[ATTW-L] Captain Crozier's letter

[Dragga, Sam]

Again, as you are teaching your online classes, a timely example for class discussion is the letter written by Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt to US Navy officials soliciting resources to mitigate coronavirus infection on the 5000-sailor aircraft carrier.  Captain Crozier was fired following news coverage of this letter but was cheered by sailors as he exited the ship.  The 4-page letter uses numbered headings, lists, short sentences, and plain language.  It is available at
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6821571/TR-COVID-19-Assistance-Request.pdf.

Ironically, as several military new sources are reporting, Theodore Roosevelt himself is responsible for a similar letter circulated to the Associated Press during the 1898 Spanish-American War, as he explains in the 1899 autobiography, The Rough Riders.  The “round-robin letter” is at https://books.google.com/books?id=zmR_ltzDGwEC&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=APPENDIX+C+THE+%22ROUND+ROBIN%22+LETTER.

I think the two letters could make for interesting comparative analyses from historical, rhetorical, and ethical perspectives.

Sam

Sam Dragga
Professor Emeritus, Texas Tech University
Editor, Technical Communication
sam.dragga at ttu.edu
1-806-543-6099

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