Panel: Graf should get general discharge - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Panel: Graf should get general discharge

A panel of three flag officers Friday announced their recommendation that Capt. Holly Graf leave the Navy with a general discharge.

Graf showed little emotion as she listened to the findings of the board of inquiry at the Washington Navy Yard: By a vote of 2-1, the board found she had committed misconduct; by unanimous vote, it found she had committed conduct unbecoming of an officer for the maltreatment and cruelty toward her crew as commanding officer of the Yokosuka, Japan-based cruiser Cowpens.

The panel unanimously voted to recommend she be separated from the Navy with a general discharge and be allowed to retire as a captain for completing honorable service “for a period of no less than six months” at that rank.

Adm. Mark Buzby read the findings after the board had deliberated most of the morning and into the afternoon. The findings will be forwarded to Navy Personnel Command; they will not be final unless signed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

The findings followed three days of testimony that painted Graf as a complicated commanding officer who was at once a competent, proven wartime commander and one who consistently alienated, belittled and berated those under her command.

Graf was fired as Cowpens’ CO in January following an inspector general investigation into allegations of cruelty toward her crew.