The Navy tried to cast Capt. Brett Crozier as a villain. New emails reveal how much support he really had
'You are a great leader and Naval Officer.'
By Jeff Schogol March 05, 2021
Who is Capt. Brett Crozier? Hear him talk about his Navy career and commanding the USS Theodore Roosevelt
The Navy has repeatedly blamed Capt. Brett Crozier for the unprecedented novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt last year, but newly-released emails show several of Crozier’s colleagues instantly recognized that he had put the lives of his crew above his own career.
“You are a great leader and Naval Officer,†Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett, commander of Navy Region Northwest, told Crozier in April. The Navy’s top brass would say the opposite two months later when Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday accused Crozier of acting too slowly to contain the disease and putting his ship at risk by lifting a quarantine.
Barnett’s email was among more than 1,200 pages of communications the Navy provided to Task & Purpose in response to its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for all emails sent to and from Crozier’s email address between March 25, 2020 and April 2, 2020.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/emails-reveal-brett-crozier-support/
