UPDATE:
On 2 April, the U.S. Navy relieved Captain Brett Crozier of command of CVN71. Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, announced the news with several details. You can view it here. An interesting point announced by the Secretary was that Commander Crozier sent the letter outside secure channels and cc:’d it to several other parties. Further details can be found here.
It’s good on the surface that something was done about this serious situation, yet the damage and fear it spiked certainly messed things up a bit. My question is why did a career, admiral-track, flag officer of the US Navy do such a thing? His career is effectively over. Especially considering his superior officer – no name was given, but I would assume a rear-admiral – was on-board the ship and, as Secretary Modly pointed out, “just down the passageway.”
He certainly could have “flipped-out,” yet they don’t give commands of super-carriers to fly-by-nights. I’ll be interested to see where Captain Crozier is assigned next… but likely that will be information hard to find.
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Original blog dated 1 April
On 24 March, it was reported that three sailors aboard CVN 71 had CV19. On 26 March, Reuters reported that the US Military was no longer going to report CV19 numbers as it could compromise national security. Why, on 31 March, is a strangely patriotic letter (see letter here) to Naval Command by US Navy Flag Officer, Capt. Brett Crozier, allowed to be “media-ized”?
Can we ask questions, please?
This commander is no slouch, but commanded the 7th Fleet flag ship, USS Blue Ridge, prior to commanding the “Big Stick” CVN 71. He’s a trusted commander. I’m going out on a limb here and say that no other letters of Capt. Crozier ever saw the light of day outside of official channels. Why this one?
Is every piece of “information” – unverifiable in this case no less – going to be presented and summarily believed by everyone without a single question being asked? Ugh.
