Navy aircraft carrier Capt. Brett Crozier tests positive for coronavirus

Brett Crozier, the Santa Rosa- reared Navy captain relieved of his command last week after he sent a widely distributed plea to protect his crew from COVID-19, has tested positive for the disease and is in quarantine.

Crozier, who lost one of the Navy’s most prestigious jobs as skipper of one of its 11 aircraft carriers, found himself at the center of a national debate this weekend over his decision to request a speedy evacuation of his crew as the coronavirus began to spread through the ship.

On Sunday, his family confirmed that Crozier himself is among more than 150 reported crew members from the nuclear-?powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt who’ve tested positive for the viral infection behind the global pandemic.

“He has told us he is OK,” said his mother, Gina Crozier, a Santa Rosa child and family counselor.

The 50-year-old captain began exhibiting symptoms before he was removed from the warship Thursday at a U.S. naval base on Guam, where he is in quarantine, the New York Times reported.

Crozier was cheered by his crew as he departed the ship, with videos posted to social media showing sailors hailing the departing captain as he walked down the gangplank. Many chanted, “Captain Crozier! Captain Crozier!”

Thomas Modly, acting secretary of the Navy, has said he lost confidence in Crozier’s ability to command the ship after the captain sent a letter on an unclassified email system to 20 to 30 people. Modly said Crozier rightly wrote to superiors with his concerns about the spread of coronavirus among his crew of nearly 5,000 but erred by sharing copies of the memo outside the chain of command.

“In sending it out pretty broadly, he did not take care to ensure that it couldn’t be leaked,” Modly told reporters. “And that’s part of his responsibility.”

The nearly 1,100-foot-long Nimitz-class carrier is docked at the mouth of Apra Harbor on Guam, a Pacific U.S. island territory. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there were 155 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among sailors aboard the aircraft carrier, and that more than half of the ship had been tested. So far there have been no hospitalizations.

In Crozier’s extraordinary letter, reported first by the San Francisco Chronicle, Crozier wrote that the virus was spreading aboard and pleaded for “decisive action” to remove and isolate more than 4,000 sailors.

“We are not at war,” Crozier wrote. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset - our sailors.”

Navy officials later announced they would offload 2,700 sailors in the coming days. On Guam, about 1,000 crew members have been evacuated from the aircraft carrier. Some have been moved to a makeshift gym, others to hotel rooms.

Crozier has not spoken publicly about the letter or his dismissal as the ship’s commander.

Esper on Sunday defended the firing but declined to explicitly say he agreed with Modly’s assessment, noting that there is “an investigation ongoing.”

In two television interviews, Esper said Modly made a “very tough decision” to oust Crozier. “It was based on his view that he had lost faith and confidence in the captain, based on his actions. It was supported by Navy leadership,” Esper said.

Foreign Policy magazine reported Friday that a source said Navy officials felt blindsided by Crozier’s widely quoted letter because the captain had been assured during two phone calls earlier in the week that his crew would be cared for.

“Crozier was given Modly’s personal cellphone number to raise further concerns, the source added, but there was no contact between the captain and Navy brass between that time and when Crozier’s letter was sent by email to higher-ups and some crew,” Foreign Policy reported.

Modly told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday, “I think sort of most disappointing to me is that I had set up a direct line to him that if he felt that any-?thing, way before his letter was written, that if he felt anything wasn’t going well and he needed help, that he could reach out to me directly. And he did not do that.”

Across the country, lawmakers and citizens have demanded Crozier’s reinstatement as skipper of the Theodore Roosevelt. Leading Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee condemned the stripping of his command.

They wrote, “While Captain Crozier clearly went outside the chain of command, his dismissal at this critical moment - as the Sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt are confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic - is a destabilizing move that will likely put our service members at greater risk and jeopardize our fleet’s readiness.”

The most successful of several online change.org petitions seeking his return as skipper had collected well more than ?240,000 signatures by Sunday evening.

President Donald Trump weighed in Saturday, defending the removal of Crozier as skipper of the Theodore Roosevelt.

Trump said he did not make the decision to fire Crozier, but he disagreed with Crozier’s actions and suggested the captain was at fault for the coronavirus infections on board the aircraft carrier for docking the ship in Vietnam.

“I thought it was terrible what he did, to write a letter. This isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear-powered,” Trump said Saturday.

Both Democratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders praised Crozier’s actions in defense of his crew.

On Sunday, Biden called the Trump administration’s handling of the case as “close to criminal” and said Crozier “stood up and said what had to be said.”

“I think he should have a commendation rather than be fired,” Biden said.

Sanders, a senator from Vermont, wrote on Twitter, “The Navy appears to be retaliating against him for acting out of concern for his sailors’ health. His position should be restored immediately.”

Tweed Roosevelt, the great grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, called Crozier a “hero.”

“In this era when so many seem to place expediency over honor, it is heartening that so many others are showing great courage, some even risking their lives. Theodore Roosevelt, in his time, chose the honorable course,” Tweed Roosevelt wrote in an op-ed Friday in the New York Times. “Captain Crozier has done the same.”

Esper insisted it was not unusual for the Navy to relieve commanders so quickly without first completing a review into their actions. But he also declined to say what will happen to Crozier, citing the current ongoing investigation. Navy officials have previously said that though Crozier was removed as captain of one the world’s largest and most lethal warships, he will not be discharged or demoted.

Crozier grew up in Santa Rosa and graduated from Santa Rosa High School in 1988. He knew what he wanted to do with his life as the theater lights came up after a screening in his hometown of the 1986 box office hit “Top Gun,” starring Tom Cruise as a carrier-based Navy fighter.

He attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Mary-land, and, following graduation from the academy in 1992, trained to fly the Seahawk helicopter, then the F/A-18 Hornet fighter. He earned a master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2007 and completed Nuclear Power School in 2014.

From 2014 to 2016, Crozier served as executive officer of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.

He received his first command in mid-2017 as captain of amphibious command ship the USS Blue Ridge, flagship of the U.S. 7th Fleet and the oldest operational ship in the Navy.

Among awards he has received are the Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and various unit commendations.

Last Nov. 1, the crew of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, nicknamed “Big Stick” in tribute to the U.S. Cavalry Volunteer Rough Rider and 26th U.S. president, welcomed Crozier as their new captain.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. You can contact Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.