The Perfectly Esteemed Captain
I can guess, from experience, that within a week or so of signing on the dotted line, CAPT Brett Crozier (recently relieved of commanding the aircraft carrier USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT) learned, whether by choice or out of necessity, 7 sentences compiled in 1900 from the letters of John Paul Jones. These instructions, adages, and words of wisdom constitute the ‘Qualifications of a Naval Officer,’ building to the simple truth that every commander, every ship’s Captain, would do well to remember: ‘that to be well obeyed, he must be perfectly esteemed.’
We take it for granted, the faith and truth the public has in the military. This is not a truly American phenomenon — many NATO-allied nations hold their service men and women in equally high regard. But just to put numbers to this, Pew polling in 2018 found that nearly four times as many Americans trusted the military to act in the best interests of the public than they did their elected officials (80% to 25%). Our military is so respected because service is voluntary, because uniformed military does not serve at the whims of a certain party or political leader; they do not operate outside the law or have total independence from the civilian branches of government. Military officers have an obligation, a duty, to support and defend a piece of parchment, a rule set defined 232 years ago, but most crucially to ‘well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which [they are] about to enter.’ As the Captain of a ship, the duties of the office require you to place the well-being and warfighting capability of your ship’s crew above all else; you have no ship if you do not have a functioning crew. Make no mistake, CAPT Crozier knew this, and paid the price for embodying the trust the public places in the military, preserving it for the next generation of people raising their right hands.
More than just safeguarding the public’s trust, military officers are obligated to follow lawful orders, not politically convenient or expedient ones. Shunning responsibility or accountability is impossible; a lack of courage is a guaranteed way to lose the respect of the people whose very lives depend on your decision-making. Speaking truth to power becomes necessary to successfully defend the nation. Nobody is infallible. The greatest of the commanders under whom I served knew this implicitly. They relied upon, indeed demanded, that the officers serving on their staff thought critically about problems, poked holes in strategies and response plans, and avoided the obsequious affirmation demanded by not just by despots and tyrants, but by anyone too small to fill the large shoes of senior leadership. If you cannot, or choose to avoid, having contrarian arguments made, or hearing alternative opinions on how to accomplish the mission, it is a very real possibility that your platoon, your division, your squadron, your ship, your fleet could pay the ultimate price of freedom. Make no mistake, CAPT Crozier understood this tenet also, and practicing it under these circumstances ended his military career.
Above all, this week underlined that the leaders we write about, in articles, in books, the ones that persevere as the models future members of the service will emulate, they understood good leadership — servant leadership — means looking out for the people working for you, not for yourself. It means humbling yourself before the burdens of your position, acknowledging your own imperfection and the gaps in your knowledge, then learning from the ones subordinate to you that possess that knowledge, are the most eager to share it; the best ones take those opportunities to also learn about and care for the people themselves, to see past the job or the post they’re standing, to connect with the person wearing the cloth of the nation. The servant leaders are the ones who will just as readily climb into an engine to find which part is broken as they will sit across the table from Admirals and Ambassadors. Watching the videos of CAPT Crozier’s traditional ‘ringing off’ as he departed the ship, winding his way past emotional officers and enlisted Sailors alike, there can be no mistake made: beloved by his crew, respected by his officers, this was a Captain humbled but not overwhelmed by his responsibilities. Responsibilities he took so seriously that he sacrificed his own career taking a stand for what he knew was right by them, his Sailors, those whose lives and well-being had been entrusted to him by their families, their communities, their Nation.
It is therefore fitting that CAPT Crozier’s final command tour placed him in charge of the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT, an aircraft carrier named after our 26th President, after the paragon of public service and dedication to whom every modern American political leader can arguably be compared, whose legacy rings across the decades in more ways than there is space here to write. I can also guess, again from experience, that within a couple more weeks of arriving at the Naval Academy, that CAPT Crozier learned, whether by choice or out of necessity, two of the most clause-filled, impact-laden sentences Colonel Roosevelt (as he preferred to be addressed after leaving the White House) delivered in April 1910, at the Sorbonne, in a speech entitled ‘Citizenship in a Republic.’ It has endured as ‘The Man in the Arena.’ It, like ‘Qualifications’ is required to be memorized by every midshipman, and its exhortations to give credit to the ones with faces ‘marred by dust and sweat and blood,’ and to spend oneself in a worthy cause, echo loudest today.
However, it is another quote from President Roosevelt that better suits the moment, one that has not had quite the longevity: “A politician who really serves his country well, and deserves his country’s gratitude, must usually possess some of the hardy virtues which we admire in the soldier who serves his country well in the field.”
CAPT Crozier, thank you for showing us the hardy virtues once more, and thank you for serving your country well, both in the field and underway. By all of us you are, and always will be, perfectly esteemed.
