You know what. I usually try to stay out of these kinds of discussions, but having read all the above, because the story is so relevant to the unprecedented situations that we are all having to face, and the tricky decisions necessitated by them, I have hung in there. I now believe I at least understand why it is that often, (to us mere civilians anyway), members of the military seem to be treated so badly, when push comes to shove, by their own.
Maybe it's naive, but I feel that when someone is willing, by being in the military, to put their life on the line if necessary to protect us mere civilians if the worst should happen, that occasionally when they act like in a rather human way to a given situation, where it is easy to condemn that action with the benefit of hindsight, they be given a little bit of the benefit of the doubt..? But no. Apparently not..! Apparently to hold command they have to be perfect. Yet no-one is, so how does that work..?
Words like 'judgemental', 'unforgiving', 'hypercritical' and 'holier than thou' keep springing to my mind for some reason..? Or was this really all just a great big exercise for many, (not all), in taking the opportunity to show our military knowledge superiority..? I'll let others be the judge on that...
PS. Has Captain Crozier been reinstated or not..? I hope he has, but hey...what do I know..?
Your point is well taken, Peter, but... as others have pointed out, the military can be (NOT always) a harsh moral landscape at the higher level of command. It was always easier to be a little more relaxed in the lower levels when appropriate, but the higher you go...
The classic article, by a civilian, which follows is handed to every US Naval Officer (including me) who takes command of a ship in our Navy. It speaks to a horrific situation, not the moral issue we are discussing here, but it sort of sets the tone about unavoidable responsibility and accountability of command.
HOBSON’s Choice
the historic editorial that appeared in the May 14, 1952 edition of the Wall Street Journal after the deadly collision between the USS Wasp and USS Hobson
One night past some thirty thousand tons of ships went hurtling at each other through the darkness. When they had met, two thousand tons of ship and a hundred and seventy-six men lay at the bottom of the sea in a far off place.
Now comes the cruel business of accountability. Those who were there, those who are left from those who were there, must answer how it happened and whose was the error that made it happen.
It is a cruel business because it was no wish of destruction that killed this ship and its hundred and seventy-six men; the accountability lies with good men who erred in judgment under stress so great that it is almost its own excuse. Cruel, because no matter how deep the probe, it cannot change the dead, because it cannot probe deeper the remorse.
And it seems crueler still, because all around us in other places we see the plea accepted that what is done is done beyond discussion, and that for good men in their human errors there should be afterwards no accountability.
We are told it is all to no avail to review so late the course that led to the crash of Pearl Harbor; to debate the courses set at Yalta and Potsdam; to inquire how it is that one war won leaves us only with wreckage and with two worlds still hurtling at each other through the darkness. To inquire into these things now, we are reminded, will not change the dead in Schofield Barracks or on Heartbreak Ridge, nor will it change the dying that will come after the wrong courses.
We are told too how slanderous it is to probe into the doings of a Captain now dead who cannot answer for himself, to hold him responsible for what he did when he was old and tired and when he did what he did under terrible stresses and from the best of intentions. How useless to debate the wrong courses of his successor, caught up in a storm not of his own devising. How futile to talk of what is past when the pressing question is how to keep from sinking.
Everywhere else we are told how inhuman it is to submit men to the ordeal of answering for themselves. To haul them before committees and badger them with questions as to where they were and what they were doing while the ship of state careened from one course to another.
This probing into the sea seems more merciless because almost everywhere else we have abandoned accountability. What is done is done and why torture men with asking them afterwards, why?
Whom do we hold answerable for the sufferance of dishonesty in government, for the reckless waste of public moneys, for the incompetence that wrecks the currency, for the blunders that killed and still kill many times a hundred and seventy-six men in Korea? We can bring to bar the dishonest men, yes. But we are told men should no longer be held accountable for what they do as well as for what they intend. To err is not only human; it absolves responsibility.
Everywhere, that is, except on the sea. On the sea there is a tradition older even then the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them both goes accountability.
This accountability is not for the intentions but for the deed. The captain of a ship, like the captain of a state, is given honor and privileges and trust beyond other men. But let him set the wrong course, let him touch ground, let him bring disaster to his ship or to his men, and he must answer for what he has done. No matter what, he cannot escape.
No one knows yet what happened on the sea after that crash in the night. But nine men left the bridge of the sinking ship and went into the darkness. Eight men came back to tell what happened there. The ninth, whatever happened, will not answer now because he has already answered for his accountability.
It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men. But the choice is that or an end to responsibility and finally, as the cruel sea has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for what they do.
And when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable derelicts.
The enormous burden of this responsibility and accountability for the lives and careers of other men and often, the outcome of great issues, is the genesis of the liberality which distinguishes the orders to officers commanding ships of the United States Navy.
Wall Street Journal May 14, 1952
It may well come out some day that Captain Crozier knew well what he was doing when he widely released his letter in an effort to save his crew and was quite willing to fall on his sword as the person responsible for his actions and accountable to the nation for the welfare of his crew. Time will tell, and whether or not he is reinstated may not be the most important thing in his life right now.
