Brett E. Crozier

**Brett E. Crozier** is an American naval officer. When he was captain of the aircraft carrier _Theodore Roosevelt_, he noticed that some of his crew had caught COVID-19, a disease that affects the lungs and breathing.  Late in March, 2020, he wrote letters asking for permission to send his sick sailors off his ship to Guam.  These letters were found and printed in a newspaper.  A few days later, the Navy fired Crozier as the captain of the _Theodore Roosevelt_ but did not fire him from the Navy entirely.

In late April, some leaders in the Navy asked that Crozier be reinstated and sent back as captain of the _Theodore Roosevelt_.

## Career

Brett Crozier is from Santa Rosa, California.  He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1992 and became a pilot for the Navy in 1994.  He fought in Iraq in 2003.  He later earned a Master's Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies at the Naval War College.  He served in many different positions in the Navy, including Executive Officer of the _USS Ronald Reagan_.  Brett Crozier was captain of the _USS Blue Ridge_ from June 2017 to November 2018.

## Letters

He wrote more than twenty copies of a four-page letter, dated March 30, 2020.  He addressed it to senior officials in the military.  He asked for permission to send 1000 of his crew off the ship.  The ship had more than 4000 people on it.  Someone found his messages and they were printed in the newspaper _San Francisco Chronicle_ on March 31, 2020.

COVID-19 is very contagious, and people can catch it from other people easily.  In the letter, Crozier said that the ship was too cramped to allow for sick sailors to do what the Centers for Disease Control and the Navy's own administration said people with COVID-19 should do: Keep away from other people for 14 days.  He asked for permission to let his sick sailors go ashore to Guam, where the ship was docked at the time, and go into quarantine there instead of on board the ship.  He copied part of a report about the _Diamond Princess_ cruise ship, and said that even though the _Diamond Princess_'s passengers had private rooms, more than 100 people still became infected.  He said the _Theodore Roosevelt_ only had a few private rooms.

Retired Admiral James Stavridis, who used to be NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, agreed that it was not possible to perform social distancing on board a navy ship like the _Theodore Roosevelt_.

## Firing

High-ranking leaders at the Navy said that removing Crozier from his ship was normal.  They said Crozier should have asked for help by going through the chain of command instead of writing letters to other people in the military.

According to Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly, Crozier's letter caused naval crews and their families to panic: "It undermines our efforts and the chain of command's efforts to address this problem and creates a panic. And creates a perception that the Navy's not on the job, the government's not on the job."

According to _The New York Times_, "a Navy official familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly about it said that the captain had repeatedly asked his superiors for speedy action to evacuate the ship."

Kathleen H. Hicks, who worked at the Pentagon years earlier under President Barack Obama, said that the Navy did have the legal right to fire Crozier but that it might have been a bad idea to do so because it might make sailors and leaders less willing to trust each other.

## Related pages

- Theodore Roosevelt
- Ronald Reagan

## Infobox (person)

- **name**: Brett E. Crozier
- **image**: CDR Brett Crozier.png
- **caption**: Crozier in 2014
- **birth place**: Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa, California, United States
- **alma mater**: United States Naval Academy, Naval War College
- **occupation**: United States Navy Captain (former)
- **known for**: _Theodore Roosevelt_ incident during 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic.