‘Capricious’: A loss of confidence and the Navy way of explaining

It is difficult to rise to command in the United States Navy. The military remains, by and large, a meritocracy aimed at ensuring that only the best attain “command at sea” of the nation’s submarines, aircraft squadrons, and ships. Of all officers commissioned as ensigns in 1983, only 3% attained that goal. The road they traveled was intensely competitive, difficult, and littered with the thousands who failed to meet the Navy’s given standard of “sustained superior performance at sea,” further defined as “performance exemplified by a consistent record of exceeding expectations while demonstrating leadership and expertise at sea.”

As for the promotion system used to winnow the field, it features annual, ranked assessment of fitness in the performance of duty, along with rigorous multiple administrative and statutory boards. For those who do successfully attain and succeed in their first, or O5 command, only a relative few will subsequently be selected for a second, or O6 command, more commonly known as “major command.” “Major,” which is an even larger combatant command, is the last gate through which a few of these officers will pass prior to selection to flag rank. The entire aim of this system is to ensure that not only do the most qualified get to command the Navy’s combat units, but that the best of the best are prepared to become admirals.

Yet, despite whatever expectation might arise based upon this culling, many will fail dramatically once in command.  Every year a number of these elect will be relieved of their duties via “Detachment for Cause” (DFC). A DFC indicates that an officer did something so fundamentally egregious that they were shown the door. In view of the gauntlet an officer must run to even get to command in the first place, as well as the fact that these dismissals inevitably become national news, one might sensibly ask why exactly, on average, 16 of our “best and brightest” fail each year.

Unfortunately, the public is not allowed to know the answer to this simple question. Beyond the catastrophic mishap, or the odd cause célèbres simply too big to hide, the Navy remains resolute in a stony silence regarding exactly why a statistically significant number of commanding officers (CO) are fired, annually.

With only the slightest variation, the public receives the same information:  a captain was detached from his or her command due to “loss of confidence.” With few exceptions, no further explanation is, or will ever be, provided. The Navy’s official line is that this silence is intended to protect the privacy of those involved, but this excuse is little more than the thinnest expedient. In truth, this hush serves at least three purposes. First, the Navy opposes discussion of “family business” with outsiders. That can only lead to trouble. Second, it saves the Navy from embarrassment; particularly in the case of events that cast important officers in the worst possible light. Third, it forestalls any accusations of an arbitrary and capricious stand regarding performance in command.

The Law

The legal framework for the Armed Forces is governed under Title 10 of the U.S. Code. The specifics are found in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which provides the legal requirements and procedures for all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. The purpose of this authoritative document is to ensure consistency and fairness in handling disciplinary matters and legal cases involving military personnel. Simply put the UCMJ is the “law,” and anything not found in the UCMJ is, technically speaking, “praeter legem,” or outside the law. If it is outside of the law, and therefore not subject to adversarial legal proceedings, it is, by definition, “administrative,” allowing for the proceedings to become exceedingly variable, while also granting enormous latitude to authorities.

This is where the Detachment for Cause (DFC) comes in. Military accountability for commanding officers, at least in the Navy, is enforced by the DFC. This is the administrative tool used to relieve officers from command. There is no mention of DFC in the UCMJ. Rather, a DFC is an administrative personnel action governed by Navy regulations and instructions, particularly Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) instructions. This is not to say that a formal court martial might not follow a DFC, but those cases are vanishingly rare, even in the event of actual death, disaster, or criminality.

While the DFC is used to remove a commander from their position or duty assignment due to perceived substandard performance or misconduct, it differs in one critical way from other administrative punishments. The requirements for a DFC are simply that the officer be notified, that he be allowed to respond to the charges during an investigation, and that the decision of the charging authority be reviewed and approved by higher authority. However, unlike other administrative punishments, in the case of a DFC, there is no opportunity to appeal to higher authority, ex post facto.

