A commanding officer out on the front lines, far from home, pleads with his superiors in Washington, D.C., to take action. His men are sick and dying and need to be evacuated to a safe harbor immediately. But the brass at headquarters are slow to act. They drag their feet and mull what to do.
Throwing caution—as well as his career—to the wind, the commanding officer fires off a crisply worded memorandum, notable for its clarity and precision, explaining the dire situation, and earnestly requesting that prompt action be taken to save lives that otherwise will be needlessly lost.
The action is belatedly forthcoming. The troops are evacuated and their lives are saved, but the high command is angry and incensed. They have been publicly shamed and humiliated by widespread publication of the CO’s letter. Heads—or at least one head, the commanding officer’s—will roll.
Captain Crozier. Readers will recognize that this is an apt description (minus the lives lost) of what has just transpired on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Sailors and Marines there have become infected with the coronavirus, prompting the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Brett Crozier, to write a letter detailing their dire situation and pleading with the Navy to remove his men from the ship.
“We are not at war,” Crozier wrote. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors.”
For writing such heresy and allowing his words to find their way to the public prints—namely the San Francisco Chronicle—Crozier was summarily dismissed and relieved of his command by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly.
But as two astute observers—Tweed Roosevelt (a great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt) and Ward Carroll—point out, what Crozier did and was fired for has historical antecedents in a similar action taken by then Colonel (Theodore) Roosevelt at the end of the Spanish American War.
Well before he became President of the United States, writes Tweed Roosevelt, and before even
his rise to national politics, Roosevelt commanded the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry regiment, in the invasion of Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
The Battle of San Juan Hill had been fought and won, and the war was basically over. However, the soldiers, still deployed in Cuba, faced a far worse enemy: yellow fever and malaria.
As was usual in the days before modern medicine, far more soldiers died of disease than of enemy action. The battlefield commanders, including Roosevelt, wanted to bring the soldiers home.
But the leadership in Washington—in particular Russell Alger, the secretary of war—refused, fearing a political backlash. A standoff ensued.
The career Army officers, who did not want to risk their jobs by being too outspoken, were stymied. Roosevelt, as a short-term volunteer, had less to lose.
So, with the tacit approval of his fellow commanders, he wrote a fiery open letter and released it to the press.
The letter, known as the “round robin,” was printed in virtually every newspaper in the country, creating an uproar demanding that the soldiers be brought home immediately. Alger relented, and the troops were sent to quarantine on the end of Long Island, at Montauk Point.
Though hundreds of men died of disease in Cuba, Roosevelt’s actions probably saved countless more.
He did, however, pay a price. Alger was furious with him. When Roosevelt’s nomination came up for a Medal of Honor, the secretary shot it down (Roosevelt eventually received the medal, posthumously, in 2001).
Of course, Roosevelt came out the winner. Who today remembers Russell Alger?
In this era when so many seem to place expediency over honor, it is heartening that so many others are showing great courage, some even risking their lives.
Theodore Roosevelt, in his time, chose the honorable course. Captain Crozier has done the same.
Certainly, the sailors and Marines whom Crozier led on the USS Roosevelt understand this. They gave their captain a raucous salute as he departed the ship after being summarily dismissed and relieved of his command.
“That’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had,” someone says in the video—then using an acronym for greatest of all time, adds: “The GOAT, the man for the people.”
Crozier’s career as a naval officer is, sadly, finished. But, like Roosevelt, he will live on in the hearts and minds of his countrymen as a man of uncompromising integrity and moral courage. And history will not long forget what he did nor why he did it.
Feature photo credit: Medal of Honor Society (Theodore Roosevelt) and Navy photo via Navy Times.