http://dukecunningham.org/vietnam.html
Breaking and Entering the Commanding Officer’s Office
** For details, read Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy, by Gregory L. Vistica, a former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter.
Gregory Vistica, a Newsweek reporter (and former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter) wrote a book about the Navy in Vietnam and up to the “Tailhook Scandal” called Fall From Glory; The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy. This book was selected by the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings as one of the notable books of the year. Mr. Vistica writes about the time when I broke into Jack Ready’s office (my Commanding Officer—CO). This was because I wanted to find out why I was rated at the bottom of my squadron by the Commanding Officer (CO) at “Top Gun” naval flight school. It’s all true, of course, but fortunately I wasn’t court martialed for my breaking & entering the CO’s office when Jack Ready found out. That’s because I just became an “ace” and it would be a P.R. disaster to court martial an ace. I became an ace toward the end of the war, long after it had any chance in changing the war’s outcome, but an ace is still an ace—I can do anything I want! I was also famous for being a womanizer in the Navy and was picked up several times by the Shore Patrol for drunkenness. You see, once you’re an ace, character doesn’t matter anymore.
In the notorious Tailhook gang, Mr. Cunningham was a Member of the Board. Thus, he had supervisory responsibility for a scandalous Tailhook meeting, at which women were made to run the gauntlet, according to the Department of Defense Inspector General’s report. Mr. Cunningham condoned improper behavior of which he was aware and failed to report it to legal authorities. **
You know, I’m a self-proclaimed hero in the Vietnam War. We sure showed those Vietnamese who’s boss, didn’t we? Why am I a hero? Never mind that I was nominated and rejected for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Never mind that my flying was at the end of the war, when it was way too late to have any effect on the war’s outcome. However, I was either shot down once by a SAM (or ran out of fuel). You know, in the old days you had to do something like rescue your buddies under heavy fire or play a major role in winning a battle to be a hero. But, thanks to what I call “hero inflation” (or what Shakespeare’s Henry V called “remember with advantages” (act 4, scene III)), it’s not that tough anymore! That reminds me, do you know the difference between a “fairy tale” and a “Navy sea story?” One begins with “Once upon a time” and the other begins with “This is no &%$#,” and the fairy tale is based on fact.
******As a Commander at the Miramar Naval Air Station, Mr. Cunningham permitted sinful debauchery and abuse of women at the Officer’s Club rarely equaled since the pagan orgies of ancient Rome.* Charles Fleming’s new book also described extreme cocaine abuse and pilots with naked women in an Officers Club pool during filming in which Mr. Cunningham participated.*******
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