Removing an officer from command is a seismic event. The charging officer – the officer to whom the charged officer reports – is either a captain or a one-star admiral. That officer cannot initiate such an important process under his own authority. It’s just too big an event. Consequently, prior to any charges being leveled, the matter is discussed and approved, all the way up the chain of command, to at least the three-star level, including counter approvals from other three-star admirals, if not the Chief of Naval Operations, or the Secretary of the Navy.  In short, the outcome has already been fully vetted prior to any charges being preferred. Essentially, the actual proceedings, become a sort of Kabuki theater, which though sometime dramatic, inevitably evolves to the pre-planned outcome. Appeal is pointless. To whom would the fired officer appeal? It was all pre-approved, up to the top, and in advance.

On 17 May 1987, USS Stark (FFG 31) was struck by two Iraqi cruise missiles while operating in the Arabian Gulf. Not only were 37 Sailors killed, but if not for the heroic actions of the crew, and two supporting ships, Stark would have sunk. This was a national-level black eye to the Navy, and within a matter of weeks, an investigating team arrived in Bahrain to examine the events and make determinations. What is not known, however, is that the investigating team had already resolved to relieve the commanding officer, prior to arrival. The “investigation” was simply the official stamp on the already green-lighted firing. *

Beyond the lack of ability to appeal, it is also important to understand that under the UCMJ, personnel attached to shore commands may opt for a court martial rather than administrative punishment. On the other hand, those attached to afloat commands have no such option. Purposefully so. Of course, the Navy does retain the option to pursue court martial rather than administrative punishment, for those at sea, but with two exceptions, that option has not been exercised in over 50 years. A court martial, which allows for defense lawyers, legal rules of evidence, and actual judges, can sometimes go in directions unwished for by the Navy. Not so, the administrative DFC. In the case of USS Stark, the commanding officer had received conflicting instructions regarding operations in the Gulf, from higher authority. Had this fact been exposed in a public proceeding, blame might be spread beyond the commanding officer. Cauterizing the wound through the relief of the captain was deemed sufficient, and rightly or wrongly, the Navy – as it prefers to do in the case of a DFC – placed the totality of responsibility for the disaster on the commanding officer.

The Expedient

Starting in the 1990s, contemporaneously with the end of the Cold War, and the introduction of women into the fleet’s combat units, the Navy devised a methodology by which it could protect itself from explaining the details regarding these DFCs. It was during this period that the Navy began using the term “loss of confidence.” Although the origins of the term cannot be identified, it became a formal and frequent part of public communications in the late 1990s to early 2000s. The phrase is now the standard euphemism regarding commanding officers relieved of their duties via DFC. The term serves as a broad, non-specific justification that allows the Navy to remove a CO without disclosing detailed reasons.

Interestingly, the term “loss of confidence” is not mentioned in the UCMJ. Further, unlike the DFC, loss of confidence does not appear in the Navy’s Manual of the Judge Advocate General (JAGMAN). This seems peculiar as the phrase is applied in every DFC, though evidently, it appeared out of thin air. Ultimately, the term has evolved into a sort of locking device, placed over the DFC, and used to excuse the Navy from providing any sort of detail regarding the firing. It is always the same: “Commander Jones was relieved of command by Admiral Johnson, as a result of loss of confidence in his ability to command.”

What the Navy implies, unofficially, is that the term allows privacy for the detached individual, while at the same time allowing the Navy to digest the issue and establish correctives. In fact, this term simply serves as a cover to prevent embarrassing disclosures: The ship’s commanding officer is a martinet. The skipper of a squadron encouraged outrageous and grossly inappropriate behavior during a command event. The submarine’s captain is having relations with one of his crew. The commanding officer, despite the system which selected him, was a demonstrably terrible leader. She failed an inspection. Driving Under the Influence. His behavior proves detrimental to crew morale, and therefore effectiveness…

The Navy does not want the taxpayer to see behind the carefully constructed curtain. That might only lead to embarrassing questions, including those which might ask whether the officer was treated fairly and, in a manner, consistent with similar cases. Regarding the question of consistency, this refusal to provide details allows for wild variance in Navy decision making, to the point of turning a blind eye to “crimes” committed by certain, protected individuals, that would have otherwise resulted in immediate DFC. Justice is in no way equally applied in the Navy. At least not in the case of commanding officers.

