Dorie Miller –– Looking Back

by Bill Doughty––

In the wake of news that the U.S. Navy is considering renaming the upcoming aircraft carrier CVN-81 from "USS Doris 'Dorie' Miller" to "USS Donald J. Trump," we looked back at our previous Navy Reads posts mentioning Miller, his heroism at Pearl Harbor, and his ongoing legacy.

Here are excerpts from those posts:

Courage of a King and a Miller –– JANUARY 20, 2020

In a review of Barbara Darling-Smith's "Courage" (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), we focused on one of the Navy’s core values and necessary virtues. For example:

Dorie Miller showed “The virtues of an enlisted Sailor who assessed danger in the attack on Pearl Harbor and took matters into his own hands aboard USS West Virginia (BB 48). His heroism is remembered today as the Navy names a future aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller (CVN 81). Doris ‘Dorie’ Miller was killed at sea during World War II.”

His courageous virtues lived on to inspire others.

“After the war, Dorie Miller was a key influence to Americans who showed courage during the fight for Civil Rights Movement, a movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Examples of courage are not restricted to the battlefield.”

PEARL HARBOR (Jan. 20, 2020) The Honorable Eddie Bernice-Johnson, United States representative from the 30th district of Texas, left, speaks at the unveiling of the new Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller (CVN 81) at a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration event on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam as Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly look on. This will be the second ship named in honor of Miller, and the first aircraft carrier ever named for an African American and an enlisted Sailor. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication 2nd Class Justin R. Pacheco)

A Groundbreaking 'Double Victory' – NMAAHC –– FEBRUARY 12, 2020

Six years ago we reviewed NMAAHC founding director Lonnie Bunch III’s, "A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump" (Smithsonian Books, 2019).

(U.S. Navy photo by Arif Patani)

The museum opened during President Trump’s first term with an exhibit featuring Dorie Miller’s heroism in WWII.

In his book Bunch “conveys humility about what the museum can mean for all Americans.”

"Museums alone cannot ease the tensions that come from the debates surrounding the fluidity of national identity in the twenty-first century," he writes. 

"... But museums can contribute to understanding by creating spaces where debates are spirited but reasoned. Where contemporary challenges are addressed through contextualization and education. Since its opening, NMAAHC has become a site where rational healing and reconciliation are possible.”

During a tour of the museum in 2017 with Director Bunch, President Trump paused at an exhibit showing the Dutch role in the transatlantic slave trade; Trump said to Bunch, “You know, they love me in the Netherlands.”

Visitors view an exhibit about the legacy of Mess Attendant Doris “Dorie” Miller at the Smithsonian NMAAHC, Nov. 1, 2016. Adm. Nimitz presented Miller with the Navy Cross for his extraordinary courage during the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (U.S. Navy photo by Arif Patani)

Andrew Young ‘An Easy Burden’ –– OCTOBER 17, 2025

We started our post about Andrew Young with this: “He was a lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, he was by his side not only in life but also at King’s death at the hands of an assassin.”

Young lived a life of service, and he was deeply devoted to human rights.

He credited the military for its role historically to promote civil rights.

“Andrew Young shows how the American civil rights movement arose largely as a result of World War II and the resultant Marshall Plan. The military provided proof and a blueprint for the success of diversity, inclusion, meritocracy, and equality."

Young writes about former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the struggle to “redeem the soul of America.” He shows how Dorie Miller and other black heroes inspired change. Young writes:

“That soul we saw less in America's actions than in its ideals: freedom, equality, justice. While we endured segregation, we knew that America had shed the blood of hundreds of thousands of its sons and daughters in a war that ended slavery. We knew that America had risen up out of the depths of a Great Depression to defeat fascism. We had cheered the exploits of Dorie Miller and the Tuskegee Airmen and other colored soldiers who refused to let racial segregation prevent them from offering their lives for freedom and for America, and we were inspired by their example. Dorie Miller was told he could only be a cook's helper, but he dared to believe he could shoot down enemy aircraft [at Pearl Harbor]. The Tuskegee Airmen dared to believe black men could fly. 

We were thought to be naive, but in truth we were visionary. We dared to believe that America could be healed of the gangrene of racism. We saw America as we could become, not just as we were.”

