Navy snaps back
Brass trashes capt. over warning on virus
To many Americans, Navy Capt. Brett Crozier is a hero who bravely risked his career to warn about the danger of coronavirus on his ship.
To the Navy’s boss, he blew the pandemic way out of proportion.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly defended relieving Crozier of his command of the Theodore Roosevelt over his plea that “Sailors do not need to die.”
“It created a panic, a little bit of a panic on the ship ... it misrepresented the facts of what was going on,” Modly said.
Crozier warned in a fourpage memo that conditions on board the ship were not safe and that immediate action should be taken to protect the lives of sailors.
“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,” Crozier wrote in the letter to his superior officers.
Modly claimed that Crozier copied up to 30 officials on his memo, which led to it leaking out to the media.
“That’s just not acceptable,” he said.
Two Democratic congressmen called Friday on the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate the decision to remove Crozier from his command.
“He blew the whistle on COVID-19,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California).
The Navy boss implausibly denied that the demotion would have a chilling effect on other military officers who fear for the health of those under their command.
“We want all of our captains to be concerned. But we have a proper way of handling this,” Modly said.
So far, 114 sailors have tested positive on board the ship, which carries about 5,000 sailors and is now docked at Guam.
Modly emphasized that none have required hospitalization and some don’t even have any symptoms, although health experts warn that the virus can easily spread among even those who show no symptoms at all and put others in life-threatening danger.
“It raised alarm bells unnecessarily,” the acting secretary said.
He suggested that the demotion was handled by the book. But he inadvertently spilled the beans about the real motivation: Capt. Crozier embarrassed the top brass by telling the truth.
“It creates the impression that the Navy is not on the job, that the government is not on the job,” he said. “And it’s just not true.”
Democratic presidential front runner Joe Biden backed Crozier.
“The poor judgment here belongs to the Trump Admin, not a courageous officer trying to protect his sailors,” Biden wrote on Twitter.
Sailors under Crozier’s command posted videos on social media voicing support for their ousted commander and Americans flooded Twitter with messages backing him. More than 130,000 people had signed a change.org petition calling for Crozier’s reinstatement as of Friday evening.