In 1996, USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN‑71) collided with USS Leyte Gulf (CG‑55) off North Carolina at night. Conducting nighttime flight operations, under radio silence, the carrier abruptly reversed engines without prior signal or warning ramming her stern into the cruiser, which was operating in “plane guard” position, in the carrier’s wake. Inexplicably the cruiser captain was relieved of his command within 24 hours. According to the Navy, the cruiser captain was held completely responsible as he failed to maneuver out of the aircraft carriers path (sic). As for the commanding officer of the carrier, who had already been selected to become an admiral, no action was taken, and during his lavish change of command ceremony, he officially put on his admiral’s star. This example, and ones like it, put the lie to the idea of equal justice. Is there any doubt as to why these events are cloaked by the Navy?

Why Captains Are Fired

The number of officers in command at sea at any one time varies; however, in 2023 there were a total of 70 submarines, 103 aircraft squadrons, and 281 battle force ships, totaling some 454 commands. In that same year, 16 commanding officers were DFC’d. While as a percentage, the number of officers fired in any given year may be statistically low, it is a topic of enormous anxiety to Navy leadership. In 2004, following an observed increase in the number of commanding officers being detached, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations directed the Naval Inspector General to conduct an in-depth review of commanding officer DFC cases between the years 1999 and June 2004. The intent of the “Commanding Officer Detach for Cause Study,” was to determine whether there were unanticipated or unidentified systemic factors that contributed to the removals.

As reported in the study, “the team collected case information from a combination of Navy Personnel Command (NPC) databases, type commander (TYCOM) records, hotline investigation files, and corporate memory. The Navy does not have a central database for documenting cases of COs being ‘relieved for cause,’ and most commands did not keep investigation files longer than three years.” This seems remarkable given that a commanding officer’s detachment for cause is inevitably a topic reported in national news.

In the 4.5-year period examined, the study found that 78 officers were detached for cause during the examined period, averaging 16 per year. Since then, while the number of commanding officers fired, year-to-year, has varied, 16 has remained a generally consistent benchmark. In other words, between 3 and 4% of commanding officers are fired annually.

As for the study itself, it was careful in avoiding specific details. For example, causes for detachment were given as “Significant Event” (collision, grounding, aviation mishap, death of a command member, etc.), “CMD (command) Performance” (mission accomplishment, operational performance, or mission readiness significantly below standards and not improving). “CMD Climate” (satisfactory command performance, but poor morale due to an abusive or unhealthy climate attributable to the CO), and “Personal Behavior” (inappropriate conduct/misconduct by the CO). However, beyond those generalities, no detail was provided.

One thing is clear from the study: The majority of officer were fired for “personal behavior.”  Granted, the Navy is resolute regarding its expectation that commanding officers are held to the highest personal and ethical standards.  But what are the systemic, root issues that lead to so many being relieved of their commands? No one seems to know, and evidently, no one wants to know.

Mishaps

The Department of the Navy defines a mishap as, “An unplanned event or series of events that results in damage to DoD property; occupational illness to DoD personnel; injury to on- or off-duty DoD military personnel; injury to on-duty DoD civilian personnel; or damage to public or private property, or injury or illness to non-DoD personnel caused by DoD activities.”   If a ship experiences fire, flooding, collision, death, or significant damage to equipment, it falls under the heading of mishap. Mishaps are investigated for cause and culpability as well as safety lessons. These findings are sometimes – but not always – made available, though if the mishap is serious enough, the commanding officer is often relieved long before the investigation concludes, and sometimes before the investigation starts.

For example, when a ship experiences a collision or an allision the commanding officer is typically fired, and the reason for the DFC becomes a matter of public record. According to a February 20, 2025, Navy’s press release, “Capt. Dave Snowden, commanding officer of USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), was relieved Feb. 20 due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command…. The relief occurred after Truman was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Besiktas-M on Feb. 12, while operating in the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt.”

In the case of mishaps, while the Navy still applies the generic loss of confidence phrase, the temporal connection between the publicly reported mishap and the relief makes it plain to even the most casual observer exactly why the captain was fired. In time, and even though sanitized, the details of these mishaps sometimes become available to the public through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.  Likewise, in time, many of these cases, including the Harry S Truman collision, will be taught to officers serving in ships.

