The Navy might reinstate Capt. Brett Crozier, former commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. That’s because Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday might be finding that it was Crozier’s chain of command that failed him and not the other way around.
The first point to note here is that there are a lot of unanswered questions as to why Crozier sent off his mass email warning of coronavirus calamity and requesting an urgent return to port. Sent to numerous Navy officers outside Crozier’s direct command chain, that email got Crozier fired. But did Crozier send the email because he was angry at not getting his way? Or was that because Rear Adm. Stuart Baker and higher-ups were stonewalling, putting his crew at risk?
To get to the bottom of this, Gilday is now investigating the circumstances of what happened on the USS Theodore Roosevelt prior to Crozier’s email. A significant part of that investigation involves a deep dive into the messages from the USS Theodore Roosevelt up to the Pacific Fleet and on to Indo-Pacific Command as the crisis grew.
But we already have evidence that Crozier’s top superiors, Adm. John Aquilino at Pacific Fleet and Adm. Philip Davidson of Indo-Pacific Command, may have led poorly here. As former Navy commanding officers have noted, we need to know why the carrier made its Vietnam port call in March. After all, that started the outbreak on the carrier. Both Davidson and Aquilino have a reputation for top-down leadership. Davidson has also shown a penchant for sidelining issues that bear political complications. As ProPublica reported last year, Davidson appeared to mislead Sen. Angus King as to the speed and success with which the Navy was reforming its Pacific Fleet following two separate 2017 warship collisions with civilian vessels.
That gives an interesting context for Esper’s comments to CBS News on Friday.
Asked whether Crozier might return to his captain’s chair, Esper stated, “We’ve taken nothing off the table. What I look to do is hear from the chain of command … We’ll see how that plays out. At some point here in the coming days, they will come to me and share with me their findings and their recommendations.”
Now-fired acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly last weekend lambasted the carrier’s crew and emphasized that mission readiness was the overriding priority. But, in a message to the fleet on Wednesday, Gilday sang a different tune. Health currently comes before fleet operations, he suggested. “I have three priorities for us right now,” Gilday said, “First, our health and safety. Second, ongoing fleet operations and our support to the coronavirus effort. Third, continuing to generate the enormous amount of support required to keep #1 and #2 on track.” Addressing these challenging circumstances, Gilday observed that “there is no better example of this than USS Theodore Roosevelt.”
So, yes, both Esper and Gilday seem to be taking this situation seriously. But, if their investigation finds that Crozier was failed by his leaders and not vice versa, those leaders must face consequences. Too often, the Navy has been willing to scapegoat its warship commanders in order to protect its admirals. That must not happen here. The stakes for the Pacific Fleet are simply too high to get this wrong.
