A U.S. sailor assigned to an aircraft carrier crippled by the novel coronavirus died Monday, the Navy said, marking the first death of an active-duty service member caused by the virus as confirmed cases among the crew climbed to at least 585.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said in a statement that the Defense Department is saddened by the first loss of an active-duty member to the coronavirus.
“Our thoughts are with the family of the USS Theodore Roosevelt sailor who lost his battle with the virus today,” he said. “We remain committed to protecting our personnel and their families while continuing to assist in defeating this outbreak.”
Adm. Mike Gilday, the Navy’s chief of naval operations, said in a statement that the service stands alongside the sailor’s loved ones and shipmates as they grieve.
“This is a great loss for the ship and for our Navy,” Gilday said. “My deepest sympathy goes out to the family, and we pledge our full support to the ship and crew as they continue their fight against the coronavirus. While our ships, submarines and aircraft are made of steel, Sailors are the real strength of our Navy.”
The USS Theodore Roosevelt, carrying more than 4,800 crew members, pulled into port on the island March 27, and the Navy has been under intense scrutiny for how it handled the spread of the virus. Navy Capt. Brett Crozier, the ship’s commanding officer, was removed from his job after sending a memo to senior Navy officials late last month that sounded an alarm about how slowly the service was responding to the outbreak.
“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” the captain wrote. “If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”
After the memo was published by the San Francisco Chronicle, acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly removed Crozier, citing the unclassified manner in which the memo was sent and “poor judgment.”
Modly resigned from his position last week after flying from Washington to Guam to visit the ship and delivering a 15-minute speech over a loudspeaker criticizing both Crozier and crew members who supported him after he was relieved of command. Modly said Crozier had either written the memo to be leaked to the media or was “too naive or too stupid to command a ship.”
“I understand that you may be angry with me for the rest of your lives,” Modly said, according to an audio recording leaked online. “I guarantee that you won’t be alone. Being angry is not your duty. Your duty is to each other, to this ship and to the nation that built it for you to protect them.”
Modly resigned a day later, apologizing for putting the Navy in a negative spotlight. The crew, he wrote in a memo, “deserved a lot more empathy and a lot less lecturing” from him. Modly’s trip to Guam, carried out on a Gulfstream jet owned and operated by the Navy, cost at least $243,000, Navy officials said.
As of Monday, more than half of the entire military’s 929 positive cases of the coronavirus are members of the Theodore Roosevelt crew, according to a breakdown provided by the Pentagon. Ten service members were hospitalized as of Monday morning, the Pentagon said.
The sailor’s coronavirus death marks the first for the military since March 28, when Capt. Douglas Linn Hickok, 57, a member of the New Jersey National Guard, died of complications associated with the virus. He worked as a physician assistant and had tested positive March 21.
