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...U.S.S. Cowpens in March 2008 was a second special day for her and for women in the Navy. The 567-ft., 10,000-ton vessel is the Navy's largest surface combatant, and Graf was the first - and is so far the only - woman to command this class of ship, with its 400-member crew. Driving a boxy cruiser requires ship-handling skills more deft than those needed to skipper a sleek destroyer or a frigate. But commanding the crew proved to be a far greater challenge for her. (See TIME's special report on the state of the American...
...officers," she allegedly told a fellow officer, even though the probe concluded that it should have been one of her "highest priorities." At times, she seemed to prefer humiliation as a teacher. The probe discovered that she put a "well-respected Master Chief" in "time out" - standing in the ship's key control room doing nothing - "in front of other watch standers of all ranks," which enraged Navy personnel...
...report found. Her actions "exceeded the firm methods needed to succeed or even thrive," and her "harsh language and profanity were rarely followed with any instruction." Her repeated criticism of her officers, often in front of lower-ranking crew members, was "contrary to the best interests of the ship and the Navy...
...Graf relieved of her command simply because she is female? "She acted like a man, and now she was being punished for it," says retired commander Darlene Iskra, who in 1990 was the first woman to command a Navy ship, the U.S.S. Opportune, a salvage vessel. But Iskra's view is hard to square with the fact that the service promoted Graf at every turn, gave her two historic assignments and made her something of an example for younger female officers. In fact, Graf was slated for a top Navy staff job at the Pentagon when the IG report scuttled...
...felt under pressure to take a woman and put her on the best and most complicated tactical platform," Waybright says. "But she didn't have much experience on it." Some rookies could have stepped up to that challenge, she adds, but not Graf. "She was," Waybright says, "a terrible ship handler...