'Your methods show, shall we say, an excess of zeal'

It should not have come as a shock.

People are people, regardless of gender. Sooner or later that fact would manifest itself in the United States Navy. And recently, it did.

According to the Washington Post, the Navy terminated - as in fired - two female ship captains for "excessively harsh leadership styles." Well, well. Two real-life Captain Queegs, and both in skirts. Do tell.

With The Caine Mutiny in mind, one can easily image that this night-watch scene occurred at some point on both naval vessels while at sea. Lt. Keith: "Situation quiet; the Captain's been put away for the night." Lt. Keefer: "Best news I've heard all day." Lt. Keith: "Well, she's certainly Navy." Lt. Keefer: "Yeah ... so was Captain Bligh."

A sailor using an anonymous Navy Hotline spilled the beans on Capt. Etta Jones, skipper of the USS Ponce, while the warship was offshore supporting the Libyan intervention. Per the Post, Navy investigators said Jones endangered two sailors with a loaded weapon and cultivated “a hostile work environment permeated by verbal abuse, fear, and intimidation.” Meanwhile, sister-in-arms Capt. Holly Graf, commander of the USS Cowpens, subjected her crew to “cruelty and maltreatment” during a Pacific cruise last year, per a Naval Inspector General report. Apparently, Graf was verbally abusive, forced her sailors to take "time-outs" like toddlers, and created an “environment of fear and hostility." Yowzer -- These ladies make Queeg look like Captain Kangaroo.

Clearly, Jones and Graf are Summa Cum Laude graduates of the Captain Bligh College of Command. In the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, Bligh (Trevor Howard) said: "I'm not advising cruelty or brutality with no purpose. My point is that cruelty with purpose is not cruelty - it's efficiency. Then a man will never disobey once he's watched his mate's backbone laid bare. He'll see the flesh jump, hear the whistle of the whip for the rest of his life." Hopefully, the Inspector General reports on Jones and Graf were not as colorful.

Well, it was bound to happen. But feminists can rest assured: This has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with the Navy's broken screening process for ship captains. Jones and Graf were just two of a dozen skippers sacked by the Navy over the past 18 months on charges ranging from sexual harassment to alcohol abuse. That's a near-record. Clearly, there's a problem.

Still, given the Queeg/Bligh-like nature of the charges, I wonder if the court-martial scenes for our two female skippers resembled the one in The Caine Mutiny where Lt. Commander Phillip Francis Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) fell apart under questioning (you can watch it here):

(Captain Queeg removes the steel balls from his pocket, then nervously spins them in his right palm as he speaks.)

QUEEG: Lies! -- they were all disloyal! I tried to run the ship properly by the book but they fought me at every turn. If the crew wanted to walk around with their shirttails hanging out that's all right let them take the tow line. Defective equipment no more no less, but they encouraged the crew to go around scoffing at me and spreading wild rumors about steaming and circles. And then old yellow stain. I was to blame for Lt. Merrick's incompetence and poor seamanship. Lt. Merrick was the perfect officer but not Captain Queeg.

Ah, but the strawberries! That's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist! And I'd have produced that key if they hadn't pulled Caine out of action! I-I-I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer and, and ...... (realizes he has been ranting, babbling)

Ah, naturally, I can only cover these things from memory if I've left anything out, why, just ask me specific questions and I'll be glad to answer them ... one-by-one ...

(Stunned silence in the courtroom)

Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership." Too bad Captains Jones and Graf didn't get the memo.