A sailor assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt has been transferred to ICU after being found unresponsive in his/her room in Guam, @ckubeNBC reports. The Navy says “details will be released when they become available.” To date, 416 sailors aboard the ship have tested positive.
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) April 9, 2020
Recently resigned acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly's Monday trip to Guam, where he addressed the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt and slammed their former commander, cost the Defense Department an estimated $243,000, according to a Navy official https://t.co/Jbb6SRvDUc
— CNN (@CNN) April 9, 2020
The more we learn, the clearer it becomes that Captain Brett Crozier should be reinstated. He was executing his command responsibility of protecting his personnel. And he was right.
I urge Secretary @EsperDoD to give Capt Crozier back his command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. https://t.co/A6ks9KHCno
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) April 8, 2020
Ahead of ripping into the crew and former captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly boarded one of the Navy's Gulfstream jets in Washington for Guam.
Final price tag: $6,946.19 per flight hour — and Modly's resignation.
https://t.co/YsoJBl7PvD— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) April 9, 2020
These sailors know their Skipper sacrificed his career to get their sick shipmates evacuated to safety. They appreciate their leader.
Listen to this send off.
CAP-TAIN CRO-ZIER!
CAP-TAIN CRO-ZIER!
CAP-TAIN CRO-ZIER! pic.twitter.com/NKVRl1xFiV
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) April 3, 2020
Regarding #CaptainBrettCrozier, I’m a Soldier, not a Sailor, but across the services, all officer training has a unifying theme:
“Mission First, People Always.”
Captain Crozier did it right, and the cowardly political hacks who took his command are a bunch of oxygen thieves.
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) April 3, 2020
Dear lord. @TaskandPurpose has the audio of @SECNAV's speech. As soon as Modly says over the intercom that Crozier was "too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer," you can hear someone, presumably a sailor, yell "what the fuck??"
Listen:https://t.co/vKZt6kJQAD https://t.co/TlUVuoxvLj
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) April 6, 2020
Hours after he said “I stand by every word I said” during his remarks to the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, acting Navy Secretary Modly issues a new statement saying “I want to apologize to the Navy for my recent comments to the crew of the TR.“
— Ryan Browne (@rabrowne75) April 7, 2020
"I also want to apologize directly to Captain Crozier, his family, and the entire crew of the Teddy Roosevelt for any pain my remarks may have caused," Modly continues, in statement released by the Navy.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) April 7, 2020
The beautiful irony of acting @SECNAV Modly’s awful comments leaking is that his whole speech is about how dumb he thought Crozier was for not realizing his comments would leak. https://t.co/KDh8iYtX81
— Jon Cryer (@MrJonCryer) April 6, 2020
But let’s not forget Modly’s boss, the guy responsible for hiring him in the first place!
More than 100,000 Americans are expected to die after a slow initial government response to the coronavirus pandemic and the first person to be fired is … the aircraft carrier captain who pleaded for help for his stricken crew. ?@ckubeNBC? https://t.co/guDOImfekb
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) April 2, 2020
Interesting ship CO firing timeline shared by a SWO source regarding the Roosevelt:
USS Fitzgerald Collision: 17 Jun 17
CO Relieved: 11 July 17
24 days
McCain Collision: 21 Aug
CO Relieved: 10 Oct
41 days
TR CO Sends Letter: 30 Mar
CO relieved: 2 Apr
2 days— Geoff Ziezulewicz (@JournoGeoffZ) April 3, 2020
Did anyone tell Trump that Captain Crozier looks right out of Central Casting? https://t.co/AnGuTq2pP9
— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 4, 2020
If only Captain Crozier had the good sense to commit war atrocities instead of sounding the alarm on coronavirus, Trump would have given him a bigger, shinier ship and a promotion. Naval officers really should know what's good for them by now.
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) April 3, 2020
dude might actually manage the impossible feat of losing the military vote https://t.co/LFrapYABd7
— kilgore trout, social scientist (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 7, 2020
West of the Rockies
I hope Moldy is in pain. I hope he feels humiliated, disgraced. I hope his children give him the silent treatment for the next 24 years. I hope his wife leaves him, that he struggles to find work, knows the fear and humiliation of creditors demanding payment.
debbie
We need to discover and celebrate the sailor’s voice who can be heard loudly saying, “What the fuck?” during Modly’s speech.
Chetan Murthy
@West of the Rockies: You’re a kind and generous soul. Me, I hope he dies after a long bout of covid, gasping for breath all the way. Al. The. Way.
ThresherK
I’m no historian but can someone tell
Trumpsomeone who can understand it in the White House about the Kiel Mutiny or the Potemkin Mutiny?NotMax
re: the headline – A for effort.
Modly will move seamlessly into a paid gig with Fox as a “military consultant.” Count on it.
Jerzy Russian
Any word on how the Captain is doing? Didn’t he test positive, along with apparently hundreds of others on his ship?
different-church-lady
@debbie: Actually, we should hope he’s never identified, because this is the military and discipline would probably be swift and utterly out of proportion.
West of the Rockies
@Chetan Murthy:
Your way works for me, too.
different-church-lady
I’m about halfway through listening to Modly’s “speech” to the crew, and all I can say is “What the fuck did this guy think he was doing with this?”
Chetan Murthy
@different-church-lady: An audience of one, eh.
Major Major Major Major
Wow, Trump’s heard of Hemingway.
Jonas
Tanking the ag economy for two years with his stupid tariff war on China didn’t cost him any measurable support in farm country, from what I can tell, so why should this kerfuffle cost him any military votes? Remember the key axiom of our new political reality: nothing matters anymore.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: It occurred to me when I saw that, that Hemingway– probably The Sun Also Rises– was the last book he tried to read, in high school, because somebody was making him try, and he’s still resentful
rikyrah
The Captain saved his men???
