It's the first time I see news about the aircraft carrier. Could someone summarize why the captain got fired for testing his whole crew in an environment where a lot of people have to live very closely together? My first assumption is that it was a really good decision.
He sent an email to his commander and his commander's commander about how the situation was deteriorating... which were then leaked to the press and was promptly relieved of command by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly who later on resigned.
Most people think it was a good call but it also may have compromised the safety of the carrier because now it's known they may be operating under less than perfect condition.
Yes and no. He was relieved because he went around the chain of command, which is a universal career-ending move in the military even if you do it for all the right reasons—which he did.
Also, although he was relieved of command, he wasn’t “fired” or “canned” or discharged from the Navy. He will undoubtedly go into an early retirement with a full pension at his current rank of Captain. That doesn’t change the fundamental unfairness of how he’s been treated, but he’s going to be fine. And I think he knew and accepted the consequences of his actions.
It's better to do the right thing than the correct thing and this man will be able to live with himself throughout his pension instead of having a heavy conscience weigh him down.
From all I could gather from Europe, I believe he acted as a human more than a robot and under the given circumstances it was the right call.
Ok, apparently his commanders didn't want the responsibility. They wanted a "phone call" they can ignore, not a written record that will later bite them in the ass.
And in order to actually act they had to leak it because silently acting on it involves getting a refusal from their commanders and also writing an email. It's monkeys all the way up.
TL;DR is the first guy got canned for "politicizing" (and, really, operating outside the chain of command by widely publicizing his fears and 'leaking' information about) the problem.
Basically, the military chain of command has ALWAYS really cared about how you handle these things. He violated it, and my military friends generally feel he did the "right" thing, but many also feel he knew what was coming and should take his punishment, because you just don't do it. While, at the same time, our government has shown an increasing desire to centralize authority and cover up for political reasons. So, I can see both sides, for sure. "You should never do that" meets "doing that is the right and moral thing in this environment". Fine.
The guy who called him out basically said a bunch of uncool and undisciplined shit about him, VERY publicly, and had to resign under pressure. He could have kept his job if he had toed the "outside of the chain of command" line and kept his cool. But he couldn't resist running his mouth in exactly the "uncool and outside of the military's expected behavior" manner. Again, the MO of the current administration.
This all sounds exactly how i imagine the Chinese regime is attempting to cover up how many Corona related deaths they actually have. Except nobody wants to be that person who leaks the story.
