KILL JAPS!
Admiral Halsey
There's no leadership conflict in this film; the enemy isn't boredom, military "chicken sh*t" or even fear: It's Japs. This was no-holds-barred war against a demonized race of people who had invaded the United States in a sneak attack. The war had established a state of mind in my father. He was scheduled to drive his PT boat into Tokyo harbor on the final assault on Japan, something he did not want to do. To anyone who questioned Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he would reply, "What did they expect?" The problem with my father, may he rest in peace, was this response tended to carry over to other things. For instance, I recall him saying it concerning the students shot at Kent State: "What did they expect?" We'd go 'round and 'round about that. "Maybe not to be shot down like dogs?" One point he liked to make in discussions I had with him about moral questions concerning World War Two was a powerful rejoinder I could never dispute:
"You kids know how it ended. We didn't."
BACK TO THE 21st CENTURY
Let's consider the 2020 leadership issue on board the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the light of these WWII Navy movies. The story of the Theodore Roosevelt represents no less a human drama with lessons on leadership than the two classic WWII dramas mentioned above. In fact, it's not hard to imagine Captain Brett Crozier as the protagonist of a future Navy film full of conflict, courage, cowardice and moral ambiguity even comedy and tragedy. My choice to write and direct such a film would be Adam McCay, director of the caustically funny and entertaining Dick Cheney tragicomedy, Vice. Obtaining Navy support for such a film from today's Navy leadership-- the use of one of their aircraft carriers! -- would be a bit of a challenge. But can we now CGI aircraft carriers?
It was Theodore Roosevelt who famously encouraged Americans to not be afraid to enter "the arena" of their time. When his crew's well being was at stake, Captain Crozier was not afraid to enter the arena. He did not cower in fear of ambitious, heartless leaders. He acted at the time in what he felt was the best way he could for his crew. As the good skipper humbly pointed out the United States is not at war; it's not necessary to keep steaming full speed ahead as you slide your dead off the fantail. He had the courage to decide he wasn't going to sacrifice any more of his crew to belligerently show the flag in the South China Sea.
The Vietnamese presence in the drama of the Theodore Roosevelt naturally recalls the cruel and devastating 30-year war the United States unleashed on the peasant nation of Vietnam with, among other first-world tools of mechanized death, aircraft carriers anchored off the coast of Vietnam loaded with bombs and supersonic delivery systems driven by men like our national hero John McCain.
The Vietnam War, of course, was rooted in a terrible leadership decision made by President Harry Truman in 1945. He sided with the French who, after defeat in Europe at the hands of the Germans and after being humiliated and de-fanged by the Japanese in Vietnam, wanted to return to Vietnam. We can never know, but some argue Roosevelt would have given the Vietnamese their liberty. Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas were our friend and ally during WWII, but the French threatened they'd withhold support for the US Cold War with the Soviets if they weren't allowed to re-colonize Vietnam. In retrospect, Truman's was a terrible decision that ended up killing millions of Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans, as it sullied the US in the eyes of the world and threatened US stability at home.
The Vietnamese showed the world they're resilient, very smart and don't care to hold grudges with the United States. As they were in WWII before Truman they're now our friends. Our aircraft carriers are invited to dock in Da Nang, and our sailors, like those rowdy sailors on "the bucket" in Mister Roberts, are allowed to go ashore to mingle with the amazing and beautiful Vietnamese people.
It seems Captain Crozier who is certainly too diplomatic to say something like this violated the ultimate US Military/Pentagon rule: Power trumps Humanity. This rule is why the issue of de-humanization is such an instrumental part of the struggle many of us who wore a US military uniform in places like Vietnam have chosen to undertake. The Theodore Roosevelt story is like ripe fruit crying out to be eaten. I see Captain Brett Crozier as a modern Mister Roberts in a story about leadership that actually gives a damn about those being led.
Navy leadership should be ashamed of itself.
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