'Shut the F*** up': What one sailor shouted when Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly...

....flew to Guam and told fired aircraft carrier's captain's crew their hero 'was
too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer'

more at
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ve-stupid.html

*Thomas Modly, President Trump's acting Navy secretary, told sailors on the USS
Theodore Roosevelt that their fired captain was 'naive' and 'stupid'

*Modly complained about the memo Captain Brett Crozier about a coronavirus
outbreak on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier

*'If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get
out ... then he was either A) too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding
officer,' he said

*Modly relieved Crozier of his command after letter went public

*And he said he did it because he thought President Trump would want him to

*'If I were president, and I saw a commanding officer of a ship exercising such
poor judgment, I would be asking why the leadership of the Navy wasn't taking
action itself,' he said

Thomas Modly, President Trump's acting Navy secretary, told sailors on the USS
Theodore Roosevelt that their fired captain was 'naive' and 'stupid' for the
missive he wrote complaining about the lack of help for the coronavirus-infested
ship and then complained about the flak he was receiving for relieving Captain
Brett Crozier of his duties.

Modly flew to Guam, where the ship is docked as 5,000 crew members get tested
after a coronavirus outbreak on the aircraft carrier, to address the sailors,
who cheered Crozier as he left the ship after Modly relieved him of his command.

He criticized Crozier for the scathing memo he wrote to Navy officials, pleading
to be able to take the Roosevelt to dock to try and contain the growing out
break on the ship.

'We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,' Crozier wrote in the four-page
missive, which was leaked to the media and ignited a fire storm of controversy
for the Navy.

Modly, in remarks sent over the ship's PA system, blasted the captain for going
outside the chain of command.

'If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get
out into the public, in this day and information age we live in, then he was
either A) too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like
this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose,' the navy secretary told
the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt in a speech obtained by the Daily Caller.

After Modly called Crozier 'naive,' a person on the ship is heard shouting 'shut
the f*** up,' on an audio recording of the address.

Modly's speech leaked like wildfire and brought a new firestorm of criticism on
the acting Navy secretary with some saying his speech made the situation
surrounding Crozier's dismissal worse.

He defended his remarks in a statement.

'I have not listened to a recording of my remarks since speaking to the crew so
I cannot verify if the transcript is accurate. The spoken words were from the
heart, and meant for them. I stand by every word I said, even, regrettably any
profanity that may have been used for emphasis. Anyone who has ever served on a
Navy ship would understand. I ask, but don’t expect, that people would read them
in their entirety,' he said.

Modly also used his speech to the crew to attack the media for printing
Crozier's memo.

'I'm gonna tell you something, all of you, there is never a situation where you
should consider the media a part of your chain of command,' he noted in his
remarks. 'You can jump the chain of command if you want and take the
consequences, you can disobey the chain of command and take the consequences,
but there is no, no situation where you go to the media, because the media has
an agenda, and the agenda that they have depends on which side of the political
aisle they sit. I’m sorry that’s the way the country is now but it’s the truth
and so they use it to divide us and use it to embarrass the Navy. They use it to
embarrass you.'

He then went on to complain about the hate being levied at him for firing the
'hero' captain, as Crozier is being referred to by supporters online.

'I cannot control or attempt to change whatever anger you have with me for
relieving your beloved CO. If I could offer you a glimpse of the level of hatred
and pure evil that has been thrown my way, my family's way and they are taking
care of people on the shore who are busting their asses to get them off this
ship. They aren't taking shots at them. They're asking how can we help them,'
Modly said.

The backlash to Modly's decision has been intense and support for the captain is
strong. The crew of Theodore Roosevelt applauded Crozier as he descended the
gangplank of the nuclear-powered ship after Modly relieved him.

In his 15 minutes of remarks, Modly lectured the crew to do their duty and stop
complaining even as he complained about his treatment after his decision to
relieve Crozier.

'I’m gonna give ya little bit of advice to make this important – and often
difficult – job far easier on yourselves. My best advice to you is don’t ever be
– don’t ever worry – about being loved for what you do. Rather, love the country
you are asked to defend. Love the constitution you pledged your life to protect.
And, most importantly, love the people you are ordered to lead. Make sure they
eat before you do, care about their families as much as your own, be invested in
their success far more than your own accomplishments. Nurture their careers more
than you pursue your own advancement and value their lives to the point that you
will always consider their safety in every single decision you make,' he said.