Performance

Command Performance and Climate are the most troubling causes for the relief of commanding officers. These firings take place when the Immediate Superior in Command (ISIC) – the charging officer – determines that relief is necessary for the long-term success of the unit. These cases are typically nebulous. The application of the loss of confidence label means that the details remain unknown, start to finish. What was the event or observation that started the path to firing? What standard was applied? Is that standard consistent across the Navy? We simply do not know, and the Navy is under no legal obligation to explain.

It would be useful, if only to other CO’s, to understand the object lesson. How, exactly, did that captain fail? Did they perform poorly on an inspection? Was it suggested that there was something wrong with the captain or the command, disclosed in a command climate survey? Was the captain somehow observed to be an incompetent leader? Did the charging officer simply not like the captain? We are not allowed to know, and other captains are not allowed to learn from the object lesson.

Misconduct

Misconduct is probably the most straightforward cause for relief of commanding officers. Whether personal or professional, these events erode trust in both the commander’s ability to lead and the institution. Commanders are held to the exemplary conduct standard in Navy Regulations (Article 1138). This line is clear: Do not engage in sexual relations with people in your ship. Do not drink and drive. Do not presume yourself to be above the law. Do not make sexual or romantic advances to your crew. Misconduct reliefs are investigated in some instances by the law, and in some cases by the Navy. But in all cases, if a victim has the courage to come forward, and despite frequently having to face command efforts to suppress their accusation, charges will be investigated.

For the Navy, misconduct is the most embarrassing reason for relief, and it is for this reason that the loss of confidence/privacy/silence tag developed, contemporaneously with the arrival of women into the combat ships and squadrons of the Navy.

In 2003, the captain of an Aegis cruiser was relieved.  Specifically, he was relieved for the disclosure that he was having ongoing sexual relations with the wife of one of his petty officers, while his own wife was battling cancer. The details were lurid, bizarre, and potentially enormously embarrassing for the Navy, particularly since this officer had been marked for assignment to a high-profile job that historically had a 100% promotion to admiral rate.

You may search, but you will find no details regarding this case, only that he was relieved for loss of confidence. Unlike the commanding officer of Theodore Roosevelt, this captain could not be saved even though the Navy might have wanted to protect someone chosen for admiral rank. Too many people knew the sordid details.

The Burden of Command

Most commanding officers do well, others do not, and there is a universe of reasons underlying either success or failure, many of which are beyond the control of the commanding officer. Yet every commanding officer understands that in exchange for being given command, they are understood to be the tethered goat, when the Tyrannosaurus Rex of consequence comes hunting. Their job is to shoulder the blame for the ship, and for the Navy, even if the problem lies far beyond their control or even knowledge.

On 21 August 2017, USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) collided with the Liberian-flagged tanker Alnic MC in the Singapore Strait. The collision resulted in the deaths of 10 Sailors and 48 injuries. The commanding officer was fired and charged with homicide. The chief petty officer, responsible for training the sailors to use the navigation system, was charged with dereliction of duty, even though he had received less than an hour of instruction. The entire blame for the collision was placed upon the incompetence of the crew.

However, with time it became abundantly clear that the ship’s steering system was the major factor in the collision. As reported in Pro Publica, “Its very design, investigators determined, left sailors dangerously vulnerable to making the kinds of operational mistakes that doomed the McCain. The Integrated Bridge and Navigation System, or IBNS, as it was known, was no technical marvel. It was a welter of buttons, (digital indicators) and software that, poorly understood and not surprisingly misused, helped guide 10 sailors to their deaths.”

“The NTSB put it plainly: ‘The design of the John S McCain’s touchscreen steering and thrust control system,’ the board found, increased the likelihood of the operator errors that led to the collision. The Navy investigators, for their part, determined that the system’s ‘known vulnerabilities’ and risks had not been ‘clearly communicated to the operators on ships with these systems.’”