Andrew Young celebrates black history with First Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia, in 2009 (Gayle Johnson, Public Affairs Office)

Stavridis on Crucial Crucible of Decision –– NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Four years ago, we reviewed one of our favorite authors, and one of his books of inspiration for warfighters.

“Admiral James Stavridis (USN, Ret.) offers key lessons for Sailors and Marines in ‘To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision’ (Penguin Press, 2022). Most of the stories will be familiar to readers of Stavridis or his recommended reading list

Our main focus the time was on Captain Brett Crozier, the heroic Navy Captain who was scapegoated for failures to address the dangers of COVID, early in the pandemic.

Stavridis’s book also explores weighty decisions made by Capt. John Paul Jones, Lt. Stephen Decatur, Rear Adm. David Farragut, Commodore George Dewey, Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, Adm. William “Bull” Halsey, Lt. Cdr. Lloyd M. Bucher, Rear Adm. Michelle Howard, and Cdr. Ernest Evans.

“Each story methodically evaluates the circumstances, personnel, and ramifications of decisions made in moments of often extreme stress, with lives on the line, and when there appears to be no perfect response.”

Stavridis writes with his usual panache and passion. His book is accessible to any deckplate Sailor or rifleman Marine, who will be inspired by the courage and grit of Dorie Miller at Pearl Harbor. 

Frederick Douglass Speaks to Us in 2023: Part 4, Unity –– FEBRUARY 24, 2023

A “statesman” is defined as “a wise, skilled, and respected political leader who guides a government and works for the public good instead of seeking personal power.”

Frederick Douglass, an unofficial advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, was himself one of our nation's greatest statesmen.

In “Douglass: Speeches & Writings” by Frederick Douglass (edited by David W. Blight, Library of America, 2022), the statesman examines American ideals, leaders, and the reality of caste over the concept of “race.”

In our Navy Reads post we mention the future USS Doris Miller (CVN 81) –– the first aircraft carrier named for an enlisted Sailor and the first named for an African American –– is expected to be launched “90 years after Miller’s heroic action at Pearl Harbor.”

We write, “Two hundred years prior to CVN 81’s expected launch, Frederick Douglass was still enslaved in Maryland but would soon escape in 1838 to the North in a sailor’s uniform.”

The Nimitz We Need Now –– MAY 14, 2023

We always admire the works of Clyde Symonds, author of “Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay” (Oxford University Press, 2022).

In this great biography, “We get a gripping recounting of the intelligence preparations, training challenges, command tensions, and communications frustrations in the early 1940s. We read about Nimitz’s quiet 'anxiety' in the lead-up to the Battle of Midway, for example, where Nimitz decided to trust Rochefort’s intelligence and ambush the then-powerful Imperial Japanese Navy. ‘It is difficult in hindsight to appreciation the boldness of that decision,’ Symonds writes."

Nimitz was the right leader at the right time. He was able to do good planning, build trust with people, and care for and about the Sailors and Marines he sent into harm’s way.

“Of course, like all humans, Nimitz was not a perfect person. Symonds calls the Texas hill country admiral ‘a product of his time and his culture’ in that he avoided African American service members (with the notable exception of Messman Doris ‘Dorie’ Miller, to whom Nimitz presented the Navy Cross for December 7 heroism). In 1943 there were no black officers in the Navy. And Nimitz also wanted no part in having women service members on his staff, disallowing WAVES from serving in the Pacific.”

Nimitz hailed from Fredericksburg, Texas. Miller was born in Waco, Texas, and enlisted in the Navy in Dallas in 1939. Nimitz presented his fellow Texan with the Navy Cross in 1942.

Miller receives the Navy Cross from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, at an awards ceremony held on the flight deck of USS Enterprise (CV-6) at Pearl Harbor, 27 May 1942. The medal was awarded for heroism on board USS West Virginia (BB-48) during the Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941. (U.S. Navy)

Yesterday, the Waco FOX News affiliate FOX-44 reported on the public backlash against stripping Miller’s name from CVN-81 and replacing it with Trump’s name. “U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain [and Navy fighter pilot and astronaut], said Miller’s name should remain on the aircraft carrier and argued that his actions at Pearl Harbor warrant the honor,” FOX-44 reported.

