Respect is often demanded, but always earned. The crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt gives an ovation to CAPT Crozier as he leaves his ship for the last time.
Mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un Amiral pour encourager les autres.
There is no doubt of it; but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill an Admiral to encourage the others.
- Voltaire, CandideThe Navy Brass can kiss my ass. And SECNAV Modly needs to make up two new envelopes. The CNO and CINCPAC as well. If you need to start shooting Admirals, there are a bunch in the E-Ring. Nobody will miss them.
And a note to folks who comment that CAPT Crozier bypassed the chain of command - of course he did. What we haven't seen is all the communication he had with the E-Ring types before that, where they basically told him "We don't want to hear 'but sir'; we want to hear 'yes, sir'". Anyone who thinks for 2 seconds knows this. If you want to leave a comment on chain of command, make sure to address this topic.
And also address the following: if the only rational approach to the Chinese Virus From Hell is to shut down f***ing everything in America because it is the Only Way To Avoid Pandemic Disaster, then why is shutting down a Navy Plague Ship not the Only Way To Avoid Pandemic Disaster? Note: any comments along the lines of "the military needs to suck it up during an emergency" will be deleted without mercy. Yes, I'm pretty steamed about this.
SECNAV should be keelhauled in the Tidal Basin while all the inhabitants of the E-Ring are forced to watch.
22 comments:
Anyone who says that they fired him because the letter was leaked to the press needs to read the article from Stars and Stripes.
However, Modly said Thursday that he is not suggesting Crozier leaked the letter to the newspaper.
“I don't think I'll ever know who leaked the information,” he said.
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/captain-of-uss-roosevelt-relieved-of-command-after-letter-about-coronavirus-outbreak-was-leaked-1.624691
Divemedic, so how is this an issue of going outside the chain of command?
(Note: I don't think you ever said that, so this is maybe a rhetorical question)
The content of his letter is entirely appropriate. But, to openly advertise that his ship is not ready for combat is completely unacceptable. If his immediate superiors did not approve his requests, sending a letter to higher-ups would be appropriate IF it was sent as "secret" or "classified".
CAPT Crozier had to have known that this would happen. He put the health and welfare of his crew over the health of his career. In naval parlance, he fell on his sword for his crew.
If they did keelhaul that miserable piece of excrement that is sitting in SECNAV's chair, I'd buy a ticket to watch.
Observer, sometime the chain of command is an impediment. CAPT Crozier decided he had reached this point, and did what he thought he had to do. You and I, we have to decide which side to take. You've chosen the chain of command; I've chosen CAPT Crozier. We may disagree, but I've shown my work. I invite you to show your work as well.
As I've said before, CAPT Crozier has been keeping ~ 50,000 people informed about what's happening to their family members in real time. The Pentagon did NOT want this to happen. Shades of the Tuskegee Experiment. Not cool.
My guess is that he went outside of the chain of command by writing the letter to someone other than his immediate superior. The copies of the letter that I have seen do not show its recipient.
How many people did he CC with that letter?
I'm no expert but WELL SAID.
What will be telling is whether or not Crozier screens for admiral. It will be very interesting if he does.
Comrade Misfit,
Unfortunately, by being relieved of command it pretty much is assured that he is out the door, beached, stranded, forcibly retired.
Let us hope The Donald sticks his hand into the story and smacks all responsible for Captain Crozier's situation.
And, short of a shooting war, The Donald can't help save Crozier's career.
@Beans: That is why respect that Captain. He knew exactly what would happen because you don't get to be the Commander of a carrier without understanding Navy politics, yet he willingly put the welfare of the sailors under his command ahead of his own career. Having served 6 years on a carrier under three different Captains, what this man did is nearly unheard of. Most of the officers who rise to command a carrier are career ticket punchers who are promoted more for political reliability than for their leadership qualities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v5gc-uRgpA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2-vNMDuvVUZk3xpbYM2IaGO_4guFCUcuH-EbZ-K5u9zY0XwJijG6KOWcE
Oops, Youtube video of the PSNS&IMF CO and regional commanders talking about current CCP Virus impacts.
I see now what probably happened to Crozier. I finally got around to reading his bio and it said that in the normal course of progressing to carrier command he had served as XO of a carrier and then held a deep draft command of his own during which he commanded the USS BLUE RIDGE, flagship for SEVENTH Fleet. In other words, he was way more equal than any of his peers.
I sat through a Level III anti-terrorism course with a number of other CO's including 2 carrier COs whose ships were docked at NASNI at the time. It was mandatory training and one of the peculiar things I took away from it was that the lead instructor was the XO off USS BLUE RIDGE and it turns out that any little thing they deemed necessary as anti-terrorism/force protection in 2002 was automatically approved by 7th Fleet which was embarked. I totaled up just some of the costs 7th fleet ate for protecting Blue Ridge and it was well over a $3 million. Trust me when I say that is not how any other ship gets protected here or on deployment. They're 'special.'
