On a Saturday night in September 1991, at the Hilton Las Vegas Hotel in Las Vegas, 29-year-old female U.S. Navy pilot Paula Coglin changed into a denim miniskirt, no suspender underwear, and no

On a Saturday night in September 1991, at the Hilton Las Vegas Hotel in the casino, Paula Coglin, a 29-year-old female U.S. Navy pilot, changed into a denim miniskirt, no suspender underwear, sleeveless shirt, a casual outfit, and a pair of small black cowboy boots to meet friends on the hotel patio.

At about 23:30, Cogelin passed the corridor on the third floor of the hotel, where a group of young men were wandering around, and she had no thought of being afraid, after all, like her, these people were also U.S. Navy pilots. But fear soon engulfed Cogelin.

She was grabbed from behind and pushed through the corridor, with the mocking sound of "the admiral's assistant, the admiral's assistant" in her ears. In the meantime, Cogelin was repeatedly stroked and harassed, with one man grabbing her breasts and another trying to rip off her panties. Cogelin bit the forearm of one of the attackers hard, but this did not stop the attack, and she rushed to an open gate, but the two officers blocked the way, laughing evilly. "Save me!" Cogelin yelled at another man passing by, who came over and grabbed her by the chest.

At first Cogelin thought it was only one or two people who attacked her, but as she was pushed through the corridor, she found that every male there had joined in. Nine months later, Cogelin told the U.S. media: "It was the most horrific event in my life, and I felt like I couldn't control those guys and I was going to be gang-raped by them." ”

Cogelin, a helicopter pilot at the time and an aide to Admiral Sandel, was attending the annual meeting of the Tailhook Society at the hotel, along with thousands of retired and active Navy officers. Cogelin's father, a retired Navy pilot, decided to follow in her father's footsteps and when she told her mother that she wanted to be a Navy pilot, she told her, "You've become part of the best team in the world."

On that unforgettable night, Cogelin finally escaped, hiding in a small room, trying to figure out what was going on. She wrote a report to her superior, Admiral Sandel, hoping he would make his own decision, but Sandel's careless reaction annoyed her. And, some pilots refused to cooperate with investigators, and some male officials referred to the night at the Hilton Hotel as "someone fussing."

She complained to the U.S. media that it was her comrades who were violent, which made her even more miserable, "I almost served in the Navy for 8 years, trying to prove that women can be as good as men, but I was treated like garbage, I did not belong to them." 」

Cogelin decided to bring the scandal public, and she filed a lawsuit, making herself the "woman who sank the U.S. Navy."

The Tailhook Association, a private club of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps pilots, including active and retired military personnel, attended the annual meeting in September 1991 with about 4,000 participants, attended by senior admirals such as U.S. Secretary of the Navy Lawrence Garrett and Naval Chief of Naval Operations Frank Kelso.

In April 1993, the Los Angeles Times restored "Hilton Nights" in conjunction with the U.S. military investigation report. At 21:30, about 200 naval soldiers and pilots began wandering the corridors on the third floor of the Hilton Hotel, waiting for their "prey" to appear, the report said.

The Navy investigation reported that most of them were drunk at the time, and the corridors smelled of beer, urine and vomit, but what happened that night was more disgusting than that smell.

On the 3 nights of the 1991 "Tail Hook Annual Meeting", if a woman appeared, it was difficult for her to stand out, and the claws of male colleagues would grab her, tighten, and stroke her breasts, backs and thighs, and some women's clothes were even ripped off. U.S. media said that during the three days of alcohol-colored indulgence, at least 83 female soldiers and 7 male soldiers were sexually assaulted.

In fact, since the annual meeting of the "Tail Hook Association" began in 1956, similar incidents have not happened, and there is even evidence that this time the conference has been "dull" compared with the past.

At the 1991 "Tail Hook Association" annual meeting, some of the underdogs included running naked across the hotel patio, sometimes in groups of more than a dozen people who exposed their naked bodies for onlookers to watch, investigators said, 14 officers committed such acts. The report also shows that some people organize games such as leg shaving competitions, and some people expose their buttocks to others, which is common among men and even some female pilots.

The annual meeting of the "Tail Hook Association" was originally intended to cultivate camaraderie and improve professionalism, but it became a hotbed of lascivious and shameful behavior. Initially, the U.S. Navy treated the 1991 Tail Hook Association Annual Meeting as nothing more than an out-of-control sorority, but as Cogelin chose to make it public, the Tail Hook Incident finally came into the spotlight.

The bush administration asked Secretary of Defense Cheney to brief him on the situation, and a few hours later, Secretary of the Navy Garrett offered to resign and take full responsibility for the Navy's inability to handle the "tail hook incident." President Bush accepted his resignation, and it is interesting to note that Bush did not say anything regrettable in the official arena.

The Pentagon and U.S. Navy investigations into the incident questioned 2,900 people, the U.S. Senate Defense Committee delayed the promotion of 4,500 Marine Corps officers, and the tail hook association's annual meeting was suspended until 1999.

Cogelin, who lifted the lid of the Tail Hook Association scandal, chose to leave the U.S. Navy in March 1994, and she herself failed to correctly identify the perpetrators of the night, and in the designation she chose a soldier who did not attend the las Vegas annual meeting at all.

That year, she reached an out-of-court settlement with the Tailhook Society for $400,000, receiving $6.7 million in damages in a civil lawsuit against the Hilton Hotel for not providing her with adequate security. Later, Cogelin changed his name to Paula Popolo and married a yoga instructor.

The "tail hook scandal" has severely damaged the reputation of the US military, especially the US Navy. The media called it the U.S. Navy's "worst disaster since Pearl Harbor, and its follow-up effects could be longer. It undermines the reputation of the system, hurts the centuries-old profession of the U.S. military, and severely undermines the morality of the entire military. #战争风云 #