There were 4000 men onboard when the letter went out and many of them are still on board. We are not at war and combat readiness is not an excuse to endanger all those lives. It does appear that the Captain got their attention at least. He would not have done that unless his superiors were not being sensitive to his concerns. What do you think the morale of his men was like as the virus spread?
And gee, read your own quote.
“We cannot and will not remove all sailors from the ship,” Modly told Pentagon reporters. He said officials will send as many sailors off the ship as possible while still maintaining safety. He said about 1,000 have gone ashore, and that number will grow to at least 2,700 in a couple of days.
And once again, where were they going to send them all on short notice?
I am not sure how many military bases you have been on, but I wish you luck in finding one that has 5,000 beds available on short notice. I have been stationed on at least 10 of them over the decades, and that would be a tall order for any base to accomplish. Even one as large as say Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejeune (let alone Fort Bliss or Fort Sill). SO let's go with the claim that they were not being pulled off fast enough.
Where would they go? Put them all up on cots in the basketball court at the gym? Yea, like that is not the perfect breeding ground for an outbreak. They would be better off on the ship instead of in a place like that.
This is what I keep saying over and over, and nobody has yet to answer. But let me say it yet one more time, and make it clear.
Where was the Navy expected to put that many people on short notice? Your own quote shows that they were taking them off as fast as they could, and it seems to me that the problem was not in removing them, but finding a place to put them all. It is not like the military has the budget to keep empty barracks just sitting around waiting for somebody to move into them.
This is why a decade ago when the 1st Armored Division (17,000 men) moved from Germany to Fort Bliss, they had to spend 6 years and over $5 billion to build them barracks, chow halls, clinics, and everything else they needed. Essentially doubling the size of the base. After the base reductions and decreased budgets, there are simply no bases other than their home ports that have facilities to take that many sailors. And the Guam Navy Base is only home to 5 submarines.
But hey, this is something the Navy has been trying to deal with the best it can.
Navy leaders and Guam’s hospitality community are scrambling to match sailors from USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) who test negative for COVID-19 with vacant hotel rooms.
Naval Base Guam does not have the capacity to sufficiently house the bulk of Theodore Roosevelt’s crew in a way that would follow current medical guidelines for stopping the spread of COVID-19, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said during a briefing Wednesday with the Pentagon press corps.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday explained during Wednesday’s briefing that Crozier’s memo detailed his requirement was for a faster pace than the chain of command had anticipated.
“He wanted to move at a greater speed to get people off the ship,” Gilday said. “The misunderstanding was the requirement and speed to get people off the ship.”
By the end of the week, Modly said about 2,700 Theodore Roosevelt crew members should be off the ship, staying either on the base or in hotels. According to the Guam Visitors Bureau, the island has 8,860 hotel rooms.
“One thing I also want to emphasize is we cannot and will not remove all of the sailors off the ship,” Modly said. “And that’s not what the commanding officer requested either nor the medical team. Our plan was always to remove as much of the ship’s crew as we can while maintaining the ship’s safety.”
Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Rear Adm. John Menoni, the commander of Naval Forces Marianas, detailed the efforts to limit the interaction of Theodore Roosevelt crew members with local Guam residents, during a Tuesday press briefing aired by KUAM News in Guam.
“Only sailors testing negative for COVID-19 will be housed in the vacant Guam hotel rooms subject to a 14-day quarantine period,” Leon Guerrero said.
And that paints a much more complete picture of what is going on. They have to determine what personnel are required, then screen everybody before they are removed from the ship. And only then are they able to find someplace to put them up for a 14 day period.
