Navy fires TR skipper

UHBlackhawk said:
You're kidding, right? Do you know how many commanders are relieved each year for doing things that they should have known after 20+ years they shouldn't do?
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Remember the Peter Principle. It's not impossible.
 
UHBlackhawk said:
You're kidding, right? Do you know how many commanders are relieved each year for doing things that they should have known after 20+ years they shouldn't do?
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I think typically poor judgment relates to doing things that benefit the commander in some way, shape or form. There seems to be 0 benefit for him in this.
 
billyb said:
I think typically poor judgment relates to doing things that benefit the commander in some way, shape or form. There seems to be 0 benefit for him in this.
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It still shows poor judgment. An O-6 is not infallible and immune to poor judgment. If that were the case we would never lose battles.
 
interesting analysis of CAPT Crozier's memo, from an active duty 0-6 SWO. it's a long read, but raises some good points about effective communication

www.realcleardefense.com

The Crozier “Memo”: An Analysis

BLUF: There are effective ways of “speaking truth to power” – there has to be, and one is suggested in this article – but this was not one of them. There has been much c
www.realcleardefense.com www.realcleardefense.com
 
So I see a few issues here with all parties

Captain Crozier- I don't see how he isn't relieved he
a. Broadcast data about his vessel on unclassified nets to multiple parties but omitting his higher headquarters in what seems to be an effort to box his higher headquarters into a decision.
b. We expect combat leaders to be calm/collected in the face of adversity. His manifesto resorts to emotion and has a ripple effect on his crew and their families as well as the message it sends to the rest of the Fleet, the nation and our adversaries.
c. He fails to provide mitigating options to bringing TR offline which demonstrates a lack of focus on mission and more on troop welfare. The two must be balanced.

After the relief I think he furthers screws up by allowing the crew the mob scene for a farewell and placing himself in it even as he suspects and we now know he is positive for COVID-19. As well as disregarding the important element of exhorting the crew to transfer loyalty to the next CO.

Big Navy
- SECNAV probably had good intentions but failed to think how does his message play in global media and to the Fleet.
- I am guessing subsequent investigation will show lack of trust throughout chain of command now extending from indviduals/vessels up to SECNAV.
- Apparently failure to keep TR informed of mitigating measures in place before Crozier sends his missive.


Crew
- Disregarding military tradition by openly siding with a departing commander in a relief case
- I would conduct a full review of what officers/NCOs were allowing sailors to boo/publicly disrespect civilian leadership address. That is a severe lack of support for civilian authority and the interim as well as future chain of command.

This whole thing is disappointing and seems to indicate with other trends that the Navy is needing some serious changes/reforms.
 
There is another point of view in today's (4/7/20) OpEd section of the Wall Street Journal by William Toti Jr. entitled " A Failure of Discipline Under Capt. Crozier's Command". It is thought provoking reading. Perhaps the Sword of Damocles hangs over all those in positions of responsibility.
 
WT Door said:
There is another point of view in today's (4/7/20) OpEd section of the Wall Street Journal by William Toti Jr. entitled " A Failure of Discipline Under Capt. Crozier's Command". It is thought provoking reading. Perhaps the Sword of Damocles hangs over all those in positions of responsibility.
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Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly relieved Capt. Brett Crozier of command last week after the press published a letter about a Covid-19 outbreak on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. I agonize for Capt. Crozier, who has tested positive for Covid himself. I too once commanded a warship, and I once took a controversial position at risk to my own career.

Yet I regret his decision. The video of the crew paying respects to Capt. Crozier as he leaves the Roosevelt demonstrates his popularity. But it leaves me with grave concern over the feelings-first zeitgeist on display, and it causes me concern that the crew’s actions will make the ship’s situation much worse.

This event gives a worrisome peek into the fraying of America’s military command structure. That structure relies on aggregated wisdom and dispersed power. It replaces emotion with cold logic. It reins in impulse with carefully considered protocols and procedures. None of those virtues are evident in how the Roosevelt incident played out.

No doubt Capt. Crozier was concerned about the Covid crisis and wanted to escalate the issue to protect his crew. That desire is to be commended. But the crew’s welfare is only part of a Navy captain’s responsibilities, which are global in scope. Capt. Crozier’s letter effectively recommended that the Navy take an operational, forward-deployed nuclear-powered aircraft carrier offline, an event that would be classified and carry significant strategic implications world-wide, hence would have to be escalated to the president. From that standpoint, the Roosevelt was not Capt. Crozier’s ship, it was America’s. But to shotgun that kind of recommendation in a letter via an unclassified email is a violation of the highest order.

