Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
For Captain Crozier, Loyalty Is a Two-Way Street
“There’s a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and is much less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates.” — General George S. Patton
As a career Noncommissioned Officer and a veteran of 20 years military service, I wonder if Navy brass — or if the senior ranks in any branch of America’s armed forces for that matter — understand what they are witnessing when they see that great throng of crew members aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt cheering in support of Captain Brett Crozier, who risked his career to save their lives? A Navy veteran on Twitter commented that:
I love that ppl from across the country are seeing this. But only Sailors are truly going to understand how monumental & rare a sendoff like this is. Once in your career if you’re extremely lucky will you see a CO like this. And if you’re Lotto-lucky, you get to serve with them.
During my time on active duty, I worked directly for over 30 senior and flag rank officers. Of those commanders, there are precisely two for whom I would gladly storm the very gates of hell if asked. That’s not to disparage the remainder, but merely to point out the relatively few, in my experience, whose loyalty to their people ranked higher than their career aspirations.
“Take care of your people,” we NCOs were told, “and they will take care of the mission.” It seemed more of a motto at times — a catchy phrase if you will — than a dogmatic and foundational conviction. Of course, that depended on the mission itself, which too often appeared to be one of getting the boss that next star.
One of the more enduring lessons embedded deep into the mind of anyone who has been in the military for at least a day is the abiding importance of the chain of command. That is the vehicle through which orders and procedures are dispatched downward and carried out. It is also the means through which concerns, ideas, and requests are carried up to the appropriate level for decisions and action. In those instances in which the chain of command is unresponsive, or the concern is a direct result of people in that chain, then other avenues are provided, e.g., the Inspector General’s office, congressional offices, etc.
To go outside of that chain is to risk a great deal, as military law expert, Gary Solis explained in an article at Quartz, emphasizing that, “there’s no room for failing to follow accepted and long-respected chain-of-command obligations.” Indeed. Which makes Capt Crozier’s actions even more intriguing since he never would have risen through the ranks to command the USS Theodore Roosevelt had he been the reckless sort who made a habit of stepping outside accepted channels, no?
Under the circumstances, it is reasonable to wonder whether Captain Crozier — who undoubtedly was well versed in the centrality of the chain of command to military order, discipline, and mission effectiveness — had found his chain of command’s response wanting in the level of urgency and decisiveness required to preserve the lives of the people who had been entrusted to his command. No one goes into the military believing they are indispensable, but the acceptable level of risk to human life in wartime conditions quite rightly differs from that of peacetime conditions, a point Capt Crozier felt necessary to underscore repeatedly in his letter.
Commenting on that letter, Navy Secretary Thomas Modly concluded that Capt Crozier had, “…unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our Sailors and Marines with no plan to address those concerns.” On the contrary, if those concerns revolve around the safety of the Sailors and Marines onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Captain Crozier’s letter provided specific courses of action to address those concerns. As for unnecessarily raising alarms, the latest reports show that 44 percent of the crew have been tested, with 155 personnel having tested positive for COVID-19 thus far. Given how rapidly this virus seems to spread, the idea that alarms were unnecessarily raised appears dubious.
To this observer, it seems that when a commander of Captain Crozier’s caliber goes outside the chain of command, that commander is making a vote of no confidence in the responsiveness of those who constitute that chain. Secretary Modly would do himself and the Navy a favor if he would but pause a moment and consider why an officer of Captain Crozier’s caliber felt his chain of command was inadequate to the needs of his sailors.
Oh, and whatever became of the two commanders for whom I would have gladly stormed the gates of hell? They both commanded the fierce loyalty of their troops, and they both retired prematurely.
Published in General
I second Spin’s thoughts here, D12 (except for the Navy being composed of rascals and scoundrels of course). Thanks much for taking the time and effort to parse through all this. As I said a few comments earlier, I could very well be too jaded from my own experiences,…but I can’t help but wonder: Unless the Navy is prone to letting people who are disposed to panic and fear exercise command over aircraft carriers, is there more to this than meets the eye?
