Navy Capt. Brett Crozier was relieved of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier on Thursday after a letter penned by Crozier, calling for the immediate evacuation of the vessel to prevent a coronavirus outbreak was leaked to the press. The ship is currently docked at a naval base in Guam.
After Crozier’s dismissal, videos surfaced online of Sailors cheering and clapping for the relieved captain as he departed the Roosevelt for the last time. One Sailor said, “now that’s how you send out one of the greatest captains we ever had.” Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly defended the decision to fire Crozier on Friday.
Modly said Crozier put the ship and crew “at risk” by sending the letter. Modly’s reasoning is that the letter could give America’s “adversaries” in the region the idea that the USS Theodore Roosevelt is crippled, which Modly says is not true.
In the letter, dated March 30th, Crozier demands that the majority of the ship’s personnel are removed and quarantined to slow the spread of coronavirus. Crozier explains that in combat, Sailors are expected to take certain risks that are “not acceptable in peacetime.” The letter reads, “we are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single Sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily.”
Navy officials do not know who leaked Crozier’s letter to the press. Modly criticized Crozier for sending it to 20 or 30 other people that were not in the chain of command, although the letter did not have any classified information.
After reports of confirmed cases onboard the Roosevelt, a direct line was set up between Modly and Crozier. Modly claims Crozier never used that line and said he was blindsided by the letter. But a Navy source told Foreign Policy that going around Crozier’s chain of command in the Pacific’s Seventh Fleet would have been career suicide in itself. As the source put it, “either you want to be shot or you want to be hung.”
Crozier’s immediate superior was onboard the Roosevelt at the time the letter was published. Modly said Crozier should have taken his concerns to his superior officer instead of sending the letter. A Navy official told The New York Times that Crozier had repeatedly asked his superiors for “speedy action to evacuate the ship,” and the letter came after those requests.
Modly also said on Friday that Crozier is being reassigned and not discharged from the Navy. Approximately 1,000 crewmembers of the Roosevelt have left the ship already, and another 2,700 are expected to leave and be quarantined in local hotels in Guam. Before Sailors began departing the vessel, the Roosevelt had a crew of almost 5,000. As of Friday, about 150 of those crew members tested positive for coronavirus.
Military analysts and former Navy officials are surprised that a 28-year Navy veteran like Crozier would take such a drastic measure and go outside the chain of command like he did. One former Navy official asked, “Why wasn’t there an investigation done before the captain was relieved? Because clearly somebody in his position — a carrier CO who was headed upward with a bullet — why would he do this if he hadn’t been stymied somewhere in the chain of command?”
the captain of the carrier showed courage and a great responsability for the safety of his sailors and ship….this guy proved he has a spine…..compared to invertebrates in the upper chain of command
Democrats grab him as vice for the election.
It’s the military. Military people live under the united code of military justice. So while you might be defending the constitution, you don’t have the same rights. This would happen 100% of the time. But bravo for the Captain and fu*k the Navy.
Actually the real story is more complicated. Yes, the captain was under order from the State Department and the Pentagon to sail to and dock at Da Nang on March 4. He carried out that command. You do not have to be a rocket engineer to understand why. That was a move in the continuous contain-China policy of this government. The captain may therefore have been encouraged to allow crew members to go on shore.
On February 27 President Trump said that there was a COVID-19 pandemic and that he had already felt for some time that such a pandemic was coming. Given the already known experiences of the pandemic on board of cruise liners should it not have been the duty of the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces to immediately order that all navy ships at sea should stay at sea until further notice?
That doesn’t change the fact that he is subject to the UCMJ. That was the only point I was trying to make.
The UCMJ is subject to the US Supreme Court. In the final analysis, it demonstrates the military is under civil authority. The captain was correct in involving civil recourse after his superiors failed to protect his crew. The families of that crew are civilians, and, there is no shooting war in the Pacific.
And you think the US Supreme Court would overturn the Navy on this issue if it were to rule on it? Never happen. The UCMJ is NOTHING like the constitution. You have zilch for rights.
No, I wouldn’t expect the court to do that. Jes sayin the captain has a basis for going outside the chain of military command.
“The UCMJ is NOTHING like the constitution. You have zilch for rights.”
That statement is kind of hard to parse. Are you fantasizing that those under the UCMJ have fewer protected rights than those not under it? Or noting the opposite?
I don’t know. Are you trying to be a condescending dick or do you really care one way or another what I meant?
The latter. When I want to be a condescending dick, I don’t have to try. It comes naturally.
Provided we know the whole story. I would be shocked that the Captain never informed his superiors of the situation on the ship before sending THE letter.
Of course he did, and his request to urgently dock ignored.
But captains do not communicate anything directly — his staff is managing communications. And they will talk. This has gone too far. Bureaucratic covering of behinds is taking place. This is not how civilian control over military is supposed to work.
Accountability lies with all those that ordered the mission to Vietnam proceed.
Accountability lies with those that were FIRST notified of infections on board, but recommended “keep calm and keep on sailing”, till the next port of call.
He did not allow that.
Trump better be aware if the full story if the trip to Vietnam, so he can avoid making uninformed and stupid statements.
What do you mean he was encouraged to let sailors off the ship?
The event was preplanned full fledged “community” engagement with our sailors participating in numerous activities, art, cultural and sports. A planned long time ago — mission directed by Navy, approved by State Department.
Trump either has no grasp of what happened or he is a very bad lier. To claim that captain was responsible for letting staff to participate in this WEEK LONG EVENT.
I would imagine that captain in fact may have expressed his concern BEFORE the mission, and was told to proceed. After returning to the sea, and identifying cases, it would be VERY INTERESTING to see the captain’s communication through “chain of command”. One can imagine him asking for urgent docking to isolate cases and stop the spread. It would be illustrative to see what their answer was. Probably to proceed as normal,
At that point the captain made a decision to disregard the dangers to his career, and send a missive to everybody who pretended to be deaf up until that point.
If Commander in Chief is not informed about the week long mission of our aircraft carrier to Vietnam — there is a huge problem right there.
Yes, he was right to let it rip — this is what makes the difference between an adult and bureaucratic weasels he had to deal with.
Pettiness is the besetting sin of the military. This is the best example of it.
The military hatred for their DC leadership needs to grow and grow if freedom is ever to be restored to America.
What, turn the U.S. into a coup-happy military-ruled banana republic like too many Latin and Caribbean countries were and are? No way.
Any outbreak of the cold or flu would be serious on a warship, obviously.
Great pains are taken to make sure that never happens. The last time something like this did happen, was a flu outbreak on the SS Ardent, a small minesweeper with a crew of 102.
25 sailors were incapacitated, fortunately none died.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6342a3.htm
However, the sacking of Captain Crozier is just more indirect evidence suggesting, COVID-19 may not be nearly as serious as its played up to be.
I now read in The Asia Times that the carrier should have never been sent to port at Da Nang, Vietnam on March 4 when the COVID 19 disaster on board of cruise ships was already known.
The visit to Da Nang was ordered jointly by the State Department and the Pentagon.
It is amazing how similar our bureaucracies are to those in Mainland China: punish truth tellers to protect the bureaucracy.
Not unlike our so called President and many grossly over paid CEOs, Captain Smith of the Titanic failed to count the life boats and where did it get him and everyone else on board? Crozier is a giant of a man in comparison. We pay these multi million dollar salaries to these business men and political leaders and what do we get, NOTHING, throw the bums out.
If his men support him that’s all anyone should need to know to do the same. The Navy is responsible for the captain. The captain is responsible for his men.