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I've had a quick look through the investigation that @USNavyCNO talked about this afternoon. It is thorough, detailed, and supports his decision not to reinstate the CO. Additionally, it undercuts virtually everything I thought and wrote about the case. And while I believed from
the beginning that the CO should have been relieved, I believed that for what ultimately turn out to be the wrong reasons. My interpretation was that the CO popped off his red-flare without giving having used appropriate measures to inform his chain of command about the straits
he and his crew were in. This is proven absolutely wrong in the report, in that the CO and his chain of command were in nearly constant contact throughout the COVID crisis onboard. In other words, CAPT Crozier not only told everyone in his chain of command what was going on, they
were all elbows deep in helping him and his crew to solve them. What has resulted in Crozier's not being reinstated is the findings of the report that he and his leadership team had become fixated on what the report calls the "most constrained" course of action, and in the
process, failed to take actions to move sailors off the ship in a COA that the command team found less desirable. In other words, after this deeper investigation, the problem Crozier is being relieved for is NOT the email that got leaked, but the disconnect between the email and
the actions HE was taking to ensure the safety of his crew. Perfect became the enemy of good enough. Groupthink set in among the CO and his team, and they came to see a senior staff as somehow incompetent or uninterested, when the facts show that it was neither. Read the report.
https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/TR%20INVESTIGATION/TR%20CI%20Report%20with%20CNO%20Endorsement%20(Redacted%20for%20release).pdf I guarantee there is a really great movie script here, because of the degree to which Crozier and his team came to see this as an "us against the world" situation when in fact, mountains were being moved on their behalf. Again and in summary--this is a
superbly done report that supports the actions the CNO took today. I was right about Crozier being removed for all the wrong reasons. This was an unfortunate situation, but I am happy with the way the second investigation was handled.