Now, by training and inclination, I want to dive into the message traffic, etc., and see what was going on. If events proceeded as Secretary Modly says, why would the CO take such drastic action? I’m not saying that your final assessment is necessarily wrong, but I can’t help but wonder if some pieces to the story are missing.
As a vet of 20 years, you probably heard the old adage that, “the nail that sticks out gets pounded down very quickly.” When I initially heard the report, I had my doubts. (I wasn’t in the Navy but taking into account the experiences of the Skippers of the Indianapolis and the Pueblo, along with the treatment of Joe Rochefort, the Navy sometimes has the reputation of eating their own.) But when I heard that the message went out “in the clear” and copied twenty other addressees, that pretty much made up my mind.
Gotta wonder what was going through his mind. His upcoming statements/actions will tell us a lot about his state of mind, but until then we still have to wonder “Why?”. I hope that we haven’t heard the last of this. It deserves to be given a public airing for no other reason that we now have a civilian population that knows nothing of the “chain of command”, the “code of conduct” and the UCMJ. The Secretary of the Navy needs to make this happen.
Of course that is classified. Especially when it’s not just a sailor griping and it’s the commanding officer making what would be presumed to be a factual statement.
In my time in the service, whenever we were overseas, be it Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and even a three week stint in Ghana, we were ALWAYS instructed that our correspondence home was not to include anything that would indicate the operational readiness of the unit. Just because something doesn’t have a classified sticker on it doesn’t mean it’s not classified. It’s the nature of the information, not the labeling, that makes it classified.
Becoming the commander of an aircraft carrier is a very difficult process and takes a huge commitment early in an officer’s career.
First, the officer has to be a pilot, and a good pilot, of course. In the navy, unlike the air force, a pilot also has a ground job, such as maintenance officer, operations, officer, admin officer, etc. He has to be good at that job too. So far I’ve told you nothing extraordinary.
What makes the commander of an aircraft carrier special is that he also has to have had a tour as commander of a large surface ship. That means that at some point in his career, he is taken from the aviation world and put in the surface fleet and eventually made the commander of a large ship, such as a fast fleet oiler. He has to learn the importance of ship handling.
He would also be expected to go to higher level schools, such as the Naval War College, which takes a few years.
As you can imagine, the navy has to put a huge investment into these future aircraft commanders at a relatively early stage in their careers. These men are chosen early, and there is probably a large attrition rate from this pipeline early on, but there is only so much in the pipe. It’s not hard to imagine that someone mentored along this pipeline may not always be the aggressive war fighter we would like to see.
I have the greatest respect for naval aviators. I worked as a maintenance officer in a USMC squadron and I know that they are top notch people. I have the utmost awe for commanders of aircraft carriers, as should everyone. But that awe comes with the standard that I expect them to make good decisions. When those good decisions are not forthcoming, I have no tolerance. Capt Crozier’s sins are of the sort that I might expect from an O-3 captain or lieutenant, not an O-6 captain, and I wouldn’t tolerate it from that O-3 either.
Oh my! You need to fix that. It’s one of the best movies ever made, and a very good study in military leadership. You will certainly enjoy it.
They tried pulling that sh*tuff on me from time to time, usually when they were doing something illegal. It’s amazing what you can cover up by screaming classifed, and even more amazing when someone occasionally says “so what” and shines light on what shouldn’t be hidden.
Yeah, but that’s a different problem.
Which leads me to wonder. The Navy doesn’t mistakenly hand carriers to cretins, this man had the chops for the job and was well qualified. What happened behind the scenes will remain behind the scenes, where the Captain’s body will undoubtably be buried metaphorically speaking. Having seen a gundecked report or two, and not knowing the whole story, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s truly baffling and there must be some motive or actions or timeline detail that we don’t know about.
Apparently there was an admiral aboard commanding the group.
https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=112537
https://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ccsg9/Pages/bio1.aspx
Presumably he’s the next to go.