In a social media post, Kelly wrote that Miller's Pearl Harbor bravery is legendary and argued the ship "shouldn't be renamed at all, let alone for Donald Trump, who has denigrated servicemembers like Dorie Miller who have paid the ultimate price.” During the Vietnam War, Trump famously avoided the draft and military service with five deferments, including one for bone spurs.

The Navy has not yet made a final decision about renaming the Gerald Ford Class aircraft carrier (CVN-81).

Frederick Douglass Speaks to Us in 2023: Part 4, Unity

Review by Bill Doughty––

After finishing the recent compilation “Douglass: Speeches & Writings” by Frederick Douglass (edited by David W. Blight, Library of America, 2022), I came away with an even deeper appreciation for the great thinker and activist. Douglass, a man who bore the scars on his back of whippings as a former slave, steered away from grievance and toward justice as promised in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. He authored essays, commentaries, and speeches that inspired free-thinking Americans as well as people in other nations.

“Douglass: Speeches & Writings” delivered remarks in and about Great Britain. He described the horrors of “the monster slavery.” And he spoke about the need for greater diversity, voting rights, integration, and equality.

Douglass examined American ideals, leaders, and the reality of caste over the concept of “race.” One of the best essays in this compilation is "Our Composite Nationality," which deserves this extended excerpt, as Douglass speaks to national division and the healing he hopes for even as he predicts more division along lines of race and religion.

On Unity –– What is Real American Exceptionalism?

“Without undue vanity or unjust depreciation of others, we may claim to be, in many respects, the most fortunate of nations. We stand in relation to all others, as youth to age. Other nations have had their day of greatness and glory; we are yet to have our day, and that day is coming. The dawn is already upon us. It is bright and full of promise. Other nations have reached their culminating point. We are at the beginning of our ascent. They have apparently exhausted the conditions essential to their further growth and extension, while we are abundant in all the material essential to further national growth and greatness.

The resources of European statesmanship are now sorely taxed to maintain their nationalities at their ancient height of greatness and power.

American statesmanship, worthy of the name, is now taxing its energies to frame measures to meet the demands of constantly increasing expansion of power, responsibility and duty.

Without fault or merit on either side, theirs or ours, the balance is largely in our favor. Like the grand old forests, renewed and enriched from decaying trunks once full of life and beauty, but now moss-covered, oozy and crumbling, we are destined to grow and flourish while they decline and fade.

This is one view of American position and destiny. It is proper to notice that it is not the only view. Different opinions and conflicting judgments meet us here, as elsewhere.

It is thought by many, and said by some, that this Republic has already seen its best days; that the historian may now write the story of its decline and fall.

Two classes of men are just now especially afflicted with such forebodings. The first are those who are croakers by nature—the men who have a taste for funerals, and especially National funerals. They never see the bright side of anything and probably never will. Like the raven in the lines of Edgar A. Poe they have learned two words, and these are ‘never more.’ They usually begin by telling us what we never shall see. Their little speeches are about as follows: You will never see such Statesmen in the councils of the nation as Clay, Calhoun and Webster. You will never see the South morally reconstructed and our once happy people again united. You will never see the Government harmonious and successful while in the hands of different races. You will never make the negro work without a master, or make him an intelligent voter, or a good and useful citizen. The last never is generally the parent of all the other little nevers that follow.

During the late contest for the Union, the air was full of nevers, every one of which was contradicted and put to shame by the result, and I doubt not that most of those we now hear in our troubled air, will meet the same fate.

It is probably well for us that some of our gloomy prophets are limited in their powers, to prediction. Could they command the destructive bolt, as readily as they command the destructive world, it is hard to say what might happen to the country. They might fulfill their own gloomy prophesies. Perfection is an object to be aimed at by all, but it is not an attribute of any form of Government. Neutrality is the law for all. Something different, something better, or something worse may come, but so far as respects our present system and form of Government, and the altitude we occupy, we need not shrink from comparison with any nation of our times. We are today the best fed, the best clothed, the best sheltered and the best instructed people in the world …

“There was a time when even brave men might look fearfully at the destiny of the Republic. When our country was involved in a tangled network of contradictions; when vast and irreconcilable social forces fiercely disputed for ascendancy and control; when a heavy curse rested upon our very soil, defying alike the wisdom and the virtue of the people to remove it; when our professions were loudly mocked by our practice and our name was a reproach and a by word to a mocking earth; when our good ship of state, freighted with the best hopes of the oppressed of all nations, was furiously hurled against the hard and flinty rocks of derision, and every cord, bolt, beam and bend in her body quivered beneath the shock, there was some apology for doubt and despair. But that day has happily passed away. The storm has been weathered, and portents are nearly all in our favor.

There are clouds, wind, smoke and dust and noise, over head and around, and there always will be; but no genuine thunder, with destructive bolt, menaces from any quarter of the sky.

The real trouble with us was never our system or form of Government, or the principles underlying it; but the peculiar composition of our people, the relations existing between them and the compromising spirit which controlled the ruling power of the country.

We have for along time hesitated to adopt and may yet refuse to adopt, and carry out, the only principle which can solve that difficulty and give peace, strength and security to the Republic, and that is the principle of absolute equality.

We are a country of all extremes—, ends and opposites; the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world. Our people defy all the ethnological and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic vision, no man can name a number.

In regard to creeds and faiths, the condition is no better, and no worse. Differences both as to race and to religion are evidently more likely to increase than to diminish.” (12/07/1869)

Douglass’s speech, excerpted above, was delivered just four years after the end of the Civil War and 73 years to the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor and Oahu. During the Pearl Harbor attack, as every Sailor knows, African American Mess Attendant Doris “Dorie” Miller of USS West Virginia (BB-48) took charge of a machine gun and fired back at attacking planes. That was nearly 83 years ago.

The future USS Doris Miller (CVN 81) –– the first aircraft carrier named for an enlisted Sailor and the first named for an African American –– is expected to be launched 8 years from now in 2036, 90 years after Miller’s heroic action at Pearl Harbor.

Two hundred years prior to CVN 81’s expected launch, Frederick Douglass was still enslaved in Maryland but would soon escape in 1838 to the North in a sailor’s uniform.

Today, men and women of many ethnicities and backgrounds serve in the U.S. military, ready to defend the United States. Today, former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are among the most respected people in America. Former Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of African and Asian descent, is the Vice President of the United States, Retired General Lloyd Austin leads the Department of Defense, Hakeem Jeffries is Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, and there are two African American Justices on the Supreme Court. The advances of African Americans, especially since President Truman integrated the military and LBJ championed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, would be nearly unimaginable to Frederick Douglass and his contemporaries.

This series of Frederick Douglass Speaks to Us is dedicated to the celebration of African American History Month, the commitment to greater national unity, and the ongoing commitment to study the past in order to understand the present and predict the future.

In 2023 some people attempt to ban books and sanitize history, including Black History. The history of the United States is filled with promise, struggle, and progress. Book-banning autocrats who try to white-wash history have an opposite effect: They highlight the ongoing struggle for civil rights, right to a full education, and need for civility. And, ironically, they dilute the fact that the United States has made great positive strides to live up to its ideals.

1943 Onward: US Naval Power

Review by Bill Doughty––

When a veteran British historian and a gifted artist team up for a big book, the result is a work of art and a great early holiday gift for Navy readers: “Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II” (Yale University Press, 2022) by Paul Kennedy with paintings by Ian Marshall.

Paul Kennedy

Kennedy’s theses: (1) 1943 was the pivotal year for victory for the Allies, and (2) World War II accounts for America’s rise as a consummate and exceptional world power, “an extraordinary shift in Great Power history.” Kennedy makes the point in three data-driven appendices, a ream of research notes, a preface overview, and more than a dozen charts, maps, and tables.

If that sounds boring, just turn to the book’s compelling narrative and gorgeous art.

You’ll find a rich sweep of naval history leading up to and during the Second World War –– in both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean areas of operation and in the Mediterranean Sea. Ian Marshall’s sketchy watercolors in soft pastels convey human commitment and achievement even in the fog and gloom of war.

Regarding Kennedy’s thesis about 1943:

“At the onset of 1943 the US Navy was down to a single carrier fleet in the Pacific War, and German U-boats were poised to launch their largest-ever offensive against the critical Atlantic convoy trade. Changes had to come if the Allies were to prevail.

“The changes came in 1943. World War II defies easy summary, but the key to an eventual Allied victory, essentially, was to get the increasingly vast numbers of American and British Empire fighting men and munitions across two oceans so that the combined armies (along with the Russians) could crush Italy, Germany, and Japan. This involved two elements, sea power and a productivity revolution. In the sea-power story, the struggle for control of the North Atlantic was won by the defending forces, quite dramatically, in May and June of that year, with severe U-boat losses. North Africa was consolidated, Malta relieved, and Italy defeated. Things moved more slowly in the Pacific fighting, but victories in the Gilbert, the Solomons, and northern New Guinea confirmed an American advance that would not be thrown back. Yet the year 1943 meant more than just another saga of hard-fought convoy battles, amphibious landings in the Mediterranean and Pacific, and the sinking of a German battle cruiser off Norway. It was the year in which the sheer productive muscle of the United States, which had existed in latent form in so many measures before that time, at last realized itself in all of the arenas of the world war … In place of the dearth of fleet carriers, new powerful ones began to stream across the Pacific from June onward. Over the Atlantic, high above the now-secured convoys of supply ships and troopships, flew thousands of US aircraft on their way to their new bomber and fighter bases in southern England. Landing craft and Liberty ships poured out of American shipyards. Even the Royal Navy’s hard-fought defeat of the U-boats in 1943 could not have been imagined without the productive American force behind the ultra-long-range B-24 patrol planes, the escort carriers, the mass-produced radar sets, the homing torpedoes, and Lend-Lease stock for Canada’s and Britain’s production of escort vessels. By the year following, this flow of munitions to the fronts had become a flood, producing in turn the victories of Leyte Gulf and Normandy. And behind all this military hardware and productivity was a financial, tax-raising strength bigger than anything known to history. Allied naval predominance was assured because of a surge in the American economy that dwarfed that of all its rivals. It was not just a story of more and more warships; it was also a tale of a new international order emerging. Victory at Sea was affirmed, with the clear winner of the war being the United States of America.”

Henry Kaiser's Star of Oregon was the first of many Liberty ships built in U.S. shipyards.

America’s massive production output came about through progressive New Deal initiatives under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a country of immigrants, largely from Europe, hungry to work. Women and African Americans, previously disenfranchised, came into the workforce.

An industrialist who harnessed the moment and accelerated production in the United States was Henry Kaiser, a friend of FDR, who built shipyards and who embraced innovation and technology. [See our post last year about the amazing HJK, whose company helped build the Bay Bridge, Hoover Dam, Western highways, and 1,552 Liberty ships.]

Kaiser’s innovations dovetailed nicely with what Kennedy calls, “the New American Navy,” one that could put multiple fast-carrier task forces to sea. The Navy invested in more than two dozen light fleet carriers (CVLs) and built or converted 122 escort carriers (CVEs).

“Already the creative genius of Henry Kaiser, soon to become famous chiefly for his Liberty ships, had obtained from his friend Roosevelt permission to build an entirely new class, the Casablanca-class, from the bottom up. They would draw 11,000 tons, steam at 20 knots, and carry 28 planes, a 5-inch gun, and smaller armaments, and they would operate as a jack-of-all-trades covering every new amphibious operations s well as the escort duties mentioned above. Kaiser’s scheme was symptomatic of the entire story of American wartime expansion.”

While American exceptionalism is heralded in the realm of production, it is the human dimension that deserves special mention. (“Men,” cited below, while accurate in WWII, is now “men and women” in today’s Navy. And women played a pivotal role in the Homefront war effort.)

“The victor’s ships, planes, and guns need courageous men to steer them, insightful men to organize them, and clever men to give them superior battlefield performance. When the tides of war in the great Atlantic fight turned against the U-boats, it was because hundreds and hundreds of little ships, sloops, frigates, ore carriers, tankers, and cargo vessels, manned by tens of thousands of very brave crewmen (Americans, Britons, Norwegians, and Greeks), steamed back and forth from New York to Liverpool. If the vital strategic position of Malta held out, it was because the eventual winners, the Allies, were willing to take repeated heavy losses to both convoys and escorts and the home garrison. If victory in the great four-part Battle of Leyte Gulf went to the side with the most battalions (to employ Stalin’s phrase), it was because American submarine commanders were extraordinarily skillful, American carrier air forces extremely professional and American gunners remarkably well-trained…”

In fact, Kennedy credits two fellow historians for highlighting the human factor in their watershed works. “It is not surprising that when those two mature official historians of the American and British naval effort, Samuel Morison and Stephen Roskill, came to write the final pages of their respective multivolume works, they preferred to focus on human agents rather than on broad underlying forces.”

Kennedy does the same in the penultimate paragraph of this gorgeous book, aesthetically designed and printed on high quality glossy paper.

This is actually two books in one.

Kennedy had told his friend Ian Marshall he would write a foreword and some text for Marshall’s planned book of original paintings, Fighting Warships of the Second World War. But in the wake of Marshall's death, the book project expanded.

Kennedy reflects on his late friend: “I miss his gentle manners, his great professionalism, and his remarkable erudition in the realms of maritime history and warship design. Each painting is not only a fine work of art but also an understated display of Ian’s impressive topographical and historical knowledge.”

Marshall was a fellow and past president of the American Society of Marine Artists. Kennedy is the New York Times best-selling author of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.”

This book is recommended by Admiral James Stavridis (U.S. Navy, ret.), who blurbed, “This extraordinary work of both global history and nautical art brings two brilliant minds together in Paul Kennedy’s luminous prose and Ian Marshall’s lovely paintings.”

(Top photo: Battleships USS Oklahoma and USS Nevada at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, 1935. Detail from a painting by Ian Marshall. Oklahoma was damaged beyond repair at Pearl Harbor; Nevada survived and served throughout the war (including D-Day and Okinawa operations). Ian Marshall via Yale University Press.)

Stavridis on Crucial Crucible of Decision

Review by Bill Doughty––

Admiral James Stavridis (USN, Ret.) offers key lessons for Sailors and Marines in “To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision” (Penguin Press, 2022). Most of the stories will be familiar to readers of Stavridis or his recommended reading list, but one story –– recent and still painful –– is presented with a personal and unique perspective only Stavridis could achieve.

“The Red Flare” describes the crucible faced by Navy Capt. Brett Crozier, former CO of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). Crozier was fired for the way he responded to an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard TR in the early months of the pandemic. At that time there were more questions than answers, and self-serving politics delayed a proper national response. (We cover Crozier’s challenge and legacy in several previous Navy Reads posts.)

Stavridis begins The Red Flare by recounting his relationship with Crozier in the final days of Libyan intervention during Operation Odyssey Dawn in 2011 and subsequently as part of the NATO joint task force for Operation Unified Protector when Stavridis became Supreme Allied Commander. Crozier was considered “a talented and quite extraordinary officer.”

Crozier’s job was target selector or “targeteer,” responsible for carefully deciding how to maximize effectiveness while minimizing collateral damage and death to local citizens when planning precision-guided-air-to-ground strikes. Crozier’s decision-making during the Libya conflict was done in a pressure-cooker cauldron of international media and chain-of-command scrutiny, according to Stavridis:

“In the end, Crozier and his team planned and executed 218 air taking orders (ATOs), mammoth action orders that plan out the complex movements of aircraft in combat zones. NATO aircraft flew over 26,500 flights, including 9,700 that attacked ground targets and destroyed over 5,900 military assets, all while deconflicting operations with over 6,700 humanitarian aid flights and ground movements. And they did all this with the lowest level of collateral damage in the history of air operations. It was a stunningly successful military campaign, and Crozier’s part in it was rewarded with two significant medals: one from NATO and one from the United States. I thought then that he’d surely go on to an admiral’s stars, and over the next several years I watched his steady progress toward that goal…”

Then-Adm. James Stavridis tours NHHC, Dec. 7, 2012. (MC2 G. Morrisette)

After commanding the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s flagship, USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19), Crozier took the helm of the mighty TR.* During a WestPac cruise, which included a visit to Vietnam, a few members of the crew contracted COVID, and as can be expected on any ship, it spread fast. Crozier tried to get authorization to offload sick and infected Sailors while maintaining enough crew to remain combat-ready.

