What's unusual is that she wasn't relieved for running aground or for a DUI or for inappropriate sexual behavior or for being incompetent or for otherwise scaring the heck out of her bosses. Those "relieved for cause" incidents happen two or three times a year, particularly in Seventh Fleet where ships are worked to their limits (and beyond). It happens to all kinds of COs-- men and women. Oh, the stories.
No, Holly's offense was... being a screamer.
Screamers aren't that uncommon in the Navy, and even 10 years ago there would have been an wardroom uproar over getting relieved just for yelling at people. That's not assault, it's swearing like a sailor direct & forceful goal-oriented leadership! She would've been admired for her guts, to say nothing of her verbal creativity, and groomed for flag rank. Nobody used to do anything about it-- they tolerated it or worked around it, and the casualties were considered just part of the cost of culling the herd weeding out the weak doing business. "Challenged to perform" or "personality conflicts" or "just couldn't hack the pressure" were blamed on the afflicted, not the inflicter. I owe my 1989 Hawaii transfer to being the only [-]sucker[/-] officer left in the pipeline who could, let alone who was willing, take over for yet another department head. He'd started coughing blood after a few months on the job because his screamer CO was getting on his nerves.
From the scuttlebutt I'm reading these days on no-holds-barred Navy discussion boards like SailorBob.com, it's even more encouraging to note that hardly anyone even cares she's a woman. Sure, this engenders (so to speak) commentary on whether the traditional designation of "@sshole" is also deemed appropriate for a woman in command, or if the word "b!tch" could be considered strong enough misogynist. But that's just a minor semantic distraction, and there aren't even any jokes about emotional hysteria or hormones. What also encourages me is that officers (and the enlisted ranks) are being very clear that this is not about male or female-- this is about behavior. After more than 35 years, the Navy is finally accustomed to women at sea and in command. It's about time.
No, what's impressing me is that the Inspector General staff was actually told to get their butts on a plane and fly all the way out there to do an investigation. This wasn't just a squadron commodore or a battlegroup admiral or even a C7F flag officer pulling her aside and saying "Um, hey, you've made your reputation, the flag selection board is impressed, now just tone it down a little, couldya?" This wasn't typical flag backstabbing or O-6 resentment at yet another cruiser CO being one of the chosen. This wasn't a boss saying "I don't have the guts or the support to fire one of my own COs, could you send the IG over here to do my job for me lend a hand?" It wasn't even her crew sabotaging her by letting her fall on her sword when they could have stepped in to keep the ship out of trouble. That's a very common factor in collisions & groundings.
This is about junior officers (and a few midgrade officers) and hundreds of enlisted telling their assignment officers why they won't go to that ship and why they won't stay there. This is about dozens of them voting with their feet. It's about a new generation saying that this "traditional" hard-charging Navy behavior is no more appropriate today than public drinking & whoring used to be appropriate in my day or drugs in the '60s-'70s or shipboard inebriation even earlier in this century. This is about deckplate leadership setting a higher performance standard than their alleged leaders, and saying that their generation is not going to behave that way or accept the behavior of those appointed over them.
I bet Graf's entire supervisory chain of command were a little shocked to get the IG phone call and to eventually understand that this was a "big deal". And they realized that they couldn't intervene or protect her, so they stepped smartly back to leave her swingin' in the wind. Heck, one or two of them were probably afraid that they were going to be relieved for contributing to (let alone tolerating) the problem. I bet they're still a little surprised to be told that they shouldn't have let it get to this point. I'd love to read some of the fitness reports that are being written on the squadron, battelgroup, and fleet staffs around this issue. I'd pay serious money to get the bootleg recordings from the annual all-flag-officer conference.
Five years from now this could easily be one of the ships that our daughter's assigned to. It looks like it's finally getting safe to go to sea!