“The Navy, while publicly blaming the McCain’s crew, also took steps to make sure other sailors were better equipped to avoid similar disasters. Commanders issued new instructions to the Navy’s entire fleet of destroyers on how to properly use the navigation system to avoid the kinds of mistakes that could lead to ‘inadvertent’ loss of control.”

This is not to say that the captain was without fault. The broader investigation makes it clear that the chain of events leading to collision was set in motion by the CO’s failure to stick with the planned and briefed timeline for the changing of watch-standers. This unplanned delay left less proficient personnel in place, at the critical time, rather than personnel who were more proficient with the Integrated Bridge Navigation System (IBNS). Nevertheless, the fact that most of the crew were unfamiliar with the new system was a critical contributing factor.

This is the one case of a commanding officer being punished by court martialed in the last 50 years.  Commander Alfredo J. Sanchez was charged with dereliction of duty resulting in death. Initially, he also faced negligent homicide and hazarding a vessel charges, but those were dropped in the plea deal that he ultimately accepted. He took his punishment as was expected by the Navy. After all, he was the captain of the ship.

In retrospect, the Navy dodged a bullet with the court martial decision, and Commander Sanchez was poorly advised to accept a plea. In retrospect, the Navy was too far out over its own skis as it rushed to a court martial, if only to quiet the public’s shock and dismay with a second deadly destroyer disaster in the 7^th Fleet, that summer. Rather than accepting a plea deal, Sanchez might have taken the path followed by the other officer in command of a ship that suffered a fatal collision that summer – don’t plead out, but welcome the court martial foolishly pursued by the Navy.

In the early hours of June 17, 2017, USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) collided with the Philippine-flagged container ship MV ACX Crystal. The impact caused catastrophic flooding and tragically killed seven sailors, with three others injured, and millions of dollars of damage incurred in both ships. As with Sanchez, the Navy immediately DFC’d Commander Bryce Benson due to “loss of confidence in his ability to lead,” and then decided to pursue court martial. Babbitt’s charge including negligent homicide, dereliction of duty resulting in death, and hazarding a vessel.

However, unlike Sanchez, Benson decided to face the Navy’s court. Problematically for the Navy, the genie had escaped the bottle, with major media asking exactly how this could happen in two destroyers in a single summer. Ultimately, a wider investigation was undertaken, which disclosed fleet-wide failures in manning, training, and equipping of the Navy’s ships. In consequence several admirals were sacked for incompetence.

As for Benson’s court martial, the entire matter began to crumble. Technically, the case fell apart owing to a series of statements made by both Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral John Richardson, and Admiral James Caldwell, assigned as the Consolidated Decision Authority (CDA) for the destroyer collisions. The judge assigned to Benson’s court martial deemed these statements to be prejudicial to the case, which ultimately doomed the effort. Perhaps more important, though, the Navy began to realize that a court martial would only further highlight long-term, high-level Navy failures that had begun to come to light during the investigation. In April 2019, all criminal charges against Benson were withdrawn and dismissed by CNO.

Leadership re-learned that the DFC is a much safer recourse for the Navy, and the loss of confidence clause puts questioning out of reach. Courts martial were again demonstrated to be far too risky.

Too Big to Hide

This is not to say that there are no exceptions to the Navy’s code of “omerta.” Sometimes, the story is so big that the Navy feels compelled to speak, no matter how embarrassing that may be. In 2010, Captain Holly Graf was DFC’d from her command in USS Cowpens (CG 63). There was no fire, flooding, death, or collision associated with her firing, which grew out of her grossly unprofessional treatment of her crew including frequently berating and humiliating them.

Normally, this would have been handled quietly by the Navy with a simple DFC. However, as Graf was the first woman to ever command a Navy cruiser and was considered to be a primary candidate for admiral selection, the story quickly blazed out of control. In response, the Navy did what is seldom does – it released details of a non-mishap relief. According to the Inspector General report, Graf was fired for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her crew, and the media was granted access to the lurid details.