Frustrated by a lack of action and assistance from higher-ups, he sent a “red flare” message for help. The trouble was, in error, he sent the message as an unclassified email, and he did not include a key leader in his chain of command.

Crozier wrote, “We are not at war. 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!”

The email found its way to the media, and the crisis aboard TR became a national news story and an embarrassment to an administration that failed to take the pandemic seriously at the time.

Stavridis evaluates Crozier’s decision-making and takes the readers to the moment that the Skipper held his finger over the “send” button before he launched the thoroughly reasoned and carefully worded email that would end his career and lead to a dissing from President Trump, who called him “Hemingway.”

Stavridis looks at the context of the events, considers the stellar record of Crozier, and makes a case for understanding the “important point” that communication is key –– and never more complicated than in the internet era.

“It is also important to remember that so often the hard choice you make is something you have to live with from that moment forward. Had Crozier been so focused on his Navy career instead of the health of his crew, he likely would have continued to go along with the shifting guidance without raising any additional complications or hesitations. Had he done that, I suspect he would have never been fired by the acting secretary of the Navy, never been investigated for the events that led up tot he outbreak, and likely would have continued with his Navy career and pinned on admiral’s stars as I’d envisioned back in 2011.”

Today, we can see clear examples of others who focus first on perpetuating their positions of power. They put their own interests ahead of country, Constitution, or the people they represent.

The sad fact is that Crozier was removed from command and, despite efforts by some senior naval officers to reinstate him in command, he was ultimately relieved for cause.

“In my view, the Navy had it right by recommending his reinstatement, and I believe some level of political pressure was exerted from the White House,” Stavridis observes.

Then-Capt. Brett E. Crozier, then-commanding officer of the U.S. 7th Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19), welcomes members of the Japan Self-Defense Force Joint Staff College for a tour aboard the ship, Sept. 18, 2018. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Adam K. Thomas/Released)

“I believe this case study will be examined by generations of naval officers going forward, and with good reason. It perfectly outlines for the Navy the principles of caring for the crew and the difficulty of balancing with getting the mission done.”

“People versus mission is an age-old dilemma for sea captains,” Stavridis writes.

His book explores weighty decisions made by Capt. John Paul Jones, Lt. Stephen Decatur, Rear Adm. David Farragut, Commodore George Dewey, Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, Adm. William “Bull” Halsey, Lt. Cdr. Lloyd M. Bucher, Rear Adm. Michelle Howard, and Capt. Crozier. There’s a bonus story right at the outset, too; Stavridis’s introduction leads with the story of Cdr. Ernest Evans, CO of the USS Johnston (DD-557), and his heroism in the Battle off Samar, 78 years ago on October 25, 1944.

Each story methodically evaluates the circumstances, personnel, and ramifications of decisions made in moments of often extreme stress, with lives on the line, and when there appears to be no perfect response.

Stavridis writes with his usual panache and passion. His book is accessible to any deckplate Sailor or rifleman Marine, who will be inspired by the courage and grit of Dorie Miller at Pearl Harbor. This book is also written for leaders of leaders –– military or civilian –– who want to understand the decision-making process, even when there is “no way out,” as was the case with Lloyd M. Bucher, skipper of USS Pueblo (AGER-2) after his ship was seized by North Korea on January 23, 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War.

The final chapter “To Risk It All” deploys practical advice for leaders who face hard decisions in their life’s voyage. Personally, I love Stavridis’s mention of a personal favorite book I read in high school, Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather,” which Stavridis calls “one of the greatest books ever written about leadership and decision-making…”

Thank you, Admiral, for another great collection of terrific stories, unexpected book suggestions, and indispensable insights, especially your take on a hero for Sailors, whose sacrifice will be even more understood and appreciated in years to come –– Capt. Brett Crozier.

*Top photo: Capt. Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), and Capt. Carlos Sardiello cut a cake in the ship’s hangar bay during a change of command ceremony reception. Crozier relieved Sardiello to become the 16th commanding officer of TR. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Olympia O. McCoy)