Four weeks after he was dismissed as the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt amid a COVID-19 outbreak on board, Navy leadership has recommended that Capt. Brett Crozier be reinstated as the vessel's captain. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has asked for additional time to consider the decision.
According to the New York Times, Navy leadership is surprised by Esper's decision to delay Crozier's reinstatement — they believed Esper would leave the decision in the hands of the branch's top commanders.
Crozier was dismissed from his role as the USS TR's captain on April 2 after a letter he wrote pleading for help from the Navy was leaked to the media. The letter described the situation onboard the USS TR and the risk to sailor's lives if immediate action was not taken.
Crozier was dismissed by the now-former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly who argued that — among other things — Crozier jumped the chain of command which was a personal betrayal against Modly.
Modly submitted a letter of resignation to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper five days after dismissing Crozier — but not before he spent roughly a quarter of a million dollars on a trip to Guam so he could deliver a now very well-circulated speech explaining his decision to dismiss the captain.
The leaked speech about the leaked letter: Navy Sec slams USS TR captain
"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," Modly said in the recording that will arguably go down in Naval history.
New information sheds light on decisions of dismissed USS Theodore Roosevelt captain
Information that surfaced in the weeks after Crozier's dismissal shed light on the decisions that he made leading up to his dismissal. Crozier sent his plea for help to far fewer people than was originally communicated. Additional leaders on board the vessel wanted to sign their names to Crozier's letter, seconding the need for immediate assistance. For the sake of their careers, Crozier did not let them.
However, far more information was gathered in an official Department of Defense investigation that was launched into Crozier's dismissal. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday — who launched the investigation specifically to determine what happened within the USS TR's chain of command that led to Crozier's four-page letter — told the Associated Press that no options, including reinstating Crozier, had been ruled out throughout the investigation process.
At the time, Esper said the same.
"We've taken nothing off the table,” Esper said in a CBS News interview in the weeks following the dismissal. “My inclination is always to support the chain of command, and to take the recommendations seriously."
During the weeks of investigating, the outbreak onboard the USS TR grew. The vessel was largely evacuated — as Crozier had suggested was necessary. Sailors were placed in temporary lodging on Guam — mostly in hotels. After testing 99 percent of the crew, 777 sailors showed positive COVID-19 results. The Department of Defense's only active-duty COVID-related death was a USS TR crewmember.
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