Capt. Crozier’s defenders have said he was speaking truth to power. But he could have done so directly. He could have generated serious action with a properly classified, immediate-precedence “Personal for” naval message to any of at least five operational commanders in his chain of command. He could have reached out directly to the Navy secretary. Instead, according to Mr. Modly, Capt. Crozier shotgunned, thereby losing control of, an email containing classified details reflecting the state of readiness of one of America’s most important ships. The upshot is that the Chinese received Capt. Crozier’s letter at the same time as the Pentagon.
The Navy doesn’t always get it right. I spent more than a decade defending Capt. Charles McVay III. He commanded the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis when it was sunk in July 1945, the worst at-sea disaster in U.S. naval history. Like Capt. Crozier, McVay’s story captured national headlines. McVay’s surviving crew rallied around him, fighting to vindicate him even after his 1968 suicide.
McVay was convicted by a court-martial for “hazarding his vessel” by failing to take action the Navy believed would have spared his ship from a Japanese submarine attack. For more than 50 years his crew fought for his exoneration. In 1998 they recruited me—then captain of the submarine that bears the same name as their sunken cruiser—to aid their case. My role was to demonstrate through computer modeling that even if McVay had taken the recommended action, the Japanese attack would likely have succeeded. The Navy dug in and insisted it had acted properly 53 years earlier. I was warned that for the good of my future I needed to learn how to become a “company man,” but I pressed on. Congress passed a resolution exonerating McVay in 2000, and the Navy secretary officially cleared his record in 2001.

Which brings me back to the video of Capt. Crozier leaving his ship. McVay’s crew exhibited more discipline for the greater good of the ship than we saw in the Roosevelt video.
In today’s culture, even in the military, the “right” side of an issue tends increasingly to start with feelings. Social media posts—“We stand with Captain Crozier”—don’t merely reflect attitudes; they drive behavior among the public and, more troubling, among young sailors. The Journal reports that some sailors say they won’t re-enlist over the way they perceive the incident to have been handled. Imagine if this trend continues to its logical extreme—military decisions by Twitter mob.

And while Capt. Crozier recommended the crew be removed from his ship, it’s clear there was much they could have done but didn’t, as evidenced by their social-distance-be-damned rock-star departure celebration, which will likely leave them with more Covid-19 infections. The video suggests that the crew didn’t know—or worse, didn’t care—that their behavior was the naval equivalent of standing on top of a hill with bullets flying around them to generate an Instagram moment. Such behavior reflects poorly on their commander.

Command is a privilege. I pray for the recovery of Capt. Crozier and everyone else who’s been infected. But this event’s legacy also includes thousands, military and civilian, beguiled into rooting for an ineffective form of leadership, a loss of faith in a chain of command that was never properly invoked, and a horrified home front—not to mention media pundits making matters worse by sounding off on issues they don’t understand.

Mr. Toti, a retired U.S. Navy captain, commanded the USS Indianapolis submarine, Submarine Squadron 3 and Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Command Norfolk.
 
interesting range of opinions. i've read at least four articles written by 0-6 and above, both active and retired, all with command at sea experience and they all have a different take on this.
 
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Personally I think it should have been left in the hands of those in uniform and not done by the Secretary of the Navy. Makes the whole thing look political. His speech attacking the Navy Captain made it look worse and and as it was written in the Navy's Crisis in the article attached, everytime the Secretary made an alllegation and was questioned on it, he had to backtrack. First he says isnt it interesting that the article was published by a local newpaper (local to the Captain). When asked if he thought it was leaked by the Captain himself, he says no or has no idea. But then adds that its a fact that it was a local paper. So what? So the Captain is a Northern Californian and it was published in a Northern Cal paper. If it had been published in San Diego, what was he going to say that it was published in his home state. If it was published in Nevada, was he going to say, "interesting it was published in a Western state" Again, i am not going into the merits of him being fired or not, but the whole thing looks political and should have been handled by the Admirals. Now you have visuals of those in his command cheering for him, the Navy Secretary who bad mouths him and who comments would be laughed out in a court of law.
 
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Devil Doc said:
I should have been more clear and said POTUS had nothing to do with the decisions leading up to the firing of Crozier.
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Pentagon officials said that although President Trump never ordered Captain Crozier dismissed, he was displeased with the captain’s actions and let the Navy know. One aide quoted Modley, "Breaking news...Trump wants him fired."
 
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Well, this story has taken on a whole new life!
As far as the idea that a supervisor-to-subordinate conversation has to go through the chain of command with the same specificity as a subordinate-to-supervisor, is dare I say it...not so! They’re not equals! It’s not fair! I know! Of course a supervisor has the prerogative to directly question a subordinate w/o going through the entire chain. Not so much the other way.

When one does not feel the facts support their agenda, one tactic is to throw everything against the wall & see what sticks. When this occurs, the timeline of events should be referred to in almost every case as it can provide clarity when someone is trying to bamboozle us.

For example, according to Modly, on Sunday, (the day before Crozier sent the email), Captain Crozier had the email address (emails had already already exchanged between the Bob Love, Chief of Staff, SECNAV & Crozier) as well as the personal cell phone # of Love. Therefor, if conditions were so bad on the TR that “a signal flare had to be sent up” & Crozier determined that reaching out to his strike group commander (whose office was a few doors down from his...on his ship...just a few doors away from where Crozier was), was of no use, & he had to go outside the chain of command to achieve satisfactory results, Crozier could’ve done exactly that by calling Bob Love, Modly’s Chief of Staff. But did he?? No...he sent the email. Why?? Was the problem so out of control that these 2 supervisory executives (Modly & Love) couldn’t have addressed it to Crozier’s satisfaction?? Who’s above Modly, the Secretary of Defense?
I believe Crozier would be hard pressed to justify the fact that although he had this high-level contact info., it just wasn’t good enough & he had to send that “Dear fellow naval aviators” email. I’m very interested in hearing Crozier’s explanation about this particular series, actually non-series of events.
 
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