And the article is wrong about safety of personnel being sacrificed to the mission. Unless we are fighting a war, the mission is readiness to fight a war, and part of that is a fit and healthy crew. I am a little appalled by those so ready to sacrifice lives of our active duty forces when not in an actual or potential fight.
Where I and others here who "get it" regarding the real duties of a commanding officer afloat believe the problem is, is that Crozier was not proactive in using the formidable resources at his disposal to contain and control the spread of the virus among his crew. Complaining about na eeded a deep cleaning, did he use his personnel to perform a deep cleaning [he has somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000] Did his considerable medical staff consult with the experts at Bethesda Naval Hospital to learn the latest techniques and practices for dealing with the virus and develop a plan of action for Crozier's command? Did he figure out how to isolate those who were infected from the rest of the crew?
In short, before asking for help I see no evidence that Crozier sought to help himself. Indeed, he could have experimented with and developed procedures that could have formed lessons learned for the rest of the fleet. Instead he sounded abandon ship.
And out of fairness, one red herring in this is blaming Crozier for the liberty call in Vietnam. A CO does not organize his own port visits. Those are arranged by his operational superiors in conjunction with the state department including the local diplomatic delegation.
Great comment, AndyJackson. Agree, it seems Crozier didn’t do enough to protect his sailors. However, it’s also not important not to uselessly sacrifice a aircraft’s biggest asset, its people.
And out of fairness, one red herring in this is blaming Crozier for the liberty call in Vietnam. A CO does not organize his own port visits. Those are arranged by his operational superiors in conjunction with the state department including the local diplomatic delegation.
True that he doesn't arrange the port visits but he certainly has the authority to stop one if he feels it a danger to the mission. There is a lot about that visit the needs to be explained, e.g. did he try to alter the visit but was over-ridden by the Admiral (task force commander) on-board?
Very good posting, AJ.
Holy cow, could the ship had been sent there with goal to infect the personnel...