USS Theodore Roosevelt captain relieved of command

[Th'Axe]

I served under 5 captains in the USN. One of the five was truly respected and served by his men. He would look at a neighboring vessel to relieve a man of the responsibility of dropping his load and saluting. The rest were ring-knockers only interested in climbing the ladder. I feel for Bart.

[Neil K Walk]

Originally Posted by spock

My sentiments exactly. Suggesting that the crew applauding the captain says all that needs to be said does not even begin to consider the potential ramifications of allowing enemies to know that one of 10 Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carriers could possibly be less than fully operational. That's why the crew does not make the decisions that determine military operations, and why military communications in situations like this are guarded so carefully.

Do I understand the human element in this story - of course I do. If it had been one of my sons or daughter aboard this carrier, I would have wanted them out of harms way in no uncertain terms, but I also understand that, if, and I mean IF, proper chain of command protocol was not followed, and/or unsecured communications were employed by the captain to get the attention he felt he and his men deserved, then the captain did not just put his men at risk, but the country as well and deserves to be relieved of duty.

If the proper chain of command was followed to the letter and was being summarily dismissed or ignored and the captain decided his conscience would not allow him to stand down and allow the situation to proceed unchecked, despite knowing the potential career ramifications that would ensue, I can certainly understand the actions but still believe he stepped outside the lines of established military protocol and that is not acceptable. If we're talking about our local Target store manager, that's one thing, but this involves natural security, a totally different situation.

I served aboard the USS Forrestal (CV-59) from 1988-1990 as a junior enlisted member of the ship's company. Living conditions aboard are EXTREMELY tight and the job is stressful enough that any impairment could cause a mistake that leads to disaster. The way I see it, the captain chose the lesser of two evils: insubordination over potential disaster caused by the crew's inability to pay attention to details in the course of their duties.

[Mr. Jelly]

I assume the captain didn't trust the upper brass to do the right thing. What other reason would a dedicated lifer that has worked his way up the ladder do such a thing knowingly trashing his future.

[guitarget]

"We're clearly way into uncharted territory on all fronts."

Pretty much covers it.

Certainly not the first time the Navy has relieved a very popular Commanding Officer - remember Cat Futch dancing on the sail planes of the USS Finback?

D.W.
USMC
USN/SS

[Nama Ensou]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Knowingly or not, here are the facts of life:
1) You simply cannot publicly release information about the operational status and viability of a military asset or handle it in a way that it can fall into public hands. No can do. Any enemy can use that information to their advantage.
2) You don't want to cause the families of the crewmen undue alarm in a situation that they can't have any influence upon.
3) At the point of information leak there were less than 100 crewmen diagnosed out of a total ship's and air wing's crew of over 5000. If I remember right, it was in the vicinity of 50. As of this morning there were 159 diagnosed.

You can see the emotional impact the threat would have with the captain, but the code of military discipline doesn't allow compromising the operational secrecy of the unit. As others have said, I feel for all involved.

Originally Posted by spock

My sentiments exactly. Suggesting that the crew applauding the captain says all that needs to be said does not even begin to consider the potential ramifications of allowing enemies to know that one of 10 Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carriers could possibly be less than fully operational. That's why the crew does not make the decisions that determine military operations, and why military communications in situations like this are guarded so carefully.

Do I understand the human element in this story - of course I do. If it had been one of my sons or daughter aboard this carrier, I would have wanted them out of harms way in no uncertain terms, but I also understand that, if, and I mean IF, proper chain of command protocol was not followed, and/or unsecured communications were employed by the captain to get the attention he felt he and his men deserved, then the captain did not just put his men at risk, but the country as well and deserves to be relieved of duty.

If the proper chain of command was followed to the letter and was being summarily dismissed or ignored and the captain decided his conscience would not allow him to stand down and allow the situation to proceed unchecked, despite knowing the potential career ramifications that would ensue, I can certainly understand the actions but still believe he stepped outside the lines of established military protocol and that is not acceptable. If we're talking about our local Target store manager, that's one thing, but this involves natural security, a totally different situation.

These two posts seem to cover how I feel on the issue, and no, the military isn't run as a popular vote by cheer democracy, thankfully.

[cmd612]

Originally Posted by spock

Suggesting that the crew applauding the captain says all that needs to be said . . . .

I assume this refers to my post. Apparently my meaning was not clear. I did not say that the applause was all that needed to be said. I said that was all I could post on this forum, given the rules and the nature of the question.

[Golffishny]

When you sign up for military duty your job #1 is defense and security of our country. Benefits of health care, education, traveling is all background. The military is not a democracy and you don't get to publicly 2nd guess your higher ups. Response to a plea for help doesn't always come in a timely fashion. That's especially true with the pandemic at this time. Reference all national, state and local governments and health organizations. It's nice to be liked by your crew, but a great officer will be respected by his crew and ranking officers, whether they agree with him or not. The officer will also respect the crew and higher ups. Apparently that wasn't the case here. No easy choices, but I tend to dismiss media coverage as slanted for sensationalism. YMMV.

