Posted on 03/07/2010 12:50:53 AM PST by bruinbirdman
EVEN Captain Bligh might have blushed. The first woman captain of a US navy guided-missile destroyer was relieved of her command for using language so foul that it amounted to “cruelty and maltreatment”, it emerged yesterday.
Captain Holly Graf, commander of 400 sailors aboard USS Cowpens, was dubbed “Horrible Holly” by those who felt the lash of her tongue. Officers complained to navy investigators that she humiliated them in front of the crew by showering them with obscenities and calling them “idiots” and “stupid”.
Graf’s behaviour, detailed in a navy report, came to light last week when it emerged she had engaged the Cowpens in a maritime “drag race” with a smaller destroyer, the USS John McCain, near Okinawa, Japan, last year. The report dismissed allegations that the racing ships had nearly collided but investigators upheld charges that Graf had abused her position for personal gain by forcing sailors to walk her dogs and by ordering a piano-playing junior officer to perform at a Christmas party at her home.
As one of the navy’s most successful sea-going women officers Graf was in line for promotion to rear admiral, but became the target of an internet campaign by former crew members and male former officers contemptuous of what they see as preferential treatment of women at the Pentagon.
Militarycorruption.com, a military website, described Graf as “an incompetent and unstable ‘politically correct’ poster girl for all the super- feminists at the Pentagon and the US Naval Academy”.
Hundreds of posts to internet sites likened Graf to Bligh, the villainous captain ousted by his crew in Mutiny on the Bounty. Graf has not made a public comment, but defended her behaviour to navy investigators. “Many times I raised my tone (and used swear words) to ensure they knew this
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
WAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....navy going soft? In the Army I had hundreds of upper rank soldiers/officers cuss at me.
What does that mean? She intentionally provoked people with swearing to see their reaction?
Indeed!
Cry-babies. The whole article reads like satire.
Well, I remember swearing as a part of the operating vocabulary while I was in, too. Some of it pretty pointed. But tirades of abuse I never heard.
That doesn’T sound so bad.
I don't condone the use of such language but that doesn’T sound so bad.
I worked construction and sometimes got called names with loads of F language thrown in. Some people are screamers. The best you can do is take three steps back and wait for them to tire out. Often, 10 minutes later they will be talking normally to you again.
There was a related article posted recently that expounded a bit on Graf’s tirades. According that article, among other things, she was known to have thrown coffee cups - ceramic mugs, not styrofoam cups - at junior officers on more than one occasion. She also apparently put a Master Chief in “Time Out.”
Well, she sure kinda looks like a man.
Brings to mind the ols aying about sticks and stones...
In front of subordinates? The d@mn p!ss poor leadership!
Praise in public; reprimand in private.
Hmm. Don’t tell, ‘cause I’m not askin’.
“Horrible Holly” by those who felt the lash of her tongue.”
heh, heh...
What do you wanna bet that Capt. Graf (ret) becomes a regular fixture on CNN?
It is a sign of softness and weakness to routinely berate and belittle those who are subordinate to you.
Miss Graf is clearly a commander who has completely lost the respect of her command. It is commanders like this who, in a warfighting situation, get good sailors killed because her instincts and her motivations cannot be trusted by her subordinates.
She is clearly not fit to lead.
So a sailor was relieved of her command because she...swears like a sailor?
She’s hot-Rachel Maddow
Looks like Prince Charles in drag!
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