This opinion piece from the morning's WSJ touches on that aspect a bit:


A Failure of Discipline Under Capt. Crozier’s Command
He should have spoken truth to power privately. His crew risked infection by gathering to cheer him.

By William J. Toti

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.

Well, there is one thing Modly was correct about in his speech.

He reserved a fair bit for China as well: "One of the things about his email that bothered me the most was saying we're not at war. We're not technically at war. But let me tell you something—the only reason we're dealing with this right now is because of a big, authoritarian regime called China [that] was not forthcoming about what was happening with this virus. And they put the world at risk to protect themselves and to protect their reputation."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/acting-navy-secretary-hammers-captain-he-relieved-over-coronavirus/?comments=0

Timeline of events starting with CVN-71 cruise starting from San Diego:

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/04/timeline-battle-uss-theodore-roosevelt/164408/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl

^^^ LOL....

"Fu*k this guy and the seahorse he rode in on"

It just doesn't get any better than that :)

agree.......... it was ham handed.

:(

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/modly-resign-crozier-esper-trump/index.html

“Acting secretary of the Navy has submitted his resignation after calling ousted aircraft carrier captain 'stupid”

They were both wrong.
They should both be relieved of command

^^^this

Crozier - noble but wrong
Modly - asshat and wrong

The entire chain of command should be fired, too. This problem should’ve been handled effectively by the flag officers without the political appointees having to get involved. Heads need to roll.

I'm with the posters above who wonder wtf is going on with the culture in the Navy. Poor training, sloppy leadership, bad navigation... wow.

CAPT Crozier is an American hero, and he must be vindicated.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/us/politics/coronavirus-roosevelt-carrier-crozier.amp.html

Thank you.

He's now tested positive and has been moved to the hospital on Guam. Kid's 19, joined the Navy right out of high school. Never really been away from home. Fingers crossed.

But is he really sick or does he just have a bit of a cough for which they quarantined him?
Most in that age group like 99.9% don't have any grave problems from it.

This kind of random speculation when his test came back positive drives me nuts. Why can’t you just go with his test results? Too biased?

Just read that there are serious discussions underway considering his reinstatement. Apparently doing the moral thing of looking after his crew may just outweigh blind obedience to COC. But then blind obedience worked well for the Nazis and we know how that played out.

I did not speculate, I asked a question.

Good job dragging Nazi's in there..

^^^this^^^

I'll ask his mother. :rolleyes:

You make it sound like an odd question.

If anybody tells me "Friend X has been admitted to hospital".
I'll always ask "why how, is it serious or not?"

Do you always assume "admitted to hospital" = ICU ???

wow, he called the Captain stupid on the ship? In front of the ship's company? wow. And this guy is an Academy graduate?

Not only that, he spent $250,000 of public money to fly to Guam expressly to spend 30 minutes on the ship berating the captain and crew, take no questions and fly back to the US.