[The Watchman]

What should be of concern is what might be going on at all the military posts and bases and other ships, that we haven't heard about.

[ctgagnon]

If you do the math, given conservatively 59 cases and exponential infection rate, it would take less than a week to infect the whole ship. I'd say he needed to do something.

[spock]

If you do the math, given conservatively 59 cases and exponential infection rate, it would take less than a week to infect the whole ship.

Your statement assumes 100% guaranteed transmissibility for those exposed to COVD-19 - that is simply not true. Go look at the data assimilated from the CDC on the Diamond Princess cruise line, one of the first situations involving multiple positive cases of COVID-19 in close quarters, and a veritable floating petri dish and working lab to assess the characteristics of the virus, and a full 80% of the 3711 passengers and crew, despite being in close contact with each other and not fully knowing anything about social distancing, were never infected. Of those who were, nearly 50% of those were asymptomatic.

[Neil K Walk]

Originally Posted by spock

Your statement assumes 100% guaranteed transmissibility for those exposed to COVD-19 - that is simply not true. Go look at the data assimilated from the CDC on the Diamond Princess cruise line, one of the first situations involving multiple positive cases of COVID-19 in close quarters, and a veritable floating petri dish and working lab to assess the characteristics of the virus, and a full 80% of the 3711 passengers and crew, despite being in close contact with each other and not fully knowing anything about social distancing, were never infected. Of those who were, nearly 50% of those were asymptomatic.

You're assuming that life on board a US Navy vessel is similar to life on a cruise ship. LOL! Shipmate, you couldn't be more wrong! The Navy donated the 4 Iowa class battleships and the USS Midway (CV-43) as nautical museums. Have you toured one? These ships (built in the 1940s) are comparable in size to the supercarrier that came on the scene just 10 years later. They were all retrofit in the the 1990s with the crew accommodations of the time, and from what I've seen the Navy has not updated anything in the 30 years hence.

This is an image from the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk. It was not very different from what I lived in aboard an aircraft carrier 30 years ago and what I'm scene on documentaries aboard Nimitz class carriers which were designed in the 1960s.



That space is shared by SIX people. If you're a Trekkie you'd note that even the "Borg" have more living space. Note the lack of any sort of ladder to climb in the top bunks. People in the bottom wake up to the smell of feet and people in the middle will get the same feet on their pillows if they're not tidy about making their bed.

As for containing a contagion, IIRC these people were eventually isolated to their staterooms. As you can see, this is not possible for the enlisted ranks aboard a combatant vessel as you're within inches - if not in frequent physical contact with another person within the living spaces.

[Cypress Knee]

Originally Posted by ctgagnon

If you do the math, given conservatively 59 cases and exponential infection rate, it would take less than a week to infect the whole ship. I'd say he needed to do something.

"Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there were 155 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among sailors aboard the aircraft carrier". He also said over half had been tested, but we don't know if that is 51% or 75% or what the number may be.

There is also an investigation into the command climate in the Pacific over this incident. If the results of that investigation are made public, it will probably make for some interesting reading.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Neil K Walk

You're assuming that life on board a US Navy vessel is similar to life on a cruise ship. LOL! Shipmate, you couldn't be more wrong!
As for containing a contagion, IIRC these people were eventually isolated to their staterooms. As you can see, this is not possible for the enlisted ranks aboard a combatant vessel as you're within inches - if not in frequent physical contact with another person within the living spaces.

Just a wee bit different perhaps (not to mention each with their own bathroom being different )

[Cincy2]

Lots of good comments on this subject. I have more questions than answers.

The infected sailors could have been flown to a shore based hospital for isolation. Did the Captain do this or try to do it and was told not to?

Was he ordered to continue the tempo of operations regardless of the number of infections? The DoD does this. I know because my company received a letter classifying us as critical to national defense and telling us to take precautions but maintain normal operations.

He had to have known that revealing an operational deficiency of a Naval asset in public was a punishable offense. Hardware failures are reported to type commands and are treated as classified data. What request that he made to his superiors was turned down forcing him to seek redress in the court of public opinion?

MY 2c

Cincy

[6 Strings MI]

Neil's picture above is a good illustration of how close quarters aboard a warship can get. As I've said above, USS Peleliu had little more space between each stack of bunks. That's a sacrifice every enlisted Sailor has to make.

Submarines are even more problematic in that regard: space is at such a premium that there is one bunk for every two enlisted men. Combine that with even tighter quarters and you have too ideal an environment for a contagion to spread.

Here's hoping all of our military personnel stay safe and healthy and continue to accomplish the mission.