Capt. Brett Crozier ousted

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The decision, which Modly said was his own, was met with backlash, including from Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, who said the Navy's acting secretary "shot the messenger — a commanding officer who was faithful to both his national security mission and his duty to care for his sailors, and who rightly focused attention on a broader concern about how to maintain military readiness during this pandemic."​
On Friday a group of 17 Senate Democrats, led by Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, called on the Department of Defense's Office of Inspector General to investigate the ship's outbreak and Crozier's ouster.​
 

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Senior Navy officials were blindsided by a written plea for help from the commander of the coronavirus-wracked USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier after they assured him his crew would be cared for in two direct calls earlier this week, Foreign Policy has learned. A source familiar with the matter told Foreign Policy that Capt. Brett Crozier had multiple conversations with the chief of staff to acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Monday, just hours before his plea for help leaked in the San Francisco Chronicle. Crozier was fired as captain of the ship two days after the letter was leaked. The message from the Navy to Crozier on Monday was “call us any time day or night,” the source said, as the service’s chain of command looked for single-bed rooms in nearby hotels to individually quarantine sailors coming off the ship and slow the spread of the virus.Crozier was given Modly’s personal cell phone number to raise further concerns, the source added, but there was no contact between the captain and Navy brass between that time and when Crozier’s letter was sent by email to higher-ups and some crew.​
“I think sort of most disappointing to me is that I had set up a direct line to him that if he felt that anything, way before his letter was written, that if he felt anything wasn’t going well and he needed help, that he could reach out to me directly,” Modly told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday morning. “And he did not do that.”​
Yet even as Modly is making the rounds in the media to justify the decision to remove Crozier from his post, there is palpable anger over the captain’s dismissal among service members aboard the Roosevelt and their families. In purported videos of the captain’s departure posted to Facebook, Crozier is seen walking down the Roosevelt’s gangway for the last time as hundreds of service members chant his name in unison. By Friday afternoon, an online petition to reinstate Crozier had reached nearly 90,000 signatures. A mother of a Roosevelt sailor told Foreign Policy that hundreds of troops were being quarantined aboard the ship and being checked for high temperatures twice a day when the letter was sent, and not enough was being done by the Navy to keep the crew safe. “It felt like a lot of politics to me and not enough action,” she said. “I believe that the Crozier memo expedited the whole thing.” “When I hear the secretary of the Navy say that [the captain] made a bad judgment call I don’t necessarily agree,” she added. “This was not a man who made bad judgment calls.”​

Assuming the Navy does not make errors in assigning carrier captain, then something more is needed IMHO.
 

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Hmmmm

But a former official who spoke to Foreign Policy said that Modly’s contention that he gave Crozier his personal contact information went around a chain of command that would normally go through the U.S. 7th Fleet in Japan and invited retribution against the skipper even before the letter was sent.​
“If he uses that number and calls the secretary, his career is dead that instant,” a former high-ranking naval official told Foreign Policy. “Either you want to be shot or you want to be hung.” The former official said Modly should have completed an investigation of the incident before removing Crozier, who will remain in the Navy but at another post.​
Meanwhile, the coronavirus infection has continued to spread on board the carrier, and Modly said in his interview with Hewitt that he has named a replacement for the fired skipper. The Navy is not looking at an operational pause due to the coronavirus, Moldy told Reuters on Friday.​
 

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Despite President Trump’s repeated assertions that the Covid-19 epidemic was “unforeseen” and “came out of nowhere,” the Pentagon was well aware of not just the threat of a novel influenza, but even anticipated the consequent scarcity of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds, according to a 2017 Pentagon plan obtained by The Nation.​
“The most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease, particularly a novel influenza disease,” the military plan states. Covid-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel (meaning new to humans) coronavirus. The document specifically references coronavirus on several occasions, in one instance saying, “Coronavirus infections [are] common around the world.”​
 

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If Crozier did not follow the chain of command, he is subject to the UCMJ... You all may believe he was right but he is accountable for his actions...
 

rittmeister

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If Crozier did not follow the chain of command, he is subject to the UCMJ... You all may believe he was right but he is accountable for his actions...
nobody accused him of breaking the ucmj, my dear commander rapp
 

jgoodguy

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If Crozier did not follow the chain of command, he is subject to the UCMJ... You all may believe he was right but he is accountable for his actions...
“If he uses that number and calls the secretary, his career is dead that instant,” a former high-ranking naval official told Foreign Policy. “Either you want to be shot or you want to be hung.” The former official said Modly should have completed an investigation of the incident before removing Crozier, who will remain in the Navy but at another post.
 

jgoodguy

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IMHO The navy had to do something, and they did the minimum.
 

jgoodguy

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Keeps on getting better.

But the Washington Post reports that Modly told a colleague the day before Crozier was removed from his post: “Breaking news: Trump wants him fired.”​
It’s unclear if Trump’s reported desire for Crozier to be fired influenced decision making for Modly, who is a political appointee. It is certainly possible that Modly’s overall assessment of the propriety of the situation was incomplete when he initially spoke to reporters.​
However the decision was arrived at, when Crozier was dismissed, sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt gave him a raucous-send off with cheers and singing to show their appreciation of his efforts on their behalf.​
 

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President Trump and the White House coronavirus task force are scheduled to hold a briefing at 5 p.m. ET. Trump is likely to discuss Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly’s reported offer to resign after his screed against firing Capt. Brett Crozier, who raised alarms about the coronavirus situation on his ship.
 

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Navy Seeks 'Deeper Review' In Probe Of Pandemic-Struck Warship Captain's Firing

A new delay emerged Wednesday for an expected decision by U.S. Navy leaders on the possible reinstatement of Capt. Brett Crozier, who was relieved of his command on April 2 of the coronavirus-plagued nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Acting Navy Secretary James McPherson says that after reviewing a "preliminary inquiry" into developments related to the sickened warship with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday, he wants a "deeper review" to address unanswered questions.

"Therefore, I am directing Adm. Gilday to conduct a follow-on command investigation," McPherson says in an emailed statement. "This investigation will build on the good work of the initial inquiry to provide a more fulsome understanding of the sequence of events, actions, and decisions of the chain of command surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt."
 
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