Modly’s world, like all of ours, changed in a blink. This shift was instructive.
 | | via suave_meme_stash/Instagram |
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Early this week, coinciding with the leak of the transcript and audio recordings of the disastrous speech by the now-former acting secretary of the Navy to the crew of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, a friend sent me the meme you see at the top of this note. |
The meme starkly presented the ongoing rebalancing of outpourings of support for public service in crises and the growing expressions of appreciation midpandemic for the often unheralded roles played by those who provide for their fellow citizens’ daily logistics and medical care. For many years such expressions have been heaped upon military service — often deservedly, sometimes not — while the contributions of other professions have been applauded episodically or at far smaller scale. |
The meme’s arrival in one of my chats also coincided with what rapidly became the practical excommunication of the Navy’s acting civilian boss, Thomas B. Modly, for excoriating the Theodore Roosevelt’s virus-afflicted crew and insulting the abruptly relieved commanding officer, who had tried to help the sailors aboard by sending an email to at least 20 military officials explaining why the containment strategy imposed by the Navy would not work. As public ire zeroed in on Modly, the Marine in the meme’s center panel might well have been the secretary himself. |
Modly’s world, like all of ours, changed in a blink. This shift was instructive. |
The story of the military in this pandemic will certainly be in part of brave and timely service in uncertain circumstances and frightening times. The choices made by Capt. Brett E. Crozier, the former carrier commander, like the stories of National Guard soldiers deployed across the United States in the fluid and escalating coronavirus response, will for the foreseeable future feel fresh, vital and essential to understand. It will also follow hardships peculiar to military life in these times — changing missions and deployment cycles, the difficulties in maintaining readiness while following social distance, the separations of families unsure how well-protected their loved ones will be living in the close quarters of barracks or aboard ships, the looming possibilities of transfers being canceled or the return of stop-loss. |
But the coverage will necessarily be far wider. While individual service and that of the units deployed will merit the recognition they receive, this recognition will also exist in the grim context of the American military’s unpreparedness for, and uneven performance in, the pandemic that has reordered global life. |
American service members were endangered by institutional inertia and flat-footedness. This was evident in the Department of Defense as the pandemic’s menace escalated and unit commanders were still urging haircuts and holding large formations and all-hands meetings — activities that threatened to accelerate the contagion’s spread. The painful mediocrity and insufficiency of certain bosses and policies — those evergreen features of military service that troops and veterans know too well — have leapt, once again, into awkward and disappointing display. |
As the pandemic runs its course and claims its toll, news coverage will be investigating these themes, too, just as it was necessary to examine and declare the ways military leadership and the services failed their rank-and-file members in the wars since 2001 — even as the brass took cover behind public support for the very troops they put or left at risk. |
The services, meanwhile, will be yielding part of the warm spotlight they have long enjoyed to members of the many professions who protect the American public without banners, medals, hymns or tuition support — and upon whom we all, in this moment, so fully depend. |
C.J. Chivers is assigned to The New York Times Magazine. He won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and is also the author of “The Gun,” a history of automatic weapons. He can be reached at chivers@nytimes.com. |
READ MORE ON THE MILITARY’S RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC. |
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Afghan War Casualty Report: April 2020 |
 | | A vehicle being removed from the site of a bomb explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 30.Rahmat Gul/Associated Press |
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At least 110 pro-government forces and 32 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in April so far. Read the report. |
Behind the Numbers: $20.1 Billion |
 | | Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, has advocated increased military funding for the Pacific region.Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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That’s the amount of additional spending the U.S. military has requested to build deterrence against China in the Pacific region between 2021 and 2026. Tensions between the United States and China are expected to grow in the aftermath of the pandemic, which set off a wave of recriminations between President Trump and President Xi Jinping about where fault for the outbreak lies. In the wake of those tensions, both China and the United States see an opportunity to shore up their standing in the Pacific. The U.S. report requests more joint military exercises with allies, as well as funding for new intelligence-sharing centers and further troop deployments, similar to measures taken in Europe after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. According to current and former national-security officials, the funding request is especially vital as the pandemic destabilizes the global economy. Read the full Times report here. |
— Jake Nevins, Times Magazine editorial fellow |
Here are five articles from The Times that you might have missed. |
 | | Jailed members of the Taliban in Kabul in December. Plans for a prisoner swap have faced opposition and hurdles from the start, threatening to unravel a deal that would signal the end of America’s longest war.Rahmat Gul/Associated Press |
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“Until today, my bones, my eyes are hurting.” An investigative team with the international group that monitors compliance with the chemical-weapons ban accused the Syrian government on Wednesday of having launched three chemical-weapons attacks on a village in northern Syria in March 2017, sickening scores of people. [Read the article.] |
“Our technical team will not participate in fruitless meetings.” A week of talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban on a prisoner swap — seen as crucial to preserving a fragile peace deal between the insurgents and the United States — appeared to be collapsing on Tuesday, as Taliban leaders ordered their team to pull out of the discussions. [Read the article.] |
“If you can’t stay calm and focused in a crisis, you have no business being a fighter pilot.” Rear Adm. Edward L. Feightner, a Navy air ace of World War II who shot down nine Japanese planes while flying propeller-driven fighters, then played a prominent role in the testing and development of postwar Navy jets, died on Wednesday in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He was 100. [Read the article.] |
“That is the bottom line. The goal is zero spills.” The war court at Guantánamo Bay where the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are on trial operates under classification rules that are inconsistent, complex and sometimes absurd. [Read the article.] |
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