Potrait of Brett Crozier, former commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. (Credit: U.S. Navy)
Crozier joins a growing number of whistleblowers in the U.S. amid systemic gaging of medical workers, experts and professionals to suppress information about COVID-19 and cover up the administration's incompetence in containing the pandemic.
WASHINGTON, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Many in the U.S. are outraged by the Navy's decision to relieve Capt. Brett Crozier of his duty as commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.
Crozier, removed from post on April 2, was punished for being the whistleblower who revealed rapid spread of COVID-19 aboard the carrier in an effort to save the sailors under his leadership.
Why it matters:
Crozier joins a growing number of whistleblowers in the U.S. amid systemic gaging of medical workers, experts and professionals to suppress information about COVID-19 and cover up the administration's incompetence in containing the pandemic.
What they are saying:
"Captain Brett Crozier is a hero. Theodore Roosevelt, my great grandfather would agree."
-Tweed Roosevelt, great-grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, after whom the carrier is named, wrote in a op-ed on The New York Times.
The New York Times tweets Tweed Roosevelt's opinion on April 4, 2020.
New York Times tweets Tweed Roosevelt's opinion on the sacking of Crozier on April 4, 2020.
Crozier shouldn't have let sailors get off in Vietnam and get infected. More importantly, it was "inappropriate" of him to write a five-page letter (reports say four-page) which is "all over the place."
-U.S. President Donald Trump
"It creates a panic, and it creates the perception that the Navy is not on the job, the government's not on the job."
-Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly who relieved Crozier of his command
Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly has his temperature read as part of a COVID-19 screening prior to a tour of the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19), March 31, 2020. (Credit: U.S. Navy)
"His moral compass points to True North and I commend him for putting the welfare of his crew above his career…What he did is something I hope I would have done."
-Sully Sullenberger, known for the 2009 forced water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan, speaks the mind of many Americans.
Sully Sullenberger tweets about Crozier's sacking on April 4, 2020.
The sacking of Crozier sparked outcry on social media. Video of sailors cheering for Captain Brett Crozier as he left the carrier has gone viral. ■
