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.”