I had the same impression. However, I will add that I knew one of Patton’s soldiers very well. He grew up an orphan in Sommerville, MA, refused to join the Irish mob, and went to Mass every day. He fought from D-Day+3, was run over by a Tiger during the Bulge, and got his leg shattered on VE Day. He loved Patton. He said, “He was the only boss I ever had.”
This is an excellent reference, as “Twelve O’Clock High” is not only a great movie, it is an excellent (not perfect) parallel to the stresses and decisions that faced CAPT Crozier. The most striking similarity is that both Commanding Officers (in the movie and aboard CVN-71) were beloved by their crew and allowed that care to supersede its proper boundary.
Speaking of movies, today my kids wanted to watch the Pixar classic “WALL-E.” It is exceptional in its own right, but I couldn’t stop marveling at the parallels to the insane state of our society. We are trapped in our own little cocoons by a combination of authoritarian diktat and the collective lack of will to do/be better. As the movie approaches its climax, the authoritarian “Autopilot” has sabotaged the Captain’s attempt to follow the return-to-earth protocol and is confronted by the Captain, who demands that their spaceship (“Axiom”) be directed back to earth. Autopilot tells the captain that the earth is too dangerous, “On the Axiom,” he says, “you will survive.” The Captain’s defiant response should be shouted from every rooftop in America: “I don’t want to survive. I want to live!”
Hmm. I’m not sure there is any conceivable other side to this story. This isn’t a question about whether a pass was caught in bounds or not. This is a question of whether that guy picked up Joe Thiesman and broke his leg.
There are some important players that, as far as I know, haven’t been heard from. e.g Before arriving in Guam, the TR made a diplomatic port call in Da Nang on March 5 to commemorate 25 years of U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic relations. Sounds like a bad idea, as the pandemic reached 100,000 global cases while they were there. The CVN CO had little to say about this port call as the delegation was led by Commander Pacific Fleet. Haven’t heard anything from him yet.
Another “fleet commander” in the chain is Commander 7th Fleet. He probably wasn’t in Da Nang since he has his own ship, home-ported in Japan. Haven’t heard anything from him yet, but after all, he is just the Vice Admiral between the Captain and the Admiral.
The CVN was accompanied in Da Nang by USS Bunker Hill, a cruiser with a crew of about 530. Not sure where she is or whether anyone aboard has come down with the WuFlu. Good OpSec, Old Girl!
It’s a fascinating case in leadership and decision making, but there are still many unknowns.
I wouldn’t put it past the navy to eff this up every possible way to save face and present the appearance of invincibility. I also wouldn’t put it past any naval officer to eff this up every way possible because they are just human.
I still work for the navy, and right now we’re plowing forward with the mission until we run out of bodies with which to do it. It’s the ultimate mission, so I understand and fully support accomplishing the mission or die trying. I don’t know enough of the story (likely none of us ever will), but it seems to me this O-6 wasn’t willing to die trying. Maybe that’s a bit cynical, but it’s midnight and I’m making the same money accomplishing the mission as the non-essentials (nonners I believe is the Air Force term) are making “teleworking” from home.
Also:
All that being said, Modly is not covering himself in glory in this either.
Understatement of the day so far. I can’t stop laughing at the irony of SECNAV publicly saying that CAPT Crozier was stupid and naive while (stupidly and naively) thinking those remarks wouldn’t become public.
There’s a higher standard for the captain of a warship than there is for a politician, even the captain’s politician boss. Everyone expect politicians to be fools.
I have greatly enjoyed this conversation; thanks to all who’ve participated. As for myself, speaking as a civilian, I can’t understand why this Modly person (who I’d never heard of before this incident) is using words like “stupid” and “naive” when I would have thought a vocabulary consisting of terms like “insubordinate,” “reckless,” “disobedient” and “disrespectful of the chain of command” was express-made for the purpose.
Probably copying Trump’s style, but not as good at it.
Modly out. Who’s stupid now?
Apparently they don’t teach that the chain of command goes both ways in SECNAV school. He should have said those things in private to the CNO. [Expletive] rolls down hill, it doesn’t get carpet bombed from on high like it did here.