We all started to snort out loud as he described spending $470,000 to get a perimeter barricade floated around the ship for its 3 day port call in some bohunk little port in the south Pacific. As the carrier skipper sitting next to me said, that would eat my quarterly OPTAR funding in one 3 day period. Never going to happen for any other ship. This was the era of Fat Leonard and staff officer crooks siphoning money to him from 7th fleet's coffers.
I think Crozier let that go to his head. He was used to having direct discussions with the Fleet commander and thought his input and concerns outweighed that of a mere strike group commander. I've seen it before in others who were once close to the throne.
True story! I know (am related) to a navy veteran that scored so high on the E7 promotion exam he was accused of cheating. I think it was E7. Might have been E6. They made him retake the promotion exam with a different proctor. He set a record on the second test. He was consequently recruited for OCS. His last CO was a political dickhead and ended genius guy's career with a bad review.
At a certain rank they're no longer soldiers and sailors, they become political operatives. But that's been true in military life since the first tribal expeditionary force left the cave.
Who is Fat Leonard?
The world is complicated but when I see which politicians are supporting the Captain, it gives me pause. Whatever the motives of the politicians are, I am pretty sure it is not concern for the well being of the crew. Individuals within the military are supporting the coup. (e,g, the Vindmanns). I am going to need some more information about this guys background before I get all warm and fuzzy. The media won't provide it but perhaps some independent investigator will.
Richard -
It's an election year, and the Dems want to look good before their audience without actually doing anything.
Fred, he was the USN Husbanding Agent for the western Pacific. He bribed officers on the staff of 7th Fleet to assign ships to make port visits where his company was the sole contractor for all in port things ranging from trash removal, fueling, watering revictualing, providing crane services, etc. he basically stole millions with his overcharging for everything. He’s in jail in San Diego still testifying against the officers, captains and admirals that he bribed for decades.
1) The MICAP (mission capable) status of all forces is classified. The Captain sent the information over the NIPR. It should have been sent over the SIPR. This is a security violation which endangers all of American forces not simply his ship as well as a violation of the UCMJ.
2) The Captain included people in the email who did not have a "Need to Know". This is how the information became pubic.
3) The Captains's Commander was on the same ship. He did not include the Admiral in the email.
4) The average age of sailors today is +1 25 years. The death rate of 25 year olds is 0.2%. The ship had a crew size of 3,200. That is 6.2 deaths. No mission impact.
5) If this is how he reacted to a non-impact virus how would he have responded if it had been an enemy attack? Who would he have emailed then?. . .
Firing him was kind. I would have keel hauled him.
In 1971 I was on board a DE home ported at Pearl. Since the Hong Kong flu was making the rounds someone up the chain of command decided everyone would get a flu shot. This resulted very quickly in 200 sick sailors on our ship and prevented us from going anywhere or doing anything until the cure had run its' course. The chain always knows what is best.
I think you will find this of interest. I did.
It is from the Proceedings of the Naval Institute who has opened their files to all through June. You can sign up for free here:
https://www.usni.org/open-access. Let me know if it works. I stripped off 4 more lines of html code that looked extraneous. This month's Proceedings has the full letter Roosevelt and the V Corps commanders sent to General Shafter and Roosevelt probably gave to a reporter from AP.
In an interesting twist of history, the aircraft carrier’s namesake was involved in a similar situation. During the summer of 1898, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. Army, was leading the famed “Rough Riders” in Cuba. The Rough Riders were part of the Army’s Fifth Corps garrisoned near Santiago de Cuba. At the time, more than 4,000 of the Fifth Corps’ 4,270 soldiers were sick with malaria and yellow fever. Many were on the verge of dying. The eight divisional commanders, including Roosevelt, were convinced that if they remained in Cuba Fifth Corps would be wiped out.
The divisional commanders met with Major General William R. Shafter, Fifth Corps Commander, and requested that Fifth Corps immediately redeploy to the United States. While it is unclear how Shafter responded to the request, he was certainly aware that President McKinley wanted to maintain a military presence in Cuba until the United States was able to finish peace negotiations with Spain. Whatever his reaction, the divisional commanders left the meeting compelled to put their request in writing.
The writing allegedly fell to Colonel Roosevelt, as he was the lowest ranking officer among them and the only volunteer, which meant he had the least to lose, career-wise, in the event the chain of command was to react negatively to the letter. As documented in Roosevelt’s book The Rough Riders, published in 1899, the letter, known as the Round-Robin letter and signed by all of them, reads as follows:
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