Likewise, Captain Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) was relieved of his command in April 2020 after a confidential letter he wrote to superiors about the COVID-19 outbreak in his ship. In the leaked memo, he begged his superiors to allow him to evacuate his ship into quarters in Guam, to prevent the virus’s spread, since it was not possible to practice social distancing on the ship. Crozier was immediately fired by the Secretary of the Navy, himself, citing a loss of confidence in Crozier’s abilities and “exceptionally poor judgment” regarding the email’s distribution. Here was the commanding officer of one of the Navy’s 11 aircraft carriers, publicly lobbying to take her out of service. Whether he was right or wrong, this unilateral decision to sideline a strategic asset was so far beyond his authority that the Secretary of the Navy injected himself. A message had to be sent.

These cases are exceptional. Mishaps, yes. Command climate, performance, and personal behavior are all kept quiet…unless either they are too big to hide, or they serve the Navy’s larger purposes.

Caprice and Favoritism: Collision at Sea

It is an absolute an ironclad rule, understood by every commanding officer to ever walk up a gangway, that if his ship experiences a collision at sea, he will be relieved of command. When and if it happens, no one squawks. They knew that this was a given when they took command. Further, it simply does not matter whether you, as commanding officer, were there on the bridge when it happened, or sound asleep in your rack at 0300. It doesn’t matter, and no one objects. This is the deal you accept when you take command. Ask the commanding officers of John S. McCain or Fitzgerald.

And it doesn’t matter whether anyone is killed. On May 16, 2012, during an underway replenishment, USS Essex, LHD 2) struck the oiler USNS Yukon (T-AO-202). There were no injuries or fuel spills, although both ships sustained damage.  Captain Charles Litchfield was detached from command on June 18, 2012, citing a lack of confidence in his leadership.

This is the Navy’s inviolate tradition dating to inception. In 1908, while commanding the USS Decatur (DD 5), Ensign Chester Nimitz ran his ship aground in the Philippines. He was subsequently court-martialed and found guilty of “hazarding a ship of the U.S. Navy.” Of course, Nimitz survived this blow ultimately becoming a 5-star admiral, but traditionally, no one is above the law.

But there are exceptions, and these beg the question of favoritism and caprice. In December 2002, USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) collided with an Iranian-flagged oil rig service vessel in the northern Persian Gulf, and no relief of the commanding officer occurred. In March 2006, the Kiribati-flagged merchant vessel M/V Rokya 1 and USS McCampbell (DDG 85) collided, approximately 30 miles southeast of the Iraqi coastline in the North Arabian Gulf. Again, no relief for cause took place, despite significant damage, and injuries to two Sailors.

What extraordinary sets of circumstances allowed for this arbitrary breaking of the inviolate rule? For whatever reason, the officers appointed over the captains of these two ships elected to make unique exceptions in these cases. Exceptions supported all the way to the top of the Navy. To the fleet, this was seen as clear evidence that if you know the right people, you can live above the law.

Caprice and Favoritism: Appearances

As for the USS Stark (FFG 31) incident of 1987, the CO was fired and retired early. Then, one year later, on April 14, 1988, USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) struck an Iranian mine while conducting operations in the same waters as Stark. It was understood at the time that the commanding officer of Samuel B. Roberts absolutely failed to follow any of the inflexible tactical rules, memorized by every officer in the ship, regarding operation in a mine field. Shockingly, the captain was not relieved, despite the fact that his ship was so badly damaged that it would require 18 months to return the ship to service. Rather, the captain was celebrated for saving his ship, unlike the captain of Stark, who had also saved his ship from sinking. As for the inconsistencies noted between the two events, the fleet was left to draw its own conclusions, and what was decided among the rank-and-file was that it would have been simply too embarrassing to the Navy to see two frigates virtually destroyed, and two captains universally excoriated as incompetent, in such short order, and in a wartime situation .  Instead, by the Navy’s own hand, Samuel B. Roberts became one of the most celebrated of ships.

Books have now been written about Samuel B. Roberts, but as was the case with Stark, much remains unknown. Even today, thirty-seven years later, you simply cannot attain the investigation report on Samuel B. Roberts mine-strike. If requested under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) query, the report cannot be located by the authorities responsible for maintaining that record. It seems that the actual events of the mine-strike in no way comport with the story the Navy wanted to tell following the ugliness of the Stark incident.