He told the crew: 'Y ou are under no obligation to love your leadership, only
respect it. You are under no obligation to like your job, only to do it. You are
under no obligation, you are under no obligation to expect anything from your
leaders other than they will treat you fairly and put the mission of the ship
first.'

Then he went on: 'That's your duty. Not to complain. Everyone is scared about
this thing. And let me tell ya something, if this ship was in combat and there
were hypersonic missiles coming in at it, you'd be pretty f***ing scared too.
But you do your jobs. And that's what I expect you to. And that's what I expect
every officer on this ship to do, is to do your jobs.'

He acknowledged he received a list of questions from the crew that he would
answer once he was back in his office in Washington D.C.

'I got your list of questions. I’m very, very thankful to have gotten them. I
know they’re all sincere. I don’t think there is any agenda in any of those. But
there’s a lot of them and I’m gonna answer every single one of them. But I’ve
gotta do it respectfully, and I’ve gotta take some time so you understand all
the nuances of the questions you are asking. And there’s a lot of them here. So
rather than answer them all today I’m going to take them back with me to
Washington and I’m going to answer them,' he said.

Modly also brought up former Vice President Joe Biden, who said the decision to
relieve Crozier was 'close to criminal.'

'It's not about me. The former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden
suggested just yesterday that my decision was criminal. I assure you that it was
not. Because I understand the facts and those facts show that what your captain
did was very, very wrong in a moment when we expected him to be the calming
force on a turbulent sea,' he told the crew, many of who have hailed Crozier a
'hero' for his actions.

‘There was very little upside in this decision for me. You can believe that or
not. I made a decision for the Navy I love, for the Navy I serve in and now
serve for, and mostly for the sailors I am responsible for. Not just here but on
nearly 300 other ships in the fleet. Your captain’s actions had implications for
them too. Imagine if every other CO also believed the media was a proper channel
to air grievances with their chain of command under difficult circumstances. We
would no longer have a Navy. Not long after that, we would no longer have a
country,' Modly added.

And he concluded with these words: ‘Still I understand that you may be angry
with me for the rest of your lives. I guarantee that you won’t be alone. Being
angry is not your duty. Your duty is to each other, to this ship and to the
nation that build it for you to protect them. Even in the midst of unexpected
crisis, it is the mission of this ship that matters. Our adversaries are
watching and that is why we are here. We will get you the help that you need.
You have my personal word on it. Your CO had my personal word on that from day
one. Whatever else you may think of me, I don’t go back on my word. And when it
comes the T-R – whether you hate me or not – I will never, ever, ever, ever give
up the ship. And neither should you. Thanks for listening and I’ll get the
detailed answers to your questions to you sometime later this week. Go Navy.'

Many sailors on the Roosevelt praised Crozier for his actions and for being a
leader when the sailors needed him.

'He had legitimate concerns about his sailors, asked for help in a respectful
and honorable way, and then they relieved him of duty' one Roosevelt sailor told
The Wall Street Journal.

'Seriously, that's crazy. If anything the guy deserves a promotion. That's the
type of leadership they lack, but the type they need,' another said.

The acting Navy secretary defended his decision in an interview with The
Washington Post, where he explained he fired Crozier because he thought that was
what President Trump would want.

'I didn't want to get into a decision where the president would feel that he had
to intervene because the Navy couldn't be decisive,' Modly said: 'If I were
president, and I saw a commanding officer of a ship exercising such poor
judgment, I would be asking why the leadership of the Navy wasn't taking action
itself.'

He said he did not speak to anyone in the White House before he made his
decision.

But Modly also recounted how his predecessor, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer,
'lost his job because the Navy Department got crossways with the president' in
the case of former Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher.

'I didn't want that to happen again,' Modly said.

And the president made it clear he agreed with the decision to terminate
Crozier.

'I thought it was terrible, what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn't a
class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that's nuclear powered.
And he shouldn't be talking that way in a letter,' Trump said.

