Navy fires captain who sought help for virus-stricken ship

Maritime News
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On Thursday, Vice President Pence introduced a new face to the podium at the White House’s daily coronavirus press briefing.

This person, Pence said, has recently been directed by the White House coronavirus task force to take on a central role in the administration’s response to the pandemic: working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to oversee the distribution of much-needed medical supplies to states battling a rising number of covid-19 cases.

“We’re grateful for his efforts and his leadership,” Pence told reporters.

Minutes later, Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, stepped up to the microphone.

After touting his work to address medical supply chain issues, Kushner, in his first appearance at a coronavirus briefing since joining the administration’s effort several weeks ago, pushed back against criticisms that the federal government isn’t doing enough to assist hospitals in hot zones where resources are stretched thin. The 39-year-old went on to accuse some governors and U.S. senators of requesting supplies without knowing exactly what they need and suggested that local officials should be more resourceful in terms of finding equipment within their states before reaching out to the federal government.

“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” he said at one point during the briefing. “It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.” (According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the role of the Strategic National Stockpile "is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies.”)

The health crisis, Kushner said, has revealed which leaders are “better managers than others.”

“Some governors you speak to, or senators, and they don’t know what’s in their state,” he said, later adding, “Don’t ask us for things when you don’t know what you have in your own state. Just because you’re scared, you ask your medical professionals and they don’t know. You have to take inventory of what you have in your own state and then you have to be able to show that there’s a real need.”

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He’s not actually fired, he’s been reassigned, he’ll likely retire, his official USN bio says he graduated from Annapolis in 92, so he has over thirty years service, so he’ll pull down some pretty nifty benefits and pension.
He will then in all probability land some cushy civilian job with a heft paycheck.

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I hope he had made the issue known through the proper channels. BUT, what if he wasn’t getting a response? Or told to carry-on with his orders? If he legitimately believed his crew was in peril…what is his next move?

I acknowledge the awesome responsiblity of commanding a warship is a level (or ten) above getting a a cargo to the next port, yet the burden of keeping your people safe doesn’t change. Tossing it out for discussion: Does the safety of your people, today, in this moment of history, equate between a man of war and a cargo ship? I say absolutely “yes”.

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Who leaked the letter written by the Roosevelt Commanding Officer and what was the intention of that person in doing so?

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It doesn’t matter what the public thinks. He sent a 4 page letter on an unsecured server, and allegedly sent it beyond the chain of command. Crew before mission maybe? The only one allowed to use an unsecured server for such things is Hillary Clinton.

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What difference, at this point, does it make?

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Yes, he had to be fired for doing what he did. He had to know doing what he did would result in being relieved and effectively ending his career.

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly applaud him for standing up and doing what he thought was right in spite of what he knew would happen. In my time in the Navy, I witnessed any number of officers and senior enlisted who cared only about adding that next stripe/star/bar to their uniform and could give two shits about who they had to step on or shit on to make it happen. Kudos to this guy for having conviction.

O-6 over 30? I believe that’ll be 100% of base pay so that’s about $147k a year for the rest of his life… Not too shabby

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I think it does matter what the public thinks: Here is Capt Sully - American fighter pilot:

I am saddened but heartened by the story of Captain Brett Crozier, USN, who has been relieved of command of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). His moral compass points to True North and I commend him for putting the welfare of his crew above his career.

To him, my flaghoist signal is the traditional Navy salute for “Well Done”…Bravo Zulu! What he did is something I hope I would have done.

Here’s James Fallows,

He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1992 and then entered training as a naval aviator. He was qualified first as a helicopter pilot, and then in the Navy’s F/A-18 fighter planes. He was deployed aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz during the Iraq war, and he held an ascending series of staff and command jobs—as you can read in his Pentagon biography, here. He received a master’s degree from the Naval War College; he became executive officer (second in command) of the nuclear-powered carrier Ronald Reagan; and he became commander of the amphibious ship Blue Ridge. Then late last year, as a Navy captain, he took command of the Nimitz-class nuclear carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and the 4,000-plus people in its crew.

