Aircraft carrier captain removed from duty after pleading for help with coronavirus outbreak

Not necessarily, we only have part of the story and likely will never hear all of it...

 

Saying Trump fired a Navy O-6 is like saying Trump fired a GS-15 in a civilian agency. Do you have a clue about things like span of control and chain of command? Apparently not. A Caption is an O-6. There are over 3100 Captains in the Navy and you apparently think Trump directly oversees all of them. There are four grades higher than a Navy Captain. You apparently don't have a clue how the military command structure works.

 

I have already agreed that I don't. But I do know how Humpty Trumpty works. This Crozier bloke was sacked by the Secretary for the Navy, a politician. Who does he report to?

 

Just because Kenneth removed him, doesn't mean that Trump ordered it or knew about it at the time. Trump, or any other president, doesn't know every little ongoing thing in the E. Branch. He probably knows about it now vie news and meetings.

 

The political appointee, Secretary of the Navy, does not fart without Trump's permission.

 

Keep telling yourself that.

 

Curious to know which parts of that article strike you as CYA - not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with you, yet

I'm afraid I have to crawfish on letting my TDS get the better of me. Having today seen Trump's statement about Crozier's letter it seems likely that the decision to relieve Crozier from his command of the TR never made it to his attention. Of note though Trump didn't fail to get it wrong yet again. There was nothing rambling about the letter - if anything it left out the obvious statement of risk to readiness. And it wasn't almost five pages as Trump said, it was 3 & 1/3, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6821571-TR-COVID-19-Assistance-Request.html#document/p1

Additionally, having read through this article twice,

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/02/esper-coronavirus-defense-162403,

and through this article also, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/31/navy-aid-sailors-positive-coronavirus-157678

This was an issue between a Captain and an Admiral:

https://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/lcc19/Pages/Bio1-9June2017-16June2018.aspx

https://www.cpf.navy.mil/leaders/john-aquilino/

Esper as it turns out didn't even have the interest to spend five minutes to read Crozier's letter. Clearly Esper is "delegating" his response to CVN-71's commanders request to his acting navy secretary and to the Pac Fleet Command. As such, I would say that no, Esper is not the man in charge of anything going on with respect to CVN-71.

And I'm no expert, but if you read the link to this other Politico article then maybe it becomes a little clearer, yet still ill-advised, that the O6 decided to take on the O10 because Aquilino's plan seems a bit marginal to me without having mentioned a solid testing plan:

In response to the outbreak, Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. John Aquilino is setting up a "rotational process" in which the sick sailors depart the ship for a 14-day quarantine on the island, then take a follow-on test to ensure they are free of the disease. The healthy sailors will be rotated back on board to man the ship while other sailors enter the quarantine-and-test cycle, Aquilino told reporters on Tuesday.

"That flow plan allows us to take some number of sailors off, so I can get to some number that I would be comfortable with to do all the missions the ship needs, work the remaining set of sailors through the quarantine-isolation-test model and then clean the ship and put only healthy sailors back on the ship," Aquilino said.

I would guess the key for this plan to work would be to have 14 days of testing for everyone on board - that's about 60,000 tests. Test everyone for 14 days and send each one off to quarantine that shows positive, in addition to the 100+ cases already identified. The problem is that there aren't a sufficient number of tests to provide 100% coverage for everyone for 14 days. Probability and Statistics could like get the required number of tests down to something around 6-12k with a pretty decent confidence level. And even this assumes that test results are delayed by no more than a day.

 

Okay.

 

If I had to bet then I'd put my money on Aquilino being the one who made the decision to relieve Crozier of his command.

 

You know that how exactly? Have you ever been in a high level job like Secretary of the Navy. What possible experience do you have to even begin to opine on what someone at this level does or doesn't do? Do you understand that the Secretary of the Navy reports to the Secretary of Defense who reports to Trump. It is amazing how people who have never worked for the Federal Government make assumptions regarding the level of micromanagement you think goes on.

 

Yes, but if you can convince yourself that if there is an outbreak of Covid-19 on a US Carrier the Captain of which has complained about lack of support, Humpty Trympty will be told about it and will be managing it with his usual 'You're fired.' One day, you will accept that Trump continues to fail to be candid with Team USA. Eg, did you know that you have just been able to access 1,000 ventilators? Guess where from? I'll tell you....Shiner. Has Trump told you that? No he has not. The Mayor of New York City has.

How come 'you' don't make your own?

 

I'm not so sure you are presenting a valid argument here. According to your logic, and please correct your statement if it is not your intent to argue everyone (or is it just Bush Lawyer) requires "high level job... experience... to even begin to opine on what someone at this level does or doesn't do". Perhaps I'm reading your statement too literally, but by this argument are you not effectively stating that one can only begin to have an opinion about the President's actions, or lack thereof, if one has been President?

Regarding assumptions about micromanagement from Trump, I think perhaps you are choosing to ignore proof of such behavior, https://www.military.com/daily-news...red-secdef-let-seal-keep-his-trident-pin.html

 

Couple of things. Wanting a top down approach means there is always someone up blame until you get to the bottom. True it usually ends at the bottom but always works it's way back up. As it is the buck stops at individual commanders. In top down it usually ends with the sacrifice of some staff officer so as to not damage command futures. I don't think Espers cares about that, he wants a solution and is testing different approaches. The part about not knowing where to ship ventilators was pure CYA, the people who had the physical stock just avoided a lot of questions and punted it up...

 

Fake news. Shocker.

 

What's fake about it?

 

Because Trump had nothing to do with this

We all know that's what you were implying.

 

I am trying to make the point that 2 million Federal employees are not direct reports to President trump as some people who post here seem to think. That should not be a hard concept to understand but apparently it is. I assume this is from never having worked in a large organization, but perhaps there are other reason to explain an ,ignorance of what management span of control is.

 

Implying? Nah. I am asserting openly. Read the Thread.

 

How many Captains of US Carriers are there, and then tell me, which of them has been sacked lately?

 

I did. This crap belongs in the opinion section.

 

I'm having some difficulty following you on this post.

What do you mean about "Wanting a top down approach"? I must have missed the memo that leadership was no longer required.

The Navy continues to maintain excellent discipline with respect to holding every captain of every ship accountable for everything on that ship.

However, that is distinct from Esper's lack of leadership accountability according to several reasonably qualified sources from this article, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/02/esper-coronavirus-defense-162403. I reread this article yet again and still fail to see the CYA concerning how to distribute existing ventilator supplies. The article only mentions some questions regarding funding and direction on the procurement of new ventilators, the first of which may arrive by May...

 

.

 

That's pretty sweet. So if someone asserts an opinion you disagree with, then by association any media link he or she provides is fake? Bravo!

 

Strawman fallacy. The firing frequency of Captains of US Carriers has nothing to do with your assertion that Trump fired the Carrier Captain in question.

 

That's why there's an 'opinion' section. The OP failed to provide a fact or quote a part in the article that Trump had anything to do with this.

sorry if facts bother you