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Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that it's no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn't one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for "cruelty and maltreatment" of her 400-member crew. According to the Navy inspector general's report that triggered her removal — and the accounts of officers who served with her — Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.</p>
<p>A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report concludes that Graf "repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed assault" and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens "for personal gain." But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges, substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous atmosphere she created aboard her ship.
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<p>Read the rest of the article and take heed.</p>
<p>Folks, you do NOT have to be ABUSIVE to be a good leader. In fact, being abusive is the ANTITHESIS of being a good leader. You can't lead people you've beaten down because they can no longer get up to follow you.</p>
<p>You also can't pass the buck (as this piece of trash tried to do) when your own failures come to get you. This is the military, not politics, and while it's not perfect by any stretch, but in the profession of arms you are held accountable for your performance AND the performance of your people more so than almost anywhere else.</p>
<p>There are plenty of examples of great officers and leaders. There are also examples of bad ones. You need to study both.</p>
<p>What’s amazing is that she wasn’t “fired” but, rather, positioned to a weapon’s lab to serve out her career.</p>
<p>And some continue to question the notion that many senior officers [after 20-years] only remain where they are because they couldn’t find anything else to do or because no other more-senior officer was willing to take responsibility for having promoted such a person to begin with.</p>
<p>Quoted from the article:
I’m more upset that the Navy let this go on so long," says Kirk Benson, who retired from the Navy as a commander three years ago after a 20-year career. Many complaints up the chain fell on “deaf ears,” he says. “When I think of Holly Graf, even <b>12 years later,</b> I shake,” he says of serving under her when she was second in command on the destroyer U.S.S. Curtis Wilbur in 1997-98. “She was so intimidating even to me, a 6-foot-4 guy.” </p>
<p>While many fine officers serve admirably, its a shame that too many officers of this caliber are allowed to obstruct younger officers who are just beginning.</p>
<p>XCI: you writing style sounds familiar. Welcome back?</p>
<p>With this one probably being closer to the truth:
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<p>I love anonymous bloggers. There are many leadership styles, especially on the bridge of a ship. If every intimidating male skipper who was a screamer and occasionally dropped the ‘F’ word were relieved, the Navy would be a very lonely place.</p>
<p>I actually read this first in the Navy Times a few weeks ago. It was just one article of many this year about Captains and Commanders who have been relieved of duty for various reasons. It’s ugly, no question about it. Shows the military and especially the Navy in a bad light.
What is striking to me is that Time picked this up. Could it be because she is a female?</p>
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wonder what they would have called her if she were male.</p>
<p>4 male and 1 female.
1 male fired for “Lack of confidence and ability to lead”
3 males fired for “solicitation of prostitution”, “fraternization”, "inappropriate relationship (with a junior female officer in his command)
1 female fired for “tempermant and demeanor”.</p>
<p>And look who gets the article in Time. Oh my.</p>
<p>…and there’s always somebody who has to throw the feminism flag. How surprising. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I woult type what they would have called a male who behaved the same way, but the filter would leave us with nothing but a string of asterisks.</p>
<p>I should also point out that while others were relieved for loss of confidence, this woman was relieved for far worse. THAT is why she’s in TIME.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think it’s amazing TIME did the story. I’m sure they’ll be hearing from NOW any time now.</p>
<p>Oh dear… what an AWFUL pun! :eek:</p>
<p>This story is being posted here for the reasons in the OP, not as some closet attempt to decry women in uniform. Sheesh.</p>
I don’t know. When fitreps were due, I think I would rather be evaluated by a skipper who screamed at both me and my competition than one who was screwing my competition.</p>
<p>Should be 5 male and one female.
The other male - subject of the link was fired for "“inappropriate conduct”. whatever that means.
I am *sure<a href=“sarcasm”>/I</a> that “tempermant and demeanor” especially coming from a woman is far far worse that “inappropriate conduct” from a man.</p>
<p>She threw coffee mugs across the bridge. She grabbed one JO by the throat. She blamed the problems on her ship on “groupthink” and a JO conspiracy in the wardroom, which makes her an abusive mix of Captain Queeg and Captain Sobel. She put a Master Chief on “time out” in Control, in front of officers and enlisted. </p>
<p>The Inspector General’s report found that most (though not all) of the charges leveled against her had merit. She was and is totally unfit for command. </p>
<p>I wonder (fear?) how many careers this wench destroyed on her way up the ladder? </p>
<p>I was a plebe once. There is a huge difference between a plebe being yelled at for his uniform while making a chow call and an officer having his career destroyed by an incompetent and bitter senior officer that throws things across the bridge when she doesn’t get her way on her own ship, then blames the wardroom for it.</p>
<p>But go ahead and continue thinking that this is all happening just because she’s a woman. Don’t let reality get in the way of your preconceptions.</p>
<p>Command at sea is an awesome responsibility, probably unlike anything else in the military. Who knows what really happened. It is sad, at least for me, that an entire career was reduced to a “he said, she said” long green table.</p>
Most likely a good supposition. I am a little rusty on my Article 15 UCMJ but I doubt seriously if discharge is an acceptable punishment for an O-6. She will be allowed to retire as per normal procedures. Probably sooner than later. Probably in a billet where she will be afforded very little opportunity to do anything critical.<br>
Had the Commander, 7th Fleet elected a Courts Martial in hopes for an immediate discharge, rules of evidence would have been more critical and she may have been found not guilty. Admiral’s Mast was his call.</p>
<p>I didn’t know her - or, if I did, I don’t remember her. There were a lot fewer women at USNA then, and we had no female classmates in 14th Company in the Class of '84. Back then, it was every third company that would have 10 (or so) women. We had women in '82 and '85 and '87 in our company, as I recall.</p>
<p>I did, however, know Lisa Caputo (now Nowak) who was in '85. She was in my company. Still scratching my head over that one. She was super-smart and squared away as a Midshipman.</p>
<p>I feel badly for the careers that were apparently harmed along the way by Ms. Graf, but all I can say is that I saw a lot of good people get run over by ambitious CO’s and Department Heads in my time in the Navy. The behavior is nothing new for the Navy, but it is somewhat comforting to see the system finally take care of the problem. Too bad it wasn’t done earlier, if she’s as “out there” as is alleged.</p>
<p>It’s no different out here in the civilian world, either. The world is full of those who will use and abuse others to get ahead. Eventually, they usually get found out for what they are. I still feel like the Navy does a better job weeding those people out than most civilian organizations I have worked in since leaving the Navy.</p>
<p>…Graf’s has been highlighted in much of the criticism. One Web site, [MilitaryCorruption.com[/url</a>], called her “an incompetent and unstable ‘politically correct’ poster girl for all the super feminists at the Pentagon and the U.S. Naval Academy.”</p>