IG report: Cowpens captain berated, abused sailors
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — An official Navy investigation into the behavior of a former USS Cowpens captain portrays her as a verbally and physically abusive commander who created a climate of fear and dysfunction aboard her ship.
A report by the Navy Inspector General, released Friday, substantiated five of eight claims leveled against Capt. Holly Graf: breaches of ethics, use of her office for personal gain, dereliction of duty, and both verbal and physical assault.
Graf was relieved of her command Jan. 13 following a nonjudicial punishment, where she was found guilty of two Uniform Code of Military Justice charges: conduct unbecoming an officer and cruelty and maltreatment.
The 50-page report is full of expletive-laden passages attributed to Graf by several crewmembers interviewed during the investigation.
On one occasion, when a female crewmember asked Graf if she considered herself a mentor, Graf responded, “Don’t come to me with your problems, you’re a [expletive] department head.”
The same crewmember wrote that Graf later threatened her by saying, “I can’t express how mad you make me without getting violent.”
Another crewmember said Graf commonly asked her bridge watch team, “What are you, [expletive] stupid?”
Graf regularly berated both officers and senior-ranking chief petty officers in front of enlisted sailors, contributing to a lack of respect for the chain of command, the report found.
Graf’s abusive behavior began prior to her Cowpens command, according to the report. While a commander aboard the USS Winston Churchill in 2003, a sailor informed her that the weather was too poor to recover a helicopter onboard.
“I thought you flew a [expletive] all-weather aircraft,” said Graf, according to the report. “Now [expletive] me to tears.”
In another case, a subordinate claimed he was made to stand in a corner as a “timeout” in front of fellow sailors.
Graf declined to be interviewed for this story, said 7th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Jeff Davis. Since her dismissal, Graf has remained stationed at Yokosuka Naval Base. As of Friday, she was awaiting transit to her next assignment at the Navy Air and Missile Defense Command in Dahlgren, Va., Davis said.
Other Navy officers who were not authorized to speak said that the assignment means her career has hit a dead end. She had been slated for a higher-profile post that might have had her following in her family’s footsteps. Graf’s sister, Rear Adm. Robin Graf, is deputy commander of the Navy Recruiting Command.
She did tell the investigating officer in an unsolicited document that she had raised her tone and used swear words many times to show that she was not kidding and to “intentionally pressurize the situation.”
Graf said it improved combat readiness, and one respondent to the investigation agreed that her behavior was directed toward that goal.
However, the vast majority said her methods made them feel unsafe, unprepared or generally embarrassed, according to the report.
In two cases, the report concluded that Graf’s abuse constituted physical assault under the UCMJ, though she was not found guilty of assault at the Admiral’s Mast convened Jan. 13 by Rear Adm. Kevin Donegan, commander of Carrier Strike Group Five at Yokosuka.
In one instance, Graf pushed a sailor toward a radio. In another, she threw a wad of paper at an officer in the wardroom.
The report also found that she used her office for personal gain by coercing crewmembers to walk her dogs and play the piano at her holiday party.
Graf was also derelict in the performance of her duties for failing to qualify her junior officers as surface warfare officers in a timely fashion from February 2008 to the summer of 2009, according to the investigating officer.
The recent investigation was spurred by a June 6, 2009, call to the Navy IG’s hot line. Two additional complaints were made to the IG office soon after.