This is Crozier’s email:

  1. Conclusion . Decisive action is required. Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed US. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure. A portion of the crew (approximately 10%) would have to stay aboard to run the reactor plant, sanitize the ship, ensure security, and provide for contingency response to emergencies.

This is a necessary risk. It will enable the carrier and air wing to get back underway as quickly as possible while ensuring the health and safety of our Sailors. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care…
This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset our Sailors. Request all available resources to find NAVADMIN and CDC compliant quarantine rooms for my entire crew as soon as possible.

This is Fallows again:

“Breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.” “We are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset our Sailors.” “Unnecessary risk.” In any walk of life, such language would have great power. Within the military—where terms like “faith” and “trust” and “care” have life and death meaning, and are the fundamental reason people follow leaders into combat—these words draw the starkest possible line. This course is right . The other course is wrong. Thus a leader spoke on behalf of the people “entrusted to our care.”

James Fallows is the writer who has an article about Col John Boyd - A Priceless Original which was read in the Congressional Record.

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Let’s not bullshit. They’re going to investigate his sending of a classified topic on an unclassified system. He did. End of investigation. They’re not going to investigate the reasons he did what he did. It’s irrelevant to the charge.

The real reason for the ‘investigation’ is to keep him on active duty subject to orders not to speak with media, the public or anyone not authorized by the command until interest in this blows over. (They want to ensure he keeps silent.) Afterwords Big Navy will quietly issue a finding and Crozier will slip unnoticed into a comfortable post-retirement job.

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Not sure what your point is here? Has anyone claimed on this thread the Navy is going to do the right thing?

I’m not claiming public pressure will force the Navy to restore Capt Crozier, I’m saying this creates the impression that top Navy command are boot lickers who don’ t care about the enlisted sailors.

Maybe there’s enough truth in it that it will be difficult for the Navy to change that perception.

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If one of the sailors pulled this, he’d be in the brig right now. Capt put a multi billion dollar asset at risk by conveying to our enemies he most likely could not conduct ops. Should have worked things out with your superiors and got that next star. Better the fight from the inside than out. Seen too many smart people burn their bridges like this. At the end of the day nothing will change. The Navy will act the way it does and you are no longer BMO Ship.

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At the end of that day, the ship docked in Guam and the crew was properly segregated. So…

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Which would have happened anyway

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I find this quick reversal a little odd:

“One day before CAPT Crozier was relieved of command, the Acting Secretary of the Navy stated in reference to the Captain’s 30 March request for assistance that ‘the fact that he wrote the letter to his chain of command to express his concerns would absolutely not result in any kind of retaliation.’”

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You seem to be assuming that the facts available to the captain at the time are the same as the facts that are available to you now. That both you and the captain are making judgements based on the same set of facts.

Doesn’t seem remotely plausible that you have access to the same information as the captain in this case.

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Would it? It’s been said already that this was a career Navy Officer, next step up would have been Vice Admiral. What would cause someone to sidestep the chain of command and torpedo his career? Could it be his concerns not being taken seriously by his superiors and his frustrations boiling over to make him take such drastic action? A crisis of conscience?

I’m not a navy man so I don’t reflexively defer to the always follow orders thing. I am a Captain though and my crew always comes first. And now the Roosevelt’s crew know that about their former CO. If he’d been allowed to carry on, I wager that entire ship would have followed him to hell and back, but now we will never know.

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As a captain I’m sure you understand chain of command. “Navy Man” or not. If this was one of your crew going outside your command to get something they felt you were not supplying, your reaction? I have no idea what was going on in this guy’s head but he didn’t think it through.

What about next time? BTW what was the crew doing in a hotel in Vietnam before this happened?

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The dude is a Martyr on Reddit.

Skipped the CoC. Fired.

Pretty simple Navy logic.

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I have no idea what the facts are, except what is being reported. Bottom line though, its best not to embarrass your bosses if you have a job as such. It will come back to bite you. Capt or not. He got fired. What the real truth is we may never know.

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Happens from time to time, crew goes to the DPA or the union. When I get contacted I explain my side and that’s the end of it.

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