The captain of the U.S.S. Roosevelt has been fired. Capt. Brett Crozier was relieved of his command after he sent a letter to the Pentagon raising the alarm over dozens of cases of COVID-19 on his ship. The letter was leaked to the media.
NBC News writes:
“Speaking at a news conference Thursday evening, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Crozier was removed from his post because he sent the letter over “non-secure unclassified email” to a “broad array of people” rather than up the chain of command.
“I have no doubt in my mind that Captain Crozier did what he thought was in the best interest of the safety and well-being of his crew,” Modly said. “Unfortunately, it did the opposite. It unnecessarily raised the alarm of the families of our sailors and Marines with no plans to address those concerns.”
It was quite the scene on the deck of the Roosevelt as Crozier departed the ship.
The San Francisco Chronicle first obtained the letter:
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”
“In the four-page letter to senior military officials, Crozier said only a small contingent of infected sailors have been off-boarded. Most of the crew remain aboard the ship, where following official guidelines for 14-day quarantines and social distancing is impossible.:
“Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space, we are not doing this,” Crozier wrote. “The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.”
Democrats were outraged at the ouster. From NBC:
“Former Vice President Joe Biden also blasted the Navy’s acting secretary in a statement, saying that he “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.”
