Explaining the decision to relieve Capt. Brett Crozier of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the Navy said that Crozier undermined the chain of command. The captain did so, argued former acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly, by sending an unclassified email warning of the coronavirus outbreak on his ship to numerous officers outside his chain of command.
On Thursday, that argument got a lot weaker when the Washington Post released a copy of the header of the email that saw Crozier fired.
That email shows Crozier did indeed include his chain of command on the email. While captain contemporaries of Crozier were also copied on the email, the top three direct addressees were Pacific Fleet commanding officer Adm. John Aquilino, commander of Naval Air Forces Vice Adm. Dewolfe Miller, and USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group commander Rear Adm. Stuart Baker. These are Crozier’s superiors who possessed the authority, resources, and staff expertise to find an appropriate and timely solution to meet the crisis at hand. It appears they failed him and his crew.
That they were copied on the message thus directly undercuts the Navy’s central contention of Crozier’s unacceptable conduct. We still don’t know what authority and orders Crozier sought from his superiors between March 24, when the first sailors tested positive for the virus, and this email, on March 30, but we now know that the captain was utilizing his chain of command right up until the moment he was fired. This email further reinforces the notion that Crozier was made a scapegoat for the command failures of more senior admirals.
The chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, is expected on Monday to announce his conclusions from an investigation into Crozier’s conduct and the Navy’s varied responses to it. This matters more than ever in that more than 600 of Theodore Roosevelt’s crew have tested positive for the coronavirus, and one has died.
Gilday’s review will give us much-needed information and context as to how the Navy is handling this situation. To their credit, Gilday and Secretary of Defense Mike Esper have said all options, including Crozier’s reappointment, are on the table pending the investigation. But, if it does turn out that Crozier’s leaders failed him and not vice versa, the Navy must hold those leaders to account. That need finds greater impetus by the fact that the Pacific Fleet has shown a particular penchant for throwing commanding officers under the bus while shielding senior leaders from accountability.
Still, none of this means Crozier will necessarily be cleared of bad judgment. One former commanding officer suggested to me that Crozier could have sent his message right up to Esper’s office rather than sending out his email and to the copy list. Doing so would have maintained the chain of command but avoided the Navy’s public embarrassment. Of course, it’s possible Crozier considered doing just that but felt he had run out of time to save his crew.
Other questions remain unresolved: Why didn’t Crozier’s superiors respond more quickly to Crozier’s pleas for assistance? Which admirals pushed to keep the ship at sea and “operationally ready” as opposed to preventing the spread of coronavirus among the crew? And what does this say about the “command climate” in the Pacific when a carrier commander has his career killed for speaking the truth, all while maintaining absolute loyalty to the chain of command?
We don’t yet know. Hopefully, however, we’ll get some answers next week.
