Now we have the case of U.S. Navy Captain Brett E. Crozier, until recently commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, one of the 11 nuclear aircraft carriers that form the backbone of the fleet. Command of an aircraft carrier is a prize appointment, given to upwardly mobile officers. We can safely say that barring Congressional intervention on his behalf, Captain Crozier’s upward mobility has ended.
On April 2, the Navy relieved Captain Crozier of his command. Relief is a polite term for being fired. In each of the services, this happens from time to time. […]
Captain Crozier’s offense was of a different order. Soon after a show-the-flag port call at Da Nang, Vietnam, undertaken at the Pentagon’s direction, members of his crew had tested positive for COVID-19. Crozier reacted as the Trump administration, not to mention various slow-on-the-switch governors and mayors, should have: He saw the onset of the Coronavirus as posing a lethal threat to the Roosevelt’s entire crew of several thousand sailors. So he sounded the alarm, sending a letter to 19 senior military officials. The gist of that letter was a recommendation to disembark and isolate the Roosevelt’s crew, treating those infected and subjecting the entire ship to a thorough cleaning to eliminate the virus. “We are not at war,” Crozier wrote. […]
For this he was fired. Needless to say, his letter leaked. Navy officials were thereby embarrassed. While eventually taking the actions not unlike those that Crozier had recommended, they gave him the axe. According to acting Navy secretary Thomas B. Modly, himself a Naval Academy graduate, Crozier lost his job because the Coronavirus outbreak “overwhelmed his ability to act professionally.” […]
As he left his ship for the last time, in a moving display of support for their former skipper, they gathered spontaneously to give him a rousing sendoff. Crozier left with their cheers ringing in their ears. The men and women assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt know professionalism when they see it. Läs artikel
Fungerende marineminister trakk seg etter skipssjef-oppsigelse. Marinministern tvingades avgå på grund av avskedandet av hangarfartygets befälhavare. Läs artikel