Speaking of Theodore Roosevelt...

Theodore Roosevelt came up in the natural process of blogging — in the previous post, the first post of the day.

The next thing I notice — linked at Drudge — is "Theodore Roosevelt captain followed in footsteps of ship’s namesake by writing bombshell letter" (Navy Times). The Navy relieved Capt. Brett Crozier of command of an aircraft carrier named for Theodore Roosevelt after Crozier wrote a letter asking for help with the coronavirus outbreak on that ship. The San Francisco Chronicle got hold of the letter, which said:

“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do... 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 acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, justified relieving Crozier of command. He said that the letter "undermines our efforts and the chain of command’s efforts to address this problem, and creates a panic and this perception that the Navy’s not on the job."

The Navy Times article recounts the parallel in the live of the man Theodore Roosevelt. At the end of the Spanish-American War in the summer of 1898, Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were in Cuba facing malaria and yellow fever:

Regardless of the outcome, the commanders were compelled to put their request [to leave Cuba] into writing –– a task that fell to Roosevelt because, as the only non-general among the senior officer group, [he] had less to lose career-wise. The eventual U.S. president drafted what is now known as the infamous Round-Robin Letter... 

The full text of the letter is at the link. Excerpt:

[I]n this division there have been 1,500 cases of malarial fever. Hardly a man has yet died from it, but the whole command is so weakened and shattered as to be ripe for dying like rotten sheep, when a real yellow-fever epidemic instead of a fake epidemic, like the present one, strikes us, as it is bound to do if we stay here at the height of the sickness season, August and the beginning of September.

Quarantine against malarial fever is much like quarantining against the toothache. All of us are certain that as soon as the authorities at Washington fully appreciate the condition of the army, we shall be sent home. If we are kept here it will in all human possibility mean an appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate that over half the army, if kept here during the sickly season, will die.

The text of the letter found its way into the newspaper, enraging President William McKinley, who was working on peace negotiations with Spain, but the men were moved out of Cuba. History credits Roosevelt "with cutting through the red tape of bureaucracy and saving the lives of 4,000 men," says the Navy Times. The article ends:

Despite the hasty dismissal of Capt. Crozier, the large crowd of Theodore Roosevelt sailors who gathered Thursday to chant his name and cheer as he departed the hulking ship for the last time may indicate how fondly the skipper’s actions will be viewed in the years to come.