Navy Captain Relieved of Command Following An Email Raising Alarm on Coronavirus

Captain Crozier was the commander of the aircraft carrier, USS Roosevelt. Up until yesterday, that is when the Navy relieved him of his command following a leaked email regarding the safety of his crew.

His crew is currently fighting coronavirus on their ship. Captain Crozier had several serious issues with the lack of quarantine between sick crew and well crew. Crozier wrote an email up the chain of command voicing these concerns.

.@SECNAV on firing Capt. Brett Crozier: "It was copied to 20 or 30 other people. OK? That's just not acceptable. He did not take care. What that did, it created a panic, a little bit of a panic on the ship…it misrepresented the facts of what was going on on the ship." pic.twitter.com/xvSsANem1N

— CSPAN (@cspan) April 3, 2020

To most, he is a hero that put the lives of his men before his career. The problem that came for Crozier is that the email he sent to the chain of command was also allegedly forwarded to 20-30 other people not in his chain of command.

The military has a significant history with men like Crozier. It is easy to make them the scapegoat in times of crisis. This track record leaves a lot of Americans confused about who we should be rooting for.

The Acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas B. Modly, stated that it wasn’t Captain Crozier’s concerns for his crew that got him fired, but instead that the email “was copied to 20 or 30 other people.” He said that Captain Crozier “did not take care” of the classified email chain. Modly stated that this caused a “little” panic on the ship, and it caused a big panic with the crews’ families.

I could see this being a bit of both parties being right and wrong. On the one hand, you have a “company man” that shouldn’t leak information that would clearly look negatively upon his organization. If what the Navy is claiming is true and they were working on solutions to the problem, and he leaked the email, then he deserved to be fired. We cannot have military leaders that leak classified emails, especially at a time where tensions are high.

However, if the captain was throwing his concerns up to the head office and they were not communicating with him or giving him a plan on how they were going to aid these sailors, then he did what needed to be done to help his crew.

I know this for sure, his crew loves and admires him.

BREAKING: US Navy sailors on aircraft carrier in Guam break out in cheers thanking Captain Crozier and chanting his name after he was fired from his positing for protecting them pic.twitter.com/UPmaqnmApq

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 3, 2020

Truly incredible footage from the USS Theodore Roosevelt as Captain Crozier is relieved of duty for speaking out on behalf of his sailors.
**Not my video. I can't find the original source. I copied it this morning before it disappeared. It's verified by other videos' angles.** pic.twitter.com/C6fWVsxhkl

— Alderaanian🇺🇦Rose (@AlderaanianR) April 3, 2020

Outrageous. Navy Captain Crozier was relieved of his command of USS Roosevelt for blowing whistle on Coronavirus threat onboard. He put his sailors first, and Trump put his ass out. Shameful!
Where is the outrage from all those “pro-military Republicans”? pic.twitter.com/ixRYxocOZc

— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) April 3, 2020