That’s a myth they teach enlisted people to make them feel more important. It doesn’t go both ways, in fact. Whenever the General wants to talk to a Private, he has all the authority in the world to do so, but that Private better know that he can’t just go talk to the General without a whole lot of paperwork. You can demand to talk to the General, and you have that right, but you have to run the guantlet of everyone in between who will try mightily to stop you.
And the general that dresses down the colonel in front of the private defines bad leadership.
Ah, no he doesn’t. The General does what the General wants, and there’s no getting around that. Leadership is defined as getting people to do what you want them to do. There are leaders who lead by instilling loyalty, and there are leaders who inspire fear. Hitler was a phenomenal leader. He was thoroughly evil, but people followed him. The military, in the end, only cares about that result, though they mouth platitudes to the contrary.
I’m very disappointed in myself for believing that the press would get the quote right. Modly didn’t say CAPT Crozier was stupid and naive, he said that if Crozier “didn’t think that information was going to get out into the public, in this information age that we live in, then he was A, too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this.” It’s subtle but it is important. What he is saying is that CAPT Crozier is smart and savvy and thus MUST have known it would get into the press. Basically, the exact opposite of what is being reported.
Now, Modly was illadvised to go make the address that he did to those sailors. I am embarrassed for the Navy that they didn’t have serious PR professionals all over him to shepherd him through the crisis. BUT: the press universally mischaracterized his statement.
Recording here.
Transcript here.
Well, the press gets everything wrong. Read anything they write on a topic you are versed in and you know instantly how ignorant they are. It’s like that for every SME concerning the press and their field. They are universally ill-equipped to inform, but that’s what they do. I don’t think how wrong the were in this (as is their custom) has any bearing at all on Modly’s behavior.
My first CO was a douche of the highest order. Had anyone from Big Navy come onboard and trashed the guy I would have been pissed. It’s just not how it works. When he got retired after my first patrol I was happy because it was deserved. Had Squadron informed him of this over the 1MC I would have been angry for him.
Overall I’m not sure anyone got anything right in this except Modly resigning.
Agreed. There was no reason for secnav to even be there.
I think it was the Daily Mail that quoted the part of the transcript where SECNAV said that he thought Capt Crozier was neither stupid nor naive, but rather wanted wider dissemination of his letter. Of course the headline for that same story said that Secretary Modly had called Capt Crozer stupid and naive. Read any press piece on gun control, for example, and you’ll see that they can’t distinguish between an AR-15 on semi-auto and an M-60 mowing down everyone around, so you get an immediate sense of just how woefully inept so many in the media really are.
That said,…Secretary Modly’s outburst underscores my own suspicion that something was happening behind the scenes that, while not vindicating Capt Crozier’s decision to shotgun the letter all over the place (I haven’t seen the list of addressees, so I can’t say that the letter was sent directly to the media), suggests that he thought the virus to be more of an immediate threat to his crew than the chain of command could adequately handle. Right or wrong, Capt Crozier’s actions suggest a certain nobility of purpose on behalf of his crew, since he undoubtedly knew the risk to his career such a letter would engender. In contrast, I have a tough time seeing much in the way of honorable sacrifice in SECNAV’s insult-laden screed.
On the one hand you have a commander who apparently felt he had to risk his career to help his crew, and on the other hand you have an unhinged and seemingly vindictive service secretary. At this point, I don’t see any winners in this saga.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of our military. However, once I had a failure to see eye-to-eye with my immediate supervisor. He was pressuring me to forgo testing on some software. The software was for flight controls. I sent him an email with the subject line including the suffix “Safety of Flight.”
We had a nice little chat after that. He knew that there were other avenues that I could have taken (his boss and the engineering ombudsman, primarily). He also knew that I knew it. He further knew that I was just bullheaded enough to do it. My concerns were adequately addressed. Everything handled through the formally informal chain of command.
The captain CCed thirty people? He might as well have told the New York Times.
I see nothing noble. Two wrongs don’t make a right.