Navy fires TR skipper

Devil Doc said:

yep, I shouldn't have tagged your post to quote. My bad.

But, BTW, that's what the article I read was about. The general shut things down and controlled the outbreak. That's why I wrote, "I read an article yesterday or the day before telling of how the Army general in Italy shut down everything immediately and controlled the outbreak."

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Sorry. My bad. Misunderstood your meaning.
US Army Korea also took drastic, and sometimes unpopular actions that seem to have been successful.

UHBlackhawk said:

Sorry. My bad. Misunderstood your meaning.
US Army Korea also took drastic, and sometimes unpopular actions that seem to have been successful.

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I ramble on a lot and mix topics. I wish I could blame it on the virus but I’ve been like this for awhile.

I blame the blind trust our society gives to CDC. I read somewhere TR sent crew on land March 5th in Vietnam based on CDC assessment. DoD probably will add its own assessment and be stricter on these matters in the future. That's too big of a biochemical warfare loophole we just revealed to our enemies.

Tatsunokojiro said:

I blame the blind trust our society gives to CDC. I read somewhere TR sent crew on land March 5th in Vietnam based on CDC assessment. DoD probably will add its own assessment and be stricter on these matters in the future. That's too big of a biochemical warfare loophole we just revealed to our enemies.

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Yes - disregard the CDC, that bunch of over educated worry warts! We should rely on English or Philosophy majors to make judgments about what to do in a pandemic.
It’s always better to be unencumbered by science - it’s all just TMI.

perhaps he should have collided with another ship instead.
they would have left him in command for weeks while they did the investigation.

Retired Admiral Dennis Cutler Blair on the left. He was CO of my second ship USS Cochrane. Captain Crozier on the right. The only photo of a younger Blair I could find was on the ship’s FB page with him getting in the motor whaleboat getting ready to waterski behind the ship. True story. Check his Wikipedia page to verify. I think they resemble in appearance.

OK take this for what it is worth. the New York Times at 12:15 Eastern reports that Captain Crozier has tested positive for COVID-19. This is from supposed Naval Academy classmates who are close to the family. Again this is The New York Times. I hope it is false.

i'll be shocked if there aren't 1000 or more eventually positive cases on TR

The Captain tests positive.


Stealth_81

Wow...interesting reading. These types of posts were removed from the parent pages, and are not allowed. For sure a hot button!

Stealth_81 said:

The Captain tests positive.

Capt. Brett Crozier Tests Positive for Coronavirus: NYT

Crozier was dismissed after penning a letter to Navy leadership that outlined his concerns of the virus spreading on the ship.

www.thedailybeast.com

Stealth_81

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Despite knowing that he was positive prior to leaving the ship, the video of him leaving shows him shaking hands with people as he left as well as not commenting on the whole social distancing aspects of the cheering/chanting crowd. Well prior to his firing, the ship had published the ban on handshaking and need for social distancing to all hands but it seems that all that went by the wayside as he left.

5,500 Healthy Sailors aboard, and theoretically no one should have any respiratory ailments. I'm sure all the world's military's (especially China and Russia) are watching closely now. I think the Captain panicked. Never Panic.

Some thoughts...

I am skeptical that an O-6 Carrier CO (normally a guy who has been highly successful and is going places) would completely leapfrog his chain of command and go VFR direct with that letter without having at least tried his higher's first. I've read that most of the changes he wanted were in work already (same thread as @A6E Dad on another site) but wonder how well that was being communicated to him. Sending that letter out demonstrates a complete lack of confidence in/frustration with his higher headquarters and I have a hard time believing he'd completely torpedo his own career just because. Who knows. Maybe he did panic unfairly.
Dealing with an epidemic on a ship sounds absolutely terrible. Minor illnesses already sweep through ships like wildfire all the time. To those complaining about the guys in the hangar bay sending him off....do you think that everyone on that ship was not already at least potentially exposed from 150-man berthings and mass chow halls? Do you really think our non-friendly nations were not already well aware of the impacts of this disease on our operational readiness? Sure, most Sailors who would be in infected would likely be fine, but how many are you cool with potentially dying?

Regardless of how valid or not relieving him was (and maybe it will be for sure shown that relieving him was proper), but from watching the video of his sendoff this guy clearly had the buy in of the Sailors under his command. I don't think I've ever felt half that positively about any O-5+ leader. What did the Navy really buy by sending him home now? The optics of it were terrible and I have to think it was a blow to those on the TR. What was so urgent about letting this guy go now versus waiting a month or two until things are improved or letting him ride out his time and then give him a (similarly career ending) letter of reprimand? If Big Navy thinks he leaked it, then just come out and say it instead of hiding behind the "he CC'd too many people" excuse, which is weak.
This is one of a string of incidents that makes people have zero interest in command and lose faith in the military. Realistic or not, the perception is that CAPT Crozier was relieved because he made the Navy look bad standing up for his people. Why would you want to stay in an organization that treats people like that?

Hurricane12 said:

Why would you want to stay in an organization that treats people like that?

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For the collective good/protection of the citizens of the United States. Its worked for 245 years. Actually, I think sailors are treated better now than ever before. My father claims he slept in a hammock in WWII.

Some more thoughts: (underlined portions are mine)

Acting Sec. Modly stated (article linked below) that he did not relieve Capt Crozier for the email @Hurricane12 mentioned. To quote Modly, “What he did that was correct was recognize the situation that he needed to communicate on the ship,” Modly said. “The manner in which he chose to do it — not going directly to his strike group commander who was right down the hall from him and talking it through — is the reason I have a problem."
So it would appear that the Capt. decided to not follow the chain of command in an appropriate manner, according to the Modly.

From the House Armed Services Leadership Committee press release, paragraphs 2 & 3:

“While Captain Crozier clearly went outside the chain of command, his dismissal at this critical moment – as the Sailors aboard the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt are confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic – is a destabilizing move that will likely put our service members at greater risk and jeopardize our fleet’s readiness.
“The COVID pandemic presents a set of new challenges and there is much we still do not know. Captain Crozier was justifiably concerned about the health and safety of his crew, but he did not handle the immense pressure appropriately. However, relieving him of his command is an overreaction."

Clearly the House Leadership Committee is unhappy with the Captain's actions as well as the timing of his removal. That's in a part of the article along with criticism of the present administration, which I did not copy here (article linked below).

There will be at least one (House) possibly two (Senate) hearings into this. At those, we may get the answers to the questions we all have, but I doubt it because that type of testimony will probably be conducted during closed sessions...parts of which will probably be leaked, unfortunately, I say that because I would like to hear the complete testimony, not cherry-picked snippets from unnamed sources released to further an agenda...I also want to acknowledge that both sides have the ability to leak.

it's very clear that CAPT Crozier went way outside the CoC by blasting his message to 20-30 people. and most people agree that doing that, in the way that he did it was a fireable offense. maybe not immediately, but down the road. it seems that most of the uniformed leadership was not in favor of firing him, but the civilian leadership overruled them.

the huge question is WHY did he feel compelled to do it? he certainly knew he was torpedoing his career, so why did he have to do it? that is what i home comes to light at some point. what were his comms with the CSG commander who was on TR? was he being told to shut up and color?

were there things in the works that would have addressed his concerns that he wasn't told about?

just doesn't add up

Reading this interview of the Acting Navy Chief I didn't get a sense of panicking, but I didn't hear the interview so maybe the panic was detected in his voice, or in unpublished statements?? The author doesn't spell out panic to me. The Chief definitely wanted to make the decision before being ordered to.

• Modly became personally involved with Crozier 4 days after the TR docked in Guam & a day before the letters' release.
• His Chief of Staff, Bob Love, exchanged emails with Captain Crozier & the Captain had the Chief of Staff's personal cellphone #.
• Love indicated that when he asked Crozier what he needed, he detected, "no alarm bells, no hair on fire" Crozier answered "just speed" referring to the slow process of evacuating the ship.
• On Wednesday, (2 days after the letter's release) Modly called Crozier directly asking, "What's the story?" His answer was,"Sir we're getting a lot more cases. I felt it was time to send up a signal flare."
• Modly also received some direct communications from sailors who said that the situation onboard wasn't as dire as Crozier's memo stated.
• Thursday morning: At 7 a.m., Modly called Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, the commander of the Roosevelt’s multi-ship strike group and Crozier’s immediate superior. Modly asked Baker if he had known that Crozier would be sending the memo, Baker answered: “No. It arrived in my email inbox.” There had been no prior discussion or consultation about the message.
• Baker pressed Crozier why he hadn’t cleared the sensitive message or wide distribution group in advance. According to Modly, Crozier answered that “he worried Baker would not let him send it to that broad a group.” Baker affirmed to Modly: “He was right. I wouldn’t.” After that conversation, Modly decided to relieve Crozier.

Some thoughts:
We know that 10 very sick COVID 19 infected seamen were airlifted off the TR's arrival in Guam. Assuming they're all hospitalized, those are the only members so far, hospitalized; everyone else's symptoms are such that it hasn't been necessary.

Why the slow evacuation? Assuming that the Navy didn't do that on purpose, there must be another reason(s). What were they & was Crozier aware of them? He certainly was in the position requiring that he be informed of the status of his ship's personnel & the reasons for the delay. Assuming he was informed of those reasons, it would appear that they weren't justified enough for him so the letter had to be sent.
Several years ago when the two Pacific Fleet naval ships were involved in separate collisions, details emerged that the bridge was working 100-hour workweeks & that required maintenance & training had to be continually deferred due to the hectic pace of deployments, & fixes were proposed. Were they implemented? Has the deployment load lessened; training/maintenance up to speed? If very little has changed, did any of this have a cumulative effect on the Captain and crew?

SECNAV continues to throw gasoline on this fire

hours after he went to Guam to address the TR crew, the full text of his speech to the crew is out in public. Delivered over the 1MC, complete with Fbombs, he calls the skipper "either too naive or to stupid to command this ship" or else he deliberately sent out his memo intentionally to get it into the media, which he says is a "serious violation of UCMJ "

then he basically calls out the crew for making CAPT Crozier a martyr

what a mess.....