Far East Cynic

Tell me again there is no double standard….

UPDATE!!!: A pretty interesting comment thread on this incident can be found here. Its 100+ comments! Worth the time to read. I stand by my assessment and the one that was found in the comments here “a predetermined female success story”.

Navy: Cruiser CO relieved for ‘cruelty’

By Philip Ewing – Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 14, 2010 9:50:27 EST

The commanding officer of the Yokosuka, Japan-based cruiser Cowpens was relieved of duty Wednesday after being punished for “cruelty and maltreatment” during her time in charge, the Navy announced. In an unusual move, she is being permitted to continue on to an assignment in the Pentagon.

Capt. Holly Graf was brought before an admiral’s mast with Rear Adm. Kevin Donegan, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 5, after an inspector general’s investigation found problems with her “temperament and demeanor vis-a-vis her subordinates,” said Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for 7th Fleet.

Davis said he could not elaborate about what the IG had found about Graf’s treatment of her crew, but he said it had been taking place “over a length of time,” including when the ship was in port and at sea. Specifically, Donegan found Graf guilty of violating Article 93 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice — which covers “cruelty and maltreatment” — and Article 133, “conduct unbecoming an officer,” according to information provided by Davis.

Replacing Graf in command is Capt. Robert Marin, Davis said, who had already been scheduled to take over for her some time in January. Marin had been aboard the Cowpens since the end of December, making preparations for a normal change of command, so Donegan “ordered the change of command be executed immediately based on the non-judicial punishment and in the best interests of the ship and crew,” Davis said.

Davis said he didn’t think an exact date had been set yet for a normal change of command, but that Marin was to have taken over before the end of January. Graf is under orders to move on to a new assignment on the Navy Staff in the Pentagon, Davis said — a move already scheduled before her relief this week.

Her continuing into a job to which she had already been assigned is unusual for a Navy captain who has been relieved; many fired COs are assigned to the staff of their parent command and their careers effectively ended.

Graf is a 1985 graduate of the Naval Academy, according to her official Navy biography; she commanded the destroyer Winston S. Churchill, among other assignments, before taking command of the Cowpens in March 2008.

  1. Skippy, word on the “street” over here is that she deserved to get canned. Some of the stories I have heard would put LCDR Quigg to shame.

  2. Guys,

    Seriously; don’t hate.

    She got her commands as we did. A board of officers was convened and nominated her. Such boards have made mistakes in the past. Nobody gets it right every time.

    Cruelty was a new one on me. I’m far more used to the ISIC saying loss of confidence. Cruelty….On the other hand, I promised one or two CO’s that they’d be dead if they ever touched me again. They somehow sensed that I was deadly serious. I had friends that worked for reamers and screamers. Me, I reformed such losers. I was never going to tolerate crap like that.

    Had one CSO that got me on the phone at 2300 one night in Bahrain. Had me doing 66 RPM around the coffee table with his crap until I realized I didn’t actually work for the dirtbag. Just hung up on him. He called back 5 minutes later with remorse.

    Not sure that any of our junior peers read this blog but seriously, you don’t have to put up with reamers and screamers. Your threat to kill them probably won’t carry the weight of mine (I had a mysterious .45cal pistol hanging on the hook of my stateroom door) but still, you don’t need that crap. Nobody does.

  3. Full disclosure: I didn’t serve with or under CAPT Graf.

    Those who did, and told me about it, painted a picture of an out-of-control screamer who compensated for her deep-seated incompetence by throwing off chaff clouds of vitriol. On a regular basis. This goes all the way back to her XO tour on CDW, where she first came up on my radar as an FDNF MCPO.

    Big Navy knew that she was a psycho-chick, but none of her superiors had the moral courage to either rein her in or throw her out. Probably because the word was out that she was a pre-designated woman-in-command success story.

    She was/is the SWO analog to LT Kara Hultgren. PC and AA at it’s absolute worst and most dangerous. Only this time, nobody got killed.

  4. My last assignment was working for a man. Guy was a 30 year grad and football player at USNA. He spent a lot of time on the phone answering the IGs questions about one of his former bosses (admiral).

    Guy was the soul of honor and integrity. Sometimes left me in soul charge of the Group when both he and the CSO took off. One of those times I signed an MPO against a black female LCDR and over the course of a year it rode all the way to a full blown court martial and had 3 different JAGS and some senator shits involved. The guy had already put in his papers but I still have tremendous admiration for him for going ahead with the charges, which were pretty serious, including the last which was violating a direct written order (the one I gave her).

    Guy was a class act. Old school. I like to think that out there we have lots more like him. Guys like him and me and the first mostly don’t get promoted to Admiral but I like that my first CO was a captain of enormous integrity and 26 years later, my last CO was a man of enormous integrity.

  5. Be interesting to see if she does the honorable thinig and puts in her papers, like any number of male CO’s who got relieved.

  6. Just found out that CAPT Graf has a sister, a RDML Graf. Hmm, I wonder if she’s had a little sibling-provided top cover all these years?

    One other thing. Had some familiarity with the Yokosuka Eagle’s Forum during my time in FDNF. It doesn’t take much cynicism to recognize the mutual protection aspects that are fundamental to this group of Navy Captains. Can’t wait to hear the “but Master Chief, you don’t know the big picture” excuses thrown my way. World-class cop-out, Captains.

    Curtis’s guy was a rare bird, indeed. Most senior officers avoid those situations like the plague. Too much trouble in doing the right thing and, as we all know, no good deed goes unpunished. Honor, Courage, Commitment; this is for public consumption only.

  7. I knew a fellow who went to DH school with me who did a Dept Head tour unde rher on the CDW. She basically “SWOED” in high fashion, so much that it drove him out of the community. But there is a silver lining. He switched to another community and managed to make O6. He was a class act and a good person to be a friend with and to work for. But the amount of disillusionment he had when he left the CDW almost drove him out of the Navy. I am sure that many good persons have left the Navy becuase of types like her. I know we have them in the coporate world, and I am not one that thinks we should all get together and hold hands and sing “We Are The World” on the bridge. Sometimes stern measures need to be taken to get a crew into shape. But going overboard on some of the things I have heard about her are realy not necessary.

    Oh well, I am sure that there will be a few more this year that get relieved, just hope it is not after someone gets killed because of their incompetance first.

  8. When I met her, she struck me as one of those women who had made a career out of being a woman in the Navy. It was on a recreational event-but she seemed more than a little high strung. I too, had heard rumors about her demeanor on the Cowpens before leaving Japan.

  9. Color me really slow.

    We’re speaking of Tim’s sister-in-law. I don’t have any single source on the hellmouth and I’m not quick. Yeah, you can use that against me anytime in the future.

    Yeah, 2 admirals looking out for a relative. In my book that’s 3 bullets and no tuppence.

    Tim is never gonna read read this nor will his flag bride but naval officers aren’t supposed to look out for total scumbags and those that do earn contempt. We’ve got way too many of them.

  10. I’m sorry to say it but the Navy is off the rails. When I see my old uniforms in the attic I’m almost embarassed that I was in the same service with the people they put in charge of things these days. Unfortunately, we may need a Navy that works and will probably need it more in the future, and we won’t have it.

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