Adding insult to injury after relieving USS Theodore Roosevelt Captain Brett Crozier of duty last week, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly delivered an address to his crew on Monday deriding their beloved commanding officer as “stupid” and “naive.”
Crozier heroically stood up for the health and well-being of the 4,000 sailors under his command by writing a letter to Navy officials begging them for help after the coronavirus struck his ship.
“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, recommending that the crew be evacuated to shore on Guam and quarantined and the ship thoroughly cleaned.
Crozier acted to protect his crew, but instead of being rewarded and praised, President Donald Trump’s lackey Navy Secretary fired him.
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Crozier’s crew wildly cheered for their commander as he left the aircraft carrier over the weekend in appreciation for his efforts on their behalf.
Brett Crozier, the dismissed captain of U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, received a hero’s ovation from crew members https://t.co/J3jIGFTSpl pic.twitter.com/DjqxkUqrzw
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 4, 2020
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Modly to relieve Crozier of duty — he had to slander him in remarks piped through the ship’s PA system to the crew, accusing him of “betrayal” and calling him “stupid.”
“It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public’s forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC,” Modly whined. “If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out to the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose.”
This is an outrageous charge Modly just leveled at Crozier. Accusing a Naval officer of “betrayal” appears to be laying the groundwork for a court-martial, and smearing Crozier has to negatively affect the morale of the crew on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, not to mention the entire Navy.
The remarks are certainly already outraging defense officials, one of whom told CNN that Modly “should be fired” and that he doesn’t “know how he survives this day.”
Indeed, Modly should be fired, but Trump won’t do it — because he agrees with Modly. Modly and Trump would have preferred Crozier and his crew to die in silence rather than have the extent of their incompetence in handling the pandemic be exposed. And if Crozier is court-martialed, don’t expect Trump to pardon him. After all, Trump only likes Naval officers who commit war crimes. An officer who actually puts the safety of his crew first is not worth his time.
Featured image via screen capture
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