Trump went against Spencer's recommendation and reversed a demotion Gallagher
received from the Navy.

Gallagher was accused of multiple offenses during his final deployment to Iraq,
including the murder of a prisoner of war. Ultimately, a court only convicted
him on one count. He was sentenced to time served and demoted.

Modly recounted that situation in his interview with The Post.

'I put myself in the president's shoes. I considered how the president felt like
he needed to get involved in Navy decisions [in the Gallagher case and the
Spencer firing]. I didn't want that to happen again,' he said.

Modly is a graduate of the Naval Academy who spent seven years as a U.S. Navy
officer before working in the private sector. He's served as acting secretary of
the Navy since November.

In early March, the USS Theodore Roosevelt made a stop in Vietnam. As it headed
back out to sea, crew members began falling ill to the coronavirus with the
highly contagious disease spreading rapidly throughout the ship.

The numbers rose from from three initially to more than 150 sailors affected.

In his memo, Crozier complained about the limitations of the coronavirus test,
saying seven who tested negative displayed symptoms of infection one to three
days later.

He also pointed out the ship's close quarters made it unable to comply with the
recommended social distancing guidelines.

He wrote that bunk space, shared meals and bathroom spaces are 'most conducive'
to spreading the disease.

'With the exceptions of a handful of senior officer staterooms, none of the
berthing onboard a warship is appropriate for quarantine or isolation,' he
noted.

After the memo went viral, Crozier was relieved of command.

Modly defended his actions, saying he had his chief of staff reach out to
Crozier directly after he learned of the outbreak on the ship.

'That message and all the contents of that message was perfectly fine for him to
send to people in his chain of command in a confidential way so they could get
acting on it. He, in fact, could have given it to me, either my chief of staff,
or to me, as I asked him to do when I first reached out to him on the ship when
we first found out that there were COVID cases here,' he told the Roosevelt
sailors in his speech.

And he told The Washington Post he was shocked when the missive from Crozier,
which was sent to an email distribution list Modly wasn't on, went public.

'I was flabbergasted,' Modly said. 'My only conclusion was, 'he's panicking.' It
was so out of character.'

Officials say they are still working to trace the origins of the outbreak on the
ship and have not positively determined whether it began in Vietnam.

Data from the Vietnamese Ministry of Health suggests that the number of COVID-19
cases in Vietnam doubled during the five days the Roosevelt was docked at Tien
Sa port in Da Nang.

But sailors were largely unfazed by the virus as they went on shore leave in Da
Nang, even as the number of cases across the world skyrocketed.

Two Naval Academy classmates of Crozier who remain close to the family revealed
that he had tested positive for COVID-19 to The New York Times on Sunday.

The classmates said Crozier began to show symptoms of the disease before he was
relieved of his command.

A spokesperson for the Navy told the Times on Sunday that the captain has been
reassigned to the headquarters of the Naval Air Forces Pacific command in San
Diego.

Before resuming his duties, however, Crozier must complete a quarantine period.

News of Crozier's diagnosis comes on the heels of a report claiming that the top
US military commander and the most senior naval officer were opposed to
Crozier's dismissal but were overruled by the Trump administration.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral
Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, believed that the Navy should
have allowed an investigation into the letter written by Crozier to run its
course.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper initially sided with the officers, according to The
Washington Post.

Esper on Sunday defended Modly's decision to fire Crozier.

'I think acting Secretary Modly made a very tough decision - a decision that I
support,' Esper told CNN on Sunday.

'It was based on his view that he had lost faith and confidence in the captain
based on his actions.

'It's just another example (of) how we hold leaders accountable for their
actions.'

Esper was asked if the Trump administration moved too quickly to fire Crozier
instead of allowing the military to complete its probe into the matter.

The defense secretary replied that it was 'not unheard of' for the Navy to fire
a senior officer before an internal investigation is complete.

'All the services at times relieve commanders without the benefit of an
investigation up front because they have lost confidence in them,' Esper said.

'It's certainly not unique to the Navy.

'The Navy has a culture of swiftly and decisively removing captains if they lose
confidence in them.'




more at
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ve-stupid.html


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