The high cost of bold leadership
Capt. Brett Crozier left the nuclearpowered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Rooosevelt to cheers and applause from sailors he cared about so deeply that he put his career on the line for their wellbeing. His willingness to sound the alarm about coronavirus infections on the carrier — and the need to get the crew out of harm’s way, pronto — led the Navy to relieve him of his command.
It seems that Crozier committed the ultimate sin: He embarrassed his superiors, no matter that it was in the noble cause of potentially preserving the health and potentially the lives of the men and women beneath him.
On Monday, Crozier sent an urgent letter to his chain of command to warn that more than 100 sailors had tested positive for the coronavirus and “the spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.” Obviously, the concept of social distancing is impossible on a warship with nearly 5,000 sailors, so Crozier implored the Navy brass for a largescale evacuation while the Roosevelt was docked in Guam.
“We are not at war,” wrote Crozier, a Santa Rosa native. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our must trusted asset — our Sailors.”
He asked for “compliant quarantine rooms” for the entire crew in Guam. He said keeping them on board the carrier would be “an unnecessary risk.”
The letter was obtained exclusively by The Chronicle, reported by Matthias Gafni and Joe Garofoli, and instantly became a national story.
Top Navy officials initially backed Crozier. “The fact that he wrote the letter ... to his chain of command to express his concerns would absolutely not result in any type of retaliation,” Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, said Wednesday. “This is what we want our commanding officers to be able to do.”
On Thursday, the retaliation was delivered.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Crozier was relieved of his command “at my direction.” Modly said he was not aware of the letter’s characterization of a grave situation until he read about it in The Chronicle. The acting secretary said Crozier erred by copying the email to 20 or 30 people, thus elevating the chances it would become public. The Navy did not present any evidence that Crozier leaked the letter to a journalist. Still, Modly said the distribution of the letter showed “extremely poor judgment in times of crisis.”
Modly called command “a sacred trust,” and there is no doubt that Crozier did not follow it as he should have. He bent the rules to push the brass to safeguard his people. This is what leaders do when the stakes are life and death. To relieve him of his command sends a regrettable message to other naval officers who might want to speak up when their charges are in imminent danger.
It’s worth remembering that Modly became acting secretary after his predecessor, Richard Spencer, was fired by President Trump for dissenting from the White House efforts on behalf of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, convicted of a war crime in Iraq for posing with a corpse. Trump reversed disciplinary action against Gallagher and pardoned two other military personnel who had been accused of murder.
Trump has compared the coronavirus battle to war with an “invisible enemy.”
It seems that the rules of order and discipline in this war are strictly enforced even when they are breached in a desperate effort to save American lives.