Bottomsouth wrote:LKN wrote:Bottomsouth wrote:
In fairness, he sent the letter to the higher ups at the same time he leaked it to the Chronicle. The Navy has acted on testing and keeping those infected sailors at Guam in isolation. As a captain I understand his concerns but you cannot send a letter to the ones that make decisions above you and then mail the same letter out to news publications as if the Navy is not reacting to the request. He lost some confidence there.
I get why this is happening. He almost certainly knew the consequences of doing this and acted to protect his men; that's pretty amazing.
Especially considering being the captain of a carrier is a plum job which likely means you are marked for advancement.
Understand your opinion but this is the Navy. His position is serious and he needs to go through the proper channels. Last thing we need is to announce to the world our defenses confidential and/or privileged information. What he did in my opinion is the opposite of a leader.
Wait - you actually think he didn't try to go through the proper channels first?
Come on - that's ridiculous. The navy has had awful cultural problems for years where the brass ignores problems and the pleas of commanders trying to point them out (which is one reason we've had all the collisions in recent years).
He had a choice between letting his sailors suffer and die while the higher ups did nothing or going public and sacrificing his career.
It's absurd to suppose that a guy who had risen up for enough to captain a carrier didn't try to get help through the proper channels first.
