook sexual harassment scandal.

The offensive skit at the follies included a banner with a message about Schroeder and oral sex and another suggesting that the congresswoman wished to have a sex change. Schroeder has been a vocal critic of the Navy’s investigation of the 1991 Tailhook Assn. sex scandal, when drunken Navy and Marine aviators harassed and assaulted more than 25 women in a Las Vegas hotel.

Four of the five officers removed from command were either commanding or executive officers of various Miramar-based fighter squadrons involved in planning and producing the skits.

Braden’s offense was that, through pure happenstance, he was the senior officer at the club while the skits were being performed.

His career was torpedoed on July 24, one day after his commanding officer, Vice Adm. Edwin R. Kohn, had assured him that an investigation had cleared him of any wrongdoing, Braden said. Navy sources said that a report of the investigation had recommended that Braden be returned to his post as chief staff officer for Capt. Curtiss Schantz, commanding officer of Fighter Airborne Early Warning Wing at Miramar.

The admiral who supervised the investigation noted in the report that, aside from being the ranking officer at the club on the afternoon of the follies, Braden had no ties to the offensive skits and should not be disciplined.

However, Capt. Tom Jurkowski, spokesman for Adm. R. J. Kelly Jr., commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, said the decision to strip Braden and the other officers of command was “done jointly by admirals Kelly and Kohn.”

Sources familiar with the Navy investigation said that Kohn, whose headquarters is at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, had actually endorsed the report’s recommendation that Braden be returned to his command but was overruled by Kelly. Spokesmen for both Kohn and Kelly have declined to comment on the report or its recommendations.

Of the skit that led to his downfall, Braden said:

“I was not paying particular attention to the skits. It was not my intent to review them or to be part of them.”

In fact, the final skit, which included the offensive references to Schroeder, made him uncomfortable, said Braden, who flies E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning planes. The next morning, he expressed his concern about the inappropriate skit to Schantz, who is also Miramar base commander, Braden said.

“The final banner in the skit was the inappropriate one. The contents of this banner came as a surprise. I did not expect to read what was on the banner, and as such could not prevent its release,” he added.

According to Braden, immediately after the show ended, he pulled Capt. George L. Moe aside and expressed his concern over the offensive skit. Moe, commanding officer of VF124, a fighter squadron, was in charge of the follies.

“He (Moe) said some of them (skits) ‘were near the edge of the envelope,’ meaning that some of them broached the standards he had laid out,” Braden said.

Moe, said Braden, had written a set of “stringent guidelines” before the show to assure that the skits would be done in good taste. Braden said he and Schantz had previously approved the guidelines.

Another aviator who participated in the skits said that every pilot in the squadrons participating in the show was required to read and sign Moe’s memo.

Although he would not go so far as to say that he felt betrayed by the Navy, Braden said that Kelly’s decision to strip him of command devastated him. He said he was also hurt by former Acting Navy Secretary J. Daniel Howard’s comments about the Tomcat Follies on July 3.

“My immediate reaction (to Kelly’s action) was disbelief,” Braden said. “(The) investigation had exonerated me completely . . . . Clearly, someone questioned my judgment without ever reviewing the report.”

But he also said that Kelly had little choice but to discipline him and the other officers, regardless of the investigation’s findings, because of Secretary Howard’s earlier comments.

“Secretary Howard used the words ‘jerks and idiots at Miramar’ to describe us. This was before the investigation was even completed. That was what set the tone (for Kelly’s action). Because of that, I knew it was going to be awfully hard for the Navy to find an equitable solution for this incident,” Braden said.

Braden, who has been married for 20 years and has two sons, said he wants to stay in the Navy long enough to clear his name.

“I certainly regret that the Tomcat Follies . . . put the Navy in this situation,” he said. “All of us in the Navy are sensitive to events that can put the Navy in a bad light, especially after Tailhook. . . . Obviously, there were some skits that caused the Navy embarrassment, and I’m truly regretful.”