Friday - March 05, 2010

Our Captain Bligh is a Lady

Horry Clap, just what kind of a sewer mouthed monster does it take to get busted from command in the Navy? After all “swearing like a sailor” is part of our lexicon. And being tough is part of the job description. But apparently that kind of behavior has it’s own place and time, and just being angry and vindictive is no substitute for qualified leadership. Thus we see real equal opportunity means not just being promoted, but being demoted as well. This is not a happy post.

Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that it’s no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn’t one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her 400-member crew. According to the Navy inspector general’s report that triggered her removal — and the accounts of officers who served with her — Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.

A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report concludes that Graf “repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed assault” and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens “for personal gain.” But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges, substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous atmosphere she created aboard her ship.

A Navy captain was demoted because she berated and assaulted her crew, not because she led her guided missile cruiser on a drag-race with another U.S. warship in the Pacific, an investigation shows.

...

A Navy inspector general report said investigators had substantiated that Graf assaulted subordinates (pushing one, grabbing another and once throwing wadded up paper at another sailor) and that she regularly verbally abused subordinates by publicly berating them, belittling them and using profane language.

...

Graf once ordered a subordinate to stand in a “timeout” in a corner in front of the full watch team, which he complained to investigators was demeaning to him, according to the report.

The report also found she used her office for personal gain — that is, asked junior officers to play piano at her private Christmas party and to walk her dogs.

Among allegations not substantiated was one that she endangered the ship while allowing a drag-race between the Cowpens and the destroyer USS John S. McCain in February 2009.

The Cowpens lost the race too. 

Posted by Drew458     on 03/05/2010 at 03:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Military •  
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