The Thin Black Duke
@rikyrah: And those men know that Trump would have left them on that ship to die. They won’t forgive that nor forget it.
Emma from FL
My hope is that one of the servants of evil in the White House screws up and shows his boss that video of the sailors’ salute to their departing captain; and that for once in his sorry life the so-called President has enough awareness to understand that no matter what he says or does he will never reach the instep of Crozier’s shoes. Either that or strokes out in a paroxysm of envy.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
“There’s another one besides Mariel?”
//
NotMax
@Emma in FL
“Screw it. Mind’s made up. Fire them all and sell the tub to my BFF Kim.”
//
joel hanes
@different-church-lady:
What the fuck did this guy think he was doing with this?
Modly thought he was restoring discipline and good order.
He was wrong.
joel hanes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The Sun Also Rises would have been utterly beyond Trump.
It would have been The Old Man And The Sea, which is also utterly beyond Trump.
lumpkin
This happened because the president is capricious, cowardly and completely untrustworthy. And dumb as a rock, I should add. Nobody below him knows what to do and there is no direction from above. I’m sure everyone above Capt Crozier was paralyzed with fear and refused to act or even respond to his pleas for the safety of his crew because they didn’t know what to do and were afraid to decide on their own. If we have another crisis, perhaps involving a human enemy, trump and his administration will fuck it up as badly as they have the virus crisis and everything associated with it.
The rest of the world, including all the people who hate us know how vulnerable we are right now.
Amir Khalid
If I understand right, Modly went on board the USS Teodore Roosevelt to say naive and stupid things to its crew. Aside from incurring the expense of flying out to Guam on a US Navy jet to shoot himself in the foot, didn’t Modly put himself (and others back at the Pentagon) at risk of coronavirus infection by getting on the ship?
Chetan Murthy
@joel hanes:
Ehhh … he was showing the boss that he knew how to administer a beatdown, is all. It was a dominance display, meant to show the capo that he was an effective underboss. And nothing more. Sadly, the victim (the crew) kicked, and the transcript leaked. And the rest is history. Like Modly.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Dump only knows Hemingway because his granddaughter Mariel once portrayed a Playboy “playmate”.
Mary G
When the Democrats take the Senate and presidency, they need to pass a law cutting back on the terms of acting secretaries, etc.
guachi
I’ve mentioned this before but the firing if CAPT Crozier has gone over very poorly with Navy enlisted personnel. And I say this as a Navy enlisted who has seen the reaction.
guachi
In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that in my 18 years in the Navy I haven’t seen anything received more poorly by the rank and file than the firing of CAPT Crozier.
NotMax
@Mary G
Already have one.
Mary G
@NotMax: Needs tightening up.
Chetan Murthy
@Mary G: Problem is, such a law can and will be used -against- Dem Presidents. by GrOPer Senates, right? Democracy depends on norms — we can’t devise a method that works in the presence of norm-breaking by 40% of the population and their tribunes. Heck, -civilization- depends on norms for similar reasons. We have to burn the GrOPers to the ground and salt their ground.
Ruckus
@debbie:
That one sailor may be the one heard, I absolutely guarantee that he was not the only one who said it out loud. There are probably at least a dozen ways the word fuck is used on a daily basis in the navy at least and I’d bet every other branch as well. It is very likely the most spoken word on board ship.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
Yes.
Chris T.
@Major Major Major Major: Trump is falling to pieces mentally (and clearly has already fallen to pieces physically), but back in the day he wasn’t actually stupid, just totally narcissistic. Sometimes words and names like Hemingway come back to him.
Sloane Ranger
@Major Major Major Major: More likely a better read minion made a sarcastic remark comparing Captain Crozier to Hemingway in his presence and Trump remembered it.
According to CNN 3 other aircraft carriers have COVID cases on board. Which raises the question about what your navy needs to do now. If they’re kept operational the disease is going to spread like wildlife and although the crew are in a relatively good demographic, there will be some deaths leading to bad PR and reduced morale or they’re taken out of service reducing the US’s operational capacity. Seems to me as a foreign civvy that the High Command should have foreseen this happening and taken steps to prevent it. Unless they tried and the political leadership told them it was all a hoax, Hair Fuhrer had said so.
James E Powell
I don’t know how many here are old enough to be familiar with the style, but Modly has a classic, Brezhnev Era, Soviet Bloc haircut. It’s juvenile, I know, but every time I see his photo I think of the CCCP1 skits on SCTV.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
Their families understand that too.
Robert Sneddon
@debbie: “Well, the inquiry has determined that two thousand six hundred and forty-seven people on board have admitted to being the serviceman who uttered the phrase ‘What the fuck’ during Asst. Secretary Modly’s announcement over the ship’s 1MC. This includes some civilian supply personnel on board, Modly’s own staffers and the ship’s stuffed toy mascot character.”
different-church-lady
@joel hanes: Green Eggs and Ham is utterly beyond Trump.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@rikyrah: The Captain saved his people. Not all the sailors aboard the ship, nor pilots in the air wing aboard the ship are men.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@James E Powell: I’m more reminded of Londo Mollari from the show Babylon 5, except Londo was a much, much better person than Modly.
Londo Mollari
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Sloane Ranger: There is also the fact that while they make up a smaller proportion of the military, the military depends in many ways on their senior enlisted, who generally speaking are anywhere from thirties to late forties, early fifties. Some stay in for 30+ years. Those are not the people you want to lose in great numbers, or any numbers.
Military demographics 2017
Jerzy Russian
@different-church-lady: Ted Cruz famously missed the point of Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor. Both men are dumb, but you have to hand the Stupid Prize to Trump in this case. So indeed, we can conclude that Green Eggs and Ham is beyond Trump’s grasp.