Telling a man he may have earned a place in history rings hollow when he is alone in quarantine pondering the end of his career. His legacy might be little solace when one of his crew members has just succumbed to the COVID-19 virus and medical professionals have warned him of the potential for dozens more. But ironically, when the U.S. Navy fired Capt. Brett Crozier, they almost certainly assured him a lionized place in U.S. naval history. His superiors’ attempts to punish him likely earned them a footnote in the same history books for their hebetude.
Reading the headlines of many debates during this pandemic, it is helpful to remember that classified and suppressed documents and voices emerge over time, and the light they shed has a pesky way of messing with earlier, official versions of events. History takes the long look, using multiple sources and the advantage of hindsight to sort out the spin from the facts. Not unsurprisingly, when all the facts behind the headlines become known, history has a way of championing the silenced.
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