NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — In the wake of a series of high-profile scandals involving top-ranking Air Force and Army officials, the Navy's senior leadership is scrambling to bolster its image of sexual prowess in order to compete with the other services for officer recruits.

"After Tailhook, we rode high for years," said Rear Adm. Thomas Marotta, deputy commander of the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command, referring to the widely publicized sexual-harassment scandal in the 1990's which ensnared more than 100 Navy and Marine Corps officers, yet which some experts credit with the Navy's recruiting boom through the latter half of the decade.

"For the last twenty years at least, the Navy was the go-to branch for men hoping to become officers and get a little piece of something on the side," Marotta added. "But lately, it seems like we've really dropped the ball."

In recent years, the Army has become the frontrunner of the services with regard to sexual scandals, such as the widely publicized story of Col. James Johnson, former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who married an Iraqi woman, despite still being married to his then-wife, Kris, while fraudulently obtaining government contracts for the Iraqi woman's father.