Tell Us and Tell the Public

Nothing in this article should be taken to suggest that those commanding officers who were detached from their command should not have been. This is not the issue in question. What is in question is the willful lack of Navy transparency, and why that opacity is so entrenched. If the Detachment for Cause was the result of a major mishap, the Navy, writ large, can study the mishap and learn from it. The root cause, and the minute-by-minute sequence of events become known, and in some cases, they become part of the Navy’s curriculum. However, in cases of poor leadership, as adjudged by the captain’s immediate senior, or personal, moral failure, the broader Navy learns nothing.

It appears that the Navy considers these losses as little more than the cost of doing business, and other than rumor and furtive discussion in the fleet, the whole story is seldom known or understood. That lockdown of the full story may serve a purpose for the Navy; that is, “nothing to see her, move along,” but what is learned?

The Navy is determined to not only minimize these incidents, but to studiously avoid any sort of acknowledgement that they even exist.  What sort of effect does it have on a ship for a captain to have carnal knowledge of a person in his or her crew? Can it ever be anything other than an utter disaster, impugning the entire reputation of the officer class?

Worse, this lack of transparency or even a cursory explanation for these military firings may significantly impact public trust in the Navy, affect morale, and damage the presumption of integrity so jealously guarded by Navy leadership.

The Navy upholds the highest moral standards the public is told. So, they may believe that the Navy’s discipline and law are inviolate, and unchanging, because that is what they are told. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Often naval justice is capricious, inconsistently applied based upon something other than a binary metric, applicable to some but not others, and used as a tool to protect the service.

Beyond the issue of the DFC, were one to doubt the capricious nature of Navy standards, one need only look at the question of “height and weight standards.” During the 1990s, when the fleet was declining in size, post-Cold War, failure to meet height and weight standards resulted in widespread administrative detachments from the Navy. We just kicked them out, no matter how great a Sailor and contributor they might have been. It was brutally binary. Particularly, this was true for enlisted people. Conversely, obesity was common among senior officers, and these people were protected. They were not thrown out. Then, when enlistments plummeted during the Biden Administration, obesity was ignored, top-to-bottom. The point here is that either you have standards, or you don’t, and the Navy’s arbitrary application of rules, as well as its secretive nature regarding the reliefs of its captains makes the service seem as if it’s much vaunted accountability doesn’t mean much.

What makes a commanding officer different from any other government employee? Why would he be afforded this excessive privacy? When a civilian in the judiciary, congress or the executive branch fails, we are provided with excruciating detail. We are told that these are holders of public trust, and as such they check their right to privacy at the door. Why are these captains different?  They are different because they are a song that the Navy does not wish to sing, and they are consequently allowed this silence, regardless of the cost.

There is a methodology that should be employed to share both detail and lessons drawn from these firings, though even this approach risks the Navy’s perverse refusal to discuss sexual misconduct in the service. The Navy has periodically published an “All-Navy” message called “Summary of Navy Mishaps.”   This message included sanitized reports of mishaps, providing critical details, warnings, and lessons to the entire fleet.  Motorcycle accidents, accidental deaths in ships, submarines and squadrons, accidents at home, it touched on every possible topic that could warn Sailors to watch out for themselves. It was put together with a light-hearted tone, which guaranteed that every Sailor in the fleet read the thing. Unfortunately, it was eventually decided that it was both too glib and too much of a window into things going wrong in the Navy – so it was killed. It is not a major leap to envision a sanitized report, assembled annually, that could be made available to at least those attending the Navy’s Prospective Executive Officer and Prospective Commanding Officer schools.

* In every undocumented case described in this article, the author was present and is speaking from personal observation.

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Captain Furay deployed on every tour and to operational areas in the Middle East, Western and Eastern Asia, Europe, and South America while serving on numerous cruiser and destroyer-type ships. He commanded an Aegis destroyer, and an Aegis cruiser as Air Warfare Commander. He also completed multiple Pentagon tours and attained a master’s from the Kennedy School at Harvard.