The captain of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier facing a growing outbreak of the coronavirus on his ship was fired by Navy leaders who said he created a panic by sending his memo pleading for help to too many people.See, if you murder prisoners on a battlefield, your lawyer can go on Fox News and whine and Trump, the Chickenhawk-in-Chief, will protect your ass.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said the ship’s commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, “demonstrated extremely poor judgment” in the middle of a crisis. He said the captain copied too many people on the memo, which was leaked to a California newspaper and quickly spread to many news outlets.
But if you do everything that you can to look after the health and welfare of the people who are under your command, you'll get fired.
Good to know.
ADDED THOUGHT: It will be very interesting to see whether or nor Capt. Crozier successfully screens for admiral. Very interesting, indeed.
14 comments:
Yea, but now it's on record that the captain warned his superiors about the disease outbreak. For, you know, those court marshal times when you need receipts.
And, since the mode now is to simply reverse whatever the last president achieved, when old Joe gets in office he can reinstate this captain and fire the cowardly political admirals who fired the captain.
Generally, I don't salute - chalk it up to a bad experience in my youth.
I salute this man.
I have all the respect in the world for a commander who puts his men and women above his career. At least he gets to sleep at night.
Ferchrissake, dude was just fired.
Give Donnie a chance to screw this up willya?
A couple of weeks, at least before he can act.
I mean, I know you hate him, but jesus.
The case of The Brass vs. the Front Line is very old.
Mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un Amiral pour encourager les autres.
My Son-in-law is a chief on the TR. It looks like the SECNAV's attitude was "suck it up, Buttercup". You could retire national debt by selling tickets to the SECNAV's keelhauling in the Tidal Pool while the whole E-Ring is made to watch. Voltaire knew their type.
The buck stops where, B?
His crew seem to like him quite a bit.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Like many government actions.lately, this one seems to be one that benefits Putin.
The Navy just told everybody that the ego of perfumed princes in the Pentagon is more important than the health and welfare of the sailors on the ship. Who, I might add, signed up to put their lives on the line to defend America, not to defend the egos of assholes in Washington D.C. At least, that's why I went to the recruiting office (well, that, and money, and college tuition, I ain't gonna lie). This is going to send morale into a crapper. Sailors are willing to die for their country, but they didn't sign up to die for some entitled Twitler's offended ego.
Although I will state that this captain's career was over anyhow the moment he stepped outside his chain of command (said chain of command not being willing to admit to their own superiors that we'd lost a battlegroup due to coronavirus to their superiors). And he knew it. He knowingly threw himself on that grenade to save the lives of his crew. But I certainly didn't expect a public firing like this. Usually what happens is that a flag officer with that many years gets asked (i.e. ordered) to "retire" and a couple of weeks later quietly slinks off the ship in civies to civilian life and a rocking chair. This kind of public thrashing is a PR nightmare for the Navy and is attracting attention from all the wrong people, like Senators.
And finally, for those who say "but that letter gave too much information to our adversaries" -- bullshit. The Chinese know where our carrier battlegroups are at all times. They have a submarine that sits off the bow of each of our carrier battlegroups tracking it, they have satellites, they have radio intercept stations that at the least can do traffic analysis even if they can't break our encryption, and they have actual spies with actual eyes that can see shit like, say, a carrier battle group arriving in port. They knew when the TR arrived in Guam. They watched as sick sailors were wheeled out on stretchers. They could do the math, the TR arrived in Vietnam on day X, now we're day X+16, yeah, the TR is fucked. Thinking our adversaries are stupid is how you get fucked, pure and simple. It's like lining up our battleships in Pearl Harbor with no torpedo nets because racist Americans thought the Japanese were too fucking stupid to create shallow-running torpedoes. Yeah, that one worked out well...
If Trump was caught choking Melania on the White House front lawn, the Trumpbots would be insisting that he was trying to help her with a variant of the Heimlich Manuver, while the Foxbots on Fox And Friends, (I mean Fox and Fiends), would be praising him for his quick and decisive response to a medical emergency.
Well, B., Donnie’s statement makes it perfectly clear who directed the Captain be removed. It also removes any question of how the screen for Admiral will go. Come back Monday for another B. pandemic flashback.
CP88, the president can’t control the selection board. He can refuse to accept the recommendation. Selecting Crozier would be a solid “FOAD” from the admirals to Mobly and Trump.
I understand, but it’s been made perfectly clear that those same m3mbers of the selection board would effectively end THEIR careers. Mobly’s comments on the Captain to his crew were “interesting”.
And the backlash is even more interesting. Donnie is tossing Mobley under the bus AND then backing over him to be sure. Lawmakers are jumping in too.
Post a Comment