As someone who spent 24 years in the Navy, I admire the way in which Adm. Bill Moran — who was scheduled to move up from his position as the vice chief of naval operations (VCNO) to become the 33rd chief of naval operations (CNO) on Aug. 1 — agreed to step aside.
Moran took this unprecedented step because it came to light that he maintained an off-the-record collaboration on high-level Navy business with an officer, Cmdr. Chris Servello, who had been investigated in 2016 over allegations of unsavory behavior toward female junior officers while in uniform. Servello, the current CNO’s former public affairs officer, was removed from his spokesman position with the CNO eight months after the 2016 incident and retired early this year for actions that, while certainly inappropriate, did not rise to the level of criminal sexual behavior.