by Ian Mosley

We’ve all heard of “Alice in Wonderland” with the Mad Hatter and the tyrannical Red Queen. Well, what if you joined the US Navy and found the Red Queen in charge of your ship?

[1] Time Magazine reports “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. 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.”

The modern Navy is made up mostly of highly trained specialists, who train for months on operating advanced missile systems and other high tech gear. These aren’t drunks who were pressed into service at a pub. Apparently this Red Queen of the Seas could not tell the difference.

The [2] article notes “While in command at sea — where a captain’s word is law and she or he has the power to make or break careers — Graf swore like, well, a sailor. She ‘creates an environment of fear and hostility [and] frequently humiliates and belittles watch standers by screaming at them with profanities in front of the Combat Information Center and bridge-watch teams,’ a crew member told the IG. According to 29 of the 36 crew members who were questioned for the Navy’s report, Graf repeatedly dropped F bombs on them. ‘Take your goddam attitude and shove it up your f______ ass and leave it there,’ she allegedly told an officer during a stressful maneuver aboard the 567-ft., 10,000-ton vessel. Junior officers seeking her guidance were rebuffed. ‘This is one of the reasons I hate you,’ she allegedly told one who was seeking her help. When another officer visited her quarters to discuss an earlier heated discussion, her response was terse: ‘Get the f___ out of my stateroom.’ She allegedly told a male officer, ‘The only words I want to hear out of your mouth are Yes ma’am or You’re correct, ma’am.’ She also allegedly put a well-respected master chief in time out — standing in the ship’s key control room doing nothing — in front of other watch standers of all ranks.”

It should be noted that a typical Master Chief is a seaman with decades of experience. An intelligent officer will value and respect a Master Chief. A lunatic will antagonize and humiliate one.

In short, this woman is crazy as a loon and has no business even being in the service at all, never mind in command of a ship. Judging from her photograph, if she isn’t a lesbian, she’s missing a good bet, and so in theory she should have been barred from service on those grounds. Oh, I forgot–don’t ask, don’t tell and all that.

And yet she was promoted time and time again. Why? Because she was female. Because the United States military now has Affirmative Action quotas. It is difficult to believe that no indication of this woman’s obvious mental and emotional problems ever surfaced at the naval academy or during her service prior to taking command of the Cowpens. And yet if so, it was apparently covered up and her personnel file was sanitized, because it was more important for the navy to show that a woman could “break the glass ceiling” than the safety of her vessel and the sailors under her command.

The United States Navy deliberately jeopardized its people in order to conform with political correctness in this case. There could be hundreds of other instances where this has happened that we don’t know about, because they were never reported. How many soldiers and sailors and Marines have died in Iraq and Afghanistan because they were commanded by incompetent Affirmative Action officers? How many competent young officers, who should have gone on to become captains and admirals, quit the Navy because they ran into the Red Queen?